Neutral Ground -- No Longer Neutral

I did it, guys. Friday night, at 6:30 pm, I met my tutor for my first lesson in Magic Cards. We met outside of Neutral Ground—or, as I like to call it, the Magic Kingdom—on West 37^th Street. Through the glass, one could see cards and games for sale, and a line of people, who I soon discovered were registering for a tournament.

Among them, the man who started it all. The man who inspired this post and this scorned card. It was him.

I almost had a heart attack. My tutor, who is married to a white strong black woman, offered to put his wedding ring in his pocket to help me look cool. I told him it was all right (meanwhile, I slipped my ring from my right to left hand—just, you know, so Mr. Magic would think he’d really missed the boat—or, in my case, the slave ship?). We went inside, and my nostrils were immediately assaulted with a scent that can only be described as a combination of body odor and insecurity, as young boys and a few masculine females of all ages sat at long cafeteria-style tables playing card games. Flat-screen PCs lined the walls, where high-tech kids could play various computer games. Mr. Magic was well ahead of us, but I saw him again when we went upstairs to find a place to play.

He sat, cockily swigging his cola, as some angry pale man told me and my tutor that we couldn’t sit up there because “a tourney was about to start and it’s reserved.”

TRUTHfully, I was glad we wouldn’t have to sit near magic. I knew I’d need to focus all my energies on mastering the game, and couldn’t be distracted by thoughts of vengeance.

We took a seat downstairs, and my tutor—a 27-year-old Diversity University graduate with a high-falutin’ job—began to pull out huge packages of various magic cards from his backpack.

“I was going to make you a deck at work today, but I got really busy, so we’ll have to make it now,” he said, as he sorted through the booty he’d collected over the years.

I sat, feeling about as nervous and awkward as the chubby dateless girl at a middle school dance. And although I knew I was a strong black woman, I kept glancing around to see if Mr. Magic was around.

Either that lying sack of mana (which means land, I’ve learned, and provides the strength needed to cast spells) didn’t see me, or he really is a talented—albeit UNEMPLOYED—actor, who just pretended not to see a blacktress. We never acknowledged each other’s presence, but I saw him up in there, playing a magic tournament on a damn Friday night, like he was too good for a blacktress.

Although I know I should relax, relate, and release my anger, I don’t do well with seeing old rejectors after the fact. One of the primary reasons I date people who live in outer boroughs is because I want them to disappear after the inevitable fallout. While dating a dude who lives in Sunset Park may be a pain in the ass, breaking up ain’t so hard to do. I often like to think that men who have wronged me have died in a car crash—the same one that killed Boyz II Men and the talented Michael Jackson (I miss them so much!). It’s not gruesome or violent, it’s more like their car hits a tree that then shuttles them into an alternate universe or place in time, much like the Delorean in Back to the Future. The presence of Mr. Magic, in all his magic-playing glory, still alive and kicking as though he’s better off without a blacktress almost stopped me from honing my skills as a true Magician.

So, for all of you dying to know, here’s how you play:

You shuffle your deck of cards. Each deck has a color, and with each color comes a different strategy. Oppresively enough, the black deck is the most dangerous (I’ll have to talk to someone about that), with the white deck being the simplest and most straightforward, strategy-wise. Colors can be combined to form a super-strategy deck of magical power, but I was advised not to get ahead of myself.

You and your opponent each pick 7 cards from your deck, and leave the rest to draw from (most decks have 60 cards, but as a newbie, I started off with about 30).

Lands are cards that represent just that—land. You want to lay out as many lands as possible, for the number of lands you have allows you to cast certain spells (eg: summoning a lion requires 2 lands and 1 of another other card. If you only have 1 land on the board, then you can’t summon—oh no!).

Okay, I could go on, but I’m getting kinda bored just writing it.

Basically, you want to get your opponents life points down from 20 to 0, and when you do that, you’ve won. You attack them with various spells, creatures, and hexes, and if they can’t defend themselves, the points are yours.

Playing the game, I imagined what young wizard Harry Potter must have felt when he had to cast spells at Hogwarts. My tutor was my very own Dumbledore—or, rather, Remus Lupin—who taught me to think positive thoughts and stay focused as the dementor that was Mr. Magic loomed above.

