Will McGrath at The Believer:
Cedar-Riverside was humming. The boys were looking fresh—Frenchy with his hair twisted up, Saiid’s beard trimmed tight—everybody edged up and faded up and straight from the barber’s chair. Once their moms were out of sight, a few boys snugged durags over their heads, and then Wali started talking about how one time his mom caught him wearing a wave cap like that and smack—he pantomimed a big open hand—too hip-hop. Wali had the boys rolling. Relatives were milling in the shadow of C Building, uncles and older brothers and former players slipping cash into the boys’ palms, something for the journey. The boys were doing that teenage-boy thing where their bodies are short-circuiting on adrenaline but they’re trying not to show it, grabbing and slap-fighting and punching a little too hard. Kids were calling down from the balconies, yelling final Somali encouragements, and even Riverside Plaza itself—those looming brutalist towers, born of 1960s utopian public housing fever dreams and then left to molder—even those concrete towers were glowing. A lateafternoon rain had scoured clean the buildings. The towers’ iconic red, yellow, blue, and white panels were popping in the Minneapolis golden hour, the women’s hijabs and headscarves were popping, the boys’ new kicks were popping, everything was looking nice.
more here.
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