“Let’s run one then. See how rusty I am with the rock,” was all I said. Vega blew the whistle, excited by the athletic option more than by the potential bloodshed.
He announced, “Basketball is a team sport. We not gon’ run a one-on-one at practice. Instead give me my top five versus the bottom five. Today, only for one day, I give any player on the bottom five the opportunity to replace a player on the top five for the whole stretch including the championship, not with your words or your temper, only with your skill. Show and prove. But the deal is, losers, whoever they are or whoever it is, handle the loss not on the streets, but as real sportsmen. Whoever loses, if you or y’all fail to handle it like men, it won’t be you versus the player who defeated you. It will be you versus the league. And if you run to the streets breaking the league code of silence for any reason, no matter who you are, you will be dealt with, severely.”
Me, Panama Black, Machete, Jaguar, and Big Mike teamed up, the top five. Braz, who gets play, Dolo and the four bench riders formed a huddle. They argued, pushed each other around, and fought at first. They couldn’t start the game ’cause there were six of them and only five of ’em could play. Dolo dubbed himself their captain and told the sixth man to sit down with the same venom that Braz had told him to sit down and shut the fuck up. Vega watched them. So did I. My adrenaline was working. Panama was talking up a storm, getting Big Mike pumped on how he had to take down the center player from “the bottom five,” named Tower.
The whistle blew. Big Mike and Tower jumped for it. Tower tapped it and the ball was moving in Dolo’s direction. I jumped up and snatched it midair, passing it before landing back on my feet, to Machete in the left corner pocket. Machete took the shot, two points. Panama was smiling, his two gold-framed front teeth shining. He couldn’t stop grinning. I didn’t score the whole first half just to allow the bottom five to get cocky sloppy, while feeding my team. I just showcased my complete control handling the ball, faking them out, stripping them and leaving them with their hands in the air like they were still holding the ball, but I had already swiped it. I dribbled through legs and leaped up, snatching everything they shot right off the backboard. The second half I heated up. I started hitting those threes, “all net.” I pulled down twenty-eight points in the second half before the clock ticked down. We ran the bottom five ruthlessly, without any respect. Sent Dolo home after dunking on him, with tears in his eyes.
“Good game,” Vega had told him. “You might not want to hear it, but I’ll tell you anyway. I learned in life to play my position. I’m not the top guy and I know it. But I’m good right here where I’m standing. You gotta get comfortable letting the top guys run the top. If not, you gotta find another arena to dominate in.”
Vega grabbed all the black team players into a huddle, the top and the bottom five. Dolo didn’t huddle, couldn’t shake himself back into the team spirit. He became “the sixth man,” ’cause he walked out.
“Don’t worry about him,” Vega said. No one did. Although I knew he would become a problem. In fact, the whole neighborhood where the black team practiced in a rented high school gym was a potential problem for me.
* * *
The night before I caught a flight to Japan, I had a confrontation in an alleyway in this ’hood. Uncertain of whether the dude I banged on was dead or alive was problem number one. As a rule, I never revisit a crime scene after the deed is done. So I wouldn’t. Second problem was a girl called “Bangs.” She lived in the ’hood where the black team practiced. She was the reason I had to take down the older man in the alleyway. But she is not my woman. Bangs is a lively and pretty Brooklyn girl my same age, who chose me for herself, cheered for me, lusted me, and may have even loved me. Normally she showed up every time I had ball practice and at each game, wearing a bright white tight tee with midnight-blue letters plastered over her 36D’s that said MIDNIGHT. I admit, I had an urge for her, but not strong enough to wife her. Still, I respected her enough not to go in her, for that same reason. She made it hard for me, but Islam made it easy. If she’s not your wife, you don’t go in her. If you want her, don’t play with her. Marry her. Take care of her. Love and treat her good.
I expected that since I was back in her ’hood for the first time in forty days, she might not be at practice waiting on my arrival. She had no way of knowing where I had gone or when I would return. At the same time, I fully expected her to smell me somehow, and come running up in her tube top, wearing shorts tiny as Victoria’s Secrets and no stockings or socks, body-rousing the beast in men the whole way.
