15 years ago:

Ouch!

Danny tackled Lisa near the grass, running her over like a freight train. She probably should not have been playing tackle football, but tackling her that hard was simply uncalled for. Josh, Lisa’s brother, told him to knock it off on many occasions. It was the end of August in the city of Philadelphia and they were all playing in the Richard Allen Projects or as the broken sign on the sidewalk used to read, The Housing Development.  It was normal for them to be playing sports in the middle of the patches of brown grass and the hard black concrete. Lisa’s dad forbade them to play anywhere else because there was so much broken glass and used needles laying around the development. Nothing was ever cleaned and even if it were, within the week, the streets would be filled with more trash and the results of a broken community.

The sun was high, causing Lisa to be temporarily blinded as she attempted to run the football through the mob of boys, she failed to see Danny coming for her again as he tackled her on the hard concrete. There was no patch of grass for her to land and like always, Danny seemed dead set on bringing her pain. Even though she was a skinny girl, who had not yet developed into the full physical stage of womanhood. The other guys, including her brother, got mad at Danny for hitting her so hard. After some minor pushing and trash talking, they cooled it since they were all neighbors, it would be squashed by dinner time.  They always let her play because she was fast, she was a girl and nobody really wanted to tackle her except Danny.

Lisa hopped right back up and yelled, “I’m alright.”

Danny waved his arm in her direction and said, “See, she’s fine. Quit bitching.”

“Lisa?” Josh was asking without asking.

She nodded her head while the other guys scowled at Danny. He was always rough with her. He didn’t care whether she was a girl or not, Lisa was his enemy if she was not on his team. As it usually happened, she was never on his team and he made sure of that. 

Lisa’s father and brother were so overprotective when it came to her. She was surprised that they let her play any sports at all. Their father, Aaron Johnson, was fine with almost anything, but she had to be with Josh. He conditioned his son to always take care of his baby sister, so that meant she was with him at all times. This resulted in Lisa being referred to as a tom-boy, but the Johnson’s did not care. She was safe, staying busy and Aaron did not quite care what other people thought of how he raised his kids. Josh and Lisa’s mother passed away only a year after Lisa was born. Their father said she died from an aneurysm. This was unexpected and tragic, but Aaron raised those kids the best way he knew how and if Lisa played tackle football and basketball, yet stayed out of trouble, this was fine with him. She was actually quite good at both sports since she was so fast. Then basketball became more than a sport for her, but a game that she loved to compete.

Once they finished their game of football and Josh signaled for Lisa to gather her things so they could head home. They lived in an area where many low-income families had resided for decades. The place was crawling with crack heads, girls with cuts on their faces and drug dealers. They never heard the term gangs, but they knew whose corner belonged to which group. Her dad didn’t trust none of these people, which was another reason he made Josh stay with Lisa at all time. Aaron would use the N word often, but when he talked to Lisa, he tried not to curse or use derogatory language. Her father was a construction worker and this particular month he was laid off. He said that they (white guys) always laid off the black guys first. She was only eight, so she didn’t always understand what he was saying or how these things he mentioned impacted their lives. They had food on the table, clothes on their back, although Josh often complained that he wanted certain kinds of sneakers. Nevertheless, their dad made them focus on their education. His mantra was, nobody can take that away from you. Have your own, so you will not ever be laid off. He constantly drilled that into them, which seemed like it was on a daily basis.

Her father often worked with his friend and County Chairman Wallace Pinkney. He and Wallace grew up together and they seemed to have a mutual understanding and respect for one another. Pinkney had this ambition of helping with the change of the New Philadelphia, helping low-income people, merging racial divides and attacking hard issues like education. The community loved him because he was from the same hood. He just happened to also be a politician, which meant he did some questionable things, like the upcoming community event. Her dad would shake his head at him when he saw Wallace on TV talking about the rich and poor working together. Aaron thought that was the politician talking, not his friend. Lisa's dad always said that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. White people made sure of that, so this notion of them working together to eliminate poverty, change the education system, or help to keep these kids out of jail was ridiculous.

One of Wallace initiatives was the Over the Tracks community event that included food, games, sports, vendors and a celebrity appearance. Wallace had people canvassing all of north and south Philadelphia, to ensure that there were as many people as possible in attendance. He even had elected officials from other districts involved, black and white. This was supposed to be a spectacular event, so the police were ready for any sort of commotion. They had been there to keep the peace because they were like her father, who didn’t believe in that ‘kumbaya shit’ as he would say, but not in front of her.

The event was beyond spectacular, there were people everywhere, black and white alike. They ran out of food, so Wallace ordered 100 pizzas because he didn’t want there to be any issues. They had community speakers, gave out awards, and held a basketball tournament and still people were out and about having fun. They were not necessarily having fun with each other, meaning mingling outside of their friends, but they were all there with no trouble. After the basketball tournament, Josh and friends all started to play a pickup game with Lisa. On the other side of the court, there were several white boys playing a game as well. Wallace must have seen this and saw it as an opportunity to begin the mending of the racial divide starting with the youth because the adults were not budging. He stopped both of the games and said they should just play each other. Lisa looked at her brothers who had smirks on their faces. She knew they thought white people were not good at basketball, so why not. She looked at the white boys and saw they had similar smirks, but she couldn’t decipher what theirs meant.

