Knockout Games

by G. Neri

  Here, he unfolded a homemade map of St. Louis. He had circled several neighborhoods in red. “If you live in one of these five neighborhoods: Compton Heights, Oak Hill, Shaw, Tower Grove East, and South. These are the hot spots for black-on-white crime that is being perpetrated by a gang of bored teenagers who get their kicks inflicting horrifying violence on random white victims.”

  WTF? This was crazy. My first thoughts were that Kalvin was right: this guy’s a crank. But then the more I thought about it, doubt crept in. All our targets had been white. Every. Single. One.

  I shared the link with Destiny and said, “Is this true? Are we really what he says we are?” I clicked send.

  I went back and saw a link to a video page. It was filled with videos that The Watchers had made. They followed young black men and documented their movements. More than a few showed Kalvin and members of the TKO. Some showed evidence that Kalvin was messing with them—leaving rude comments on their Facebook page or dog shit on Joe Lee’s front doorstep. There were all kinds of comments and once they got started, the commenters became really vicious—against us.

  I freaked out when I saw a video with me in it from the back. The woman who was filming commented to someone how sad it was to see a white girl get mixed up in all of this.

  At least they hadn’t caught us playing Knockout. Yet.

  Suddenly, there was a ping!—a message from Kalvin Barnes, right on time, like he knew what I was thinking.

  I took a deep breath, opened it.

  “Don’t let that fool scare you off. He’s just making noise. Guys like that tend to get caught for doing something stupid. They always do.” He added a link to an article about The Watchers, which mentioned a bit about Joe’s troubled past—being dishonorably discharged from the service and annoying the city council with baseless claims on the so-called race war.

  Destiny must’ve forwarded my message.

  I stared at Kalvin’s profile picture. It didn’t occur to me that he had his own Facebook page since he always posted from the TKO Club page. His profile pic looked like one of those stock pictures, all bright-eyed and smiling, just the nicest guy in the world.

  But when I began scrolling his info, I got this weird feeling down my spine. Was this even the same person?

  Name: Kalvin Octavius Barnes

  Job: community organizer, youth activist

  Studies at: University of Missouri

  From: Saint Louis, Missouri

  Knows: Russian, Arabic, kung fu, sword fighting, and deep-sea diving

  He had to be messing around. I guess anyone can say anything they want about themselves online or just reinvent themselves. Was this the version of himself that he wanted to be? Or just a cover?

  There were a bunch of pictures, and they were definitely of him. There was even a cute one of him and Boner. I knew he was NOT going to university, but whatever. Maybe that was just a cover for him not being at school.

  There were pictures of him with some of the Tokers I recognized. He looked like a big brother, taking them for pizza, posing in a gym dressed like a boxer. And then some of girls that looked like more than friends.

  Including one of me, a still he lifted from the park video.

  Another image showed him and a younger looking Destiny. They were standing next to another guy who looked kind of like her—her brother? I noticed K had his hand on her ass. Brother was not smiling.

  One of the weirdest touches was at the end of his list of favorites. His favorite quote kind of gave me a chill: A disobedient child shall not live his or her days to the end.

  18

  A day passed. I thought of Kalvin a lot, but kept to myself, trying to figure out what it all meant. Were we going together now? Was that a onetime thing? I wanted to talk to Destiny, but there was something going on there I wasn’t quite sure about.

  In art class, I still didn’t feel like drawing anything, but I had worked up the nerve to finally show Mrs. Lee some of my non-TKO videos, like the ant one and some of the ones I made about my neighborhood. I’d given her a DVD to watch at home, and when she saw me, she made a beeline for my desk.

  “Erica! Your videos are quite good. I knew you had an artist’s eye. You’re a rebel; I can see that. Keep going. I want to see more!”

  I didn’t think she meant my TKO videos. Speaking of artistic eye, she was wearing that T-shirt with all the mouths and ears and eyes on them. “Are you the one who makes those Eyez all over the neighborhood?” I asked.

  She blushed and looked around. She looked a little rattled. “I just made one and my husband kind of co-opted it for his own purposes. It’s interesting to see them posted around, but, as a teacher, I’m not supposed to be doing graffiti art. . . .”

  “You’re a rebel too, I guess. I met your husband—”

  This rattled her even more. “You met Joe?”

  “He handed me a flyer.”

  “Oh,” she nodded, unsure. “He’s really the rebel. I just try to keep him grounded.”

  “Do you believe in his cause?”

  She paused for a long beat, choosing her words carefully. “I believe you need to stand up for what you believe in and that people have a right to be safe in their own neighborhoods. He’s more the activist. I try to work from the other side, through art and education. I try not to pick fights.”

  On the second day, I decided to talk to Destiny. I spotted her from my locker but she was with her “other” friends. So I waited, and while I was standing at my locker, this white girl from my homeroom came over. She was the skinny blonde who always ignored me in class. But today, she wanted to talk. I think her name was Autumn.

  “Maybe she don’t want to be your friend anymore,” she said, nodding at Destiny’s clique. I wasn’t sure she was even talking to me, but there was no one else around.

