CHAPTER NINETEEN

Summary

Christmas comes and goes without incident though Pharoah stays up all night on the 30th so he'll be exhausted on New Year's Eve and sleep through the celebratory shooting of guns. Pharoah continues to work the games at the stadium and saves all his money for tickets to the Boys Club annual talent show. He and Lafeyette never miss going. The show is as old as the club itself and has produced some real talent over the years. The rock group Earth, Wind, and Fire all grew up in Horner and got their start at the talent show. The show begins really well, but eventually, Lafeyette wanders away with a friend. They swipe straws from the concession stand and blow spit wads at young girls. All around are people having a great time, even the gangs, who have called a truce to attend the show. Around midnight, as the show winds down, a rumor begins to float around that a teenage girl named Alice has been shot four times in the head somewhere further west. The great night just cannot end without some tragedy.

A few evenings after the show, Lafeyette hears that Craig Davis is in the building visiting his girlfriend. He looks him up, and Craig shows him a poem he has written called Children of the Future. It is an ode to learning, and Lafeyette totally understands the point Craig is trying to make. He is tickled that someone older and so talented would ask his opinion of something he's written.

On a Thursday in late February, Pharoah can be found in his room studying for the spelling bee. He calls it his brain day, and he is so serious about studying that he won't let Timothy in the room, even swatting him when he tries to come in. He and Clarise Gates, the other contestant for the spelling bee, have become fast friends and study together at school. They feel as if they could be the last two contestants standing and neither one wants to win it over the other. However, they keep preparing together.

Another problem enters the Rivers' home when LaShawn allows Willie, a friend of her boyfriend, to come in. LaJoe knows that Willie has been having a simmering feud with a person named Tough Luck about a stolen tire, and she doesn't want the feud to erupt in her home. She has told LaShawn to keep Willie out, but as usual, La Shawn doesn't think about the consequences. Tough Luck pulls a gun and shoots at Willie, but Willie slams the door on his hand, and Tough Luck drops the gun. Then, he runs from the apartment. LaJoe follows him to his own apartment where she becomes hysterical screaming at the man who shot a gun in her home around her children. Rochelle and Red finally get her home. A few days later, LaJoe's mother moves out because of the incident, although the ceaseless activity in the apartment also has upset her.

A few days later, LaShawn goes into labor with her third child. Ironically, she had stopped smoking heroin in her seventh month, so the baby could go through withdrawal along with her, and she would have a healthy baby. She's not even aware that smoking the drug could already have damaged her baby in the early months of her pregnancy. She goes immediately to Rush-Presbyterian hospital where she had her first two children. However, when she doesn't have the baby by morning, they send her to Mt. Sinai, a practice called dumping. As an uninsured patient, the first hospital doesn't want to deal with her. A few days later, she finally gives birth to a little boy she names DeShaun. He has opiate and cocaine in his system, so she cannot take him home until DCFS completes a home visit to determine that he will be nurtured. In spite of all this activity, Pharoah continues his routine of study. He enjoys the baby, but worries how the drugs might have affected him. He has a particularly pleasant dream about being a man looking for employment and people calling out to him with job offers. He begins thinking about being a lawyer and getting his mother out of the projects. He has also finished reading Old Yeller, which impresses him so that he tells his mother all about it with hardly any stutter. She hopes that's a sign that he will do well in the spelling bee.

Notes

This chapter emphasizes how focused Pharoah has become over the spelling bee. He had made the promise the year before that he would do better, and he wants to keep his word. Not even the feud between Willie and Tough Luck or the birth of LaShawn's baby can upset him. His pleasure in what he is doing brings him good dreams and his stutter improves, both good signs that Pharoah is going to do well.