One

I can see myself winning when I close my ­eyes.

It’s March. I’m at the final round of the Hogtown Showdown, the most important ­b-­boy battle of the year in all of Toronto. My crew, Rackit Klub, is up against the legendary Infinite Jest. Some of them have been breaking since before I could walk. Not only did they start this battle, they’ve won it eight times, not to mention all the titles they hold in New York, L.A. and every ­far-­flung cipher and circle around the planet. They’ve been in the newspaper. They’ve been on TV. Their videos have made the top ten of almost every ­b-­boy website there is. Sponsors give them free clothes. When local MCs want ­b-­boys in their videos, Infinite Jest gets called up first. All that’s left is for someone to name a shoe after ­them.

Meanwhile, me and the boys of tha Rackit Klub have trouble getting practice space at school. We can’t even get an invitation to the sessions that Infinite leads. So far, nothing we do grabs their attention. Or anyone else’s.

Until ­today.

You can feel it in the air. Something amazing is going to happen. The crowd knows it too. As we’re called to the floor, everyone–­b-­boys, fans, ­photographers–­they all rush to the side of the circle. Some use their elbows to get to the ­front.

Infinite jokes around with fans and makes fun of the ­DJ–­a personal friend. By now, anyone who’s anyone in this scene and not jealous is a personal friend of Infinite Jest.

I’m terrified, but my nerves are helping me focus. That’s one thing about me. I like pressure. The cash prize is close to $5,000, but more than that, I’m driven by the chance to show what I can do next to the best of the ­best.

I’m wearing my lucky pants today. (The grey cargoes my mother ­hates–­too faded.) I am also wearing my lucky shoes (too expensive), lucky shirt (too tight) and lucky hoop earrings (“How do you dance in those?”). My hair is twisted up under my lucky bandana from my Mexican grandmother (too ratty), beneath my lucky hat with the patch from my Jamaican grandfather (makes me look like a boy). Even my bra feels lucky today. (Don’t even get me started.) It’s a silver bikini bathing suit top but you can only tell if you’re looking harder than you should be. I am hot. I am tough. I am a superhero in ­camo-­print sneakers. I can melt you with my eyes. I can shoot lasers from my hands. I don’t just have my game face on; I am the ­game.

The rest of my crew is ­bugging-­out nervous. Encore and Recoil are pacing back and forth, bumping fists and reviewing strategies. I listen to the music and force my brain to quiet down; no easy feat with Sean, a.k.a. Ruckus, a.k.a. my boyfriend, hopping around beside me, cracking his knuckles and muttering under his breath. If we can beat Infinite Jest, the money won’t even matter. A victory here is like an automatic upgrade. If we beat them, we’ll become the crew to beat. We’ll be ­in.

The DJ drops the needle and the battle ­begins.

Our two crews face each other, tensely stepping from one foot to the other, each daring the other to go first, like it’s a game of chicken. The crowd starts to clap the beat. On our side, Recoil finally gets sick of waiting and leaps into the ring, opening big with a series of power moves, more like gymnastics than dancing. The room goes wild. I cheer with Sean and Encore, but on the inside I wince. I wish Recoil would do some actual dancing before getting into the big tricks. The judges are looking for foundation moves and creativity, not just brute ­acrobatics.

I’m pretty sure this is why I’m always second in the running order. Mr. Ruckus and the boys of tha Klub figure that by burying me here, they’re playing it safe. They can still open big and close big and as long as I don’t screw up, the fact that I’m a girl won’t matter, ’cause at least I’ll have the basics covered for the judges. I hate the way they try to pass off sexism as strategy, like there’s nothing I can ever do to match them. But I take my battles one at a time, and right now, I need to stick with the program and nail this round. The best way to win is to ­win.

Mephisto throws down for Infinite next. He kicks off his run by ticking off every move Recoil did on ­fast-­forward, as if to ask, “Is that all you’ve got?” Then he drops down and fills in everything Recoil missed, ending with a couple of tricks he invented himself.

This is what I have to follow. If I think about it, I’ll either panic or ask for an autograph. Instead, I keep my head down, try to focus on what I do ­best.