I decided that from then on, when I ball for the black team, I’d go straight from the train to the gym or to the outdoor court behind the gym, whichever one we were using at that moment, and straight from the gym or outdoor court to the train. No familiar walk-throughs, visits, shortcuts, or dashes through the alleyways or side streets like before. Vega had given us the practice and game schedule. Fortunately, I only had one week of practices in this area. The rest were away games. The playoffs were scheduled for June 27 through July 4. I checked how the championship game was being held on the Fourth of July at noon. It was the earliest time slot for a game we ever played. I preferred the night games. When I asked Vega about the time, he informed the whole team that because we are the junior division, we had to rock with that early game, which is the championship game of our season but the first scrimmage of the “big boys,” Hustler League’s season. “The ’hood gon’ come out in full force for the eighteen-and-up ‘official’ street ballers.”
Panama Black said, “The ’hood gon’ come out heavy for us too. We younger, stronger, quicker, and . . .”
“Undefeated,” Braz said.
I wasn’t hiding from Bangs. I know men control the action. The action should never control the man. However, my mind, my heart, and my hands were full. My business was booming. I knew one slip-up to the left or the right could smoke a blessing, ruin a reputation, and cause a setback it would take years to set straight. My sensei once taught me that “the best thinker is the one who can think ahead of the present time and set a strategy into motion that will best secure his future.” I was making my best effort to do that.
On the train heading home, I thought of Marty Bookbinder. He owned a bookstore in that problematic ’hood where the black team practiced. Way back when, I took him for a friend, an older man who I ordered books from and played chess with. I smiled, thinking of how I came to be able to beat him at what he believed was his own game. I definitely wanted to check him. I even needed to put in time for a few games so I’d remain a sharp chess player. I believed that Santiaga was a man who would follow up on his challenge to me for a game of chess. When he does, I want to be lethal.
20. MARCUS
“It’s for you,” Chiasa said, handing me the blue phone. Our eyes locked. Her father had never requested to speak to me and he was the only one who called her on the blue phone. She felt me, then mouthed, “It’s Marcus.” I nodded for her to leave the room even though it’s her bedroom. She left.
“Go,” I said.
“It’s Marcus,” he said.
“What?”
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Date, time, and place,” I said.
“First things first, I hope you’re not the type of dude who engages in pillow talk,” he said. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, so I didn’t say nothing, just waited for him to tell me when and where and at what time he wanted to fight. “No matter what happens,” he began saying, “and no matter the outcome, you and me, we don’t involve no mothers, aunts, or girl cousins in our beef,” Marcus said.
“No women,” I summed it up for him. Then I said, “What else would it be?” to let him know that’s how I normally handle man-to-man conflict. Girls and guns, I keep ’em separate.
“Meet me tomorrow night at nine p.m. on 120th and Riverside Drive, the park between Riverside and the West Side Highway,” he said.
“A’ight,” I agreed. ?
??Tomorrow at nine p.m. No women and no cops,” I said.
“Definitely no cops, and no guns,” he added on. I hung up.
Instinctively, while thinking about it, I started doing push-ups on Chiasa’s bedroom floor. I was already in my basketball shorts from the early evening practice. Exercise never fails to speed up my thought process, brings me new ideas and strategies about anything on my mind at the time. Besides, exercise is daily; morning, afternoon, and night, second only to my prayers.
She knocked lightly. I didn’t answer. I was keeping the count. She turned her knob and pushed in slightly. Now her face was in and her body was on the other side of her door. The whites of her eyes were shining like headlights set on high beam. She came in and dropped down beside me and began doing push-ups as well. Her being right next to me, and seeing her pretty arms and shoulders, diluted my concentration and fucked up the count.
“Sixty-eight, sixty-nine,” she said, as she started counting for me from where I had left off. She was smiling at me, and I was getting drawn in by those long lashes.