  “You talking to me?” I asked. I didn’t look at her because, first of all, I felt even fatter standing next to her. Secondly, I didn’t know her. She was in one of my classes, but we never said hi or anything.

  Destiny was watching me out of the corner of her eye. I just shrugged. “At least she talks to me,” I said under my breath.

  “Yeah, but why would you want to talk to her?” the girl said.

  This is not how I imagined our first conversation would go. “You know this is the first time you ever spoke to me, right?” I said louder. “Destiny is my friend, that’s why.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t she the one that you got in a fight with?”

  I turned back to my locker. It was true; that’s how we met.

  “Maybe you haven’t noticed, but about 80 percent of the kids here are not like us,” she said.

  “What do you mean, us?” I was nothing like her.

  She frowned. “You know, us.” She held out her arm next to mine.

  Her arm was delicate and pure, with manicured fingernails. I didn’t have to hold up mine for comparison. Mine was thick, with scratches on it. My nails were chewed as short as they could be.

  “You mean people with arms?”

  “No, idiot. Didn’t anybody tell you, you have to hang with your own people?”

  I kind of laughed in her face.

  “No, I must have missed that announcement. All I know is since I been here the last two months, nobody but Destiny has given me the time of day. If you or your white sisterhood had bothered—”

  “Problem?” Destiny had snuck up behind this girl.

  The girl glared at Destiny, then back at me. “Yeah.” She just shook her head and left. I heard her mutter “wigger,” and I almost went after her.

  Destiny grabbed my arm. “Hold on there, girl. She’s just jealous, don’t you see? Let it go.”

  I was thinking that girl would make an excellent target for a Knockout Game. I could see my fist wiping that perfect makeup off her face, her head flying into the lockers—.

  “Hey, are you with me?” Destiny stared into my eyes. “You been hanging low last coupla days. S’up?” she asked. />
  “I was about to say the same to you. You seemed kinda stressed last time I saw you. Why’d you leave us in the park?”

  “Family stuff. You know how it is.”

  I did. I wasn’t gonna press her on it.

  “I saw Kalvin yesterday.” She watched me for any kind of reaction. I played it cool. “Seems Kalvin likes having you around.”

  I tried to read her face. “Is that OK?” I asked. “I mean, with you.”

  She made a funny noise in her throat. “Hmph. Who invited you to join TKO?”

  Trick question? “You did?”

  “OK then.” Matter settled.

  I turned back to my locker. “So how come you passed my message on to Kalvin?”

  She acted confused.

  “Facebook?” I reminded her.

  “Oh that. I just wanted him to know you were worried is all. He ‘asked’ me to keep an eye on you.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Nothing.” She sighed and relaxed her stance. “Look, K’s got something in store for that guy, Joe Lee. Gonna crash his ‘rally’ this week. Let him know he ain’t afraid. And he wants you there too. But only if you record it and don’t knock the crap outta some old dude.”

  I scowled at her. “You think I wanted to do that?”

  “Just don’t do it again. It’s not your style.”

  “But it’s yours?”

  For a second she looked like the old Destiny, ready to take me out. But I must have looked overly concerned because instead, she pulled me into a hug which she never did at school. “You alright, Fish. You just new to all a this.”

  Walking home, I wasn’t sure what to think. Destiny told me more about Kalvin: that he was just messing with people on his Facebook page, that he’d been suspended six months ago because supposedly some Knockout Games happened near Truman and he was under investigation.

  “No way Kalvin’s comin’ back to school,” said Destiny answering my unasked question.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket.

  Speak of the devil. I was not playing hard to get; I guess I was just a little bit confused. On the fifth ring, I answered.

  “Hey you,” K said. “What’re you doing?”

  I was trying to think of an excuse, but my mind was blank. “Walking home from school.”

  “Hmm.” There was silence on the other end. “School.”

  “How are you?” I asked. So lame.

  “How am I? I’m just wondering where you been. At first I figured maybe I had scared you off or something.”

  I shook my head. “No. Nothing like that.”

  There was a pause on his end. “Then I thought maybe you didn’t like kissing me or something.”

  My face felt hot. “No. . . I—I like that part.”

  It was true.

  “Good. ’Cause my Boner misses you.”

  “What?”

  “My dog, Erica. What were you thinking?”

  I smiled. Bad joke. Still . . .

  I heard him sigh. “So, is it those neighborhood watchers and the rally and all that?”

  “Well . . .” I hesitated. “It did kinda throw me.”

  He paused for a beat. “Like I said, don’t worry about that, I have an idea how to take care of them.”

  Images of Kalvin shooting Joe Lee flashed through my head.

  “Water balloons,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It’s Friday. They’re having their Knockout Violence! rally tonight, right? I had this idea maybe we could hang on top of my building and give them a real St. Louis welcome.”

  Water balloons? “Really?” I asked.

  “Yeah, why not? It’ll show the media that we’re just a bunch of kids having fun. What’s more kidlike than a water balloon fight?”

  “We could use pies,” I suggested. I’d seen that on TV.

  “Pies,” he scoffed. “Too messy. Plus, we’d have to be on the ground. This way, they won’t see it coming. So, you in?”

  Water balloons I could deal with. “I guess.”

