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By Emmanuel Williams

Emmanuel loves his elementary school. It has the best teachers, and the best lessons, and the best attractive latina girls. Oh boy. What a fucking riot.

There’s Anjelica, which you pronounce with an h instead of a j and adds to her allure. He’s gonna write her the best date request/love letter he can imagine. A ‘will you/won’t you’ he left on her desk 5 minutes ago, and finally she’s back to read it.

Emmanuel wishes he didn’t sit by the trash can right now, because she scribbled something on it furiously and tossed it away right in front of his face before the start of class. 

All science hour, he’s going to debate whether or not to pick the note out of the trash to see what she wrote.

But since it’s in the trash, his heart is already giving him the answer.

It’s end of 4th period, the last is 5th, but he’s stuck on the computer writing out the entire script of Disney’s Hercules from pure memory onto a Windows 95 computer in the back of his Fourth Grade classroom. When he’s finished he will just go home. Hoping one day Esmerelda will be easier to save from distress.

Is she even really in distress? Or is it just Hercules who needs someone to save who will love him for it?

Is Hercules the best hero for Emmanuel or is he just the best to come along so far? So far all Manny can see is whatever his pain can show him.

At home, dinner is chicken, rice, and green beans. But his mother never cooked well, so he tastes everything, hoping she has finally done it, but he finishes nothing.

Bad move. 

His aunt is there, apparently it was her day to babysit and she must have stayed for dinner. Probably at mom’s invitation.

So why is she spanking Emmanuel over the trash can? Because Emmanuel threw away his poorly cooked chicken, rice, and green beans. Hoping he could return to his room and pick up where he left off in his fiction from the local library. 

I guess he’s not supposed to honestly review his mother’s cooking because she worked so damn hard to get the ingredients. 

Message received.

Maybe you could cook it better? Hell, give the kids a shot a cooking. It’s not like Emmanuel’s mother was ever in the mood to teach her six children for a millisecond. Though at every woman in the family’s behest, she should definitely spank them if they were disobedient.

Yup. That’s all the parenting we need here.

Next day, after school, the van picks up for the interneighborhood soccer game where Emmanuel wears the navy blue shirt with the gold yellow number 10 on his back.

It is beautiful weather, it is a beautiful effort. Emmanuel maybe touches the ball twice, but they win the game!

Back at the Study Center where the team meets for practices that’s equipped with a computer lab and all the snacks a kid could want that include multiple variations of cheese and crackers. I mean, who doesn’t love Cheez-Its!! 

Once they arrive, someone has ordered pizza.

Every inner city kid knows what pizza means at a time like this: Job. Well. Done.

It means “you earned it”.

And with today’s win, after Emmanuel’s shitty week that was kinda like most weeks. Where he couldn’t find the strength to see himself as the hero he should always be…

There comes this… pizza.

This pizza that tastes like glory, looks like Italian Playboy on a table, and makes me wanna hug my peers like I fucking NEVER want to do…

It’s as if I could fix every bad week with a Pizza Party. If I could afford pizza everytime I’ve done well.

Coach wants to make a speech…

“Listen up. Now that everybody’s got their first slice, I wanna appreciate all the hard work you guys have put into the team. From practice to games, to the homework we’ve helped you with and it’s just so great that we have a W right now so we wanna take this time to celebrate some of the stars of this game. Tony, Leo, and the Uribes brothers. Take a stand, take a bow… this win was impossible without you. Thank all of you for your participation and contribution to this team. You all make Sun Valley proud.

Let’s go smash the next team!”

“YYYEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!”

And we all went home that night. Elated. High on success.

Tony, Leo, Emmanuel all came back to their low income homes, where the struggle kept clawing at our insides.

I don’t know what their homes were like, but when Emmanuel got home, his mother was yelling obscenities at his sisters. Because one of them had stolen clothes from the other.

Must have been 7-8pm.

I turned on the radio to tune her screams out, and there was Chevelle on Channell 93.3 breaking rules about rock n roll by being tender and angry instead of just angry with the song “Send the Pain Below”.

And I discovered how Heavy Metal kept the party going, when my surroundings were nothing but Rap music, that always sought to poop on every party that wasn’t theirs.

Rap is fine, when you need to isolate yourself from the others by elevating your ego. 

But when you want to dig deep and tell the oppressors you’ve had enough, you’re going to want Rock.

And when you lose, you’re going to want a film. Trust me, it works every time.

But when you WIN, you’re going to want… a fuckin’… PIZZA!!!