The guys watching the game started yelling and carrying on and when I looked at the coach I saw that he was red. I should have just played it cool but instead I gave him a look which told him that I didn’t respect his game.
“Nice move,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Harris,” I said. “Greg Harris, but you can call me Slam.”
He didn’t pick the ball up. He just told everybody to report to the gym for practice the next day.
Everybody was around me after the practice and telling me what a nice game I had. Everybody except the guy I thought could play. He dressed by himself in a corner. He looked a little freaky, or maybe it was the coat he wore. It was black and long, almost down to his ankles, like the old cowboy coats you see in the movies sometimes. When he left, he didn’t say good-bye to anybody, just picked up his book bag and his horn and went.
“You and Nick are the best players on the team,” Ducky said, outside the school.
“Who’s Nick?” I asked.
“He’s the guy with the long coat,” Ducky said. “He plays bass sax. He’s good, too.”
I got home and told Derek I had made the basketball team.
“Grandma’s sick,” he said.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s sick,” he said. “I just told you that.”
“You eat anything?”
“No, Moms left some money to get some cold cuts but they had a drive-by on 141st Street so I didn’t go out,” he said.
“Anybody get hurt?”
“A little girl got nicked,” he said. “She ain’t hurt bad.”
Drive-bys really got to me. You can just be walking with somebody or going to the store and get shot because some dude don’t know how to shoot straight. I didn’t want to get shot on purpose, I knew I didn’t want to get shot by accident.
My locker is right next to Ducky’s and he thinks we’re tight. We’re not really tight but he’s okay and he can play a whole mess of guitar. One time he showed me the callouses on his hands. He’s real serious. But everything’s like desperation time with him.
“Did you see the article in the paper?” he asked me.
“What article?”
Ducky pulls out a folded-up paper from his notebook and shows it to me.
DOING IT THE HARD WAY
Latimer Arts Magnet School is facing its fifth losing season in as many years. But the South Bronx dancers, violinists, painters, and flute players will probably have the highest-average college enrollment in the city. They have their heads in the right places, the books, a rarity for high school students these days. But as for basketball, the Panthers will be doing a lot more purring than snarling.
“They got five losing seasons in a row?” I asked.
“Yeah, but they didn’t have to write it up so we look like a bunch of wimps,” Ducky said. “Especially that bit about us purring. You know what they’re calling us?”
“Yeah, I went to Carver last year, remember?” I said. “When Carver played Latimer, the coach gave the game to the bench.”
“You played for Carver?”
“I hurt my ankle so I didn’t play much,” I said. “And they had two good guards anyway. My friend Ice and a guy named Joe Crayton. Joe went on to play ball in junior college. If I had stayed at Carver, I would have taken his place this year.”
“I bet we have a winning season this year,” Ducky said.
“Bet on it,” I said. I got my stuff from my locker and started on out the building.
Latimer is a magnet school, which means that kids from all over the city can come to it. They come by train mostly, but some that live in Manhattan can get a bus up to the Bronx. A few kids even come in from Mount Vernon and Yonkers. They’re not supposed to be in the program but if they got an aunt or cousin or someone in the city they use their address. The school has a nice rep as a school for smart kids, mostly smart white kids.
I like the art lessons because you learn a lot. The dude who teaches art history is cool. He’s tall, about my height and from some of the paintings he showed us he did when he was young he can definitely draw. Now he’s just teaching. But when he shows you a painting he can make you see things in it that you wouldn’t notice if you just looked at it yourself. And the things he likes, a line or the way the light hits something, are different. I’m not sure exactly why I like it when he’s pleased about something, but I am. Most of the other classes were hard for me. When you have a lot of hard classes, one after the other, getting out of school at the end of the day is like getting out of a torture chamber or something. The streets in the South Bronx can look raggedy, but a day of classes when everybody knows what’s going on but you can make them look good.
