I started speed walking the rest of the way to McCollum Park. As I drew near to the park I could see off in the distance by the tennis courts and the cemented shuffle board courts that there were some cats already there: spinning, grooving, gliding, popping, and straight up rocking that place. I couldn’t make out any faces yet. I was still too far away but I could tell by their colors that it was my posse. I wanted us to have uniforms so I asked them all to wear Black and gray.
Once I was close enough I saw Kid Mojo bangin’ windmills and Blazin' was twisting spinning top backspins right next to him; they were tornadoes of gray and black on the shuffleboard courts, rotating shades of gray were taking over the pavement. My blood started pumping, my face felt adrenalized and I couldn’t wait a second more. I started sprinting towards my fellow NSR’s yelling, “B-boys in the house.”
Behind me in the parking lot I heard, “YO Phil!”
I looked back behind me, stopped dead in my tracks, and inadvertently squealed like a pig, “Bruiser!” I swear my voice had never reached that high of an octave before and of course he busted my chops about it. “Is your voice changing or what? You sounded like my little sister,” he said.
Bruiser and I walked the rest of the way together. He was strolling nonchalantly with a roll of linoleum under one arm and a ghetto blaster playing his cassette of, “The Message“ in his other hand.
“How did you know it was me?” I asked Dan, since I was still wearing my hospital scrubs – mask and all.
Bruiser told me, “I saw you scampering past me while I was waiting at the stoplight a couple of minutes ago. I thought that was you in that hospital getup. I could tell by the way you walk,” he said with a smirk.
“By the way I walk?” I asked.
“Yay dude,” he laughed, “you’ve got this certain hop to your step, and I know your gate anywhere. You practically walk with a top rock to your step,” he told me with a wink.
Bruiser smiled with a big laugh from his lungs, then motioned to me with his eyes as if he wanted me to carry something.
Bruiser asked me, “You want to grab one of theez?” He sounded so urgent.
Which one do you want me to grab?” I asked.
Bruiser shrieked, “Grab One of THEEZ NUTZ!”
“Ha ha, you got me,” I said monotonically as to play it off as if it was nothing.
Then Bruiser said, “For real though dude, grab this linoleum for me.” I grabbed the linoleum and then Bruiser asked while wincing and wheezing; looking like he was in pain, “Can you grab the other one?”
“The ghetto blaster?” I asked quietly.
Bruiser laughed, “The other one of THEEZ NUTZ! … You’re too easy,” he said.
“Ohh Shee-ott bee-otch! You looked so stressed like you were in pain or something dude, I was trying to help a brother out and here you are messing with me … again!“ I said.
“You’re messing with THEEZ NUTZ yo,” he said drolly.
We both laughed and started heading towards our fellow NSR’s that were breakin’ on the shuffle board courts.
We were both bopping along to Melle Mel as it issued through his ghetto blaster, while we both scanned through the crowd in delight. It was cool to see that my boy, Witty Dee had actually showed up with Muffy. He never got into breakin’ or anything; he just came to hang out with us NSR’s. I was glad to see him there since I hadn’t seen him all that much outside of school (except on the bus), ever since he had met Muffy and I started breakin’. It was almost weird to see him in his “Romeo” mood when he was with Muffy because he was usually in a taunting mood when he was on the bus. He was a real Jekyll and Hyde.
While walking, I did a quick head count and saw that almost everyone from our new crew had already shown up. Even Chi Girl was there. She had told me that she was going to be late because of her gymnastics event but in fact she had beaten Dan and me there.
“That’s Brock Blazin’ getting on down on the shuffle board court,” I said to Dan as we walked.
“Yep, that is old boy,” Dan said.
When Brock had finished his breakin’ routine, Chi Girl jumped into the cypher with flips and aerial cartwheels with some twists, turns, and other shiznit that was a combo of breakin’ and gymnastics moves in one that drew cheers from our crew members.