“I’m breathing harder than you,” she said. I didn’t respond, just picked up the count where she’d stopped counting.
“Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one,” I said, counting aloud. When I reached one hundred, she stopped pushing up. When I raised up on one hundred and two, she rolled over and beneath me. So, when I went down, she and I were pressed together.
“Tell me,” is all she said, breathing hard and catching her breath. I raised up off of her and said, “One hundred and three.” When I came down, she wrapped her arms around me and would not let go. I went up. “One hundred and four,” I said. Now I was raised up and her body was clinging to me, adding enough weight onto a man who did a hundred a clip to cause me to come crashing down. We laughed.
“Sshh,” she said, and went into her “secret love mode” that she’d made up for us. “What did he want?” she whispered to me. She was curious about the convo I’d just had with Marcus. I was thinking, At least she is smart enough not to say his name to me. Even though he is her blood-related cousin, that would be too much.
“You slid beneath me,” I said to her.
“Yeah, I did,” she answered softly.
“So focus . . . on what I want.”
* * *
After the before-sunrise prayer, I was on Riverside Drive at the park, in my sweats, gripping my ball. I was checking it out. I had given Marcus some advantages I would never willingly give up to any other fighter, rival, or enemy. I allowed him to choose the location of our battle. So of course, he had chosen Harlem, his own territory. It would be familiar, almost second nature to him, and unfamiliar to me. I had also allowed him to choose the time. Of course he chose the cover of darkness, nighttime on his home territory. I allowed him to select the date. More than two weeks had elapsed since the first family dinner at Aunt Tasha’s, his father and mother’s house. Of course, he had been training his body every day since then, training and dreaming and scheming on how he could best get at me.
As I walked through this old park, I did a detailed survey of the area. I checked out the perimeter, the actual entrances and exits, the makeshift entrances and exits through the random holes in the fence as well as on the highway side.
Then I paused beneath the oak trees, looking at the bushes and scoping out possible hiding spaces where anyone could cover and spring out and attack. The fight between Marcus and me was supposed to be one-on-one. Still, I needed to consider that since we were on his territory, maybe he would have a crew laying in the cut in some of those hidden spaces. Ninjutsu training requires that one of my steps in a fight where I have time to plan must be to place myself into the mind of my opponent for my own good. If I could imagine his thoughts and strategies and moves, when he does actually make them, I have already eliminated the element of surprise, because I already saw those exact moves in my mind’s eye and have already examined my options and choreographed my responses.
I spotted a big boulder and pressed my Tims against it to see if it moves. I was imagining throwing down an opponent, his head accidentally smashing open on that bolder. That wouldn’t be good. I did not want murder, and did not have murder on my mind. I would put the hurt on him, though. I wanted him to feel the pain so the pain could be a reminder for him to stay in his lane . . . since we are family and I planned to love his cousin, my wife and second mother—to my first wife’s children—Insha’Allah and first mother to her and my children, Insha’Allah, for as long as Allah gave me breath.
In the play area, I was scoping out the benches, the swings, the caves, and the monkey bars. It was a place made for children. At the same time at night when no children would be out here, all of these would become weapons, especially for a fighter who could leap, launch, and “fly,” as my sister Naja called some of the moves in martial arts that she observed at my dojo.
I was moving past the handball court, onto the dirt of the volleyball area with the ripped-up net. I was envisioning my opponent being kicked down to the ground, then secretly coming up with a fistful of sand or soil to throw in my eyes and gain the advantage.
Right outside of that area is a small workout spot with three pull-up bars, all positioned at varying heights. It looked like a challenge to me. I leapt onto the highest one, banged out fifty pull-ups, before I lifted my legs, brought them towards my head, and then hung on the bar by my quads. I was experiencing now the feeling of reversing my blood circulation. Everything was upside down and my eyes were facing the sky. The promise of the sun was being delayed by hordes of crowded and busy black clouds. It felt like the clouds were having a massive meeting, where they were plotting a conspiracy to kill the sun. I smiled, knowing that the clouds, despite their numbers and movements, could delay but could never defeat the sun.