It was cold and the wind was picking up newspapers from the street and blowing them around as I walked crosstown. News from three days before was flapping through the streets like it didn’t know it was old, like it was trying to be news again. The downtown train was crowded, mostly with kids from Roosevelt High. Some really fly Puerto Rican chicks were scoping me out and I gave them a look. I tried to remember what each one looked like so if I ever found one by herself I could say something like “Hey, don’t you go to Roosevelt?” When the fly girls got off on 161st Street, I shot them a smile and one of them winked. I should have said something to them while they were on the train.
It was warm out for the first of December and a lot of people were out on their stoops when I reached the neighborhood. The lottery was up to twenty-something million dollars and people were running their mouths about that. Billy Giles, the guy who runs the bike shop, was showing off this new bike he had. He was saying that it only weighed fifteen pounds and had everybody lift it to check it out. It was light, but I don’t like no light bicycle like that. It might be fast but if a car hit you on that light sucker you will definitely get a tag for your big toe.
Over in the park some guys were playing dominoes and having a good time. There was a girl there trying to sell some old jazz records but nobody was buying. She looked like a crack head and most of the dudes hated it when a girl got her string cut loose from crack. That’s cause they know what she got to do to get the money for the stuff.
Some guys were running a full-court game but there was too much arguing and cursing going on. It was one of those games when they play two minutes and then argue five. They even argue about the score when they know what the score is.
The block was jumping. A guy was selling movie tapes near the subway stop. An old dude with one eye was selling sausages from a pushcart. Halfway down the street the car wash was busy because the weather had broke a little and the brothers were lined up to get their machines clean. With Christmas coming up everybody was trying to get some money together.
“Yo, Slam, what’s happening!”
I turn and there’s Ice walking down the street with Mtisha. Mtisha was looking her usual fine self.
“Man, what you doing walking down the street with my dream?” I asked Ice.
“How she your dream when we in love?” Ice comes back.
“Where y’all going?”
“To get some wedgies,” Mtisha said. “Come on and go with us.”
“I can’t,” I said. “You hurt my feelings walking down the street with Ice and deliberately looking as sweet as you can look.”
“I knew I might meet you out here,” Mtisha said. “Isn’t that enough reason for me to start looking sweet?”
She came over to me and gave me some sugar and I put my arm around her. We started for the wedgies place just as this guy comes up with a shopping bag full of plastic statues.
“Hey, check it out,” he said. He had on a dirty leather jacket and some greasy butt pants. “I got Malcolm, Martin Luther King, Jesus, and Muhammad Ali.”
“Let’s see Malcolm,” Mtisha said, knowing she wasn’t going to buy no statue.
“You got it.” The brother goes through his bag and pulls out this little white statue that don’t look nothing like M
alcolm, and Mtisha gives me a look.
“That statue’s white,” Mtisha said.
“You got to paint the things, man,” the brother said. “I’m letting them go for a dollar apiece. I was selling them yesterday for a pound.”
“Let’s see Martin Luther King,” Mtisha said.
The brother went back into his bag and pulled out another statue. This one looked just like the first one and we all goofed behind it and went on into the wedgies joint. Mtisha ordered a large wedgies and a soda and asked me if I wanted anything.
“No, I’m good,” I said.
“So how you like playing ball with them white boys up at Latimer?” Ice asked.
“They’re okay,” I answered.
“No they’re not,” Mtisha turned away from the counter. “Last year Carver beat them something pitiful.”
“If you were back in Carver we’d be crushing people,” Ice said. “They’d be calling us the Bruise Brothers!”
“I hear you,” I said.
Ice and me used to go around saying we were brothers. That’s the way I always felt about him, like he was my big brother and could do just about anything. He could hoop, he could dance, and he could get down with his hands if anybody messed with us.
“So when you coming back?” he asked.
“I got to stick with this,” I said. “How’s your moms?”
“Her jump shot is okay,” Ice said. “But she ain’t got your first step to the hoop.”