Not on purpose but because of the scrubs attire and the surgeons mask, I snuck up on my fellow NSR’s. Blazin’ noticed my eyes first and asked with laughter, “What’s up with the hospital scrubs bro? I thought you said to wear Black and gray?”
The rest of the breakers that were near Blazin' had gravitated towards us, and I answered, “I just came from the hospital. I was visiting Boogie Bob our head spin specialist. He’s in the cancer unit getting chemotherapy to battle blood cancer – they call it A.L.L. or Leukemia or some bull shee-ott like that, but these scrubs are a token gesture that our fellow B-boy Bob is indeed with us, since he can’t make it in person,” I said solemnly.
“Word,” Blazin said.
“Heck yeah,” Bruiser agreed.
“But look, I’ve got the black and gray rocking underneath,” I said as I lifted my scrub shirt up and showed everyone that I was wearing black and gray. “If it’s okay with y’all I’m going to wear my scrubs for the day, it makes me feel like Boogie Bob is with us … I know it sounds nuts, but cancer sucks! And somehow this helps.”
“Heck yay boy, rock it,” Kid Mojo said as he high fived me.
“Word,” Dan Bruiser agreed with a nod.
“Yay man, cancer sucks,” Slim Jim sympathized.
“To Bob,” Chi Girl shouted then flipped.
“Hey nice nameplate Phil,” Brock said about my “NSR” belt buckle that I had around my neck.
“Oh yeah bro, I’m sportin’ da boner big time bro. This NSR nameplate is a big old boner,” I said cocksure.
“Word,” Blazin’ said.
Everyone started checking out my NSR necklace like it was a million dollar piece of jewelry, which inspired everyone to high five me like a Rock Star. Then - random impromptu breakin’ broke out on the pavement at McCollumn Park while passersby checked us out like we were a circus act.
Slim Jim approached me and said, “Nice necklace Phil” as he touched my NSR nameplate, putting it into his hand, while it was still around my neck. He looked at it with amusement as if it was made out diamonds. I could see the want in his eyes.
“Heavy, sort of,” Slim Jim said.
“Heaviest necklace I ever had,” I agreed.
“You’re sportin’ da boner ‘round yo neck fo show,” Slim Jim agreed in laughter. He thought that “sportin’ da boner” expression was real cooky but he liked to say it anyway.
Chi Girl rolled her eyes at us as she approached – she had obviously just overheard our boys will be boys expression.
“Were you just walking down Main Street in Downers Grove about thirty minutes ago?” Chi girl chimed in with a smile.
The way she was smiling made me smile bigger than she was, only she couldn’t see it because I was still wearing the surgical mask, “Yep, that was me; I wore this getup all the way from the hospital to here. It made me feel like I brought Bob with me or something,” I said sort of melancholy, yet I was still smiling underneath the mask.
Chi Girl smiled, “That’s cute; I can’t wait to meet him!”
“Yeah for real, Bob was just telling me that he should be done with all of his chemo and radiation and bone marrow transplants crap within three weeks. So you will meet him soon,” I said.
Miguel and Gio had finally sauntered their way towards the rest of us, they were the last two to show up, but they were only minutes behind Dan and me.
They walked right by me at first, since they probably didn’t know that it was I underneath the surgical mask. Gio set his boom box down next to Bruisers’ and they both started chatting about their ghetto blasters. Bruisers’ boom box had a double tape deck with crazy large knobs and four super large speakers on the front. His blaster box was practically the size of a television set.
Miguel and Gio’s boom box had a single cassette deck with a microphone input, a dozen or more tiny speakers and multiple flashing lights that flashed to the beat. Red, orange, and green danced to the kick drum like a metronome right on time, right on rhyme.
Blazin' took it upon him to unroll Bruisers’ linoleum that I had set down. “Dan the man Bruiser - sweet dude, sweet, awesome, you brought linoleum. Now we can break like rock stars,” Brock said to Dan. You’d have thought Bruiser had just handed him a thousand bucks or something by the way he carried on to Dan about the linoleum. Blazin’ could get excited about nothing.