The things you can learn from this post are:

1. Magic cards is hard.
2. Spiking your cranberry juice with vodka will add a fun layer to the experience of being in Neutral Ground.
3. Only a blacktress can go to a gaming center and have Gossip-Girl style drama with one of the other dudes playing.
4. A married male friend who is willing to take off his ring to make you look cool is a true friend indeed.
5. Just because a guy doesn’t call you back doesn’t mean he’s dead. He may very well be in midtown playing in a magic card tournament.

Moving on From the Great De-HATERS-- With a Little Hope and MAGIC

The blacktress is suffering from a blacklash.
My mixed emotion and exaggeration regarding a white valedictorian of Morehouse and HBCUs in general has garnered some fierce opposition.

Well, as much as I’d love to discuss this some more with people who think I’m a self-hating negro, I’d rather move on, and entertain my loyal readers with some of Sojourner’s other truths.
This Friday night, at 6:30pm, I will be going to Neutral Ground to learn how to play Magic cards.

I kid you not.
One blog reader was deeply moved by my rejection by a Magic-card playing fellow, and offered to teach me his ways—or, as he really said: “I can tell that you deeply regret not playing Magic cards and dungeons & dragons and wearing shirts with wolves on them while in high school. I can teach you.”
I eagerly accepted—not only because I love nerdy awkwards and want to find a way into their inner circle, but because, in the words of Nicholas Cage in the hit action film “Face/Off”: To defeat him, I must become him.
TRUTH.

I’ve never been to Neutral Ground, where much of this "gaming" takes place, but it’s an establishment where young creative types can engage in role-playing and card games, and don their finest medieval attire among like-minded individuals.

I imagine it will be dimly lit and smell lightly of body odor, emanating from the teenagers who have yet to discover deodorant and are sweating profusely in excitement as they “tap their mana.”
That’s a Magic term.
I’m not sure what it means.
But I will find out.

In preparation for my Friday night of fun, I’ve gone to everyone’s favorite lending library, Wikipedia. Here’s an excerpt from its treatise on Magic:
Each game represents a battle between powerful wizards who use the magical spells, items, and fantastic creatures depicted on individual Magic cards to defeat their opponents. Although the original concept of the game drew heavily from the motifs of traditional fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, the gameplay of Magic bears little resemblance to pencil-and-paper adventure games, while having substantially more cards and more complex rules than many other card games.

“Substantially more cards”?!
“More complex rules”?
“Battle between powerful wizards”?!

Perhaps I’m in over my head. I’ve been out of college too long to grasp complex rules and hold multiple cards in my hand. I asked my guide a few questions about this foreign land to prepare myself for my immersion in “the other”. They included:

Is it anything like Go Fish? (if so, I’m prepared)
What, if any, connection does Neutral Ground have to the Underground Railroad?
Should I dress slutily in hopes of winning over an awkward man who has yet to know the tender touch of a woman?

His response:
It is nothing like go fish. I will be wearing whatever I wear to work. You should wear something like this:


I am going to buy this shirt and cut strategically placed and sexually suggestive slits in it.

I am so excited! I don’t know what to expect! What I know is this:

It is free to enter this “neutral ground” (ironically, the ground is called “neutral,” although much dueling takes place)—unless you are under the age of 18. They do this to discourage riff-raff from loitering about and selling cards in the manner of Prohibition-era smugglers (“I’ll give you two for $5, or 4 for $17, see?????”—imagine the child saying this while gesturing with a cigar).

From the establishment’s website, I don’t doubt a good time will be had, for its mission statement “is to provide the best possible gaming experience to everyone that enters our store. We offer comfortable seating, a clean and friendly atmosphere, and a huge selection of snacks and drinks to enjoy while gaming.”
Um, SNACKS?!
I’m in there like swimwear!!!

My guide (who shall remain nameless, because he is trapped in the closet about his card playing, much in the manner of R. Kelly--only without a firearm) says that I will be the hottest girl in the room, even hotter than the characters on the cards—who the young gentlemen apparently talk about with excitement.

I holla’d at a google image search just to get a sense of what the beauty standards were. Here’s what I found:



The card says “her sword sings more beautifully than any choir”—but is it a gospel choir????? I think not.

Wish me luck at Neutral Ground, guys!