“Hey, Margie, you got a slip from Mr. Parrish for the video camera?” She was sitting with two other girls and they were looking at some magazines.
“Yeah, I gave it to the video camera department,” she said. “I just missed you. They said all you got to do is to come pick up the camera.”
Now how come all she had to do was to take the slip up to the video department and everything was everything and I had to go through all those changes? I went on up to the video department and got the camera.
“You know how to use it?”
“Yeah.”
Which wasn’t exactly true, but I didn’t want to look dumb or nothing and I figured I could learn to use a camera. No big deal.
I also noticed how Margie didn’t say anything about me checking her out. When a girl acts cool like that in front of her friends you know something is probably happening.
After school I showed Derek the camera and took some tape of him. He was clowning around and when we played the tape back I saw that it was too dark and I was jerking the camera around. But it was still fun. Derek wanted to tape me and I let him, then Mom came home and I taped her and Derek. We set up a scene with Moms and Derek playing like Derek was a customer and Mom was a used car salesman and they were bargaining over a car. It was funny because Derek was serious but Mom kept cracking up.
I couldn’t wait to go out into the park and have Derek shoot me going to the hoop, but Moms needed me to go to the hospital with her to see Grandma.
We waited for a while until my pops came home so he could go with us but when he got home he had liquor on his breath and then he went and laid down. Moms didn’t say anything but I know she was upset. Two years ago, when he lost his job, he was hitting the bottle heavy and once he was arrested on some jive charge.
We got to the hospital and me and Mom were on a up but when we saw Grandma it was a big-time crash. She looked awful.
“She had a bad night,” the nurse said. “She had some fluid in her lungs and we had to drain that. That’s what the tubes are for.”
“Why’s she sleeping?” I asked.
“When we put the tubes down her nasal passages she was gagging on them,” the nurse said. “So we gave her a sedative. She can use the rest anyway.”
Moms wanted to sit by the bed for a while and we did. Moms broke out into crying again, that soft kind of crying with her body doing more crying than her face. Most of the time I didn’t think on dying and stuff, and I couldn’t get next to it even with Grandma. It made me feel bad to see Moms break up, though.
The next day at practice Mr. Nipper said he wasn’t going to put anybody else on the team unless there was an injury. I gave Ducky a wink and he winked back.
We ran some plays and I noticed that I was in a lot of them. When me and Ducky were in the same play I looked for him and got the pill to him sometime. He was still acting like he was afraid to get the ball. Maybe like he was more afraid of messing up than anything else.
“Hey, Slam, you want to go one-on-one?” Nick asked.
“Yeah, why not?”
I could deal with Nick’s wanting to go one-on-one with me. He was the man before I got on the scene and he was looking to make a comeback, or maybe he was just looking to prove something to himself.
My sneakers were on the side where I had taken them off and I went over to put them back on. A couple of guys were shooting around and I knew they wanted to see what was going to go down between me and Nick. But then Jimmy came over and made believe he was picking up something in front of me.
“The coach told him to go one-on-one with you,” he said.
Now what was that about?
When somebody jumps into your face on the court it’s because they think he got your game in his pocket. Coach Nipper jumped into my face and I showed him he didn’t have a game and there was no way he could get mine. Now he had Nick jumping up into my face. Maybe he thinks he’s got something but all he sees is the outside of me, he hasn’t even peeped inside, where the real game is.
“Five baskets wins,” Nick said and bounces the ball to me so I can take it out. What I’m thinking is that the coach wants me to try to slam over Nick. Uh-uh. I didn’t know what he had in mind, but he wasn’t going to get it the way he was looking for it.
I moved on Nick and he came up and made contact with me. He wasn’t laying on me, like the coach did, but he was bumping me light and keeping one leg back. That way he could move that leg quick if I try to get around him and he could use it for a quick step and jump if I tried to go over him. He was bumping and staying on top of me. I made a little fake and he didn’t go for it completely, but he made a little half step. I tried to go around him once and he cut me off. But when he cut me off I was closer to the hoop.
I made another little move and I saw I could move him back toward the basket. He saw this, too and pushed up stronger. I backed up, let him make his push, then blocked him out with my left elbow and put up a soft hook off the boards. I was one up.
He took the ball out and threw up a quick jumper that rimmed the hoop and came down to one side. He beat me to the bound and drove for a layup. I let him go. One to one.
He had to lose that way and he had to know he was going to lose that way. I backed him in again and he was pushing me with his hips and slapping after the ball. I spun on him and he backed off. All right, he didn’t want me to go by him. So I backed him into the paint the same way I did the last time and this time I push him off with my right elbow and make a little left-hand hook. Two to one.
The rest of the team is standing on the side, watching us. I slammed on the coach and I slammed during the game so they were watching for my slam. Nick took the ball out and put it on the floor like he was going to go by me, then pulled up and took the jumper. Swish. All right, two to two and I got the program.
