—Champ
From my Biddy Ball days all the way through my senior year, this place was a home, which is how (they skimp on the light bill and keep the heat so low winters a nigger could catch frostbite) the people who run the joint treat it. To top it off, it’s funky—or worse, we’re talking reektastic.
But ask anybody and they’ll tell you this gym attracts the A-1 ballers, hosts the top runs in the city. You ain’t got a name if you didn’t earn that name breaking ankles and sinking game points when it’s game point apiece both teams.
The dudes balling now, though, ain’t exactly the best index of the lore. A crew of old heads and has-beens running a game the short way, sideline to sideline, shooting bricks, hobbling into the key, and talking old school smack: In your face! Swish! Money! I watch till, by what must be magic, one of them sinks a bank shot for game point. A guy with the next game asks if I’m down to run and I tell him not today, that I’m helping my bros practice, which is today’s truth, but not the whole truth, which at present I’ll keep to myself for fear it might sound malicious.
The other side of the gym is empty. KJ pokes the ball from me, dribbles over, and jacks a janky lefty jumper that falls short of the rim. Canaan jogs off alone, scoops another ball from a corner, and pounds it. He goes between his legs and around his back and crosses over, moves he mastered that year and change we lived across from a half-court, those days when he’d burn hours (in particular when Mom was out on missions) practicing, heaving his rubber indoor/outdoor rock at a rim with no net (sometimes kicking it on a missed chip shot), those months he’d spend a whole day seeing how close he could come to touching the rim. Practice that paid off. Already baby bro is the owner of a mean floor game (cut him slack on last season’s fiasco) and a crossover that could send one of these has-beens to the ICU.
Let me see it, I say, and clap at Canaan for the rock. He tosses it at me, and with no bounces I sink a jumper from out-of-bounds. It’s one-quarter luck but I say, See? What good is all that fancy dribbling if you can’t put the ball in the hole?
I can, Canaan says, and takes a shot that smacks the side of the rim.
That don’t look like you can, I say, shaking my head. I hope that ain’t what you’re calling a jimmy.
At the other end, the old heads yawp until one of them snatches their ball, tucks it under his arm, and stomps towards the door.
We (me and my bros) decide on a game of crunch and I toss the ball to Canaan for him to check it up top. He rubs the ball and he sizes us both as if he really believes he can win. If I was more magnanimous, right now I’d go lace these dudes with keen secondhand coach encouragements: Ain’t nobody giving you shit. Always outwork the next man. The only thing to fear is not having practiced enough. But that’s if I was more magnanimous, key word: if!
If you played ball like I played ball, you’d know it’s every man for himself, so don’t go to blaming me for pushing, for hand-checking on D, for tagging them with semi-benign elbows. KJ goes up and I whack the ball and him out of the air, as if we ain’t got (so says the hoop gods: Spare the hard foul, spoil the sibling) the same DNA. It’s first game: Me. Next game: Me. Third game: Who you think? We ball till there’s a reef of sweat in the front of my tee, till my boxers are stuck to my legs. A win is a win is a win is a win, I tell myself as I’m bent over gasping. We watch the old heads at the other end while I catch my breath for rematch a million. They’ve got another game going and all you can hear is the squeak of old high tops and the backboard reports of a bricked-jumper jubilee. Watching this sad show of basketball skills inspires me (maybe I’m more generous than even I thought) into a jump-shot tutor session.
I send Canaan to the free throw line. All right, I say. Elbow straight and fingertips. Snap your wrist and follow through. See the rim and nothing else. I school Canaan first and then KJ. We shoot an hour so, me shagging most of the balls. Canaan nets a shot and I carry it over and ask him if he’s talked to Mom since we rode out to the falls.
What’s there to talk about? he says.
You need a reason? I say. About what’s going on.
It don’t matter, he says.
Don’t matter? I say. What the fuck you mean? I rush him and slap the ball out of his hands. It dribbles away but Canaan shags it and carries it over and the three of us meet in the free throw circle. That’s our mama, I say. Our mama. She needs us and we need her.
But Champ, if we live with Mom, where we gone stay? Canaan says.
In the house, I say.
Which house? he says
Our house, I say, assured overmuch, though not forreal.
KJ bends and stretches his shirt over his knees. Canaan hugs the ball to his chest.
How’s that? Canaan says.
Grown folks’ shit, bro, I say. Leave it to me and stick to being a kid.
They vote for pizza when we leave, so I drive to the parlor near the mall. Been here a gazillion times and always the same thought bubble hanging above my head: Who was the genius who okayed parking a big-ass fire truck (complete with a varnished wooden ladder and a barefoot mannequin frozen for good on a fireman’s pole) dead center in the floor?
