Pick-Up Game Page 9

  I think he killed people in Iraq and it did something to his head. Once I asked him about it. We was in the living room eating tacos. The TV was on with the sound off. The news was on, and they was showing all these little Iraqi kids running from a army tank. Those kids looked dirty as hell, and I couldn’t figure out where their parents was. All the buildings was mad rubbly. Some Iraqi dudes came out of an alley and started throwing rocks at the tank. Rocks and Coca-Cola bottles. It wasn’t even fair.

  I went, “Did you kill anyone over there?”

  But he didn’t answer. He just looked at me all dead-like and said, “Eat your taco, Shane.”

  At West 4th, Hazel was holding on to the fence with her right hand now. You could see how she bit her nails down to nothing. I never saw her biting them, but you could tell it was a habit.

  She went, “So the summer’s flying by.”

  I was like, “I’m hip.”

  “School’s gonna start before we know it.”

  I nodded.

  I wondered if we would still hang out in the garden. If Mrs. Ryan would still need me to walk Derek.

  Hazel said, “You going to Fort Hamilton?”

  I was like, “Yeah.”

  “Sometimes I wish I could go to a public school.”

  I was like, “You goin’ back to that fancy one?”

  “Yep,” she said. “Just ordered my new skirt.”

  “Was it expensive?”

  She said, “I don’t know. Ingrid paid for it.”

  I was like, “You call your moms by her first name?”

  She went, “Not in front of her.”

  The heat was making sweat run down my face and in my eyes. They was mad burning.

  I couldn’t stand lying to Hazel, so I told her the truth.

  I was like, “Can I tell you something?”

  She was like, “Uh-oh. What?”

  “I ain’t really in high school yet.”

  She was like, “You’re not?”

  I shook my head and pulled the bill of my hat down over my face.

  She pushed it back up and went, “Are you like in junior high?”

  All I could do was nod.

  “Really, Shane?”

  I said, “I’m going into the eighth grade.”

  I felt mad stupid.

  I went, “I didn’t mean to lie to your moms. I needed a job.”

  Then Hazel let go of the fence and was like, “Don’t worry — I won’t tell her.”

  “Cool,” I said.

  On the court, Waco grabbed a board and handed the rock to this Dominican dude with crazy dreads called Judgment.

  I said, “I told you the truth ’cause I like you.”

  Hazel was like, “I like you too, Shane.”

  I said, “On God?”

  She was like, “You believe in God?”

  I was like, “I don’t know. Not really. It’s just an expression.”

  She said, “On God, then.”

  I went, “You like, like like me or you like, like me as a friend?”

  She said, “Both.”

  Then I went, “Word.”

  And she said it too. She was like, “Word.”

  Then I took a deep breath and said, “Maybe we could meet up for real sometime.”

  She smiled and said, “Meet up for real and do what?”

  I said, “I don’t know. Go see a movie. Do somethin’ romantic-like.”

  She went, “Something romantic-like, huh?”

  Her dimples was mad dimpling.

  I said, “I might be younger than you, but I got my own business.”

  Then she looked at me for like a whole minute. She was still smiling. “OK, Shane,” she said. “You’re on.”

  On the court, Caesar started talking smack.

  He turnt to the crowd and was like, “See what happens if he try dunkin’ on me again.”

  Then on the very next play, Judgment stole the ball from this herky-jerky white point guard with a headband they call Chris Cringle. Judgment threw an oop to Waco, and he caught another dunk right on Caesar’s head. The crowd went bananas. Even Hazel got excited. Judgment gave Waco a pound while they was running back on D. He was so amped, his dreads was bouncing like a monster.

  Then Caesar walked right up to Waco and busted him in the face. Waco didn’t see it coming, and he went to a knee. The whole place went quiet, and all you could hear was traffic going by. When Waco stood back up, Caesar was right up in his grill, trying to get him to fight. But Waco just stood there, all calm and collected-like. He didn’t even blink; he just stared back at Caesar. Then Caesar bitch-slapped him and called him a ho but Waco just kept standing there.

  Caesar was like, “You just gonna stand there?” Then to the crowd he went, “Kid don’t never go home.”

  Judgment was like, “Chill, Caesar.”

