Verwandte Artikel zu Show and Prove

Show and Prove

Quintero, Sofia

 
9780375947070: Show and Prove
ISBN 10: 0375947078 ISBN 13: 9780375947070
Verlag: KNOPF, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

"A must-read for fans of Walter Dean Myer's All the Right Stuff and other lovers of proud urban realism." —Kirkus Reviews
 
The summer of 1983 was the summer hip-hop proved its staying power. The South Bronx is steeped in Reaganomics, war in the Middle East, and the twin epidemics of crack and AIDS, but Raymond “Smiles” King and Guillermo “Nike” Vega have more immediate concerns.
 
Smiles was supposed to be the assistant crew chief at his summer camp, but the director chose Cookie Camacho instead, kicking off a summer-long rivalry. Meanwhile, the aspiring b-boy Nike has set his wandering eye on Sara, the sweet yet sassy new camp counselor, as well as top prize at a breakdancing competition downtown. The two friends have been drifting apart ever since Smiles got a scholarship to a fancy private school, and this summer the air is heavy with postponed decisions that will finally be made.
 
Raw and poignant, this is a story of music, urban plight, and racial tension that’s as relevant today as it was in 1983.


From the Hardcover edition.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sofia Quintero is a writer, activist, educator, speaker, and comedienne. She is also the author of Efrain’s Secret and has written several hip-hop novels under the pen name Black Artemis. This self-proclaimed “Ivy League homegirl” graduated from Columbia University and lives in the Bronx. Learn more about Sofia at SofiaQuintero.com.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Saturday, June 25, 1983, 3:24 p.m.

539 East 139th Street

Smiles

The vintage postcard with the photograph of the Champs-Elysees is wedged between Pop's union newsletter and a bill from Bronx-Lebanon Hospital addressed to Mama. I flip it over and read it.

Dear Ray,

This is the view from my window. Impressed? Don't be. I'm bored out of my skull. I racked up some cool points though playing that tape you made me, since kids here hadn't heard of Run-D.M.C. yet. How's your summer going? Write me back at this address. Maybe I'll bring you back a French girlfriend, ha, ha, ha.

Eric G.

Eric said he would write me from Paris, but I never believed he would. Not after what I overheard him telling Sean Donovan when he lost that final debate to me. Maybe I should write him back, and perpetrate a fraud like everything is copacetic. Like Don Corleone in The Godfather said: Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

I tuck the postcard into my back pocket and head out the building to Nike's to listen to Eddie Murphy's album again.

On my stoop rocking his white kufi and flowing like Kool Moe Dee, Kevin--I mean, Qusay is politicking with Booby, Pooh, and some other homeboys while they follow along with carbon copies in their hands. Save a few wrinkles about his eyes, you'd think Q was an older brother even though he came up with Pop. The man's the epitome of Black don't crack.

"What's up, y'all?" I say. I lower myself onto the step beside Pooh to put on my roller skates and sneak peeks at his sheet, glimpsing a word here and there. Knowledge. Wisdom. Freedom. Funny how it feels like home to sit here when it's been months since I hung out with these cats. I used to chill with them all the time, but then Nike moved to the neighborhood, I enrolled at Dawkins, and Mama died. Even if Booby and Pooh be frontin' to impress Junior, who's got beef with Nike, I miss hanging out with them on the stoop like this.

Q says, "Peace, G." Everyone else welcomes me to the cipher with a nod. He offers me a carbon copy.

Before I can tell him I can't stay long, my grandmother throws open the kitchen window of our fifth-floor apartment. "Raymond!" I swear Nana must've been a bat in a previous life and is gonna be a dolphin in the next.

Qusay looks up and waves to her. "Good afternoon, Queen Beatrice."

"That's Mrs. Hastings to you!" Then Nana looks back to me and busts out with the patois. "Raymond, tek weh yuh self."

The homeboys laugh, and I can't blame them. "Nana." I shrug, playing the role. "No ting nah gwan!" But she has already slammed the window shut.

"The Nana has spoken," says Boob. I laugh along with the homeboys. No static so long that's all he says about my grandmother.

I say to Q, "Sorry 'bout that."

"Ain't no thing but a chicken wing." Just like Nana with her patois, Qusay sometimes breaks out with slang to prove that despite his conversion to Islam, he's no stick-in-the-mud.