“Yo Poppin’ G, Wazup, I saw you guys bopping and grooving from across the park, sup my brother. What Izzz going on?” I said emphatically to Gio through my mask.
“Oh? Phil, that’s you, huh? I didn’t recognize you with that stuff on,” Miguel said.
“Is there a doctor in the house?” Gio (Poppin’ G.) asked. Then he walked closer to me and quietly asked, “Who’s the old man with the ghetto blaster?”
‘’That’s no old man, that’s Bruiser, he’s only seventeen, don’t let the beard fool ya. He’s going to be our break crew manager,” I said to both of them.
Poppin’ G. got this look of disbelief in his eyes as he raised one eyebrow up and furrowed the other down, then said, “Really? I was wondering if maybe he was your dad or something.”
“Nah, that beard just makes him look old. Speaking of parents … Is your mom coming up here today?” I jokingly asked with a wanton grin.
Poppin’ G. playfully pushed me back and said, “Hey man, don’t go hitting on my mom.”
I smirked like the cat that had ate the canary and walked away. I started going around to all of the guys (and girl) and introduced everybody to everybody. I mean, we were all hanging out and breakin’ together, but not everyone knew each other’s names just yet.
First, I called over Chi Girl, “Hey Chi Girl, this is Gio a.k.a. Poppin G.”
Gio then smirked as if he had eaten a canary of his own and said, “Hey nice to meet you sexy.”
“Easy there pal, she’s one of us guys; she’s a Neighborhood Street Rocker,” I said.
Giovanni just played it off and said, “I’m not doing anything, I was just saying, “hi!”
“You never call me sexy,” I said sarcastically with a girly voice. Chi girl was cool though. She actually got a big old roar out of it and was smirking and enjoying our repartee.
Gio shrugged his shoulders to act innocent, but I told Chi Girl, “Just watch out for this one Chi Girl, he’s a player.”
Gio responded, “Nah man, I’m a good boy.” Everyone within earshot blurted, “Yeah Right!” with sarcasm. Nothing about Gio was innocent and his own grin admitted it.
Chi Girl stiffened her neck and said, “I have an older brother who has already given me the run down: he told me that guys will lie to girls so they can get what they want from them; sexually or anything else. They will tell you that they love you so they can get you into bed. They will even try to pressure you or make you feel stupid if you don’t give them what they want. However, it’s all good. I have already decided that I am going to remain celibate while I am in high school. I want to make something out of myself before I get all involved with some sex crazed, hormone ragin’, teenage boy that changes the course of my life forever.” Then she looked at me and gave me a wink.
“Word Girl … Word! You are one smart chick, Chi Girl,” I told her.
“It’s okay Gio, I have seen the likes of you and I aint mad at ya,” she said with another wink.
“Can’t blame a guy for trying,” Giovanni conceded.
“Can’t blame a girl for being smart, knowing better, and waiting till she makes something out of herself either,” she said while pointing her index finger at Poppin’ G, while pressing her thumb onto her finger as if she just shot him. She even made a, “P-cheww” sound as she shot him. It was really cute.
“I’m glad you’re here, come meet my boy Bruiser,” I said.
“Your dad,” she joked.
“Yo! Bruiser, I want you to meet Miguel, Gio and Chi Girl,” I said.
Bruiser smoothly said, “Nice to meet you guys, now don’t listen to this crazy cat Phil, he’s trying to tell everyone that I’m your guys manager or something … If I can get you guys some battles, I will. If I can get you guys some talent show gigs, I will. If I can get you guys some sort of paying performance gigs, then I will. But I’m just here to hang out and have a good time watching you all break.”
I interjected, “Ohh okay, so you’re going to do managerial duties but don’t call you a manager,” I said sort of smart-ass-ed-ly.
Bruiser replied with an equally as sardonic tone, “Yay something like that Dr. Swift boy!”
