White Girls Can’t Jump (But They Can School 12-Year-Olds)

Marcus Vick has a favorite hobby — trying to piss me off.

I’m sure his eyes lit up when he first came down here and saw me. There’s no doubt he’s quite used to the revolving door of suburban, white volunteers who try and reform his attitude and then ditch him after futility reigns supreme. Sadly for him, however, I’ve lived through “Nascar McGee” at Cornblow Junior High in Bloomington, Indiana. Nascar McGee thought he could play How Fast Can I Make The Student Teacher Cry and then ended up being the one crying. Well, not quite. I don’t want to sound like I was Madame Defarge or something. But I’m not easily prone to accepting the role of messee.

And beneath the surface, kids are the same. Whether in the sticks of Indiana or the hood of DC. Every chance he gets, he tries to get a rise out of me. A rabble rouser, if you will. Nothing huge. He grabs my hat and runs away. He shuts my computer monitor off when I’m in the middle of doing something. He cusses or uses the term “nigga” a lot in front of me, knowing I hate it. He gives me one word answers when I try and talk with him.

But it never bothers me. And it’s driving him crazy. I think all of this is a sorry attempt to prove himself right — that I don’t care about him. Or something. See, I took Psych 101, and on one or two occasions I went to class.

On the second straight night of shootings this past week, Marcus was one of the three kids who actually showed up. He found a soccer ball in a closet and was running around the Center, dribbling as if it were a basketball instead. He dribbled up to the front desk where I was sitting and started bouncing it off the wall by my head. After about the fourth near-miss, I turned and intercepted the incoming pass. He laughed and said he wanted it back.

Instead of giving it to him, I got up and started dribbling myself. Between the legs, around the back, all around and away from him. He chased after me and then started playing real defense. I burned by him and made a layup at our imaginary hoop at the other end of the room.

Intrigued, but not that impressed yet, he challenged me to one-on-one. I did all my moves and stole all of his. It was becoming a thorough buttkicking.

“Let me see you shoot it again,” I said. “It looks like you’re using both hands. You gotta fix that.”

“No I ain’t,” he insisted.

“Shoot it.”

He did, and he was.

“Your left hand is just supposed to be a guide. It shouldn’t be helping to push the ball.”

“I make it, don’t I?”

“Then why are you losing?”

He shut up then, and we continued the game. It may have gone on all night, but Tyson interrupted us by mocking Marcus for “gettin schooled by a white girl.” I went back to doing whatever it is I was before, and Marcus retreated to a corner and, thinking I wasn’t watching him, practiced shooting up in the air with one hand.

The next day was our going away party for Co-Worker. DC schools were out so we opened in the morning and went all day. Marcus was the first one there, ball in hand once again.

“Learn some new moves overnight?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said, opening the door. “Gonna beat you in soccer.”

He grabbed a few cones and set them up as goals on the sidewalk. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the smartest move playing around outside after there’d been people shooting three days in a row. But I didn’t think about that, because someone in the hood wanted to play SOCCER! There’s about as much grass around here as the Gobi Desert; I wasn’t even sure they knew the sport existed.

It ended up being a lot like the basketball game. I kept blowing by him and scoring. He kept getting stuffed by me. But then he stopped and wanted to know how I did my behind-the-foot move. We spent the next 15 minutes going over it as he struggled to make his feet move right, until he finally was successful — against his 4-year-old cousin. Gotta start somewhere, I guess.

After a little cake and ice cream, his determination to beat me at something came back. He pulled a plastic bat and whiffle ball from the closet. We went outside again, and I hit his first pitch to the parking lot. I think it’s still there.

“Sike nah, I ain’t wanna play anyway.”

He decided quitting right away was more prudent than going to get the ball.

We went back inside and watched a little of whatever movie was playing. People were coming and going all day, but most started trickling out as the afternoon turned to evening. Long after most of the other kids had gone off to start their weekend, he tried one final last-ditch effort and pulled me over to the foosball table. His trump card.

In what could have been the shortest game in history, he won, 10-1.

“BAM, son! Knew I could beat you.”

Dignity saved, Marcus Vick finally called it a day. I think that now, together, we can find him a new favorite hobby.