Arriving at their basketball court—rims, no nets, uneven and slightly shorter than regulation height—I thought, aloud. Instead of a fight, He should’ve challenged me to a game on his court. That way, no blood would be drawn and his defeat would be easier for his ego to manage. Then suddenly I heard my sensei’s voice in my mind, the simple but true advice cautioning me to never underestimate my opponent. I smiled again, thinking to myself, true dat.
At the same time, though, I was also thinking, What’s this cat’s motivation for this fight? What did he stand to gain or to lose? He didn’t attempt to place a wager on the outcome. There was no prize or reward in it for him. If we fought one-on-one as agreed, and no one else saw it, there was no glory in it for him. I reminded myself not to bang my brain on it. It was next to impossible for me to understand the African-American mindset. Most of them were mad at the things that should make them happy, I thought, and content and stagnant with the things that should make them make moves. Too many of them hated the exact things that they should love, I thought. Consequently, they loved the things that should be hated. It didn’t seem to matter whether they were educated or uneducated; street cats or PhDs; rich or poor, or stuffed in between rich and poor. They all seemed to be comfortable with sex, yet fearful of love. Most of them seemed to be completely against marriage at any age, especially marriage before sex, or marriage between young adults.
The young females expected any guy who they found attractive to sex them, fuck them automatically, and to fuck them good, but at the same time, they humiliated and disrespected good guys who actually loved them, while they worshipped and chased and loved guys who ran through and abused them. They feared pregnancy and hated the thought of babies, and had already decided on abortions even before they conceived. How the hell was I supposed to understand people who thought and lived like that? To me it was all backwards.
Marcus hated that I had married his cousin, and his whole family appeared uncomfortable with how much she loved me and I loved her and that we were wedded and certain. Yet I had not disrespected his cousin, his parents’ niece, my wife. I had not gone into her without marrying her first. I had not sexed her and abandoned her, or impregnated her and kil
led our baby. I had loved her and married her, and went into her only after marriage, and brought her to my home and protected and provided for her. Shouldn’t that make them happy? Instead, this dude wanted to fight. My thoughts led me to the conclusion that he had a thing for my wife, even though she is his cousin. Now I’m heated and tight. Now I’m hanging, two hands on the rim that I’d just slam-dunked my ball through. It was on the ground rolling and I was just suspended in the air.
“Wanna get a game?” some Harlem dude asked me, after tracking down my ball. I dropped down, didn’t even agree, but accepted.
“Check,” he said, taking it back, and the one-on-one started. I was playing, but I was in my head heavy. I was stealing the ball, dribbling, pushing it back and forth through my legs while fancy footing it, spinning, and laying it up.
“Two,” was all I said. Fuck it, now I was thinking of Marcus, the way a ninjutsu warrior thinks of his enemy. My mind was converting him from family into someone I wouldn’t cease fighting until the deed was done.
In my mind’s eye, I was seeing the metal trash cans. In this park, they were chained to the bench. I was planting a burner beneath it. I was burying and camouflaging my kunai knives in the soil, handle up so I could swiftly swoop down and grab them and fire them into his chest.
“Four,” I said. I was seeing a human anatomy map in my mind, the one that sensei posted on the board in my private lessons. “Six,” I said. I was deciding whether I was going to target his joints and break limbs, or just swipe a gentle cut through his brachial artery with my knife and let him bleed to death while he figured out that fighting me was a lose-lose situation for himself from the start. “Eight,” I said. I was seeing him trying to fight dirty, wearing brass knuckles and banging the sharp metal against my temple. “Ten,” I said. I was seeing him wearing a spiked ring and trying to gouge out one of my eyes and then drag the ring down, cutting open my face and trying to fuck up my look so my second wife could look at me differently than she does. “Twelve,” I said. I was seeing him pulling out the four-pound after saying, “No guns,” and then letting off.