After I had introduced everybody to Dan, everyone more or less knew each other’s names by then. So I took my turn on the pavement and busted out with behind the back businessman or (handcuff windmills), just to show the crew where I had ascended.
Brock Blazin’ was impressed, “You’re getting good bro,” he said.
“Phil K Swift is getting swift,” Kid Mojo said.
After Kid Mojo handed out his compliment to me, he whirl winded down to the ground and busted out with atomic flares. Dan Bruiser who was a few feet away from me raised his eyebrows in amazement and said, “Now dude! That is straight up strilla for rilla ... sah-weet!”
“We are going to dominate,” I concurred.
Slim Jim took center stage next. He started with his signature foot gliding; walking on air movements that seemed to defy gravity. It almost looked like he was being held up in the air like a marionette as he “walked on air.” His B-boy movements were moonwalks and waving that had been taken to the next level. He busted out with a boogaloo style of poppin’, tickin’, and lockin’ flows that ended with crazy ass contorting theatrics –something you’d expect to see from a circus performer; he even made his belly wave but just to joke around. Slim Jim was our pop lockin’, foot gliding, and waving moonwalker extraordinaire. Every crew needs one.
After he finished his routine, I started to get this chill down my spine. I felt moved to jump into the action again. I started walking around in a viscous circle while nodding my head all cockily with a playful smile. I began to skip, rock, and bop around a bit while staring at whoever’s eyes were available. Then I spun on one foot as if I was a ballet dancer, into a freeze position like a statue for a second. I transcendentally remembered Bob while I was rockin’ it. I’m not saying that anything paranormal was going on, but without thought, I felt compelled to dive to the ground into tap head spins; almost as if someone was whispering it to me, but no one was.
My hands and head hit the linoleum simultaneously. I tapped around eight or nine revolutions while my legs were spread in a “V” shape. All of the other times I had ever practiced my head spins at home in my basement I was only able to pull off about three head spins at the most. This time, I rocked it.
I walked off the linoleum like a cocksure cat towards the boom boxes, which were now blaring Miguel and Gio’s cassette of a mix they had recorded from the famous, “WMIX FM Chicago.” I was greeted by Bruiser who said, “I didn’t know you could do that B!”
I quietly told him, “Neither did I my man.” He was talking about my head spins of course. He knew I could usually only rock a couple of them.
Dan suddenly yelled, “Work it work it!” He saw Miguel walking towards these two hot chicks and of course, Dan had to bust his chops about it.
By the drinking fountain, there were a couple of hotties that were giving Miguel 2 Tuff the old googly eyes. He had the kind of looks that made girls give him the googly eyes all of the time. When he was born and God was passing out good looks, he must have gotten in line ten times, I swear. Lucky son of a gun. Miguel caught on to their gawkin’ and nonchalantly began heading their way.
Poppin G. then took his turn on the linoleum with a 1990 routine, which is a one handed handstand where you are spinning around in 360 circles on one hand while the rest of your body is reaching towards the sky. After a half dozen revolutions, he abruptly exited the linoleum and said to me, “I’d have done more, but out of the corner of my eye I saw mi hermano talking to some chicas at the fountain, so I’m going to go over there and help him out,” he said wantonly while adjusting his crotch for effect.
“I don’t think your brother really needs any help my brudda,” I said playfully. But Giovanni just smiled and walked towards them anyway.
As he walked over, I honed my eyes in their direction, I could see the chicks were in fact, “looking pretty fine from afar,” I had said to Dan as Gio walked away. But I also told Dan, “But what do I know? Almost all chicks look good to me from far away, I swear. One time I saw a chick sitting on a bus stop bench and I was thinking about how hot and sexy her legs were looking. So I started making my way over to her to get a closer look and when I got there, I realized that her hot tan legs were really just brown paper shopping bags from a grocery store that she had sitting on the ground in front of her. - And hot? - She was not! … But those chicks Miguel is talking to, really do look fine from here,” I repeated to Dan, which made him practically piss his pants from laughter.