  Then to Waco, Caesar said, “Don’t you got a fuckin’ life, B?”

  Then someone in the crowd went, “You’re the one who needs to get a life, you big bully!”

  It was some old white lady with a cane. She was mad angry.

  Then Caesar went, “Punk-ass bitch think he hard, dunkin’ on niggas. He ain’t shit.”

  Waco went, “Let’s just play,” and then Methadone Joe and this little black dude they call Squeaky finally pulled Caesar away and they checked the ball and finished the game.

  Waco’s team won by four. He could’ve dunked another one — he went baseline and was mad airborne, but he laid it in with the left. His hand was like a foot over the rim and everyone knew he could’ve banged it.

  Even Hazel knew it.

  She went, “He could’ve easily dunked that.”

  I nodded and smiled.

  Waco’s mouth was mad bleeding, but he just kept playing through it like pain ain’t nothing but a penny you keep in your pocket.

  “What’s going on? Are they about to fight?”

  “Ahhh, a buncha nothin’. Just arguing over the score. As usual.”

  “But that one guy just punched the other guy.”

  “Yeah, but if they ain’t fightin’ yet, they ain’t gonna.”

  “Do they ever get into fights here?”

  “Some cats more than others ’cause they used to it. Like Caesar right there, dude that just threw one? I be seeing him uptown all the time — Rucker, Dyckman, Goat Park, and in some of them parks, it ain’t no thing to swing. But here, in the Cage, it ain’t all about that rah-rah.”

  “What-what?”

  “Rah-rah. Noise. Drama. You ain’t from here, huh?”

  “My brother and I are here from Herzegovina.”

  “Hurtsa-go-where? It don’t matter, ’cause that’s what I’m talking about. Ballers here know that folks come from all over the world to check out the Cage. Everybody wanna see the show.”

  Looked like a raid. A cop car, flashing lights, no siren, tore down 6th Avenue leading three unmarked white vans. They pulled up along the curb in front of the Cage. Doors banged open; guys piled out. They marched right onto the court. ESPN started screaming at them until the big sergeant waved his arms and yelled, “OK, fellas, that’s it. We got next.”

  Caesar stuck his big face in. “You got . . .” He said the dirty words in Spanish.

  A bearded guy with a camera said, “Let’s move it, chop-chop, it’s magic time.”

  ’Nique said, “Magic time?”

  ESPN said, “Must be shootin’ a movie. Magic time is about the light.” He straightened his shirt and stripped off his goggles.

  “It’s a PSA,” said the cop. “Let’s go.”

  “You can’t do this,” said ’Nique.

  “Just did,” said the cop. “Off the court.”

  “You got a permit?” I said.

  Everybody looked at me, hanging on the outside of the fence. I felt hot all over. Nobody ever looked at me down at the Cage, and I didn’t know where the words came from.

  “Don’t need a permit,” said the bearded guy. “This is a PSA for the city. You know
what PSA stands for?”

  “Doesn’t matter if it’s public service or not,” I said. “You can’t shoot on city property without the paperwork.”

  “You some kind of lawyer?” said the cop.

  “My dad’s a lawyer,” I lied. “Everybody knows you need a permit.”

  I went from hot to cold. Not only was everybody looking at me for the first time, actually listening to me, but it was like I had the ball and they were waiting for me to run the play. I pushed down on my cane to make me taller.

  “So let’s see the permit,” said ’Nique. She turned and winked at me. I went back to hot. That is a girl and a half. I can’t even have fantasies about her.

  I looked around. Besides the ten ballers on the court, there were about twenty guys from the vans. The ones who weren’t carrying equipment were dressed for hoops, but maybe not in the same century. There were old guys with bulging blue veins in their legs and teenagers and superfit guys who looked like they played in those killer lawyer leagues, like Dad did. They were wearing tie-dyes and old-school tight little satins and long NBA unis. I looked at their faces. They all had good haircuts and very white teeth, even the geezers. They were actors.

  The bearded guy was tapping his foot and wagging a finger at the cop. “Get it on the road, Kevin. I’m losing the light.”

  The cop was sweating. “You know,” he shouted, “I could run you all for administrative obstruction.”

  “Then you be back in the Bronx, Kevin,” said ’Nique. She looked at me. “What you think, Cane?”

