What a glorious June day it was. Little Preston stood beaming at the front entrance of Monroe Elementary School clutching his straight-A report card. His teacher told him that he was skipping third grade and going straight to fourth the next school year. He was hoping that Lucinda Davis would come by. Today, for sure, he would say more than just hello. He would even show her his straight-A report card.
Little Preston thought back to how his first-grade year had started. On the very first day, he got punched in the face by Brian “Brickhead” Brown. “You got a baby face,” Brickhead had yelled at Little Preston before hitting him. “And yo’ mama gotta hold yo’ hand ’n bring you ta school ’cause you a sissy!” Little Preston had just stood there. He didn’t even blink. He looked at Brickhead, who bullied boys the previous year in kindergarten, too, and didn’t even blink. “Wha’s a matter, sissy, you don’t know how ta fight?” Frankly, Little Preston didn’t.
Weeks later, during a lunch period on the school yard, he was watching Lucinda skip double-dutch with her friends when Brickhead came up to him and pushed him.
“Hey, punk! Ya lookin’ at my girlfriend o’ sumthin’, wid yo’ sissy, baby face?”
Little Preston froze. Not because he was scared, but because he felt an anger welling up in his stomach that he’d never felt before.
“I said, ya lookin’ at my girl, ya punk?”
The next thing he knew, Mr. Gray and Miss Beverly were pulling him off of Brickhead, who was under him on the ground, crying and bloody around the nose. The girls who had been skipping rope were screaming. As he was led away to the office, he noticed the initial look of horror on Lucinda’s face change into a sly grin.
It was his Uncle Cadgie who came over that night after school and talked to his parents and grandma and seemed to make them not so mad at Little Preston. It was also the night he learned a lot about his father.
“Hey, Little Press, how ya doin’, kid? You alright, little man?”
Cadgie was Little Preston’s favorite uncle. In some ways that he didn’t understand, his Uncle Cadgie was his favorite person in the whole wide world.
“Mama and Daddy are real mad at me, Uncle Cadgie. I didn’t start it. I was just there in the yard looking at the leaves and the girls jumpin’ rope. Then Brian, he just come up and start pickin’ on me like he’s always pickin’ on everybody. I didn’t start it!”
Little Preston started to cry. His uncle put his arms around him and hugged him.
“It’s okay, kid. It’s okay. But I hear you busted the boy up pretty good. He’ll probably think twice before he bullies anybody else. That’s if you didn’t scramble his brains up so bad he can’t think no more.”
Cadgie laughed hard. It made little Preston start to laugh through his tears.
“Where’d you learn to punch like that? You have any idea?”
“Uh-uh,” replied little Preston.
“Well, kid, all us Williams boys got good hands. We’re all fighters, especially your daddy. Out of all of us, your daddy is really the best fighter. Did you know he was a real boxer in the ring? A prizefighter?”
Little Preston pushed his head away from his uncle’s chest and looked up at Cadgie, totally incredulous.
“My daddy? You talkin’ about my daddy, Uncle Cadgie?” Little Preston couldn’t imagine his daddy hurting a fly.
“That’s right, Little Press. Your daddy was the best at his weight class.”
“What?”
“Okay. Forget that part.”
“But, what did you mean, Uncle Cadgie?”
“Okay. Listen. You look at your daddy, and me, and your Uncle Troy. You see that we’re all different sizes. Well, in prizefighting, the rules say that only men who are about the same size can fight each other. That’s to make sure someone who’s too big don’t fight somebody who’s way too small. Do you understand?”
“I think so.”
“Well, your daddy was the best of any man his size. He was an amateur champion, then he—”
“But, what’s an amateur champion, Uncle Cadgie?”
“What? Boy, you ask too many questions. Listen, your daddy was the best fighter. Your daddy was a champion. But he hurt somebody real bad one time. He knocked a guy down and the guy never got up again. Your daddy wouldn’t fight no more after that, little man. Your daddy is afraid that he’s going to hurt somebody else like that and he doesn’t want to. And he don’t want you and Gussie fightin’, because he don’t want you and Gussie to get hurt, or hurt nobody. But, let me tell you, and your daddy is going to tell you this one day, too. You can’t just stand by and let somebody pick on you or hurt you. You have to defend yourself. This is the Williams brothers’ code of honor, and your daddy, you and Gussie, me, all your uncles, we’re all Williams boys. We don’t go lookin’ for trouble, but if it come lookin’ for us, we deal with it, we take care of it. But, remember, son. Never go lookin’ for trouble. You don’t have to. In this world, little Press, trouble will find you.”
*
Little Preston heard a car horn toot-toot. He looked up to see his mother waving at him across the roof of their car from the passenger side. He wondered why his father was home so early. His little brother was in the back seat. There was a trailer attached to the back of the car. It was full of furniture. Behind his daddy’s car was his Uncle Troy in a pickup truck with more stuff, and behind him his Uncle Rolando in his taxicab with even more stuff. Bringing up the rear of this rather awkward-looking grand parade was his Uncle Cadgie. He had the top down on his convertible Mercury, which was loaded down as well.
“Hi, Daddy! Hi Mama! Wow! Do we have a house? Are we moving?” He waved at his uncles. “Where is it? Do we have our own bedroom? Do we have a real kitchen to eat in? Do we have a yard again? Are we gonna get a puppy? Daddy, you promised!” Little Preston had talked himself into near-hyperventilation.
“Shut up and get in,” said his mother. “Here . . .” She gave him a book with a ribbon tied around it. “This is from me and your father.” Little Preston and Gussie excitedly looked out the rear window. As they pulled away from the curb, little Preston looked over to the school and remembered something.
“Mama, does this mean I won’t come back to Monroe next year?”
Just as he said that he saw Lucinda coming down the school steps with Brickhead, whose arm was hooked around her neck as he was talking up a storm. She looked over and saw little Preston in the back of his father’s car. Then she looked at all the stuff in the trailer and the other cars following. She looked back at little Preston, and with a sad smile on her face, gave a little wave with the fingers of her hand that clutched her school books in front of her chest. Brickhead was so busy being Mr. Boyfriend that he didn’t notice a thing. She turned to look again as she and Brickhead walked down the street.
Little Preston turned around and sat down on the back seat. He decided that he was now too big to be looking out the back window of his family’s car like his little brother. Besides, he wanted to start reading his new book, John Henry, The Steel-Driving Man.