James Cool

ST. LOUIS, 1985 “Man, those shoes are dope, where did you get ‘em from?” a kid no more than 15-years-old said to me a month into the new school year. A couple of guys from the neighborhood had asked me to join them that evening in a game of corkball at Gamble Recreation Center. I was bored stiff and thought nothing of it when I said yes. My brother Sonny was somewhere in our townhouse on the phone with one of his girlfriends, and my friend Greg was home busy with school work. Time honestly slipped away from me I had so much fun. It was a Tuesday or Wednesday night and my curfew was at 8 p.m. sharp. By the time the kid asked me where I’d gotten my Air Jordan sneakers from it was almost 9 p.m. – the Rec Center’s closing time. “I think my mama got them from Martee’s Shoes,” I said with ease as a group of eight finished a game of four-on-four corkball, “or Footlocker. I really don’t know – she may have gotten them from Gus’s Fashion.” The air was somewhat chilled, but the weather was almost perfect for late summer, early autumn. “Man, they’re dope,” the dark-skinned kid said with a slight grin. “I’m getting me some tonight. What size you wear, lil’ mellow rock?” “A nine,” I said. “A nine?” the kid said before he cracked a smile. “Man, you got a big foot. I wear a nine and I’m 14. How old are you, lil’ mellow?” “Eleven,” I said boldly, yet confused by the line of questioning. “Where you from?” the kid said with a hint of malice as the pickup game ceased. Darius and Baby, who had invited me to the Rec Center, idly stood by as the older kid interrogated me. I met both Darius and Baby shortly after we moved into the new neighborhood – they asked me if I wanted to play corkball with them on the church lot because they were short a player. I said yes and had a good time that day. I thought they were cool even though they were from the Northside. “I live around the corner on James Cool,” I said with resolve to the kid. “Man, I know you from somewhere, lil’ mellow,” he said as the Gamble staff called quits on our game. The group was the last to leave the center. The two-block walk from Gamble Street to James Cool was interrupted by the craziest thing I’d ever heard in my short eleven years on God’s good, green Earth. “Man, you and your homeboys tried to jump me on the bus stop,” the older, dark-skinned kid said as he stared me down with evil eyes. I was intimidated by his size. “Dude, I don’t even hang with anybody around here,” I nervously said. “I ain’t jumped nobody.” “Yeah, it was you,” the kid said as our eight-man party reached James Cool, only a half-block away from our townhouse. “I was on the Bi-State bus stop, and you and your boys tried to take my money.” Darius, Baby and the rest of their crew watched as the kid tried his best to make me out to be somebody I wasn’t. “Darius, tell this dude I don’t know him,” I said. Darius ignored my request as the walk continued. “Yeah, fool, it was you,” the kid said before he unloaded a hard right hook to the left side of my jaw. After he rocked me, the kid body-slammed me onto a nearby car and proceeded to remove the Air Jordans from my feet as I lay paralyzed with fear on the hood of a neighbor’s car. I should have worn my Chuck Taylors like Moms warned me. “Give me these shoes, fool,” he said. “Darius, Baby, y’all just gonna stand there and let this dude take my shoes,” I said as the dark-skinned kid gathered his bounty. “That’s messed up.” The kid took off and ran east on James Cool with my shoes in hand. Still stung by the sneak attack, I looked on in disbelief. “That’s alright,” I said to the shoe bandit as he fled. “I know where you live.”