Page 131 - Esquire - USA (Winter 2020)

best record wins; it’s not that you’re the great- has his picture taken for the millionth time to- yet I feel a kinship with the man. Indeed, he’s
est player clearly because of the stats. That’s day. It’s warm outside. Cars slow as they pass. an A-list global megamoviestar, but he’s also
not why you’re gonna get this or that achieve- You can see drivers stop and crane their necks. my brother, kindred because, among other rea-
ment. We don’t operate on that. Ticket sales, Someone rolls by with their window lowered sons, he us up there on that screen, portraying
awards, that level of success is always a dice roll and shouts MBJ’s name. Someone else pulls to our tragedies and triumphs, living superhuman
based upon marketing and so many things that the side of the road and asks a security guard, “Is and human and all the while saying, Look, say-
are outside my personal control. And that’s a that Michael B. Jordan?” in disbelief. The guard ing, Look again, asking, Do you see us?
bet I ain’t willing to take. I won’t bet my emo- affirms it is, smirks as though the knowledge There’s a scene in Just Mercy—which MBJ
tional currency on that.” alone affords him some new status. The driv- produced in addition to starring in it, the
He looked off at something over my shoul- er, a woman, waits, waits, and then pulls away. point being he really wanted this movie out
der, considering, it seemed, what would be A man walking his daughter home from in the world—where the Jamie Foxx charac-
his measure. school yells at Jordan from the street. Jordan ter (the man condemned to death over a false
“I’ve always wanted respect from my peers,” looks up, bolts down the steps, and daps the conviction) asks Bryan Stevenson, the lawyer,
he said, “to be somebody that will be respected man—hug included. They talk for a bit, catch- why he’s trying to help when no one is pay-
forever, who has an amazing body of work, who ing up on people they know in common. ing him and the chance of success is so small.
affected these kids and these people. That’s This is what it means to be home, that there’s Jordan-as-Stevenson says, “I know what it’s
my greatness. It’s my scope and my reach. My no place like it for those who ain’t forgot it. like to be in the shadows.”
greatness I want measured by the people that On the ride to Newark Penn Station, I watch Here let me go on record as one who holds
I put on. Like, actor X ten years from now, he the city scroll past my window, mostly tall great faith that when Michael B. Jordan jets
has a career that has far exceeded mine. And buildings made of brown bricks, and color- off to Berlin and wherever else, that when
ask him, ‘Who looked out?’ And he’ll say me.” ful storefront signs, and wide avenues, and I he mounts another festival stage looking su-
think of MBJ and a black car loaded with his per swagfabulous or wanders another Hol-
team zoom, zoom, zooming to make his Ber- lywood shindig with the earpiece dudes in
lin flight, think of how exhausted he must be tow or perches front-row for a fashion show
The last shoot of the day is in front of the but how he wouldn’t wish it otherwise. or poses for a cover shoot for another mag-
school. A few students who’ve now been dis- For fact, I’m under no illusions that MBJ azine, the plight of the disfavored won’t be
missed hang across the street, watching the and I are fast friends. The truth is, we won’t far from his mind, and he will be plotting
crew set up, their circumspection turning to be exchanging texts or sending each other hol- all the while more ways to use his limelight
ogling when Jordan slugs out the front door. iday cards. There are odds about none we’ll to illume those who exist in the shadows, a
School security guards stand at each side of the run into each other months or years from place where I once dwelled, where far too
front steps, redirecting passersby while Jordan now and fill each other in on lost time. And many exist still.

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