CHAPTER 9

THE L TRAIN SCREECHES TO A LOUD STOP over our heads as we walk into the entrance of Ford Park, a fifteen-minute walk outside Creighton. C.J. barely has to tell us where to find his uncle Terrance and friends: We follow the voices of a bunch of old dudes arguing about one time, back in the day, when one of them stole somebody else’s girl. Through the short trees and wide bushes, we all walk down a short path that leads to where all the chess tables are set up under a huge arch. Their voices turn into loud echoes around us right as we see them.

“Now you know you a lie, Garold. Bernice was sweet on me before she ever even knew you existed, brotha!”

“Is that what she told you? Oh please. I was the only gentleman in all of Booker T. who walked Bernice to school Every. Single. Day. Ain’t none of y’all know nothin’ about chivalry. I ain’t have to steal her, my man. She was already mine!”

“But who did she let carry her books, though?” I recognize Uncle Terrance super quick by the way C.J. always describes him. A picked-out gray Afro stuffed under a large black cowboy hat. Check. Shiny brown skin with holes all over his face that look like freckles until you get up close. Check. An oversized T-shirt of some band we’ve never heard of that looks like he wears it every day. Tucked in. Check, check. Jeans pulled up high on his waist. Check. Sneakers that look kind of cool but also like they’re from the eighties. Check. A big booming laugh that sounds like he’s wheezing and a smooth, warm voice that can break up any fight before it gets out of control. Check, check. He high-fives into a handshake with a dude who’s sitting across from him looking like he sprayed his hair color on. Uncle Terrance looks like you could never tell where he’s from or where he’s going. I’d never EVER be caught in Booker T. looking like that. Maybe he’s too old to care but not even Grandma Lucille be lookin’ that wild. It’s kind of cool that he’s not worried about what people see when they look at him.

UNCLE T, UNCLE TERRANCE,

KINDA WEIRD, THAT’S APPARENT.

  UNIQUE STYLE, MAYBE SO!

LOW-KEY KINDA BRAZY, THO!

NOT GON’ WIN NO FASHION SHOWS

DRESSED LIKE THIS, AND THAT’S FASHO!

BUT HE’S KINDA SWAGGY STILL,

CONFIDENT, AND THAT’S FOR REAL.

UNCLE T, UNCLE TERRANCE,  

KINDA WEIRD, THAT’S APPARENT.

“Aw SOOKY, SOOKY, now! If it ain’t MY MAN: Baby Obama! THE CHANGE WE NEED! Ha haaaaaa!” Uncle Terrance starts up when C.J. reaches their table first. The fact that C.J.’s drowning in his infamous light brown church suit doesn’t help the nickname. All his friends add their two cents:

“Okay! That boy SHAWP, do you hear me? Lookin’ like Pastor Mike on Easter Sunday after the collection plate done got filled up!”

“Lookin’ like one of them Nation of Islam brothers who be sellin’ them bean pies and newspapers over by the freeway!”

“Lookin’ smoove as a bowl of grits!”

“Lookin’ like a whole lotta money! Check you out, little man. Out here on a Saturday doin’ big thangs, huh?” Uncle Terrance brings it all the way home with the last compliment while C.J. just stands there sweating under the sun, only wiping at his greasy forehead once. Uncle Terrance pulls C.J. into a hug so big it looks like it hurts a little.

“C’mon, Uncle T, you gon’ wrinkle my best shirt,” C.J. tells him, pushing back and brushing his suit jacket down with both hands. After he’s quiet for a few seconds the table notices the rest of us all of a sudden and C.J. gets a break. It feels like old folks are the same no matter where you go. They all wanna do math equations about your body and make such a big deal about how big you’ve grown since the last time they saw you. Even if they just saw you last week. Every time I see Grandma Lucille I get ready to hear her talking about how many diapers of mine she’s changed and how it’ll be time for me to learn to drive and get married soon. The Notorious D.O.G. is big and all but whoa. While they each go down the line of us, gassing up DeShawn’s fade, Marcus’s sneakers, and Aaron’s computer-sized phone, I see Maria squat down behind everybody to pull out both of our notebooks for the signatures. Camille’s hoodie is back over her head and she’s sitting at the next table playing a game of chess by herself.

“I thought these might help a little,” I say.

Maria looks into the pile of different-colored flyers in my hand, confused. We never talked about this. “Mr. James said we gotta tell people why we’re doin’ this, right?” Maria throws her arms around me and squeezes so hard, for a second I worry about last night’s wings coming back up. Lemon pepper chicken chunks. I can already feel the burn in the back of my throat. Gurgle. When she finally lets me go she stands next to me and flips through each of them. I take one copy back and she follows me while I read it out loud:

WE, THE SCHOLARS OF THE BOOKER T. SCHOOL,

DO HEREBY DECLARE THAT SOME THINGS AIN’T COOL!  

LIKE NOT GETTING MONEY FOR OUR CLUBS AND OUR TEAMS.

  IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE, SO WE’RE TRYNA CHANGE THINGS!

STUDENTS NEED PROGRAMS, IS WHAT THE STUDIES SHOW,  

SO WE GON’ GET THEM BACK SO THAT KIDS CAN GROW!

BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP, CAN’T DO IT BY OURSELF.

DON’T GOTTA HAVE POWER OR A WHOLE LOTTA WEALTH.

YOU JUST GOTTA SIGN YOUR NAME, THAT’S THE PLAN.