As the crowd gathers closer, I open with a few funky dance ­steps–­Bronx and Brooklyn Rock, light on my feet, playing with the music, riffing off what’s going on in the song. I work through some intricate footwork–6-steps, CCs and other variations, focusing on the essential foundations of the dance. The guys are always bitching at me to learn more power. They won’t be happy until they see my feet flying around in the air. But when I’m doing these moves, I feel connected to the start of it all, back in the day, somewhere in the Bronx in the seventies. I hit everything nice and tight, toss the crowd something a little unexpected but save some strength for later. I don’t want to burn through my best stuff like Recoil, who is still panting on the sidelines even though his turn is long ­over.

“Yeah! Lady Six!” a fan shouts from the ­crowd.

We go back and forth like this until we’ve all gone twice, and at the end of the final, the crowd erupts in chaos. Some people are chanting for Rackit Klub. Some people are chanting for Infinite ­Jest.

It takes forever for the judges to announce a winner. When the MC finally steps up to the mike, the room gets so quiet you can hear a bandana ­drop.

“And the winner of the Hogtown Showdown is . . .”

No way!

It’s a ­tie.

The judges could have split the prize money and called it a night, but the crowd won’t rest till they declare a ­champion.
The room gets loud again. A fight almost breaks out. Bouncers struggle to keep people apart. The MC has to yell into the ­mike.

“The judges request that each crew sends one man forward.”

I can’t believe my ears. There’s going to be an extra ­round–­a ­one-­on-­one ­battle–­foundation only. No power moves. No backflips. No amount of spinning will ­help.

Sean grabs his face in his hands. I know he wants to put himself in but he went all out on his last run and popped his knee. Recoil hasn’t practised foundation in, like, a year. Encore steps forward like he’s ready to take on the job like a man, but then Sean sends him ­back.

“Sorry, man,” he says, “I know you want to battle but I have to think about the big picture. It has to be Nadine.”

I am blown away. All the times he acted like I wasn’t strong enough, all the hours he spent making me do it ­over–­he saw my true potential all ­along.

Encore looks mad for a second, but then he thinks about ­it.

“It’s true, dawg, it’s true,” he says. “Nadine’s our only hope.”

“Amen,” says ­Recoil.

“Six Sky, Six Sky,” they start to chant as I step into the circle. Mephisto stares me down but I am not afraid. I breathe deep and summon the spirit strength of the warrior queen who is my ­b-­girl namesake. I am Lady Six ­Sky.

The DJ drops the needle, and “Treat ’em Right” by Chubb Rock bursts through the speakers. I leap into the circle. None of this waiting stuff for me. I have to be first. No way am I letting the judges think the other guy might be hungrier. I don’t care how much experience he has. I don’t want to hear about ­upper-­body strength. This one is mine. His crew might be legendary, but I’ve trained for this. I have talent, I have energy, and more importantly, I want it ­more.

The music rips through my body, pushing me to move. I’m not thinking. I’m not even in control of my limbs. Within twenty counts, I’m down on the floor. My hands and feet twist and wind around each other with familiar flow, weaving my body through illusions of contortions. The crowd cheers louder the deeper I get. I feed off their ­energy.

When the timing feels right, I unwind from a windmill, track into a headstand, fake like I’m going to end my run right there but then pop up into a hollowback handstand, my shoulders stretching, back arching so far that I can feel my feet reaching for the ground. I freeze there for a ­gravity-­defying lifetime of seconds. The crowd sucks in its breath, then lets out a cheer as I land back on my feet in a proud b-­girl stance. I brush the imaginary dust off my shoulder and toss my hair at my ­opponents.

Sean is waiting for me on the sidelines. “Baby, I am so proud of you.” The guys grab me and lift me over their ­shoulders.

Mephisto finishes his run and the judges dive into a quick huddle. The MC steps up to announce their ­decision.

“And the winner is–”

Sean squeezes me tighter. Encore and Recoil have their fingers ­crossed.

“Rackit Klub.”

He says it again ’cause no one can believe ­it.

“Put it together for ­Rack-­it ­Klu-­uuuuuub!”

