Knockout Games (7 page)

After a while, we seemed like regular people too.

The Tokers cruised to a less crowded part of the Loop, toward a parking lot off to the side. I was lagging behind, recording tourists shopping and teens hanging out listening to their iPods. I tried not to judge too much
what
I was filming—some of the vids on that DVD were tough to watch but it was all symbolic—animals being experimented on, people dying of AIDS, a woman who used blood to paint with—I guess that made it art. Maybe it was too much to think I was like them, but I was doing something different. And that's what Mrs. Lee was talking about.

When we caught up, Kalvin had his crew in a circle around him. He looked like a coach in a huddle before the big game. “Alright, who gonna be a man today?” he asked.

The Tokers all raised their hands, jostling for his attention. “Let's see,” he said, his eyes studying them closely. I got in there with my camera, catching the excitement in their eyes.

Kalvin picked a Toker called Doughboy. He was my height, but must've weighed over two hundred pounds. And it wasn't muscle.

“I'm gonna be MVP today!” he piped up.

Prince interrupted, “Didn't work out that way last week, did it,
ese
? Most Valuable
Punk
, is more like it.”

Kalvin put his hand on Doughboy's shoulder. “Don't listen to him. You fall down; you get back up and try again, yeah?”

I zoomed in on Doughboy's pinched face. His eyes darted around, unsure. He nodded, his voice cracking, “I'll do right by you, K.”

Kalvin waved his fist up to Doughboy's mug. “Just remember: the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

He pretended to pop Doughboy in the jaw and Doughboy made a cartoon face like a character who got hit with a frying pan and was seeing stars. “But in your case, you better not fall on the dude. You might kill him.”

Everyone busted up laughing. They all looked up to the Knockout King, and he liked being the center of attention.

Destiny couldn't make it, so it was interesting to get a glimpse into this all-guys world, something girls hardly ever see. Kalvin walked Doughboy away from the others, pumping up his confidence as they moved around the parking lot. I stepped in close enough to hear.

They stopped when they spotted a guy getting out of a powder blue Honda. The target was some sensitive college-type. He wore a sweater and Converse shoes, a pretty-boy haircut, and shaved eyebrows. He did not look like he'd put up a fight.

“Him.” The King had spoken. “One hit or quit.”

They bumped fists.

“Better get him a blanket and pillow; he gonna say g'nite,” I heard Doughboy say. He started making his way over to the unsuspecting guy.

“Check this shit out,” said Kalvin. “Better than anything you'll catch on HBO.”

I knew what was coming up, but I tried not to think about it too much. I went into Fish-mode. Like Destiny said, my camera gave me a protective shield, like I was safe underwater in my tank, staring out at the world. I was just observing this weird scene unfolding in front of me. It was so unreal, it might as well have been a movie already.

I followed Doughboy from the next row over as he snuck around in between cars. When he picked up speed, so did I, though that wasn't hard since he didn't run that fast.

The action was quick and awkward. This time I came up right behind Doughboy and got close up in the heat of it all. He was slow, though, bouncing up out of breath. You could hear him wheezing. The college guy heard him too. When Doughboy swung, the college guy ducked. His fist barely grazed him. The target panicked and ran. Unfortunately, the other Tokers caught up to him.

They pushed college boy to the ground, where he rolled up like an armadillo. The boys played him like a soccer ball.

I'm making art,
I told myself.

A security guard came out of nowhere, yelling at us. He was huge—a grown-up Doughboy—his ginormous mass jiggling under his windbreaker. This is where the running part came in. The boys took off laughing at the guard. Kalvin wanted me to keep shooting, which I did as I ran away. The security guard was slow. Too many frozen custards and butter cakes.

After a couple of blocks, he gave up and we stood across the street egging him on. He flipped us off, which made for a great shot. When he started back, the boys thought it'd be funny to play the Game on him.

The security guard started running. He didn't get far.

Doughboy knew he had to make up for his failure. He had been so winded that he'd just stayed behind and the security guard hadn't noticed.

Doughboy popped out from behind a van and clocked him good. I just happened to have had my camera pointing that way when it happened.

The boys all leapt in the air and yelled, “Knockout!” They ran over, crowded around him, celebrating and whooping it up, patting Doughboy on the back of his head.

There were real cops to avoid, so we headed into an alley. Kalvin raised Doughboy's arm and shouted into the camera. “The Champ! You my MVP today, Toker!”

Doughboy beamed. There was no higher compliment. It was a great ending to my movie.

10

That video was an even bigger hit than the first. I made it all slick and action-packed with fast cuts and house music, like the crew was a bunch of rabid dogs on the hunt. Then as a joke, I did a remix from the guard point of view, but this time I speeded the chase up, made it black and white, and put some scratchy filter over it to make it into a silent movie. With some old-timey music, I knew the guys would bust a gut laughing at it. They loved it.

I got more friend requests. I began to wonder what'd happen if the wrong person saw it, but Destiny said that's why they used Facebook—this was an underground club,
invite only
screenings. As in, if you only invite friends, no one else will see it.

The TKO Club met up every few days for a bit of mayhem and adventure after school. In between, me and Destiny started hanging out more. She even came over one day after school. I could see she was kind of surprised by where I lived, but I guessed she'd seen worse.

