Jumpy J. Jackson was albino, and everybody stared at first. I know, I stared too. But at the end of the day there’s players and there’s breakers, and homey could dance.

First time I saw him, he came up to the cardboard and we just stopped, wondering who this white boy was and what he was doing out here on the west side. Laville actually told him off then and there, didn’t faze him at all. Jumpy just cleared us all back out of the way, smiling all freckly with a gleam in his eye, clicked on the Run-DMC and then he cut loose.

“Laville,” somebody said, “this cat’s blacker than you!”

And he was, I guess, doing windmills like we never saw and making the whole crew look bad. I never really thought about it like that before, that “black” and “white” didn’t really mean anything necessarily. Because here was a brother through and through, and maybe he didn’t know Philly like we did, and maybe he wasn’t dark like us, but, well, it didn’t really matter. Jumpy J. Jackson was legit.

And that was good enough for us.