The King of the Rock

After practice, the twelve-man Catholic Youth Organization team huddled around the coach for an announcement. I prepared to hear the news about the next game and what time we would have to arrive. Instead, we were given news that, for me, would be devastating: there would be a father and son game the following Thursday. I looked on as my mostly white, Irish-Catholic teammates beet-red sweaty faces were full of glee and excitement. I put my grey sweatpants on over my basketball shorts, like my mother had previously demanded. I asked Johnson, a tall lanky copper-colored 6th grader who was the same age as me but was a year behind my grade who he was bringing. He said casually that he probably wouldn’t be coming. During this era of the South Philly neighborhood that I was raised in, we had lost our fathers to a bevy of things: crack cocaine, gun violence, other families. Then there were some dads who just lived a few blocks from where you did, like I would later find out about my own father. 

I was never sure what happened to my biological dad at that point and had just reached the age of questioning his whereabouts. I exited the dimly lit gym which, somehow, architecturally resembled a dilapidated castle built out of grayish colored bricks. As I folded my skinny frame into my mother’s blue Ford escort, she noticed my demeanor and asked me why I seemed so down. I gave her the news. After the words fell out of my mouth in a monotone preteen one-sentence mumble, I could see the wheels turning in her head to determine who we’d be asking to play in this game: What about your grandfather? He had recently just shown up to one of my games and cursed out my basketball coach for not giving me playing time. In addition to probably being banned, he was old and usually intoxicated by the time any of my games began. What about your uncle Mack? He really wasn’t the type to fraternize with other people and I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen him play basketball which was keenly important if I was going to be forced to select a person, plus he was not only short in height but short tempered. What about me? I looked on unamused. Oh, I know! My mother said Let’s ask Woodrow. Woodrow, I said with a scrunched-up face, repeating what she just said. Yeah,Woodrow, she said. Woodrow Naismith was my aunt’s brother-in-law. He had the biggest crush on my mom and would flirt with her whenever given the chance. The other thing about Woodrow was he was addicted to crack cocaine which he would smoke conjointly with weed in cigars. 

The Naismith family had lived on every street in the projects they were from. My aunt was married to the one who had become the most successful, mostly because she supported him as he pursued a job as a local police officer. Another Naismith brother was a big-time drug dealer in their neighborhood and then there were a bunch of sisters who, by that time, had children all close in age. My family’s favorite, though, was their mother, a gruff yet sweet reddish-brown woman who always spoke with a cigarette in her mouth and a can of Budweiser in her hand. 

Woodrow was in his late twenties, toothless yet loved to smile and spoke in a nasally high-pitched voice. I told my mother that it wouldn’t be a big deal if I didn’t go. However, my mother wasn’t one to take no for an answer and called Woodrow anyway. 

As she picked up the white cordless phone, I could hear Woodrow’s shrieking voice on the other end gleaming with excitement to impress my mother. Of Course Renee! Come pick me up next Thursday. I went to my room thinking about how embarrassing this would be and spent the next five days dreading the moment that would come. 

I worried about what it would look like to bring somebody that wasn’t my father, somebody that may have looked like they were addicted to crack in the height of the epidemic. In hindsight most of their fathers were probably functioning alcoholics and equally toothless, but that is the burden of double standards of blackness and addiction.

The day of the game, I did what most kids do when they don’t want to do something: I tried to play sick. My mother wasn’t having it. Go put on your sweatshirt and sweatpants before you really catch a cold trying to be like them white boys. I put on my blue and yellow number 4 jersey over my nearly bald head which was all in honor of the Fab 5 Michigan team and the rap group Onyx and hopped in my mom’s Ford Escort to pick up Woodrow.

Woodrow got in the car, excited and ready to play. He was dressed in what was probably his cleanest white tank top and cut off blue jeans shorts. Once we entered the rec it was time to play two on two versus our first opponent. Jackie Sullivan and his father were no match for Woodrow, who did most of the heavy lifting. Woodrow dribbled the rock, he pushed the rock, he shot the rock, he stole the rock and probably just got finished smoking the rock. That night, we defeated 40-year-old plumbers, electricians, factory workers and other working-class white men who had jobs not afforded to men like Woodrow. Woodrow wasn’t just playing a game with a kid whose mother he had a crush on. Woodrow was playing against oppression and the forces that kept him and his family living in the projects for years while these fathers lived in the same neighborhood with similar educational backgrounds but were able to live their working and low class lives. 

Woodrow and I ended up winning the tournament.He bragged in the faces of the men who we just beat by doing a little wiggle dance with his shoulders from left to right and looking each man in the face something that would have gotten a black man killed a generation before this one. As he hoisted the trophy, a white paper towel fell from his front pocket of his shorts. He would scoop up the object from the gym floor before anyone could notice. 

I decided to let Woodrow keep the trophy because it seemed to mean a lot more to him than it would mean to me. As years passed, I would see Woodrow riding his bike looking worse off than ever as he fell deeper into his addiction. Then one day we got news that Woodrow got stabbed and bled to death on his steps over a stolen cellphone. His brother who was now my aunt's ex husband had dropped off a surprise for me over my grandmothers house shortly after his funeral. It was the trophy which we had won all those years ago still in mint condition.

Even as a crack fiend
You still was a black king!

Jermar Perry was born and raised in South Philadelphia, but he didn’t spend most of his days on the playground. Instead, he spent most of his days daydreaming and writing rhymes. After a few failed attempts at college, Jermar earned his Bachelor’s degree in journalism from Temple University and later, a Master’s in social work from Saint Louis University. These days, Jermar lives in St. Louis and is the co-Founder of The Village PATH where he facilitates a healing and writing circle for Black men.