What he wanted to do was to get the step on me and throw it down. I never saw him dunk but that had to be the program. Nick knew and the coach knew he couldn’t beat me one-on-one but if he dunked on me the coach was getting his comeback because he got Nick to jam on me. He was putting me into a picture he could deal with.
I took the ball out, drove into Nick, spun, got my left foot outside his left foot and muscled past him. He’s a half-step behind but he’s coming and I made the layup on the other side of the basket. Three to two.
Now Nick had pressure on him. He brought the ball in, took a dribble with his right hand, pulled up and brought his left hand toward the ball for the jumper. Soon as he touched the ball with both hands I get up in his face. He couldn’t dribble again and he’s too far away to shoot anything good.
He threw up a wild hook and I cut him off so he couldn’t get the bound. I cut to it and I see he’s not near me so I plant and fly. Slam!
“Go get him, Slam!” Glen calls out and Jimmy and Ducky are giving each other high fives.
The coach is still watching. It’s four to two.
Now I know that Nick wanted to slam on me but when he took the ball out I didn’t move. I just stood there on the side and let him go by me. He looked over at me and dug me smiling at him. He laid the ball up. Four to three.
I got my slam and I don’t want to give him another shot so I backed him in again. He was on me hard, getting me with his knee and pushing me with his hips. I had all day, and I kept backing him in and leaning on him. Nick was strong and I was thinking about maybe throwing the ball off the backboard and going for the tap-in off the bound. But then he tried to swing around me and steal the ball and missed. I spun, cut him off with my elbow, and made the layup. All over. Lights out. I looked over at the coach and he was walking away.
“Nice game,” I said to Nick.
He nodded but he didn’t say nothing.
Jimmy walked me to the train station. Usually he hung out with the white kids and I wondered why he was walking with me.
“The coach said you have an attitude problem,” he said.
“He told you that?”
“He was
n’t talking to me.” Jimmy leaned forward into the wind as he walked. “I heard him talking to some of the other guys.”
“What you think?” I asked him. “You think I got an attitude problem?”
“Sometimes you act as if you have a chip on your shoulder,” he said. “You know what I mean?”
“What did I do to you?”
“You didn’t do anything to me,” he said. “I’m just talking about in general. Most of the guys get along fairly well.”
“What do you think I should do?” I asked.
“I don’t think you should jam on your teammates,” he said. “Just, you know, cool it a little. That’s why I told you the coach told Nick to play you one-on-one.”
“So I could act right?”
“Just act like you’re part of the team,” he said.
We didn’t say anything else all the way to the subway. I just wanted to get away from Jimmy, just wanted to walk out of his life. What I felt like, too, was going upside his head. But I knew that was what he was talking about, me acting like I had a chip on my shoulder, doing what I could do instead of fitting in like they wanted me to fit.
The words had to be there somewhere, the words that would tell him how I felt without catching in my throat or showing how mad I was. What I had to do was to find them, maybe even practice them so I could lay them on him the next time we met.
“See you tomorrow,” he said.
“Sure,” I answered. “Sure.”
Derek was getting ready to go to the hospital with Moms. She wanted him to put some coconut oil on his face because she thought his skin looked ashy. Derek didn’t want coconut oil on his face because it stinks and he didn’t care if his face does look ashy.
“You’re going to the hospital to see your grandmother,” Moms said. “You can at least look good.”
“Yeah, man.” I was putting the tape in the video machine. “Your face does look a little ashy.”
“Slam, why don’t you shut up?”
“How did school go today?” Moms asked me.
“Went okay,” I said. “I was working hard.”
She gave me a look and I gave her a smile but she wouldn’t smile back. Derek grabbed a tissue off the counter before they left. By the time they reached the hospital that oil would be off his face. I kissed Moms good-bye.
It had to be hard to see your mother in the hospital and thinking she was going to die. It hurt even to think that Moms would be the one in the hospital and me and Derek would have to go see her.
There was some orange juice in the fridge and I poured myself a glass. Way back in the freezer, under some frozen chopped collard greens, and wrapped in aluminum foil, was something special I had saved for myself. I just hoped that Derek hadn’t found it. I reached back and found it and opened it up. It had been a whole slice of sausage pizza but now it was only a half slice. Derek had found it and copped half. If he had ate the whole thing I would have had to knock him down and stomp on his chest.
I put the pizza on a plate and put it in the microwave. Somebody was knocking on the door and I yelled for them to come on in because I hadn’t locked it. It was Mtisha.
“Yo, baby, what’s happening?” I reached over to give her a kiss and she pushed me away.
“Where were you last night?”
“Last night?”
“What are you, an echo?”
“I was out with my boy, Ice,” I said.
“And Bianca wasn’t with him?”
“Yeah, she was with him,” I said.
“And why do you think she lies the way she does?” Mtisha asked.
“I don’t even know that she lies,” I said, putting the pizza into the microwave.
