X by Ilyasah Shabazz Page A

guarantee you.”
    “What’s it to you?”
    Now he sort of frowns, sticking his lips out. “Eh. Just a bit of friendly advice.”
    Fat Frankie’s been watching. He groans. “In or out, kid?” He starts the shuffle. “Where’s the queen? Find the lady and double your money.”
    “In.” I slap my dollar onto the windshield. It slides down to the wipers.
    “This kid’s green as a thistle,” the new guy says. “Have some shame.”
    “Shorty, lay off,” Frankie says. “He’s here to play. Maybe he’s got what it takes. You got what it takes, kid?”
    “Oh, yeah,” I answer, refusing to tear my eyes from the cards.
I’ve got her, I’ve got her, I’ve got her
. . . Fat Frankie suddenly stops sorting. The three cards stand like little sentinels, waiting.
    I point to the one on the left. Frankie flips the card and the crowd cheers, “Ohhhh!” I’m looking at the smug, tiny face of the queen.
    “See?” I gloat to the guy they call Shorty.
    Shorty moves his briefcase to the other hand. Despite the case, he doesn’t really look like a businessman. He’s wearing tan slacks and a shirt halfway unbuttoned so you can see his underclothes. His flat newsboy hat tapers in the front, and underneath it his hair is straight and combed back toward his collar, like a white man’s. Plenty of cats in Roxbury have that look. I don’t know how they do it.
    “Beginner’s luck,” Shorty mumbles. “Y’all take care now.” And he ambles off.
    Fat Frankie peels a dollar off his impressive cash roll and tucks it in under the windshield wiper alongside mine. “Double down?” he asks me.
    “I’m in.” I match my winnings with two more dollars down. I’m betting four.
    “That’s my man. Give him some room!” The crowd shifts, putting me at the center of it. My toes are against the tire now; I’m leaning my palms on the side of the hood, watching close. The metal is sun-warm, and the guys around me jostle and hoot. My heart skips forward, elated by the rush. Frankie’s hands move fleetly, but I’ve got a good eye.
    I can’t afford to double after that — I’ve only got four more dollars. So I throw two in. I’m betting ten. Next round, my winnings are up to twenty. Not a bad return on a five-dollar bet. I throw in my last two dollars. “Here we go again,” Fat Frankie says. My skin is sweat slick. His hands move faster and faster. Forty-four dollars will be the most I’ve ever held in my hand at once. But then again, I’m on a roll. Maybe I’ll let it ride, without adding anything. Eighty-eight? Unimaginable.
    The cards fly. My gaze darts along with them. “Where’s the lady?” Frankie says. “Show her to me. Keep your eye on the skirt, man. Where’s the lady?” He stops. The cards wait. With confidence, I point to the center.
    Fat Frankie’s slow grin. Right away I know. My heart sinks. I swallow. He flips the center card. Sure enough, it’s one of the two jacks. He scoops my twenty-two dollars off the windshield and adds it to his roll.
    In my room that night, I write a letter to Philbert, telling him all about my failed wager with Fat Frankie. We used to go down to the creek or up into someone’s barn and play cards or flip coins and bet on them. Cards, we could win, but matching nickels, Richie always had some kind of crazy luck. You each flip a nickel, and it comes up heads or tails. If it matches what you called, you win. If you both match, or both don’t, it’s a draw, but if one matches and the other doesn’t, the winner gets to keep all the money in the pot.
    I scrawl the whole story for Philbert. How I recognized the wily grin on Fat Frankie’s face, at the moment when he knew he’d hustled me but good. I warn Philbert not to match nickels with Richie Dixon anymore. Richie used to smile just like Fat Frankie when he won. We only
thought
it was luck.
    Lansing, 1938
    Walking home from school, I pretended to be Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, the greatest boxer who ever lived and the