  “She guesses,” he said off phone to someone else. “Whatever. Be at my house at seven. Afterwards, maybe we could do something . . . else,” he added, suggestively.

  “Like what?” I asked, all innocent.

  “Well, you haven’t shown me those drawings you done. Maybe I could come over. . . .”

  Fat chance. “We’ll see. . . .”

  “Yeah, we will,” he said. “Lates.”

  He hung up. I was still blushing.

  19

  The night air was cold and crisp, so we could hear the noise from a couple blocks away. A man’s voice on a bullhorn: “It’s time to stand up and fight for your rights! What do we want?” Then the response: “Justice!”

  “When do we want it?”

  “Now!”

  I had my camera out when me and Destiny turned the corner, and the first thing I saw was about sixty people huddled in front of the church on the corner. Joe Lee was on top of the church steps. Standing behind him, Mrs. Lee was scanning the crowd nervously.

  When Joe leaned over and whispered in her ear, I wondered how much she was like him, or maybe, he was like her and I just didn’t see it. She leaned into his ear and seemed worried about something. He nodded and stroked her arm trying to ease her concerns. Finally, he raised his bullhorn and spoke.

  “St. Louis was once one of America’s most beautiful cities,” he said. “Beautiful brick buildings, a glorious history in baseball, and the Gateway Arch. Am I right? Now, it’s known as one of America’s most dangerous cities.”

  He scanned the crowd, saw people nodding. “These seemingly random attacks are going on in our own neighborhoods—and the perps are not just a bunch of gangbangers whose after school programs have been cut or can’t find work to keep them busy. This is about boredom and violence, and how violence is the only thing that snaps these kids out of their video game stupor. And the sad truth is, it’s only our black youth that are playing the Knockout Game, attacking white victims and getting away with it because they are just ‘kids.’”

  There was a murmur running through the crowd. Some clapped; others looked unsure. “Now I’m no racist. I love black people. Some of my St. Louis heroes are black: Lou Brock, Miles Davis, Maya Angelou, Scott Joplin. These people represented their race—and us—proudly. But something has gone terribly wrong in the last decade or so. Yes, there is a black president. But even he is powerless against this rising tide of aimless violence in our youth. People don’t feel safe anymore. Our neighborhoods have been taken from us by thugs.”

  I scanned the crowd. They did not look like militants, just normal white people—neighbors.

  “The city will tell you they are doing what they can,” said Joe, pointing to two cops standing under a streetlight. “But it’s not enough to stem the tide. We, the people, must be vigilant. We, the people, must protect our own from these thugs. We have tried to reach out—through education, after school programs. I personally have tried to talk to many of the black youth around here, and my dear wife,” he looked over at Mrs. Lee, “has done more than her fair share of trying to open young people’s eyes through art and education.” She seemed embarrassed by the attention.

  “But there comes a time when we, the people, must stop being victims and start taking action! If the police can’t help—and I see no evidence that they can—the time for talking must stop and we, the people, will start taking things into our own hands! We must make our streets safe. We must take control of our lives. We must make change. That is why we’ve formed an action group of neighborhood watch patrols to keep our citizens safe!”

  The crowd roared. Many were holding up signs: WE WANT OUR NEIGHBORHOOD BACK! MAKE OUR STREETS SAFE FOR OUR CHILDREN! and ATTACK ME AND YOU WILL MEET THE WRONG END OF MY .44!

  “Pretty powerful stuff, huh?”

  I glanced up from my camera to see the pizza guy standing next to me. I froze. I hadn’t recognized him because of the winter cap he was wearing
. But he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were glued on the speaker. I nodded, staring at his face. The last time I saw him, I thought he was dead. Now he had a bandage over his eye and wore a neck brace. He was leaning on a crutch.

  Paranoid, I scanned the crowd and saw a few more of our “targets” in the audience. I elbowed Destiny and when she saw the pizza guy, she pulled me to the back. We spotted the two cops and threw our hoodies over our heads, walking as fast as we could toward Kalvin’s building, which overlooked the street corner.

  “That was close,” she said.

  The front door was open. I stopped her before we went up. “Are we really going to do this?” I asked.

  “We’re doing what Kalvin wants us to do. Don’t worry, nobody’s gonna get hurt. Just fighting fire with water.” She made a splashing sound.

  We ran up to the third story, where his apartment was. There was a piece of paper taped to the door with an arrow pointing toward the roof deck.

  The roof door was ajar. I heard whispering and the sounds of things being moved. I was about to poke my head out when Doughboy came up from behind me.

  “Out the way! Ammo comin’ in!”

  He was carrying a garbage bag over his shoulder. He swung the door open, and I saw the crew in the dark lined up behind the edge of the rooftop. Doughboy dropped the bag and water balloons came tumbling out of it.

  “Careful, ese!” hissed Prince. “Don’t fuckin’ waste ‘em.” He picked up a water balloon and nailed Doughboy in the chest. Whap! Drenched.

  “Hey bitch, that’s cold!” He picked up a balloon and everyone dove in and scrambled for the rest.

  “Chill!” Everyone froze. It was Kalvin, sitting on a chair behind the open door.