  I liked that. I had a name. From her. “I think we need to see the permit.”

  The cop pulled out a piece of paper and waved it. “Satisfied?”

  “No,” said ’Nique. She snatched it and pushed it through the fence to me. “This legal?”

  My hands were trembling. It was a legal permit all right, but it was for the Happy Warrior Park uptown, the one we called Goat Park. It was where Dad played pick-up and where he started teaching me. I figured something must have happened up there, the drug dealers ran the PSAs off and they came down to the Village to bull their way into the Cage.

  “We have a situation,” I said.

  “You got a solution?” said the bearded guy.

  “You talking to that kid?” said the cop.

  “Beats talking to you,” said the bearded guy. He beckoned to me. “Get in here, Cane.”

  People got out of my way as I limped along the fence to the opening. It seemed to take a long time, but nobody said anything. People are usually trying to hurry me along or get me out of their way, saying “Excuse me” so nasty it sounds like something Caesar would say to Anglos in Spanish.

  It was the first time I’d ever been inside the Cage when there were lots of other people inside. Winter before last, after Dad and I went to a movie across the street, we walked around the empty court and I pretended I was in a game. Dad was pretty weak by then and he had to sag against the fence, but he didn’t rush me, he was enjoying watching me. Nobody around but handball players and the thwack of three little blue balls against the wall. The tall pale guy called Waco showed up with a basketball, and when it rolled to me, I picked it up at midcourt and drained it. He bounced it back to me and asked me to do that again, and I did. He rebounded and kept feeding me. Six in a row. Dad was nodding and grinning, but he was also sliding down the fence, so I finally tossed the ball back and went to help him. We shuffled out and then down the subway steps outside the Cage. Lots of “Excuse me”s behind us.

  The bearded guy came over and shook my hand. “I’m Waldo Monji, the director of this —”

  “You directed Themes,” I said. “Most underrated indie of the year.”

  His eyes bugged. “I thought no one saw it. What’s your name?”

  “You can call me Cane.” I felt good. Themes was underrated because there were only one or two worse films that year. Dad said it gave the word pretentious added meaning. We were seeing a lot of movies that last year, about all he could do, and we picked them apart for plot and character. It was quicker than reading novels. Dad was trying to pass along everything he knew while there was time.

  “How old are you, Cane?”

  If I told him I was sixteen, I’d lose credibility, so I just shook my head as if age was unimportant. I’m not small, and somehow the limp and the cane make me seem older. For sure, makes me feel older.

  “So,” I said, trying to sound important, “we need to resolve this situation by . . .”

  Kevin the Cop and ESPN began growling at the same time. Caesar said, “We ain’t moving, so let’s play, we —”

  “We’re not moving, either,” said Monji.

  “We’ll move you,” said Caesar. A couple of his cousins came in, as tall as him and wider. The guys from the van pushed closer, and then a couple of hard hats shouldered their way through to back up Caesar’s crew. They looked like Indians, American Indians, the kind who climb high steel. One of them was coughing, that 9/11 hack.

  Kevin the Cop unhooked the radio from his belt and lifted it up to his face.

  “Hold on,” snapped Waco. “We need to resolve this situation right now.” The ghost talks! I never heard him say anything much beyond a few words on a break. “Cane, you got a plan?”

  I looked around slowly, as if I had a plan. How did I get into this? All the time coming down to the Cage with Dad, then without him, I’d been invisible. We’d work our way to the fence, then hang on it, lost in a live hoops movie. Then go eat somewhere in the Village, maybe see a real movie. After he was gone, I’d come alone but it wasn’t the same. Coming to the Cage was about being together, not so much about hoops.

  This was going to be my last visit, kind of my private memorial service. I’d been there most of the day, back and forth for food a couple of times, sometimes resting in the jungly park on the uptown side of the court when my leg started throbbing. Interesting day. Some Vietnamese guys I never saw before ran the Cage, and Caesar came close to clocking ESPN for calling him Mira Mira, which is a good nickname for a guy who wants you to look at him, and some chick-o-lattes (as Dad called them) vogued the fence line and this film-school dork made a big deal, like he was Spike instead of Thumbtack, until ’Nique dusted him off. I should have tried to talk to him, offered to gofer. Dad always said writers need to make connections. I could write a movie, excuse me, film, for the dork.