“Get out of here, man.” I took a handful of the potato wedgies from the bag that Mtisha offered me.
“You people going to block up the whole place?” the manager called over to us. “All you bought was the wedgies, you didn’t pay no rent here.”
“I’m putting your name on my list,” Mtisha called to the manager. “And when the revolution comes I’m coming to get you personally.”
“Yeah, well it ain’t here yet so just get your fresh butt on out of here!”
It felt good to be with Ice and Mtisha. Ice and me used to live on St. Nicholas Avenue. We were always tight. When we were little our mothers used to have the same baby-sitter and every morning we used to have to eat oatmeal and then go to the potty together. If I couldn’t make anything he would give me some of his so the baby-sitter would let us get up and play. I dug playing ball with him. It wasn’t just his game, either. It was more the way we knew each other, the way we could be hanging on a corner and almost know what each other was thinking. We didn’t talk about what we had, but it was there. A friend thing, almost like a love thing. The only time it really came out, or almost came out, was when we were on the court together. My last year at Carver things got a little cool for us. I figured maybe it was because Mtisha was crowding in on my mind, or maybe just that me and Ice were getting older and being close was harder than before. I don’t know, but it seemed that Ice was getting harder. That’s the way I figured things had to be. You live in the hood and either you get hard or you get wasted.
“So what you been doing with yourself?” I asked.
“Hanging loose,” Ice said. “I got to get down to One-Two-Five Street and check out some beepers.”
“Go on with your bad self,” Mtisha said. She had a touch of ketchup on her face.
A lot of dudes were carrying beepers. It was like a big thing to show people you were into something. You couldn’t bring a beeper into Carver because the principal there knew that the drug dealers used them. That’s why kids liked them, pretending they were down with the rock trade. I didn’t think it meant nothing that Ice was looking for one.
Ice gave Mtisha a peck on the cheek and went on to the subway. Mtisha and me started walking on down the block toward where I lived.
Ice and me were like really deep, deeper than me and Mtisha, but Mtisha was something else. I mean, if you were looking for something special, you found it when you ran up on that girl. She was deep brown, with dark eyes that just sparkled out at you. When she smiled at me it was like she meant that smile just for me personally and anybody else who saw it wouldn’t even understand what was happening.
She kept telling me that she liked me but I shouldn’t fall in love with her. What she needed to do was to tell my heart to stop doing its little dance when she came around and get her voice out my ear when I went to sleep at night. But in a way I knew what she meant about me not falling in love with her, because I knew she was going to college. Her father had gone to college and she was all set to go. It was like a thing with her, picking out what college she wanted to go to and seeing how they did in football games like that. That was a challenge to me, if I could deal with some girl that was going to college.
Thinking about that, about her going to college and about what Mr. Tate was saying about my grades and everything, was part of who I was. That was strange because it wasn’t something I could touch or lay out so somebody else would know what it was I was feeling. In a way it was like a bad thing that was in my past and still with me, a memory of something that never happened.
“So you coming upstairs and saying hello to your future mother-in-law?” I asked, getting my mind on Mtisha.
“I got to sudy,” Mtisha said. “I just needed a wedgies fix before I hit the books.”
“Why don’t you duck into the hall and throw some lips on me so I can feel good the rest of the day?”
“You ever think about coming back to Carver?” she asked.
We had reached my stoop and the usual dudes were there. One of them had a bottle in a brown paper bag. I took Mtisha by the arm and led her past them into the hallway.
“Come on upstairs for a while,” I said.
“Slam, ain’t no use in you getting yourself excited,” Mtisha said. “All you getting from me is the wedgies.”
“I can’t even get a light kiss?”
“You ever think about coming back to Carver?” she asked again.
“I thought you wanted me to go to Latimer?”
“Yeah, I did,” she said, leaning against the wall. Mrs. Ewing came out of her apartment, looked to see who I was with, then smiled when she saw it was Mtisha.
