by G. Neri
I would be twenty-six by then.
I hoped I would be far away from here when he got out. I didn’t want to think what he might do if he showed up on my doorstep. I still didn’t know why he’d chosen me. Was it just because I had a camera? Or did he really have feelings for me? Maybe he thought I could save him from himself.
When the doctor finally removed the wires from my broken jaw and checked my busted nose, he told me, “You’re gonna look like a fighter for a while.”
I was a fighter. And I was determined to remain standing until the last bell.
EPILOGUE
I finally made it to the top of the Arch. It was September and I no longer had to wear an ankle bracelet, so as a way to celebrate my sixteenth birthday, Dad thought we should do something fun for a change. We were still struggling as a family but, despite everything, my parents were there for me. We were never gonna be one big happy unit—we were too flawed and broken in our own ways for that. But I think it brought us closer together. Maybe pain really was a gift in that way.
The top of the Arch was a narrow curved room with windows on both sides and slopes to lie on as you gazed out. I’d invited Destiny, who smuggled Boner inside her jacket. We lay down together by the middle window and when I saw how high we were, it took my breath away.
It was impossibly beautiful up there. The river was beaming under the late summer sun. Ships made their way up and down the Big Muddy like little toys in a rain puddle.
Boner licked my hand. Sometimes, Destiny brought him over to keep me company at night. She knew I had a hard time sleeping. Every night when the lights went out, I thought of Mrs. Lee and felt the hollow in the pit of my stomach. Some nights, I cried myself to sleep. Other nights, I’d lie there in the dark, thinking of Joe, all alone.
I don’t think that kind of regret ever goes away—you don’t forget things like that.
At least I can’t.
“Look how tiny those people are down there,” Dad said, lying next to Mom in front of a window.
“They look like tiny toy figures,” said Mom.
“They look like ants,” I said, winking at Destiny. I was no longer angry at the ants. They all had worries and pains. I was no different in that way.
“Dang,” said Destiny as she switched windows. “You can see everything up here. That’s the stadium. And there’s the freeway we came on. Hey, isn’t that our school way over there?”
Our school. That sounded good to me. I was back, starting over as a sophomore again. But this time, I played it differently. I grew my hair long, stopped hiding behind a hoodie, showed off more of my curves. I didn’t care what anybody thought of me. I was doing my own thing.
Sitting up there in the Arch, high above the world, I tried to imagine all the incoming middle schoolers out there, roaming the neighborhoods, looking to impress the older kids. I knew that the TKO Club was disbanded. But every once in a while, I’d hear about some idiot playing Knockout. It seemed amazing to me, after everything that had happened, that anyone would be stupid enough to copycat. But I guess nobody remembers anything for long.
Some kids end up in gangs, some become bullies, some hit random strangers.
But if I ever hear of another Knockout King in my neighborhood, they’ll have me to deal with. And that’s a promise I intend to keep.
The King is dead.
Long live the Queen.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In spring of 2012, I visited St. Louis to do some school visits organized by the St. Louis Public Library. The librarian in charge wanted me to visit a specific school and a specific branch of the library system. She kept saying there was a reason and finally, as we drove there, she asked me: “Have you ever heard of the knockout game?”
I had not. I had worked with gangs, been to all kinds of urban inner cities throughout America, but I had not heard of the phenomena she was about to tell me about. The middle school we were visiting had been recently raided and several arrests associated with this game were made. And right outside the library where we were going that night, a knockout game ended in the death of an elderly man.
The rules of the game were simple. A group of kids, mostly middle school–age, gathered in some random spot and picked a random passerby. One of the teens was given the task of approaching the stranger and trying to knock him out with one punch. The kids did not steal their victim’s money. It was simply something they found to be funny—perhaps a way to escape their boring lives and prove their manhood.
There were several high profile cases, one of which was thrown out when a thirteen year old failed to testify at the last minute. The TKO Club was back out on the streets. Citizens were up in arms but the police were helpless. There was no pattern, no rhyme or reason. People were getting seriously hurt, both physically and emotionally. These kids had the run of the streets. It was like the Lord of the Flies, only instead of Piggy, they preyed on citizens.
This was crazy stuff, but what also grabbed my attention was that this was not a gang-affiliated activity. It was more like a social club. Fight Club for young teens, if you will. And sometimes there were girls in these groups.
I was immediately drawn to this unknown world. Who were these kids and why were they doing this? How could they think it was funny? How could they make videos of their conquests? I started Googling and the attacks went back years. It was one of these closed-off worlds we rarely get a glimpse into. And the kicker was: the one real lead that tied these assaults together was a person of interest called “the Knockout King.”
The librarian wanted me to talk to these kids at this school because they had responded to my book Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty. She wanted me to reach out to them. I did and quickly decided that the best way to have an impact was to make this story my next project. I went home and started writing.
This is that story.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A big thanks:
To one of the best libraries in the country, St. Louis Public Library and its YA heroes: Carrie Dietz, Joan Smith, Patty Carleton, all of whom make me feel like a rock star.
To my early readers, for all their advice: Steven Lovy, Lynne Hansen, Joyce Sweeney, and especially Andrea Tompa.
To the St. Louis juvenile authorities: Nathan Graves and Rodney Smith, and to Principal Cornelius Green, for their stories.
To the Riverfront Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, for their excellent coverage of the knockout game attacks.
To my medical expert (and along with his wife Robin, my biggest fans), Dr. Edward Schroering.
To Maurice Sendak, for saying, “Make it personal. Make it dangerous.”
To April Henry, for her criminal advice and twisted mind.
To the Internet, for making research a lot easier.
To my partner in crime (and agent), Edward Necarsulmer IV, for finding the way out of this detour.
To everyone at Carolrhoda Lab, for all their efforts, especially Giliane Mansfeldt and Laura Rinne for all the design headaches they had to deal with on this one.
To my editor Andrew Karre, for not being afraid to take chances.
And most of all, to Maggie and Zola, who make my life possible.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
G. Neri is the Coretta Scott King honor-winning author of Yummy: the Last Days of a Southside Shorty and the recipient of the Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award for his free verse novella, Chess Rumble. His novels include Surf Mules and the Horace Mann Upstander Award-winning Ghetto Cowboy. His work has been honored by the Museum of Tolerance and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Antioch University, the International Reading Association, the American Library Association, the Junior Library Guild and the National Council for Teachers of English. Neri has been a filmmaker, animator, teacher, and digital media producer. He currently writes full time and lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida with his wife and daughter. Visit him online at www.gregneri.com