The entire building loses its mind. People jump on top of us in a giant heap, cheering. A hundred strange hands pat me on the back. I’m carried across the club by a tidal wave of fans, to a podium where Ender from Infinite is waiting to present Rackit Klub with a cheque for $5,000, Ed McMahon ­style.

“That was amazing!” he says. “Have you ever thought about teaching a class?”

Before I can answer, a reporter from my school newspaper shoves a mike in my ­face.

“Lady Six!” a voice calls behind me. I turn around and Sassy Sam from Grüv TV is standing there with a camera. A whole line of little kids ignore her and wave pens at me, begging for my ­autograph.

Infinite brings around a rented stretch Hummer to escort us to their private winners’ party, and the day ends with the flash of a hundred ­cameras.

We’ve unseated the champions. At the age of fifteen, I am the youngest Showdown winner in over a decade, and the first girl ­ever.

But forget all that. It’s just a stupid dream that’s never going to happen ­now.

two

When I got home from school today, my parents were sitting in the living room with some white guy in a suit. I wasn’t even expecting them to be home, and my dad never lets people from his new job see where we live, so it was really weird to find this strange dude in the living ­room.

Suit guy smiled at me with ­toothpaste-­commercial teeth and said, “This must be Nadine. Are you excited, Nadine?”

I tried to act natural as I put down my bag and stepped into the living room. Excited about what? My parents hate it when they tell me stuff and then I forget it and they have to tell me again. But it’s the end of the school year. It’s so hot, I can hardly remember to go to class, let alone care about random crap my parents think is ­important.

“Am I?” I ­answered.

My father cleared his throat. “Nadine, this is Bill. He’s our real estate agent.”

Who? Since when do we have real estate? We have lived in this Parkdale apartment for seven years. Somehow I don’t think that ­counts.

I looked over at my mom. She was grinning ear to ear and rocking back and forth like she had to ­pee.

“Bill just sold us our new house!” she finally squealed, like she was giving away a prize on a game show. “We didn’t want to tell you until it was final, so you wouldn’t get disappointed if it didn’t work out.”

Everything went blank for what felt like an hour. I didn’t know we needed to move. I didn’t know they wanted to ­move.

Bill reached into his attaché case and handed me a glossy folder with a picture of a house on it. The house had a name: the Wood Dove. It was a big grey thing with two storeys and a yard and more space between it and the next house than between our building and the ­high-­rise next door. Something dropped right through me from my chest to my ­feet.

“It’s in Rivercrest!” my mom practically ­screamed.

My dad beamed. I waited for the punchline. Rivercrest is like a hundred years away from Parkdale. The subway doesn’t go there. The LRT doesn’t go there. The bus after the LRT after the subway doesn’t even go there. My hands started to shake and my chest clamped ­up.

“If this is a joke, it isn’t funny.”

That’s all I remember. I must have ­fainted.

This moving thing is like the fiftieth or sixtieth surprise my parents have sprung on me since spring. They live in a secret world where all information is classified. They’re afraid that if I know too much, I’ll end up like them. They’re still embarrassed because they had me when they were sixteen, but I don’t see what the big deal is. There are worse things to do with your life than give birth to a superstar ­b-­girl, the likes of whose Pumas any ­b-­boy would be lucky to ­touch.

My friends always think it must be so cool having parents who are so young, but they are so, so wrong. My parents are as cool as suspenders and as young as ­acid-­wash jeans, both of which my dad has been known to wear. Together. At the same ­time.

I think they were hoping I would turn out to be some kind of studious, ­pink­sweater-­set wearing, churchgoing saint or something. The fact is, I’m the opposite of everything they would have wanted if they’d sat down and thought about it, used a condom, and then waited, like, a decade, instead of going at it like rabbits in the back of my grandfather’s Lincoln for an entire fall ­semester.

Maybe there’s a curse where whatever you’re like, your children will turn out opposite. I’m going to keep that in mind when I have kids. If they join the AV club or Up With People, I won’t blame myself. I will trust them not to do exactly the same dumbass crap my parents did, and I will tell them ­things.