Game 17

CHI 96               CHA 102

In 1983,
The toughest kid
At Lincoln Elementary School
Was Carlos Polk.

A least
According to reputation.

You wouldn’t believe
The stories
That went around
About this kid.  

The situations
He supposedly
Punched
And toughed his way out of.

Looking back,
It all seems ridiculous.

Some Boo Radley type shit--
Obviously invented.

Imagined and re-imagined.

Told and re-told
Like a game of Operator.

But back then
It was real.

He was legendary.

The story I remember best
Goes something like this:

Carlos had an older brother.

None of us had seen him,
But we imagined him
To be the Hulk
With cornrows.

Like Carlos,
But a big kid.

So, one day
A few guys
Show up at the Polk house
Wanting to fight
Big Brother.

Seeing his assailants,
Big Brother just laughs:

Man I ain’t even gonna
Waste my time with you.

I’ma let my
Little brother
Handle this.

And then
Carlos beat them all up.

Big kids,
For god’s sake!

Busted their teeth
And sent ‘em to the hospital.

So we told each other,
Anyways.

And the beatings got worse
With each telling--

More detailed.

And the numbers of enemies
Grew greater.

There were lots of stories
Like this one.

We all had one.

And while these stories
Scared the shit out of us,

They also
Somehow
Brought him closer--
Made him more relatable.

Stories are cool like that.

They build us a bridge
To another type of world.

There was something
Heroic about Carlos
The way we
Imagined him.

Tragic
But strong.

Underdog and overdog.

Goliath
Turned to David
Turned to Robin Hood.

A bad-ass good-guy.
A trickster.

And now I know
That those stories
Weren't even about Carlos--
But about us.

We invented Carlos Polk.

Because that bridge
To that other world
Was our escape route
From this one.

Because,
While we knew that none of it was real,
The stories somehow gave us hope.

Stories are cool like that.

And hope
Is real.