XAVIER BOLDEN
XAVIER BOLDEN
PSU BLACK STUDIES, WINTER 2024
NARRATIVE
As I hear the bell ringing, I prepare to hear all the other kids yelling trying to catch up with their friends. I the youngest of five in search of my brothers and sister. We all go to this same school, and we walk together down 15th everyday after to the library. I was scolded because I don't look always both ways before I run across the Street, or about how mad mom will be when she sees my jacked shoe strings, thank god when they made the metal tip laces. As we passed the blinking light where my bestfriend house is on the corner, I can hear his dog barking, as bad as I want to go play, only getting pulled by my ear keeps us going left. As we continue to make our way down the street, I always anticipate the bus passing by, just to look through the windows hoping to catch a familiar face. As we got older the routine did change, so eventually a family bus ride to school and an expedition after school turned into my own when each sibling went on to middle school.
My brothers and sister turned into my own group of friends, and a journey that went well beyond the expected destination of the library. Ball games on the Side Street where my best friend had his own hoop, fresh free. Samples of pepperoni and jerky at the culturally different New Seasons. I would go to the Hollywood video store to look at games and movies. I later try to convince my mom to rent. Next door to that was a Papa Murphys so I never guessed where the smell of fresh pizza dough came from. The days I had to go to Grandma Harris's because moms got off work too late I'd pick up walnuts for the banana bread she was always so eager to make for me. When I was finally old enough, no more late pick ups from Grandmas, I can hang around that area, but I'd have to get on that same #8 and find my way home.
MATURATION
Our love was in maturation
You were running away with me
And it wasn’t my imagination
Creating our own culture
Feeling assured
Being empowered
By your mother
Even then, she knew
We’d take care of one another
At times I felt
Slightly smothered
But it was cool because there was no other …
Person I’d want to spend time with,
Share my bloodline with
Live my whole life with
When it’s our time
Who I’d die with …
My best friend
At this pencil gate
Where I first held your hand,
Those times were captured
The moments can’t be recaptured
If I knew then,
The line was drawn in the sand
Everyday
By your side
Is where I would’ve been
Hustle or make it to the league
HOOP TOWN
This is A Hoop town
Hustle here or hustle downtown
Handle the rock or push the other
Play this game or learn another
Holding down the court feels like …
You’re king
When I saw my brother dunk it looked like …
springs
In his shoes …
I remember the camps at these hoops
They removed the notion that I can’t do this
Move …
When I was there …
There was upkeep,
The pro’s would come
And give us new sneaks
Stoudemire,
AC Green,
And T.B.
If you don’t work hard
Won’t be no
P.T.
HOOP TOWN
A place where we go to hone in on our craft, to water the seed of hope and dream. If you can’t hold your own on this court, then it might be a good chance you’d have another.
Hoop dreams and get rich schemes are sometimes the only visions we have. The upkeep of this place kept countless dreams alive, it gave support to the youth and the parents. Basketball camps such as the ones Terrell Brandon held helped in achieving one’s goals. Brand new sneakers, backpacks, shorts, shirts, and even bikes were given to us, it didn’t matter if you were black, brown, or white.
Fresh paint, leveled concrete, and white nets, four or five games going so you’ll be playing if you have next. Now I see cracks in the slabs, unkempt grass, sights of construction but finished half. When spaces like this, that mean so much in our communities, are neglected, can we say we’ve done the future a service?
When you take a look at the youth today, do they take pride in this park, does it mean to them what has meant to so many of us? Again if hopes and dreams aren’t nourished what do we turn to? Nowadays I don’t hear stories of hoop games at the park, instead I hear of wanting to be pimps, hustlers, and rapid increase of young gangsters jumping off the porch. Locking them up is the weed killer, no amount of water will make the seeds bigger. Kill the hope, stunts the growth, but if we give back then maybe we have a chance to get back.
NARRATIVE #1
Who would’ve known then that this place would mean so much to me. Without this place, there would be no “us” which means no “Noah” the love child Beaumont helped produce. The pencil gate where I was once hand in hand with my soulmate. Initially I resisted but she insisted. I was always happy when the bell rang, it let me know that it was time to walk her and her cousin home. The time it took she gave her dad every excuse in the book. At first I thought it was funny, not knowing the lying she did was because she loved me. Back and forth we’d go across this gate, to class, then to lunch, to the dance, where we’d graduate, then out the doors to our first real date.
The pencils on the gate are gone, just as students that move on each and every year. But the significance, the memories for each of us, generations after generation are still there. In that place a shared space for me, for you, and the future. | XB