X by Ilyasah Shabazz

up. The fry guys manning the grill in the back move swiftly, every other second shouting, “Order up.” A waitress in a black-and-red-striped dress with a red smock takes the table orders. The place is hopping.
    I keep to myself for the little while it takes for my food to come. I know it’s important to Ella that I try things out here, but there’s no one I especially want to talk to in this place. Even though everyone appears to be with friends, it seems like at the same time everyone’s putting on airs. Some of the tables are all white, and some are all black, but plenty are mixed. I’ve been in groups like that, with my so-called friends from Mason. I know that you can be black and get all up with white folks, feeling like you’re fitting in, trying to ignore the fact that when you step outside, you’re still a Negro. Still low. It makes me a little sick. Or maybe it’s just the sweetness of the soda — which I suck down quickly. Delicious. Munch my way through those fries pretty quickly, too. Then I make my way down the Hill.
    Down to where people stay real. Down to where the guys on the corner laugh low and shout dirty jokes to one another, cracking up and slapping skin as they try to top each other. Down to where music drifts out the doors of bars, and people are looser and altogether more free.
    Down the Hill is where I belong. The sights, the smells, the rhythm of the folks, the feeling in the air. I circle the blocks again and again, trying to take it all in. Yeah. Roxbury’s where the action is. And I’m here to stay.
    Back in Lansing, I would have been talking to everyone I passed. Everyone says hello. Here you can just move. Still, there’s no reason not to make Roxbury my own. This place is gonna be home. The blood in my veins was meant to keep pulse with the rhythm of these streets. My heart beats faster, and my eyes move quickly from one face to the next.
    There’s a cluster of young guys gathered around the hood of a car, down in front of the barbershop. They’re often there. I’ve passed them a couple of times now. They laugh and hoot and bump against each other while they’re bent over whatever they’re doing. Eight, maybe ten guys. Looks like they’re playing cards.
    Circling to the rear of the car, I lean in and peer over the hood. Just to see. Down the long slope of the windshield, I see a heavyset guy pull three cards out of his breast pocket.
    “Who’s up for a little Find the Lady?” he says. He’s wearing a fedora with the brim pulled low. He lays out the three cards faceup. Two jacks, one queen. “Money down. Place your bets.”
    “All right,” says the guy to his right. He moves a toothpick between his teeth. “Fat Frankie’s swapping. Who’s up and who’s in?”
    “Me,” says a tall, thin cat about my size. He throws a dollar on the hood.
    Fat Frankie flips the three cards over and starts shuffling them over one another. He picks up the far right card with his right hand, the center card with his left. Drops the right card in the center, grabs the left card with the same hand. Drops the center card in the left slot and so on in a kind of rhythmic pattern that gets faster and faster until he finally stops. “Where’s the lady?” he says to the cat who bet. It seems that the game is about keeping track of the queen. But the guy loses his dollar.
    Another guy goes. He loses. Fat Frankie’s shuffling gets faster and faster.
    Another guy goes. Another dollar down. But I’ve been right about where the queen is every time.
    I can do better than these clowns. I reach into my pocket for a dollar. A hand lands on my wrist. “No, my man. Don’t fall for that stick.”
    “What?”
    The hand and the voice belong to a short, dark cat with a long black briefcase. “It’s a hustle.”
    “A what?”
    “A game you can’t win.”
    I grin. “Maybe
you
can’t. I’ve been right every time.”
    He smiles back. Shrugs. “Minute you lay your money down, it’s gone. I