Usually I get a ride home from Willie Mack after weightlifting, or I catch the bus. But Willie left early today, and I left my wallet at home. So it’s just me and my big dogs.
Along the way, I always run into these annoying little kids selling sweetgrass baskets. It’s cool, and a lot of tourists buy them—we even got some placemats and whatnot around Uncle Al’s house—but don’t be harassing me every time I walk by. I’m just sayin’.
“NO!” I scream at the dirty little joker who tries to sell me a flower made out of grass. Take a bath.
When I get home, Uncle Albert and his two buddies are holding court on the front steps. Drinking Snapple, eating sweet potato chips, and blasting his favorite music: jazz.
Uncle Al is my man, but for once I’d like to come home after school, eat dinner, and just chill, without a lecture from him and his crew.
“Spooky, ‘Watermelon Man’ is a song about the African jungle,” Al says to Spooky Johnson, who sports long white dreadlocks with a matching beard.
“What’s up, Uncle Al,” I interrupt. “I worked up an appetite lifting weights. Let me get some of them chips.”
“Boy, whatchu know about potato chips?” says Spooky,
“What kind of question is that?” I ask.
“Do you even know who invented the potato chip, boy?” he asks me. These old dudes be clownin’.
“Spooky, you know Smalls don’t know nothing ’bout his history. Him a big-time football player,” Uncle Al says, handing me the bag of chips.
“‘A man who prides himself on his ancestry is like the potato plant,’” Clyfe recites, speaking as usual in random quotes. Sometimes he’ll jump off with a poem or something that’s dope, and I’ll steal that joint, but mainly he says ish that only make sense to him. “‘The best part of which is underground.’”
Clyfe who always is acting like he’s Confucius, decked out in a neon purple suit and a cream-colored fedora. He looks like Barney, if Barney was a pimp.
Uncle Albert took over the West Charleston Community Facility about three years ago, when the economy crashed. The city couldn’t afford to keep the doors open, so he decided to take his lottery winnings—nobody knows how much he won—and turn it into a social, educational, and employment programming facility for people in the community who got it rough. Actually he doesn’t call it a facility anymore. He calls it a clubhouse. And he renamed it the Library of Progress.
Most folks who come here got bad luck or been laid off from their job. But a few, like Clyfe, just like to hang around a lot, straddling the crazy fence. Spooky used to live in the basement with his sister and her husband, who doesn’t like bathing. I still don’t go down there. I stay on the third floor, in the loft.
The Library of Progress has helped a lot people. The clubhouse doesn’t require health insurance or money. “Just a desire to love and be loved” is what Uncle Al likes to say. I wish they had a desire to clean up after themselves, ’cause I’m sick and tired of scrubbing floors and toilets on weekends. I give Uncle Al his props, though—he’s doing good stuff.
Every evening, the three of these jokers reminisce about the good old days. Back when they were marching and protesting for civil rights. Either Clyfe’s quoting Gandhi or Martin Luther King, or Unc and Spooky are telling me stories about their rallying days at Howard University. I act like I’m listening to them, since I know they just a bunch of old dudes hanging on to their past because the future is creeping ’round the corner.
“Boy,” Spooky lectures, “that there potato chip you just put in your uninformed mouth was invented by George Crum, an African American/Native American chef at a restaurant in Saratoga Springs, New York, in 1853.”
“Oh, snap! Why didn’t you tell me these chips were that old?” I say, laughing and spitting the chip on the concrete.
“Nephew got jokes,” Uncle Al says to his buddies.
“Boy, I know I told you before, but that was one helluva game y’all won. Whipped Bayside like they was runaway slaves,” Spooky says.
“‘Slaves lose everything in their chains, even the desire for escaping from them.’”
“That’s my boy. His mama and them think he’s going to Syracuse like they did, but Smalls is going to Howard, right, Smalls?” Before I can lie, Spooky jumps in.
“Donovan McNabb played at Syracuse. You do kind of remind me a little of McNabb.”
“He doesn’t look nothing like McNabb, Spooky. That boy throws like Manning and runs like Vick,” Uncle Al says.
“But don’t be messing round with them dogs like Vick, boy. End up in jail,” Spooky adds.
“More black boys in jail than in college,” Clyfe says, making sense for the first time in a while. And then he messes it all up. “Kafka said, ‘All knowledge, the totality of all questions and answers, is contained in the dog.’”
“Shut the hell up, Clyfe,” an annoyed Spooky shouts.
“Watch the verbal, Spook,” Uncle Al says, enforcing his no-profanity rule on the clubhouse premises.
“When is the big announcement, boy?” Spooky asks.
“My coach has scheduled it for next week. You coming?”
“As long as you don’t choose Howard. Though I heard their volleyball team is the bomb,” Spooky says, and laughs.
“Hater! Smalls, don’t sleep on Howard. We got decent sports, but when you become a Bison man, you become a real man. I remember this one time a bunch of us from Howard went up to New York for a protest. We were marching over the Brooklyn Bridge, chanting, ‘We’re fired up, can’t take no mo’! We’re fired up, can’t take no mo’!’ When we got to the other side, the police unleashed them dogs on us—” and I know that’s my cue to get ghost, ’cause another one of his long-ass stories is coming, and I got to Skype Mom and Pops, finish my trig homework, then call Kym to see if she’s still mad at me.
Tdiddy Smalls is now single.
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Freddie Callaway, Tami Hill, Belafonte Jones and 27 others like this.
Freddie Callaway Deuces!!!!!!!
Savannah Gadsden :-(
Willie Mack Y’all be back together tomorrow. Watch!
Freddie Callaway On to the next one. Bwahahahahaha!
Tdiddy Smalls Fo’ sho
Tami Hill She won’t right for you anyway. T-Diddy needs a ride or die chick.
8 minutes ago · Like · 4
Leah Rivers I’ll be the new lady in your life. LOL. Call me.
Tdiddy Smalls Too late.
Freddie Callaway Beyoncé?
Tdiddy Smalls Fo’ sho. Plan’s already in action.
Freddie Callaway She look more like Rhi Rhi to me.
Belafonte Jones Who dat? Claudia?
Tdiddy Smalls C’mon, son, no names.
Tami Hill She always acting stuck up.
5 minutes ago · Like · 4
Belafonte Jones HATER!!!!
5 minutes ago · Like · 2
Savannah Gadsden T-Diddy, you really know Beyoncé?
Freddie Callaway ROTFLMAO
4 minutes ago · Like · 7
Leah Rivers **SMH**
Tdiddy Smalls I’m out, y’all.
Leah Rivers Congratulations on being Mr. Football, T-Diddy
4 minutes ago · Like · 10
Blu McCants Go Panthers!
3 minutes ago via Friendly for iPad · Like · 2
Tdiddy Smalls @Blu Tell your girl, she’s Bonnie, I’m Clyde.
3 minutes ago · Like · 4
Belafonte Jones BONG BONG!!!
Blu McCants I told her and she said you’re corny and she’s tired.
Willie Mack You just got canceled, homie. Like a bad sitcom. LOL.
Tami Hill Anybody watching The Game? It’s on BET right now. OMG! This show is sooooo good.
Freddie Callaway Bwahahahahaha!
Willie Mack T, you cooking good eats for bkfast 2morrow?
1 minute ago · Like · 4
Tdiddy Smalls @Blu I’m patient.
Blu McCants Good luck with that!
Tdiddy Smalls C’mon son. T-Diddy don’t need luck. It’s my destiny, child . . . LOL.
Less than a minute ago · Like · 32