“Then what she said about you and Kicky kissing in the backseat was the truth?”
“She said that?”
“I just told you she did.”
“Oh.”
“So you kissed Kicky?”
“Kicky?”
“So why did you kiss Kicky?” Mtisha’s eyes were watered like she was fixing to cry. “Is she what you’re looking for?”
“No, and I wasn’t kissing her,” I said.
“Bianca is downstairs,” Mtisha said. “You want me to call her up here?”
“Hey, look, she was kissing me,” I said.
Mtisha didn’t say another word. She just turned around and walked out the door.
Man, I didn’t know the girl was going to get all upset and everything like that. If I had known that I wouldn’t have been kissing on no other woman. I wanted to run after her so bad I didn’t know what to do. I started out the door, went back and locked it, then started to bust down the stairs. By the time I got downstairs and to the front door she was halfway down the street. The only thing I could think of saying was how sorry I was, and I ran across the street, dodging in front of a cab, and finally catching up with her in front of the liquor store.
“Yo, Mtisha!”
“I don’t want to hear it, Slam,” she said.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said.
“If you got down on your knees I wouldn’t care,” she said, stopping and turning toward me.
Hey, that worked. I got down on one knee and took her hand in mine. “Baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you were serious with me.”
An old woman came over and looked down at me. “Don’t give him no slack, honey,” she said.
“Get out of here!” I yelled at her.
“I’m going,” Mtisha said. “You don’t have to yell at me.”
“I’m talking to her, not you. You know nothing serious happened. I told her I didn’t want to mess with her but she kept pushing herself on me,” I said.
“No, that’s not your problem,” Mtisha said. “Your problem is that because I’m not doing for you what some of these girls will do for anybody you got to look over my shoulder. Well you can look over my shoulder all you want because I just don’t care.”
Yeah.
Okay, so Mtisha was out of my mind. If that’s the way it had to be, then that’s the way it had to be. I got down on my knees and told her I was sorry and she didn’t give me a play. It was over. Life goes on. Tomorrow is a new day.
The pizza was burned up, hard as a rock. No, harder than that, hard as Mtisha’s heart.
It was bad but it wasn’t terrible. Mtisha was hurt but I didn’t know she was going to be hurt like that. If I had known that I would have looked for her after the game. That’s what’s wrong with women. They want you to wait for them until they get ready and then they don’t even tell you how they feel. Mtisha never looked in my eyes and just laid out how she felt, how much she loved me and everything.
The video camera was on my bed and I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. Mtisha was still on my mind but I figured I would work hard and forget about her until after supper and then I would call her on the phone and tell her how much I loved her and how Kicky didn’t mean nothing to me. Then what I should do is to call Bianca and ask her what her problem was. Who did she think she was? Channel 4 news or something? Ice better tell her to keep her attitude and her loose lips out of other people’s business.
On the street I went down to the corner where the Arabs have their little store. I videotaped the outside of the store and then started working my way down the street. A woman in the beauty parlor waved to me and I shot up real close to the window. Then I shot some of the action in the car wash. Some of the brothers wiping down cars saw me and started putting on a show.
The stoops along 145th always looked more or less the same, cracked steps with people either standing on them or sitting on them because life got too depressing in their apartments.
One dude waved me off. He was probably wanted by the police or something. Four stoops in a row had kids on them and the fifth had some gang-bangers so I skipped them. They gave me a look anyway.
The guy in the West Indian restaurant called me in and I shot him standing over the stove. He was cooking cow feet stew and dirty rice. Two
of his customers smiled at the camera and the last one didn’t smile but she straightened up her coat and checked herself out in the mirror.
The way I figured it was that if Bianca told Mtisha about me and Kicky it was because she was mad at Kicky, not me. I knew Mtisha knew Bianca but I didn’t think they were tight or anything like that.
What I hadn’t done was to break down just how I felt for Mtisha. Usually I kidded around with her or maybe I got a quick kiss, but she was right, we never got into anything serious. I thought about telling her that I would wait until we got married. Then I thought that if she went to college that would be four years, four and a half if you thought about her finishing high school, too. That was a long time to wait for something you weren’t sure you were going to get. No, I would just break it down the way I felt it. I could do that.
When I got down to Carl’s Curio Shop he was talking to a girl who smelled like the toilet in a men’s room. She was trying to sell him two shiny things. She had that glassy look in her eyes, the way that crack heads do.
“I don’t even know what these are,” Carl said.
“C’mon, baby,” the girl said. “All I’m asking is a dollar.”
“If I don’t know what they are how am I going to sell them?” Carl asked, giving her back the shiny things.
“You need some affection today?” she asked him.
“No, I don’t think so,” Carl said. Then he reached under the counter and pulled out a dollar and gave it to her. She didn’t say a word, just took the dollar and walked out.
“You know she used to have a tailor shop?” Carl asked.