Knockout Games by G. Neri Read Free Book Online Page B

Doughboy swung, the college guy ducked. His fist barely grazed him. The target panicked and ran. Unfortunately, the other Tokers caught up to him.
    They pushed college boy to the ground, where he rolled up like an armadillo. The boys played him like a soccer ball.
    I’m making art, I told myself.
    A security guard came out of nowhere, yelling at us. He was huge—a grown-up Doughboy—his ginormous mass jiggling under his windbreaker. This is where the running part came in. The boys took off laughing at the guard. Kalvin wanted me to keep shooting, which I did as I ran away. The security guard was slow. Too many frozen custards and butter cakes.
    After a couple of blocks, he gave up and we stood across the street egging him on. He flipped us off, which made for a great shot. When he started back, the boys thought it’d be funny to play the Game on him.
    The security guard started running. He didn’t get far.
    Doughboy knew he had to make up for his failure. He had been so winded that he’d just stayed behind and the security guard hadn’t noticed.
    Doughboy popped out from behind a van and clocked him good. I just happened to have had my camera pointing that way when it happened.
    The boys all leapt in the air and yelled, “Knockout!” They ran over, crowded around him, celebrating and whooping it up, patting Doughboy on the back of his head.
    There were real cops to avoid, so we headed into an alley. Kalvin raised Doughboy’s arm and shouted into the camera. “The Champ! You my MVP today, Toker!”
    Doughboy beamed. There was no higher compliment. It was a great ending to my movie.

10
    That video was an even bigger hit than the first. I made it all slick and action-packed with fast cuts and house music, like the crew was a bunch of rabid dogs on the hunt. Then as a joke, I did a remix from the guard point of view, but this time I speeded the chase up, made it black and white, and put some scratchy filter over it to make it into a silent movie. With some old-timey music, I knew the guys would bust a gut laughing at it. They loved it.
    I got more friend requests. I began to wonder what’d happen if the wrong person saw it, but Destiny said that’s why they used Facebook—this was an underground club, invite only screenings. As in, if you only invite friends, no one else will see it.
    The TKO Club met up every few days for a bit of mayhem and adventure after school. In between, me and Destiny started hanging out more. She even came over one day after school. I could see she was kind of surprised by where I lived, but I guessed she’d seen worse.
    I showed her the videos I was working on and she made some good comments—what she liked, what could be different. She kind of pushed me to go deeper, not to repeat myself or rely on cheap video effects. She had a point, but it didn’t mean I liked being criticized.
    I left her in my room to see if we had any eats. When I came back with some cereal, I found her on the floor, going through my old drawings that were still packed away in some boxes.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I asked, more than a little pissed.
    â€œ You made these?” she said, like she couldn’t believe it.
    I put down the food and got on my knees, gathering up the drawings. “That’s old. I don’t do that stuff anymore.”
    â€œWhy not?” she asked, surprised.
    I got stuck on that question.
    She picked up a pretty big one that was a detailed dissection of my old school in Little Rock. In every room, hallway or courtyard, something was going on. Me, I was hanging out in the cafeteria with my only friends. I remembered that one taking me a good month to finish. “Fish, these are amazing. Is there anything you can’t do?”
    â€œYeah, look like a supermodel.” I rolled up the drawings and shoved them into a drawer in my dresser. “Who said you could go through my things anyways?” I crossed my