"Now wait a minute. You might want to hold on to that wing." I'm not going to be outdone on my own stoop. "Seeing as Allah forbids you to dine on the swine and all."

Qusay and the homeboys laugh. "That's a good one, G. You inherited your mother's good looks and your father's quick wit. Do me a favor and give Derrick my regards, will you?"

"Will do, Q."

Nana throws open the window again. "Raymond!" She flings her gold, black, and green coin purse through the window guard. "Go to see Father Davis now." The purse hits the pavement with a loud slap. With only one skate on, I hobble to pick it up. In the purse is a folded check made out to St. Aloysius. On the memo line it says "Ethiopian children." Nana done just concocted an errand to get me away from Q. The lecture she's going to give me when I come back from the church is already running through my head. That Qusay can tun duck off a nest, Nana'll say. When that man come roun', you see and blin', hear and deaf. Understand?

She'll get over it, though. What Nana says about Five Percenters she used to say about b-boys. She swore Nike was a thug and that Rock Steady, the Dynamic Rockers, and all the b-boy crews were just gangs in disguise. I thought that was hilarious and made the mistake of telling Nike, underestimating how sensitive he still is about his so-called image. Was he POed! Then I started imitating a b-boy uprocking his way through a bodega robbery and sticking up people while rhyming, What people do for moneeey? Once I had him rolling on the floor, Nike forgot all about my grandmother's cockamamie theories.

I had explained to Nana that Afrika Bambaataa was a former Black Spade who left the gang after making his own pilgrimage to Africa. "He's like a hip-hop Malcolm," I had said. "And now he throws jams to bring gangs together in peace. They battle now with their feet instead of their fists." Trying to build my case, I almost told her about the time that Nike and I went to a party at the Fever and some Five Percenters broke up a fight. Lucky I came to my senses.

Nana stopped fussing for a while, but now she's anti-Nike again. I never should've told her about the crack he made about Dawkins, but just like Mama, my grandmother has a way of getting things out of me. At least Mama liked Nike. She understood that even though he's "status conscious"--one of her social-worker terms, I guess--he's no Savage Nomad.

Qusay asks, "What's the word on the strike, G?"

I shrug and plop onto the ground to put on my other skate. Nana and I follow the news on the negotiations between Pop's union and the MTA, but he won't talk about the possible transit strike. Last week the Con Ed workers went out on strike, and we're all waiting to see how that pans out. You'd think not talking about it is going to prevent it, but that tactic didn't save Mama.

Qusay motions for me to retake my seat beside Pooh on the step. "Stay and build with us a little."

"Thanks, Q. Some other time." I tie my sneakers together, hang them around my neck, and kick off. Before I hit the curb, however, I think, Why not ask? I turn and skate back toward the group. "Actually, I have a question. The men who killed Malcolm were down with the Nation of Islam, right?" With all eyes on me, I choose my next words carefully. "What would you say to those people who believe his killers were also Five Percenters?" I leave out that "those people" also believe Five Percenters are a street gang so no Qusay fanatics bum-rush my grandmother after bingo. If they try it, I'm going to have to fly their heads, and I'm too good-looking to die so young. "Were they?"

"That's a bold question, Mr. King." Qusay motions toward the steps, directing me to have a seat. "Bold but fair." After sneaking a quick glance toward my kitchen window, I skate to the stoop. Qusay says, "Not only was the man who founded the Nation of Gods and Earths himself a pupil of Brother Malcolm, he was excommunicated from the NOI almost two years prior to the assassination." He's back to speaking like a rapper. "Clarence 13X greatly upset the NOI for teaching the people exactly what I'm sharing with the brothers today."

"Word?" I've read everything I can find about Malcolm, but none of the libraries have anything on the Five Percenters. Teaching myself about Black activists from W.E.B. Du Bois to the Black Panther Party left me feeling like I was born too late until Q returned from Sing Sing and started having parliaments around the block. I have to learn more about the Five Percenters, and what little I've learned so far, I heard on the streets. You know that don't mean squat.

"Furthermore, G, the Nation of Gods and Earths does not preach a doctrine of violence. To have a hand in the assassination of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz would be the height of hypocrisy. We can hardly call others to righteousness if we ourselves are not...

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Verlag
KNOPF
Erscheinungsdatum
2015
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0375947078
ISBN 13 
9780375947070
Einband
Bibliothekseinband
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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