just ran down to me that the people who came to America back in the day messed over the people already living here,â I said. âAnd I know all about slavery, and I know no brothers from Africa signed a contract saying they didnât want to be free.â
âIt must be the aroma from the collard greens,â Elijah said, âbecause your thinking is getting clearer and clearer.â
âYo, and let me run down something else,â I said. âSay you have a thousand dudes living on an island, right?â
âGo on,â Elijah said.
âAnd theyâre happy with their little social contract, and all of them are getting the same amount of food to eat, and the same television channels, and the same amount of minutes on their cell phones, okay?â
âGo on, Mr. DuPree.â
âI think there would still be a problem,â I said. âBecause sooner or later one of those people would figure out that he could live a little better than the others if he could find a way to take somebody elseâs food or snatch up their cell phone minutes. Thatâs the way people are!â
âThatâs true, Mr. DuPree,â Elijah said. âSo we need to watch each other very closely. When we elect a government, we need to watch that government very closely and know exactly how itâs supposed to be working. You donât enter a contract with your eyes closed.â
âI donât know if this social contract business is good or bad,â I said.
âYouâll make up your mind sooner or later,â Elijah said. âSooner or later.â
I knew I would if he had anything to do with it.
We served the soup, and I listened as Miss Watkins told about how her husband had been wounded in the Second World War and Mr. Pickens said he had been drafted to go to Korea but got out of it because he had a bad eye.
âYou should have served your country,â Miss Watkins said. âAnd you should have been proud to do it!â
Miss Watkins was a feisty old lady and I liked her. In fact, I liked most of the seniors who came to Elijahâs. What I thought was that they liked Elijah and felt good being there. I was feeling good about being there myself.
5
I met up with Terrell and we walked down to Morningside Park to play some ball. We got into a few games and got creamed. Terrellâs game was never that good, but somehow he was getting worse. He was almost as tall as me, and I thought he was getting out of shape.
âWe should have won that last game,â Terrell said as we turned up my block.
âWe would have won if you passed the ball once in a while,â I said. âYou were shooting with two and three guys hanging on your arm.â
âYo, man, I was in the zone!â
âIn the zone?â I watched as Terrell went up for an imaginary jump shot. âYou werenât even in the right zip code!â
âYeah, yeah,â Terrell said. âI had to hurry my shots because you werenât getting any rebounds.â
âI donât even see how that works together,â I said, wondering how my rebounding made him hurry his shots.
âHey, check this out!â Terrell lowered his voice. âAinât that D-Boy across the street?â
I looked across the street and saw D-Boy sitting on a stoop. He had his do-rag down across his forehead, almost to his shades. I looked at my side of the street and saw Sly standing on my stoop.
Everybody knew Sly and nobody knew Sly. He was around the hood a lot and rode in a fantastic machine, and D-Boy was his bodyguard. Some people thought he was into drugs and some said he was part of the black mafia. Everybody gave the dude his propers and nobody moved up on him too quick. He had known my father and had sent flowers to the funeral.
âDonât say nothing stupid,â I said to Terrell.
âIâm not,â Terrell said, voice low, eyes getting big. âI heard that