Token Thanksgiving

He went to the family Thanksgiving dinner as a favor for a friend and left with a new tradition.

“Derek! Hold on!” Francis ran up to me.

“No!” I yelled as he finally caught up to me.

“You didn’t let me finish!” Francis said as he tried to catch his breath.

“Why should I?” I asked.

“Look,” Francis grabbed my arm. “Damn, do you ever miss gym day?”

“What do you want?” I said. “It’s cold!”

“Okay, fine, I am sorry,” Francis apologized. “I shouldn’t have said it like that,” he stared at me. “Can we talk later? Please?”

“Fine,” I retreated.

Francis was one of my only true friends. My other friends only liked me because I was good at basketball and led the team in points, rebounds, and assists, with stats on a banner high above the court.

I was a lock to go into the NBA; scouts called my sponsor and agent daily.

I could have gone straight from high school, but my mom made me promise that I would finish at least two years of college before I went pro. I owed it to her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~

“Four more,” my trainer said as he helped me finish my set.

I loved working out, not just because it kept me in shape to play but because it got my mind off everything. The stress of college, the calls to go pro, and all the people out there who wanted to know me and be my friend because I was going pro.

I never got this much attention before I started becoming good at basketball. Today I had women’s numbers who never talked to me when I first arrived on campus. They wouldn’t even look my way the first few weeks, but now they were all over me.

‘Just another black kid that thinks they are good at basketball,’ I knew that’s what they thought.

Well, I wasn’t just good. I was already being compared to some of the big names of the NBA. I don’t know why things clicked for me on the court. It was like everyone else, including my other teammates, was going in slow motion.

I could see everything happening before the coach told me what to do. It was like MJ said: the game just stops.

MJ was my idol. His pictures with the Chicago Bulls were on my home and dorm walls.

I didn’t know my father, so I had no other role models; it was always my mum and me; it was us against the world.

Then, she got sick as I graduated high school. They gave her two months, and she was gone in two weeks. Before she left, she made me promise to be the best, better than MJ. We laughed in her hospital room as she demanded that I beat all of his records, but first two years of college.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~~ ~

“So, let me get this straight,” I said as I sat in Francis’s dorm.

I went over why he had asked me to go with him to his girlfriend’s family home for Thanksgiving.

Apparently, the last time he went for Thanksgiving and then Christmas dinner, it didn't go well. Gabriel, Francis’s girlfriend, had a tight family, and they all didn’t like him, especially her dad, Jerry.

“So, you want me to be the distraction?” I asked.

“Yes,” Francis said. “We are planning to tell them that after college we plan to get married.”

“Bro!” I shouted. “You’ve known this girl for two years! You met her online, you’ve been dating online, and you’ve seen her in person; what six times in those two years?”

“So?” Francis replied.

“And you wonder why her family doesn’t like you!” I exclaimed.

“Come on, that’s mean as fuck!” Francis shouted.

“Seriously, why?” I asked. “You hardly know her!”

“We talk all the time!” Francis said.

“Over the internet and on your phone,” I stated. “You video call most of the time, and the last two times you met, it was for half a day!”

“People fall in love online all the time!” Francis tried to say.

“I am not doing this,” I sighed. “What’s in it for me?”

“What do you mean?” Francis asked.

“You want me to be the token black guy at this family function, so the spotlight is not on you, right?” I asked. “What’s in it for me?”

“What do you want?” Francis asked with a smile.

“You pay for everything,” I said, " and then you pay for the laundry mat and groceries for the next six months!”

“Deal!” Francis shook my hand quickly.

I didn’t think he would shake my hand so fast.

“Robert at the grocery store is one of my friends, and he owes me. I get free tokens for the washer down the hall, but you can use them,” Francis laughed.

‘Motherfucker!’ I shook my head.