Little A

This is a story about a twelve year old boy, Little A, who lives in an upper middle class section of Memphis known as Midtown. Midtown is a neighborhood close to the heart of Memphis. It is a neighborhood full of beautiful old restored homes, manicured lawns, large front porches, and the perfume of magnolias and azaleas scenting the air as you walk down the sidewalk. It is a place where neighbors always have time to stop and talk, and children play as if every house is their house and every adult is their parent. It is a quiet neighborhood, locked forever in a quieter time. Two doors down from where Little A lives, lives a one hundred year old black man, who lives with his adult daughter. As a boy, the old man grew up across town in the projects of Memphis, a high crime section known as Binghampton.

This story is about the relationship between the boy and the old man. It is also a story within a story. When the old man was a boy, his street name was “Boom-Boom.” His first love was basketball. His second love was just to survive. In this story, the old man tells the boy about what it was like growing up in Binghampton, and the magic he discovered hidden in a pair of white tennis shoes that made him famous.