![]() ![]() The official Midwest Breakaz logo," Jerry said while he admired his work. ![]() He was nudging an M so it fit above a W in MS Paint. Over his shoulder the fuzzy monitor shone back at me, displaying a rudimentary logo my friend was working on. Out of all my old friends, he was the only one I kept in touch with, but it was only sporadically, and mostly over our shared interest in dance. I hadn't seen Jerry much since my fallout with Ruben. "Long time, no see!" Jerry said, craning his neck from his computer screen and back. These off-white heavy machines were our access to a world outside West Liberty. Our families could afford these big boxy Compaq or Dell computers. It felt like how you imagine families felt in the '50s, when they would crowd around the unveiling of a television. This was around the time when computers were finally accessible to poorer folks like us. I found Jerry tucked away in the corner of his room at his new computer. I thanked Jerry's mom and nodded at the dad of the household. I thought it strange that the sauce smelled fishier than the actual fish. Before I knew it, my plate accumulated fried fish, a baggie of sticky rice, and sauce to go with the sticky rice. His mom pulled me into the kitchen and thrust a plate into my hands. ![]() Jerry's parents never said hello but always welcomed me into their home. Come, come," Jerry's mom said while ushering me inside. Jerry's mom popped open the door before I could count the pairs. I knocked on the door while slipping off my shoes, adding them to the ever-present pile of shoes at the entrance to their home. More than anywhere else or any other time, I am most like myself walking in the twilight of my hometown.īefore I knew it, as if I had stepped outside my house and directly onto the front porch of Jerry's mobile home, I was there. Floods it with thoughts and insight in the solitude. Walking in a small town in the encroaching dusk is a spiritual experience. I booked it from my house to make the trek across town to the mobile court. ![]() It bellowed for me in the mist, emanating from Jerry's VCR player. I needed to act, and that Battle of the Year VHS tape was my lighthouse in the fog. I tried to pour everything into her until she had her friend call me on the phone to say, "She just thinks it would be better if you guys were friends." I later learned that my now-ex was listening on the other line for my reaction. Since I started shunning them and got a girlfriend. Since I had started running with a new group of friends, friends who were causing more destruction than the gang at the Shack-the name we'd given to our hangout spot in Ruben's garage-ever did. Things had been getting worse and worse since my good friend Ruben and I had a fight to end all fights at the beginning of summer. Going to Jerry's that day was a last-ditch desperate attempt to figure out what the heck I was doing with my young life. I had turned 14 years old at the end of July. It was 1999 and a lonely summer was ending. That's when I made the first step of the journey away from the wall where I would watch the Laotians dancing at the mobile court toward that self-guided path to identifying as a b-boy. That's when I flipped the switch and began a 20-year career in dance. Yo, you still got that Battle of the Year '97 tape you guys were watching? Could I borrow it? Like come over right now and grab it from you? Yeah, like right now right now. How pathetic was that? When I clicked off my house's cordless phone, I clicked it right back on and called Jerry Sayabath. She had gotten a friend to call me and break up with me for her. My first real girlfriend was breaking up with me. I knew what I had to do before she even hung up the phone. PHOTO COURTESY CHUY RENTERIA Author Chuy Renteria's childhood friend, Jerry Sayabath, break dances in 2000 in West Liberty, Iowa. ![]()
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