When he finally composed himself he said, “Yo dude, those are actually elderly ladies with walking canes and shopping bags, maybe its Miguels grandma?” Dans’ tone of voice and facial expressions were so sincere, I bought every utterance.
“Really,” I said in a high pitched, red embarrassment of a screech, that started him laughing again – and I knew I had been busted; my chops had been busted by the master.
“Is my little sister around for real?” he said – making fun of my high pitched screech again. … “No, dude – I’m just messing with you, they actually do look like some pretty fine chicks,” he said.
Dan must have laughed for another hour or so as he thought about my story about how I had mistaken a chicks hot legs for brown paper bags.
Anyway, by the end of the afternoon I could tell that everybody had gotten along famously and incredibly. In fact, we had all made plans to get together again at Suburbanite roller rink on Friday. All of us breakers; all of us NSR’s. The rink was going to stop the skating session at 10pm and have a dance party on the rink floor from 10pm till midnight.
Kid Mojo put it this way, “Breakin’ is becoming so big that all of the rinks want to make room for us breakers to show up, that’s why they’re stopping the skate session and opening the dance floor.”
“House music is starting to spread like wild fire too,” Dan Bruiser interjected. He was talking about this style of music that started in a club called, “The Warehouse” in Chicago that was responsible for these same dance parties and rink parties.
Everybody agreed and planned to meet at the rink on the following weekend.
Oh yeah, by the way, Gio and 2 Tuff more or less struck out with those two girls by the drinking fountain. Gio explained, “One of them turned out to be twenty five years old and the other one was her mom who was probably around forty five ...”
2 Tuff chimed in, “The mom wouldn’t reveal her age and the daughter didn’t want to date a younger guy,” Miguel told us with his usual coy smile.
“You were sure over there for a long time, considering you all gots nada,” Bruiser said.
“The mom was kind of into it … if M.I.L.F.y would have been by herself, I’d have closed the deal,” Gio said cocksure.
All of us NSR’s barked out some, “Yeah rights” and “you wish” and crap like that. But Gio just kept bragging about his “pecker prowess.” After a stretch of Gio telling us about all of his past sexual exploits, we all started to wind down a bit as the sun sank into the land.
We were all saying our “peace outs” and “au revoirs” and “catch you on the flip flops” and such as the bright had turned towards twilight. I made sure to tell everybody to bring twenty bucks with them on Friday, so I could order NSR nameplate belt buckles for our entire crew. By the way, everybody wanted one like mad, mad I tell ya. Everyone wanted to be “sportin’ da boner.”
Blazin' and I helped Bruiser carry his ghetto blaster and linoleum back to his car. “Thanks for carrying THEEZ,” Dan said mischievously. But I ignored his bait.
When we made it to Bruisers’ Stang I started to divest of my hospital garb when Bruiser whispered, “Is Bob doing okay for real or what?”
I told Bruiser and Blazin' who were listening intently, “He seems to be doing okay but I’m not sure; he definitely seems to be in high spirits and Bob told me that he would be breakin’ with us within three weeks - once he was done with all of his chemo treatments and such – so I guess so,” I said. But my tone dampened their tones as well.
After we got done loading the linoleum, Bruiser slammed the trunk down and importunately asked Blazin', “Hurry quick – Can you hold these?”
Blazin' quickly scampered over by Bruiser with an urgent look on his face and asked, “Hold what?”
Bruiser blinked his eyes quickly and licked his lips, and as he was about to say it, I saw it coming, so I joined in; and we both simultaneously said, “THEEZ NUTZ!” with a little extra oomph and taunt in our tones.
Blazin' got this stink face for a quick second but then he smiled and said, “Okay you got me, you got me, I’m holding your nuts, I get it, I get it – you burned me – ha ha ha.”
Bruiser wasn’t about to let him off that easy, so he taunted a little more, “Oh yeah dude, you’re holding ‘em. You’re holding ‘em like they’re going out of style.”
