Knockout Games (11 page)

As I got closer, I realized the guy wasn't exactly talking. More like yelling. At them.

His red T-shirt sported the phrase, “We Are Watching” in big letters over a giant eye. They reminded me of the graffiti Eyez I had seen painted around the neighborhoods, always watching.

The first thing I heard him saying was: “You need to educate yourself!” He was hiding behind his camera, his free hand waving in the air. “You people are trapped in the prison mindset of self-hatred. Knock out your ignorance and not the people who can't defend themselves.”

K stood there with his arms crossed and a slightly amused look on his face. “What do you mean ‘you people'?” Boner snapped at the man. The Tokers circled him—hyenas ready to pounce.

The man ignored them. “I was with the Marines, man. I've been around; I know what conflict is. But those people fought for a cause. You're just wasting time. I know you are smarter than that. You're the leader here, I can see. And I see you. The camera sees you. Why not teach these young people to fight with their minds instead of their fists? Otherwise, you're just a racist thug.”

I took out my camera. This is not something you see every day, so I wanted to document it. K noticed me, then whispered something to Prince, who called his boys back into the house.

“Racist? What the fuck are you talking about? I'm
black
.” He poked his finger into the guy's shoulder.

The man didn't care. He kept railing at Kalvin. “Racism cuts both ways, brother. There's a race war going on in this country. You're targeting white people, and that's what we call a hate crime.”

“Whoa,
whoa
—” said Kalvin. “We don't target white people,
brother
. Because
we
haven't done anything. And even if I did, I wouldn't hit a white person just ‘cause they're white. I got nothing against white people. Some of my best friends are white. He snuck a quick glance at me.

So how 'bout we look at you instead?” Kalvin took a step toward him. “You're just like the cops—profiling us ‘cause
we're
black. You see a black teen and you think
oh, he's out to get me
! But really, it's you, creating paranoia and hate.”

The man wouldn't back down. “Don't try to put some spin on your thuggery. You're targeting white people and taking out your hate on them! Can't you see that?”

Kalvin eyed him coldly. “I see a white man who knows he's the minority now. Who's afraid, now that the power's out of his hands, from the White House to the streets. Maybe when you were young, this neighborhood was all-white, and you had your way. Well, I'm the president here and you and your little club with your red shirts surveilling us like we're a bunch of dogs to be kept down, that ain't gonna fly. Not anymore.”

Even from here, I could see the man's face turning red. If he was a cartoon, he'd have steam coming out of his ears. He had to fight to regain his calm.

“Your time . . . will come,” he spat. “Sooner or later, we'll get you in action on tape and that'll be it. All your fancy rationale will mean squat and all that will speak is the violence you and your homies lay on the rest of us. The whole neighborhood is watching you, whether you like it or not. We're not going away.” He held up his camera. “I'm not going away. We already have tape of all of you looking for targets.”

K had heard enough. “Them's big words.” He grabbed the camera right out of the man's hands. He had very fast hands, boxer's hands. The man was shocked and stammered on as K popped the tape out of the camera, using his body to keep the man from grabbing it back. “By the way, videotape's kinda outdated. You might consider joining us here in the future.” He cracked the cassette on the railing and unspooled the tape. Then he smiled and tossed the camera back at the man.

“Don't you know about backing up your work? Otherwise you might accidentally delete it.” K threw a handful of discarded tape in the air and let it rain down on the man before tossing the cassette to the side. He turned and went inside, shutting the door in the guy's face.

The man pulled the tape off his head angrily. I almost laughed, but then he just stood there for a few seconds, fuming. He was about to bang on the door then stopped, his fist frozen in midair. Finally, he flipped off the door in frustration and stormed back to the street.

He saw me with my camera. I quickly turned it off and shoved it in the pocket of my hoodie.

“Did you see that? Idiots and thugs. Just walking all over us without fear of prosecution.”

He reached into his bag, pulled out a flyer and handed one to me. “I'm running the neighborhood watch group. We need more people on the streets to keep us safe. Come to the rally. We need your support.” He pointed to my camera. “I see you have one too. Good. The more eyes out there, the better. Together, we'll make a difference.”