When Mrs. Ewing had left, Mtisha put her hand on my shoulder and I tried to sneak a kiss. I got her on the cheek.
“You know, Ice is messing around with the wrong dudes,” she said.
“What you mean?”
“All of a sudden he got a lot of money,” Mtisha went on. “Some people are saying that some of the scouts who come from colleges are giving him money. But some other folks are saying that they saw him hanging with some serious dealers over near Garvey Park.”
“No way. Ice is my homey,” I said. “And he’s a senior. Maybe those college scouts are giving him money.”
“They lay any money on you?” Mtisha said. “You’re as good as Ice.”
“I’m not a senior,” I said. “And they’re not coming to Latimer looking for ballplayers.”
“I wish you were back at Carver so you could check him out.”
“You got a thing for Ice?”
“A thing?” Mtisha pushed away from me. “How long has Ice been our friend?”
“Forever,” I said.
“Tell me about it!” Mtisha was serious. “I think you need to drop that brother a very heavy dime.”
“Suppose you’re wrong?” I said. “Then I’m dissing him for nothing.”
“If you can’t watch your brother’s back without dissing him, then you need to seriously check out your relationship,” Mtisha said.
“Are you watching my back?”
“Uh-uh, because that ain’t where you’re dangerous, sweetie pie,” she said, smiling.
She put her face to mine, pushed me just a little off balance, then darted her tongue into my mouth. By the time I got my balance and was ready for some heavy action she was wagging her finger at me and going out the door. My heart was sending out some serious love signals to that girl.
On the way upstairs I thought about what she had said about Ice. His real name was Benny
Reese but everybody called him Ice because he looked like Ice T, the old rapper. As long as I had known him he was hip to the whole drug scene. There wasn’t any way you couldn’t be and live where we lived. We’ve stepped over the bodies in the hallways, seen strong guys turn weak and cops spread sheets over brothers in the gutter.
What else we knew was basketball. We’d play all summer, sweating from morning to late afternoon, and in the winter we’d shovel the snow away in the park so we could still play. We had the neighborhood and basketball and each other and those were the truths we had. Everything else was a maybe or a could be.
I couldn’t figure Ice to be standing on some corner dealing. We had seen too many guys get messed up. When you dealt, the police could bust you any time they wanted to. They knew who was dealing and who wasn’t. One day you would see a guy on the corner being slick and the next day you would hear he was hooked up in a cell somewhere.
Not only that, but Ice had one of the sweetest games in the city. Mtisha said I was as good as he was and it was close, but I had to give him his respect and say that his game was about as close to all-world as you could get. Everybody was looking at him like they were waiting for him to hit the NBA. I knew he wasn’t giving all that up to deal on no corner.
I got into the house and Moms was dressed. She said she was going to the hospital to see Grandma and I could go with her now or the next day.
“I’ll check it out tomorrow,” I said.
My room seemed smaller than it usually was, like it was closing in on me. I turned on the radio and spun the dial looking for some decent jams. For a while I just lay on the bed, checking out how the cracks in the ceiling looked like a map. I tried to follow one of the cracks to see if I could make it into a corner. Then I got up and went out to the kitchen to see if Moms had left for the hospital. She was gone so I went back to my room. I turned the radio up higher.
What I didn’t want to think about was Ice messing with no crack. Scenes with him in it kept popping into my head. One time over the summer I saw him sitting on the park bench in Garvey Park. He was with some dudes I didn’t know and drinking from a bag and said it was a forty but his eyes didn’t look right to me, they looked glassy and had that far away feel you get from heads. I had let it ride, laying off some lame excuse like I had to get uptown even though I was carrying my ball. I remember walking away to the other side of the park and then turning back and looking through the fence to where he was. What I felt at the time was scared for him. Then I told myself he was just dealing with the forty and I’d call him on it later. Beer would slow his game down.