It’s a guy thing, I guess. But the day is not complete until some has been told to “Grab Theez nutz!”
After a few more razzings, we all high fived each other and then Blazin' started his trek across the parking lot to his house which was not even a hop skip and a jump from McCollum; if you spit into the wind at McCollum Park, Blazin' would have to wash the windows on his house.
“Later Brock,” I yelled.
“See ya Mr. Blazin’,” Dan said.
“Later guys,” he yelled back.
“Hop in B,” Bruiser spouted to me as he pushed the cassette into the deck, and then revved his engine. I was walking distance from McCollum park too, but I hopped in and threw my hospital garb into the back seat of his car anyway. “Al Naa Fyisch” by Hashim was jamming his deck and we both listened intently as the DJ was busting out with a scratch on his mix tape.
Then Bruiser turned down the cassette deck a bit, just enough so I could hear him better, yet he still had to shout over the music. He asked me, “Are you feeling alright about your friend Bob?”
“I’m really glad I went to visit with him today, it made me feel better, you know? Some of the things he had told me over the phone the past week or so, really made me a little nervous for him. But seeing him alive, and well, and breakin’, really put my mind at ease – if you know what I mean bro,” I said sort of choked up, but choked up in a happy way.
“You saw him breakin’ at the hospital?” Bruiser said with eye brows raised in surprise. This made me think about Bob’s brow-less brows.
I told Bruiser about how we were both breakin’ in the hospitals “family room” and how we got scolded by Nurse Marvin, which really astonished Bruiser. He was mainly tripping off the idea that he had unhooked his tubes, lines, and all, and then was able to bust out with head spins. I was shocked too, to be honest with you. I mean, the more I thought about it; Boogie Bob was a breaker to the bone! I already knew that, but now there was even less doubt in my mind, and there was never any doubt.
As I sat in Bruiser’s ride it occurred to me what the catalyst was that sort of put me in the daze and made me feel almost paralyzed into not wanting to take off my scrubs today. I must have blocked it out of my memory until now. In fact, I hadn’t told you or anybody yet. But I decided to tell Dan about it on the quick ride home to my crib. “Well, Dan the man, the one thing that really freaked me out about my visit at the hospital today was when I accidentally overheard a phone conversation that Boogie Bob’s doctor was having with another person over the phone while I was about to exit the cancer unit.
As I was slowly walking past the doc’s office I heard him say in a serious monotone voice, “Considering Robert Charles didn’t even make it a year without a relapse, I must be honest with you - that isn’t an auspice. We can try another bone marrow transplant, Mrs. Charles, but Bob’s A,L.,L is extra pernicious this time around. We may want to consider hospice.
Then I walked away and I exited the cancer unit. Now I didn’t know exactly what all of that meant but I knew the doctor didn’t say: Hey Mrs. Charles, Bob is doing great – I hope you are sacking away the dough for his college tuition.” That last comment had inspired a half hearted, sort of queasy chuckle from the both of us.
Bruiser responded, “I’ll say a prayer for Bob.” And that was about it. He was sort of quiet after that. But I got it. It’s hard to say something after that.
We arrived at my crib and I asked Bruiser, “Yo brother, my parents ordered a pizza for dinner, we have plenty extra; do you want some pizza?”
Bruiser replied, “Ahh straight up, yay I’ll take some pizza.”
I imperiously said, “A Pizza THEEZ NUTZ!”
Bruiser chuckled and said, “Alright there B, you got me back, it took you forever, but you finally got me back.”
As I was exiting the ‘Stang I asked Bruiser, “How’d they taste man, how’d they taste? Thanks for the ride Bro, I’ll catch ya when I catch ya.”
“Alright B-Boy, I’ll get back atchya, peace out,” he said as he was slowly reversing out of my driveway while sticking his head through his open window, smashing his black Kangol in the window frame of his door, and laughing loudly to himself and muttering, “One minute you’re talking about cancer and the next minute you’re talking about THEEZ NUTZ.”