  “Earth to Cane,” said Monji. People laughed. I hadn’t heard that line in years.

  “OK,” I said. “Can’t waste magic time. Here’s the deal. A compromise. We’ll allow Mr. Monji to shoot his PSA.” I expected the shouts from the players, so I lifted my cane for quiet. “But one of the teams has to be picked from players on the court. Our players.”

  Caesar said, “Who elected the handicapped?”

  “OK, this is enough,” said Kevin the Cop. He started to push people. They pushed back. His hat came off. He raised his radio.

  Monji and Waco lifted their arms at the same time. When they spotted each other, they nodded, and I could tell they were going to make my plan happen.

  “It’s fair,” said Waco.

  “It’s better than fair,” said Monji. “It’ll look authentic.”

  “You’re gonna need me,” said ESPN. He flexed his arms and tightened his jawline. “It wouldn’t be . . . authentic . . . without the franchise player.”

  “He’s right,” said ’Nique. “More important to look like you got game than to have game.”

  “No matter what you do, ’Nique,” said ESPN, “you not gonna wake up tomorrow with male equipment.”

  Even the actors started hooting.

  I started edging back toward the opening. Get a good spot on the fence to watch this. Took out my cell. I hadn’t shot anything since Dad’s little speech to me, from his bed, three days before he died. Watched it almost every day for weeks on the bus to school. Dad was looking right down the barrel, saying, “You’re smart, you’re strong, you can do anything you want, Davey. No limp i
n your brain. I’m going to be with you all the way. Be kind to Mom and keep taking your best shot.”

  “Where you going, Cane?” said Waco. “You’re our captain. Pick the team.”

  “Me?”

  “Who else?” said ’Nique. She cocked an eyebrow at ESPN, then at Caesar. “Poof Daddy? The Hulk?”

  “We’re looking for diversity, Cane,” said Monji. “Watch me. Actors!”

  The hoopsters from the vans lined up. There were about a dozen of them. Monji marched up and down twice. He tapped five of them on the shoulder. A white geezer with a pot belly, an Asian kid my age, a Hispanic guy who looked like a model, a gangsta rapper, and a white woman who looked like one of those skinny tough assistant district attorneys on crime shows.

  “Get the idea, Cane?” said Monji. “New York as a mix of types that can win as a team. The 1970 Knicks, only real people of today’s Big Apple.”

  The ballers crowded around me. ’Nique got really close. I lost a breath until I noticed her skin wasn’t so clear. Never been that near to her before. Somehow that made me feel better. She wasn’t perfect either.

  I stepped back, looked them over. I knew every one of them, their moves, what they could and couldn’t do on the court. Knew things about them they didn’t even know, since Dad and I talked about them, made up stories for them on the subway home. I loved that part of the trip most of all, Dad coming up with a detail, then throwing it to me.

  Why you think ’Nique always keeps space around her, elbows and knees out? Nobody gets close even though she’s fast enough to fake. She’s afraid of contact, I said. Maybe she’s been beat up. I like that, said Dad. If you’re going to be a writer, you have to be thinking like that all the time.

  ESPN, he would say, why does he need attention so much? I’d say, Lack of self-esteem? OK, Dad would say, but why? What’s going on in his life? I’d say, He lives in a rathole, he’s not smart, basketball’s his only ticket out, and he’s not so sure his ticket is gonna get punched. Dad would laugh and say, Not as dumb as you look.

  Dad and I got tight around basketball. Those last two years were the best. Mom says it’s sad he had to be dying to become intimate with his own son, but she’s still bitter about him. When we all lived together on the West Side, he was never around, teaching at the college or writing in his office. In good weather he’d be in Goat Park around the corner on Amsterdam or uptown at Rucker or the Kingdome. In the winter he’d be in a gym somewhere banging away, usually in those tough lawyer leagues where he was good enough to be a ringer. Dad started in high school and came off the bench in college, and he had hopes for me until the accident. Mom said he felt guilty about that; he was supposed to be watching me instead of playing when I wandered out in front of a couple of kids racing bikes. I was eight. I heard I was lucky to keep the leg.