Lisa was nine, Josh was eleven years old and so were all of his friends, except Danny, who was twelve. They flipped a coin and the white boys got the ball first. Danny muttered that would be the only time they got the ball. Josh had taught Lisa how to play basketball and he always stressed that defense was critical because anyone could score, but to stop someone else from scoring was what mattered. Josh, sometimes, could be a real sage. The boys put Lisa on the point guard who brought up the ball, so she guarded him from afar at first. She didn’t know him and was not sure how he played. Danny yelled at her to get on him. So she moved closer with her hands extended on her sides. The white boy went to cross her over, but she anticipated the switch, stole the ball and laid it up on their side of the court, scoring the team’s first point. Her team cheered and to her surprise, all the black people cheered. There was a huge crowd watching the game. After she had made the layup, she felt a little more confident, so she pushed the ball out of bounds towards the glaring boy who she just stole it from and stood there. It might have seemed innocent to a non-ball player, but that move was a challenge. It said, ‘I just scored and I’m not running back, I’m going to stand here and guard you so I can score again.’ The boy picked up on the challenge and chest passed the ball to her really hard. He looked shocked when she merely caught it with quick hands and checked him.

He started dribbling the ball, with his hand guarding it now, as she slid sideways to keep up with him. He glared at her, then muttered something. Lisa looked from his hands to his face and asked, “What?”

He kept dribbling while saying through gritted teeth, “Y’all always cheat.”

She looked at him with confusion etched on her face. Who was y’all and who cheated? He dribbled past her quickly, so she ran to catch up as he threw the ball to his teammate, who sat at the three-point line and sunk the three, scoring for his team. This time, the white people cheered and the black people groaned. Wallace had a look on his face that could have been read, maybe this was not a good idea.

The game went on with the same sort of intensity. The tension could be cut with a knife and the emotions were extremely high over a quick game of pickup with kids. Now, it seemed like everyone was watching, with cheers and groans each time a team scored. The score was tied 22-22 with one minute left. There was no referee because, in a game like this, everyone called their own fouls. Fortunately, there was someone to keep the score and time. Lisa was tired because the boy she was guarding was fast like her. He scored on her twice, but other than that, he directed his entire team and set them up to score. And they executed this flawlessly and mostly behind the three-point line.

After her team had lost the ball, Josh tapped her on the shoulder and whispered, “Take it from him again.”

Lisa nodded and got closer to her opponent as he dribbled the ball up the court. He must have known she was going to try and steal it from him again. His elbows were out, so when he was getting ready to pass the ball between his two hands, she reached for the ball, but he elbowed her and she fell from the force of the blow. Outrage erupted from her teammates and the viewers on the sidelines to the point where Wallace got up and started pacing in front of the crowd with a lame attempt to pacify them. “It’s just a friendly game with kids.” He forced a nervous smile.

When Lisa got up, she saw her dad staring at her. He did not audibly say anything, but what she felt he said was, ‘Get that damn ball.' She didn’t call the foul because only babies did that, but she did nod towards at her father in acknowledgment of his silent demand. She picked up the ball since Wallace had just separated Josh and her opponent. Mentally, Lisa was ready to steal the ball again, so she pushed the ball towards the boy with a hard chest pass. He quickly grabbed it and started dribbling towards her again. She swatted at the ball several times to throw him off, but then he tried to do an around the back cross over and she had him.

Lisa stole the ball from him and took off dribbling to their side of the court. She could feel him on her heels. Her strongest arm was the right hand, but with 20 seconds left, she couldn’t switch the ball to her right hand without losing time or him stealing the ball. His breath felt like it was right on her neck, to the point that she cringed. Lisa was a pretty good basketball player, however with the anxiety that was building in her stomach she feared that she would miss the lay-up. As she reached the inside of the paint near their basket, she felt a strong push on her right shoulder, but she had just released the ball with her left hand for the lay-up. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground with her opponent on top of her. He glared at her and whispered, “You’ll pay for that blackie.”

The crowd erupted, then they groaned as he was pulled off of her and punched in the face by Danny. Followed up by Josh. By the time she got up, people were pouring out of the bleachers because that one incident turned into an all-out brawl. Strong arms pulled her out of the mix, moving her away from the stampeding crowd. She looked up and saw it was her dad, who was shaking his head. The police were at the scene on bullhorns telling everyone to stand back. Wallace just looked at the commotion with confusion and disappointment. Other people of all ages and colors were hastily leaving. Gunshots were fired in the air, but she was not sure if that was from the police or from the drug dealers. It did the trick because everyone scattered.

When they arrived back home, it was the talk of the neighborhood. How little Lisa stole the ball from the white boy across the tracks twice, then scored on him to win the game. Lisa didn’t even know that she scored that last basket. All she knew was she got pushed hard. Her dad tended to her scrapes and bruises while Josh tended to his own, which were mostly from his fist. She did not even want to know what that boy looked like, between Danny and Josh, they hit him hard. As they were headed for bed, their dad spoke, which stopped them both so they could hear. Aaron took a swig of his amber liquid and said, “Proud of you both for sticking together.” He looked at Josh, then looked at her, “Baby girl, that’s what I want to see. Never back down.” He held up the drink towards her, “Way to win that game today.” 

He took another mouthful of the drink as Josh nodded towards her and smiled.

He was also proud of her.