I watched him walk away. “Check out our website!” he said over his shoulder. I studied the flyer.

It was for a rally tomorrow in front of the church here.
Knockout Violence!
it said.

I watched him hurry down the street handing out flyers to anyone who'd stop to talk. Then he turned and walked up to a small brick house. An older lady with long graying hair and round glasses was planting sunflowers in the front yard. When they kissed, I recognized her: Mrs. Lee.

“Don't worry about him,” said Kalvin, leaning out a second-story window. “Just an old crank getting in people's business. Got turned down by the cops, kicked out of the war. Now he thinks he's a vigilante taking on the young punks who fuck everything up.”

“You mean you?”

“Smartass. That includes you too, don't forget that. And did you notice how in
his
eyes, a white girl gets a pass every time?”

I didn't know what to say to that.

“So, you just gonna stand there, or are you coming up?”

I stared down at the flyer, folded it up, and pocketed it. That man got me a little rattled. “I got some stuff to do. I just . . . wanted to stop by.”

“What for?”

“I don't know. Just . . . to say hi.”

“Oh. . . hey.”

I waved. “Hi.”

He shook his head, laughing. “You're funny, Fish. You're looking pretty good, though. You dress up for me?”

I shuffled my feet. Maybe, a little.

“Mm-mmm,” he said smiling. “You sure you don't wanna come up for a bit?”

I did but . . . “Maybe later?”

He shrugged. “OK, then. Text me; I got something coming up you should come to.”

He waved and disappeared from sight.

I could feel that flyer burning a hole in my pocket. It made me uneasy; the bruises on my knuckles began to ache.

I started walking the other way. I needed to clear my mind. I glanced back at Kalvin's apartment. I thought I saw Destiny peeking out the window, but I could've been wrong.

17

All that night, I kept thinking about Mrs. Lee's boyfriend or husband or whatever he was. It was one thing to see a mention in the paper. But now, people were looking at TKO. Maybe he was just a crank, somebody who thought he could rid the world of everything he thought was bad. But he had a big mouth and sometimes big mouths get heard. Which meant that if K and the boys ever got caught, I'd get caught too.

I stared at the flyer again. It said things like:
BLACK ON WHITE CRIME! SPEAK OUT! TAKE BACK OUR NEIGHBORHOODS!
They called us
mindless
and
criminal
too. It made us look like we were some thugs roaming the streets, raping and pillaging. Were we? I mean old people are always complaining about young people—the music is too loud; they're into drugs and sex and video games. Knockout was just another game compared to the guys on my corner who were actual crackheads and dealers or gangbangers or whatever. They actually killed people. How come
they
weren't being hunted down? OK, I knew that was bullshit but still, compared to what some others were doing . . .

On the flyer, I noticed a link to a Facebook page. I was curious, so I looked it up.

The group page was called
Knockout Violence!
There was a picture of a group of people who called themselves The Watchers (as in, we're watching you) all wearing those red shirts with eyes on them. That man was front and center. His name was Joe Lee and he was a medic in the Iraq war who'd been injured and now is all about helping fight for a strong community. There was a page about the protest, followed by links to news coverage of different attacks that had happened. These attacks went back several years. I read a few of them and it made me upset.

At the bottom of the page was a YouTube video with the man's face on it. My cursor hovered over the PLAY button and finally, I just clicked on it.

The man was sitting at his desk, an American flag behind him.

“My name is Joe Lee. I'm a former medic for the Marines and head of the neighborhood watch committee for the Tower Grove area. I want to be clear up front: we are a group of concerned citizens who are
not
willing to stand by while our way of life is slowly being destroyed. It is being shattered by random attacks on white citizens by black perpetrators.” He paused dramatically. “There, I said it. This is not some crazy right-wing conspiracy from Fox News. In fact, I wish you could hear about it on Fox News, or any news, but the media refuses to call a spade a spade, because it's not PC to say
black-on-white
crime. But the facts are what they are. If you are white, you need to be on alert. It doesn't matter if you are young or old, male or female. If you live in St. Louis, particularly—”

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.