Out with a bang… when will I learn?

I waited a while to write this blog entry because I didn’t want to concern my mom before I left Philadelphia. Seems like worlds ago. Yesterday I ate a Philadelphia Roll at the Sushi restaurant in Kiev and I’ve been updating my Russian and Ukrainian friends about the progress of the Phils and they have experienced my Philly pride. I suppose it’s rather fitting that my final adventure in this chapter of my Philadelphia story ends on a basketball court in the projects. I procrastinated finishing my four page newsletter for the WestSide Weekly for quite sometime. I left work early to try and start it, but quickly realized I needed a basketball fix to get me back in gear. Usually there are just middle and highschoolers running ball on the court, but tonight, there were a group of older guys playing too. I jumped in the roughhouse game late and missed a bunch of shots at the start. I hustle, that’s what I do and I worked for a lot of boards and started to eventually find my rhythm and came up pretty quick towards the end of the game. Feeling pretty confident, I transitioned into the 3 on 3 games rather well and started out my game on a hot streak. I was the smallest on the court and “Y” was guarding me and I gave up about 4 inches and 50/60 pounds to him. I started out the game playing solid defense and picked up some steals and some nice dimes. I started shooting and I started hitting. They started jockin him pretty hard because I was making facials, fade aways and was laying him up. I was smoking and I knew it, but I just shrugged and played it cool. We played to 16 and I made about 10 of the points and we blew them out and they demanded a rematch. They switched off me and I lit up that guy too.

For our third game, Y switched back to cover me, by this time I was feeling pretty comfortable and started some friendly banter and smack talk. They were playing rough, but were calling ticky tack fouls, were setting moving screens and fudging the count too. I find myself having to prove myself and my identity on the ball court, especially if I’m the only white person playing. If I don’t know most of the people, I get suspicious that they are judging me or treating me differently because I’m white. That doesn’t sit well with me. Y starts saying stuff to me, but I’m still killing him and so it doesn’t bother me. They’re calling every thing against them and when you play street ball you don’t call much if anything. I’m a whiny player and I rarely call anything. Then they start messing up the score again and my team’s getting frustrated with them. They blatantly got the score wrong and you have to win by two and they weren’t being logical. My team reasoned with them and I made the mistake of prefacing a comment with, “I have a college…” I stopped midstream, realizing that was not the right course to go, but the damage was done. Y of all people was not happy and he stepped to me and swung at me. I stood there in his face as he said something about disrespecting his block. I was pretty livid at that point and I said to him, “This is my fucking block too, I’ve put myself on the line for this place for three years, don’t give me that shit.” Well, he didn’t like that statement either and smacked me again in the face. His own teammate, Mitch stepped in and punched him as I slipped off shaking from hurt pride and a numb face.

Why did I feel like this 20 something year old that runs the street validates or invalidates my heart and my time in my neighborhood? Even if only for an instant, I gave him power over me to dictate the fruitfulness of my time here. Looking back, I don’t regret standing up for myself. I certainly didn’t need to justify to him or anyone else that my time here has been worthwhile to me or to the community. I learned so much in my time in Philly, but yet I clearly am still immature. It would have been an awful experience had I not played lights out ball. Looking back, I find it comical and naïve of me, but it could have gotten a lot worse. I don’t back down and I don’t believe in violence. That makes for an interesting combination, especially when you don’t know what to do. Shane talks about doing crazy unexpected things to diffuse the situation, but I can’t imagine what barking like a dog or running around with my shirt off would have accomplished.

I walked off in the dark night, not sure of what my face looked like, but not wanting to see anyone. I walked up towards McDonalds and someone called out to me from the other side of the street to see if I was cool, but I don’t think they saw my face. I went up to Shepard Recreation Center, which is my thinking spot. I sat down for a while to think and I called Dre up and was like, um, so I got punched in the face running my mouth and killing at ball in the projects. I was clearly shaken up and didn’t talk much, but just wanted a comforting voice. After collecting my composure, I started to walk back home.

Living with 6 other vastly different people in a small row house was quite a trying experience, but full of so many good experiences and challenges. One downside is that you don’t have much privacy, and everyone knows your business, especially if you have a six year old brother who wants to hang out with you every minute of the day and you don’t have a door to your downstairs apartment. I peeped in the window and didn’t see anyone, so I made a dash for the freezer, grabbed an ice pack and hit the entry way to my room and was home free. No one had seen me. I sat and sulked with my ice pack, watching some baseball and a few minutes later, Ma Linda called downstairs and asked if I was okay. Of course I said, yeah I’m fine. She calls me upstairs, and I told her I was getting ready to take a shower, but that I was cool. She followed that up asking something about what happened to me playing basketball. I thought to myself, dang, everyone always knows everything that happens around here. Word had traveled to her in a matter of minutes about the altercation at the projects. I explained it to her and said it was no big deal, and she says, “Oh helllll noooo, they did not do that to you.” She practically lurches for the door ready to march off into the projects and give them hell for messing with me. I laughed at the picture I had in my head and she might be a rather short 60 year old woman, but I have no doubt she would do some damage, people don’t mess with her, and she doesn’t put up with people messing with her family.

She tells people I’m her son, and she would be offended if I called her anything but ma or granma. She laughs when people ask her how her light skinned son with curly hair is doing, and I think that’s a pretty beautiful picture of the kingdom of God. I’ve learned so much from her and her family. How she takes in her childrens friends, guys who don’t have a place to live, a young mother who doesn’t know what she’s doing, a stranger on oxygen who would be homeless without her, and me, a scrubby pilgrim trying to make sense of the kingdom of God. I miss Philadelphia. As I write this in the airport in Kiev, South Florida is as foreign to me as the Ukraine. I’m not exactly sure what God has called me here for, but I know that I am where I’m supposed to be. God has a sense of humor. I’ll likely be in Kenya when my beloved Phillies win the World Series and my heart will be in many places, but especially my city starving for a championship and starving for the gospel. Oh, but it is there, make no mistake about it, and the gospel I carry around the world and in Florida would be but milk were it not for everything I learned and laid down in West Philly. I still have a bit of a hot head and do stupid things regularly, but I’m not the same naïve kid that moved to West Philly and I have a strong feeling that I’ll be back and it will be for a lot more than 3 years.

The day that I was leaving I stopped by Vince’s apartment after Thaddeus, Vince and I got breakfast that morning at the McDonald’s a block from my house. For the first time since the basketball episode, I walked up the steps in the dank stairwell of the projects, knowing it would be my last time for quite some time. I hung out with Vince and Country for a minute before giving my last hugs, sending up some prayers and holding back some tears. As I walked out, the smell of marijuana permeated the stale air. It was a smell I had grown accustomed to and familiar with. As I opened the door and walked out some guys were about to scatter cautious that my presence signaled police enforcement, but they quickly relaxed and one of the guys muttered, “Nah, it’s cool, it’s just Pete.” I smiled to myself as I walked to my car and I begged God to give me understanding as to why I came here, why I was leaving now, and hoping to return someday for good.