I looked back and four slim, young black men were stepping off the last flight of frozen escalator. The tallest one, who had spoken, strode in front and seemed to be the leader.
“Yeah, thass ’em,” chimed in one of the lieutenants. “Old man and that skinny white-nigger kid.”
They glided at an angle to position themselves between us and the path toward the turnstiles and exit. “Ohhh, nice seats, huh? Howja like them seats, 10 rows back? Pretty nice, huh? You see good? You see real good from there?”
The leader stepped forward toward us, and the other three spread out to his right and left, forming a rough semicircle facing us.
“Lots of SPACE down there?” The tall one resumed. “Maybe some empty seats you could give to a couple of nigger kids who don’t have all that money? How much money you got anyway? Think this guy’s got a lot of money, Jamal? Ohh, he looks, like he got some money. How much money you got, sir?
I looked anxiously at the turnstiles and behind us to the doors off the escalator. “Ohhh, we the last ones down, son. Ain’t nobody down here but you and us.”
Decades before, in the Army in Korea, I had earned a black belt in karate studying with two Korean fifth-degrees who had come every day from a nearby village to give lessons to the GIs for a few dollars a week. I had long ago abandoned any practice, unexcited by the militant cultures I found in dojos here, unlike the easy play of my teachers. But here I was, in a deserted corridor with my son, who I wanted, above all else, to protect from harm, and four menacing figures before me. I wondered if I might remember any of those skills. What should I do? Strike a first blow? Make a dash for the exits? Try to free Cody to run for help? I thought of how feeble my strength would be. Could I hurt them? What if they had knives? What if they had guns?
I glanced over at Cody, expecting to see the same fear and intimidation that I felt. But it wasn’t what I found there. Instead, he was looking evenly back at the four young men with a mixture of cool regard and muted defiance. It reminded me of the fearlessness and resolve I saw when he drove the lane into the teeth of bigger, stronger players in his games, the times when I would feel fear for him, and pride.
And I knew then, in that moment, that this was no longer about me protecting him, but that he was moving out now from beneath my sheltering wing. I realized that somehow when I had not been looking, he had changed from being a boy to a young man, from my boy to his own growing young self, finding his way into the world without me.
Suddenly, I remembered those September evenings on the soccer fields when he was 8 or 10, when the late afternoon air was still warm but the light was starting to change in that subtle way that hinted of the autumn coming in. The fields behind the town hall where the teams practiced and the whistle around my neck, devising little drills for the players, how they’d giggle with delight amid the push and cry and excitement of their play. The grass on their uniforms as they laughed and fell and rose again and the mud and the dirt that was caked on the shin guards and the smell of it all—the sweat and grass and mud and joy mixed together that would fill the car on our drive home. I remembered the soft, fading light and standing in the goal, my awkward, aging self in a cheap pair of goalkeeper’s gloves with Cody and maybe a friend or two who stayed after while everyone else drifted toward their cars, playing five shots—“If three go in, you win, and if I stop three, I win,” with never any care for who won those little games. And Cody pleading, “Just five more shots...just 10 more shots,” locked in some enchanted sharing of play until the light finally got too faint for us to see anymore and we drifted to the cars together. I remembered getting home late and shrugging my shoulders at Jess, telling her, “I couldn’t get him to leave…” and her sigh in exasperation at both of us, the sweet conspiratorial happiness because in truth it hadn’t been just him: Neither of us had wanted to leave.