I showed her the videos I was working on and she made some good comments—what she liked, what could be different. She kind of pushed me to go deeper, not to repeat myself or rely on cheap video effects. She had a point, but it didn't mean I liked being criticized.

I left her in my room to see if we had any eats. When I came back with some cereal, I found her on the floor, going through my old drawings that were still packed away in some boxes.

“What are you doing?” I asked, more than a little pissed.

“
You
made these?” she said, like she couldn't believe it.

I put down the food and got on my knees, gathering up the drawings. “That's old. I don't do that stuff anymore.”

“Why not?” she asked, surprised.

I got stuck on that question.

She picked up a pretty big one that was a detailed dissection of my old school in Little Rock. In every room, hallway or courtyard, something was going on. Me, I was hanging out in the cafeteria with my only friends. I remembered that one taking me a good month to finish. “Fish, these are amazing. Is there anything you
can't
do?”

“Yeah, look like a supermodel.” I rolled up the drawings and shoved them into a drawer in my dresser. “Who said you could go through my things anyways?” I crossed my arms and felt my nails biting into my skin.

She crinkled her brow. “I thought we were friends. Friends share.”

I felt the tension in my hands melt. “Still . . . you shouldn't go through my personal stuff. You want me prying into your past?”

She turned gray.

I laughed. “Exactly, right?”

“They're just drawings,” she said. “I wish I could draw like that.”

Me too
, I thought.

I had to admit, next to the excitement of the TKO Club, school started to drag for me. I saw Destiny all the time which was cool, though sometimes at school, she still had to lay low and pretend me and her weren't so close. I understood. Mrs. Lee had heard about our fight, of course, and pulled me aside to ask if I wanted to change classes so Destiny couldn't bully me. I almost laughed at that, but tried to act stoic and said that I could handle it. “Well, that's what I like to hear,” she said. “People should stand up to adversity and take the higher ground. Good for you.”

I'd spot Prince too, from time to time, in the hallway. He always gave me a bit of a hard time, but kept his distance. I never saw Kalvin there, though. I asked Destiny about it, but she just shrugged and said, “K and school don't mix.”

I was starting to understand why. School was predictable. You got good grades, graduated, got a job. At least that's what my parents hoped for. But I wasn't so sure now. I didn't know what I wanted anymore. Ever since we got to St. Louis, I was just . . . surviving, getting by. Trying not to be an ant. With TKO, it was the opposite. Every time was unpredictable, crazy, or full of chaos. School just seemed boring in comparison. It was hard to get your blood pumping about American history or algebra. What was the point?

Each time the club met up, I could feel the adrenaline rush. I found myself getting excited just by the idea of hanging with the boys—I became someone else for a few hours. And being someone else was good.

Sometimes, Kalvin would take us places just to have fun—the roller rink, Taco Bell, the park. He wasn't planning any Knockout Games, just treating his crew as family. For Halloween, he made all the Tokers dress up in costumes—mostly ninjas or superstar athletes—and took us trick-or-treating around the nice neighborhoods in Tower Grove Heights. He dressed up as Muhammad Ali with some funny, oversized boxing gloves. He suggested I go as Red Sonja, the only redheaded action figure he knew of. I felt ridiculous, but he couldn't stop smiling when he saw me decked out. I figured if he liked it, I must be making it work. When the sun went down and we roamed the streets, I thought maybe it was all just a setup, especially after they followed this one guy dressed as a clown. But it was for real. Kalvin made sure everyone watched out for the little kids and said thank you when they got candy. Including me.

I liked watching Kalvin taking care of everyone, making sure they were having a good time. He always kept his eye out for trouble too—cops, even gangs.
Real gangs,
he'd call them. I asked him what the difference was and he looked at me like I was ignorant or something. “Northside, gangs. Southside, just clubs. They're into crack dealing and killing over turf. We're a crew. My guy's don't even steal a dime off their targets. We're just into proving ourselves and having fun.”

And they had a lot of fun.

Other times, when they played the game, I was scared that we'd get caught. But in a weird way, that felt good too. Like going to a scary movie that makes you scream feels good sometimes.

Once Kalvin pulled me aside after I showed him a particularly good video. He put his arm around my neck, pulled me into a playful headlock. “I had my doubts about you at first, Erica. But you proving yourself to be solid. Some of these mutts can't handle it, but you can. You alright. For a white girl, I mean.”

I pulled myself out of his grip and hit him in the arm. I meant it to be playful, but for a second, I thought I'd made a big mistake. Then he laughed it off.

“Girl got spunk. Not bad.”

I tried hitting him again, but he blocked me.

“But you hit like a girl. I could fix that.”

“Maybe I like hitting like a girl.”

I took a swing and he grabbed my fist. He smiled, examining my hand closely. “You got good hands. Meaty. Like the rest of you.”

“Thanks,” I said sarcastically.

He flipped my hand over, studying my palm. “Nah, that's a good thing. Shows you're a fighter. Most girls got small dainty hands and shit.” He closed my hand into a fist, then took that fist and popped it into his palm a few times, making a soft slapping noise. “Solid. You probably don't realize your own strength. Ever hit anyone before?”