  JOIN US IF YOU CAN, CUZ WE’RE TAKING A STAND!

“Oh em gee, Simon. These are so great! And I love how they rhyme. These will have great Impact, with a capital I, as my tio would say,” Maria says. We both smile.

Over Maria’s shoulder, I see everybody crowding Uncle Terrance’s chess table even tighter, and C.J. waves both of us over. Uncle Terrance is in the middle of explaining chess when we get there.

“You see me and Clyde here got all the same sixteen pieces. Each of ’em get to do different thangs but both of us start with all the same ones. How we win is in how we strategize, Mr. Prez.” Uncle Terrance winks at C.J. even though he’s talking to all of us now. He lightly jabs an elbow into C.J.’s side where a pit stain is already spreading from his underarms all the way down his side. Homie really chose the worst thing to wear to take a long walk on a Saturday that must have forgot it’s fall and not still summer. “You see, real life ain’t like chess. In life you got people over here with thirty-nine pieces and then people over there with twelve. Some people got both color pieces while others got none at all. I been playin’ this game all my life waiting for the real world to feel like this board.

“Something that is a lot like life, though, is the way every chess game starts. The player with the white pieces always gets the first move. I know a thang or two about them people on the other side of town who always seem to get everything first. Cleaner streets. Nicer neighborhoods. Grocery stores with real food in ’em. Schools with new books and expensive technology all up in every classroom…”

“That’s just like what my mama says,” Maria tells him. “She said we deserve good stuff, too.”

“That’s right, baby girl. We fight because we don’t all start out with the same pieces and some of us never get to throw the first punch.” I bet Mr. James and Uncle Terrance could kick it. They both talk in code whenever they’re in front of a group of kids. They both always got a goofy smile on their faces like they know something that the rest of the world doesn’t know. “It ain’t right. But chess teaches us what can happen when we all start out with the things we need to win.” Maria hands him one of the flyers I made before I get a chance to stop her. I didn’t really think about anybody else looking at them but her even though they were meant to be seen. “Wow, y’all official as a whistle, huh? That’s all right.”

“All y’all went to Booker T., too?” I have to make sure what I heard earlier was right.

“You made this, didn’t you?” He answers me with a slight smirk. “Young’un over here is president material but he don’t like to write too much. That’s how I know he ain’t do it. More of a sports man. You tryin’ out for that there football this year, Cornelius?”

“Maybe basketball,” C.J. forces himself to say through his teeth.

“Y-yeah, I made it.” Hopefully he didn’t hear me stutter. Grown folks always—

“You sure, son? You don’t sound too sure.” Grown folks always gotta point out your flaws. They can’t ever just pretend they didn’t see or hear that embarrassing thing you did.

“I made it.” He shakes his head and chuckles at me trying to sound more confident. He reads the flyer again while Maria takes this as her cue to hand them the notebooks and pens.

“Do you agree with us, Mr. Terrance?” she asks him, shoving her notebook into his empty hand. “If you agree, then you can put your name riiiight here!”

“This a girl about her business, I see! That’s what I’m talkin’ about! That’s all right,” he says, still looking all over the flyer like it might have a secret door with something else hidden in it. He writes his name TERRANCE REGINALD JONES and squiggles his signature with a few lines and circles before passing it across the board to Clyde. By now the whole table has their own copies and Clyde looks at his like he’s inspecting it, too. Uncle Terrance goes on, “We was runnin’ up and down them school halls long before y’all was even born. I been around a long time and even though I keep seeing the same ol’ stuff, some things been changing around here for the good ’cause of kids like y’all.” He pauses for old-man dramatic effect, making eye contact with all of us. Even Camille, who’s now hovering behind me. C.J.’s chest puffs out a little bit hearing this.

“I told them we needed to do this!”

“I’m sure you did, son. That’s too bad what’s happenin’ over at y’all’s school. Can’t say it’s anything new. I’m proud of you kids for making some more noise around here.” My brain flashes back to those protesters on TV at C.J.’s house making a human chain. I hear them chanting Breonna Taylor’s name and their demands in the background while the reporter talked over the angry horns of cars stuck in traffic because of them. This ain’t the way to do it.… They doin’ all this and it’s only twenty folks.… Ain’t nobody gon’ care. Uncle Jamaal didn’t sound like making noise was a good thing. I don’t know what it means for him to be so upset with the people on TV standing up for what they believe in while Uncle Terrance, who’s been around longer, is telling us he’s proud. How can you tell what’s the right thing when grown folks don’t even know what to do?

Mr. Clyde picks up a piece I don’t know the name of and replaces one of Uncle Terrance’s pieces that I don’t know the name of and Uncle Terrance’s reaction makes the whole table explode. Imagine four old dudes who look like they got dressed in another time zone without mirrors suddenly screaming into each other’s faces. They all laugh so loud you could probably hear it all the way on the other side of the park.

“Yooooooo, that was WIIILLLD!” Aaron says to Clyde while shaking his hand.

“What happened? What he do? He won the game?!” None of us is cool enough to pretend that long about knowing which move was pulled or what it means.

“Iono, I’m just ready to get out of here. You better act like you get it so these grandpas don’t keep wrappin’ us up, young’un. Pop ain’t pay me enough for this.” Aaron doesn’t know what just happened on the chessboard, either. “It’s Saturday, bruh. That better be the last speech we gotta sit through for the day.” And it don’t seem like he even cares.

That’s all right.