This is the thought, but I don’t know why, cause we’ve never come for the sights. We’re here for the thin-crust, the paragon of thin-crust pizzas. We order a thin-crust with extra everything we like, find seats, fix our table with plates and a fizzing pitcher of pop. KJ pours us each a full mug, and I set my pager on the tabletop just in case. If you’re wondering, we’re still wearing our hoop gear; yep, we brothers fine-dining with sweaty balls and all.
What’s this I hear about more trouble at school? I say to Canaan. He turns a worried face to KJ and back to me, his diffidence amped up.
Miss H always on me, he says. He reaches for his drink, but I catch the handle of his mug and hold it.
So what? I say. That’s her job.
The boy nods a weak-ass nod; he’s always resorting to weak-ass nods; if he keeps on he’ll be the pubescent prince of weak-assness. Look, man, you can’t be tripping in class. You want to get back to regular school, don’t you?
But she only be sweatin me and no one else, he says.
That’s a favor, I say. The fact that she gives a shit is a gift. You best check yourself for me and you got problems, patna. Serious problems.
Okay, Champ, okay, he says.
Okay, my ass, I say. Don’t fucking okay me.
A clique of juveniles troop in vociferous as shit and my bros and I can’t help but look over, can’t help but eyeball them till they find their seats.
So ya’ll tryin to hit that game room or what? I say. I fleece my sweats for cash. Spend some and put the rest in your sock, I say, but already baby bro is trucking off for heaven.
What about you? I say, and peel off KJ’s loot.
I’m good, he says, waving his hand.
Oh, like that? I say.
Yeah, I don’t feel like playing, he says. He wipes dried sweat from his forehead. He looks more than ever like Big Ken, who, as I’ve said, is his and Canaan’s biological pops, but was my pops in every other way that counts.
Suit yourself, I say. But tell me this: What we gone do about our rockhead baby bro?
You’re the big brother, he says.
Before Canaan was born, Mom and Big Ken brought me and KJ here on Saturdays. Big Ken would cop extra-large pizzas with extra pepperoni and iceless pitchers of off-brand pop. Mom, for her part, would bless us with handfuls of quarters and tell me to keep an eye on KJ in the game room; KJ, who, the minute he got his issue, would fall over himself trying to land first game on his favorite game, an intergalactic joint he couldn’t play for shit. He’d plow through his stock of quarters, burn through whatever was left of mine, which mattered less to me since, whenever we got to our last, Mom, the patron saint of extra coins, would appear with cuploads of replenishments. Sometimes she’d hit us with a refill and vanish, others she’d watch until we’d spent our last and/or a kid stretched his face from being sidelined diutius.
What I wouldn’t give for a rebirth of those blithe days.
What’s the deal with spring league? I say. You ballin?
Nothing, he says. He pours salt on the table and finger-swirls a design.
Tryouts is soon, right? I say. You got action at JV if you play tough D.
The high schoolers climb into the fire truck and howl as if it’s the funniest thing on earth.
Don’t know if I’m playin, he says.
Why? I say. Thought you was a hooper. Is it grades? Please tell me you not fuckin up in school too, I say. You fuck up now and you’ve fucked up. You ain’t no little kid.
I know I ain’t, he says. You the one who thinks I am.
Yo, don’t get clocked, patna, I say. You wanna get slugged?
He turns away. I touch my face and rub circles under my cheeks.
Is it grades?
No, he says.
Well, how are they? I say.
All right, he says.
Just all right, I say.
Yeah, he says.
Here we go with this one-word-answer melancholy shit, I say. I’m trying to have a dialogue.
My pager buzzes but I don’t bother to check who it is. Yeah, I need what I need, but there must be a time that’s off-limits.
What about the broads? I say. You got a girl?
Yes, Champ. I got a girl, he says.
Those years when me and my mom were still an inseparable tag team tandem, the years before my brother was even born, Big Ken pimped for our bread and meat, and though by the time KJ came along Big Ken was ebbing into retirement (maybe the smartest move he ever made), that nurture might of turned my bro into a super-bathetic anti-pimp.
Only one girl? I say.
Yes, one, he says.
Damn, well, have she gave you some womb? I say.
I don’t have to tell you, he says.
You don’t, I say. But check it, you’re already a year older than I was when I hit my first, so if you ain’t knocked one down, you best get crackin.
He squeezes his lips and glares. We’ve got the same dark brown eyes, the same long wild lashes. Champ, he says. Who says I want to be you? I don’t want to be like you.
They call our number over the speakers—a motherfucking boon—and I grab the marker and push away.
Right, I say. Right. If only you knew.
My bros when we leave slug out in tandem slow and rebel-like. Steps through the lot, KJ falls back and when I look to see where, I don’t know what to make of his face. I stand beside the car and track him over the roof. He stops to look at what I can’t see, stalls until I walk out to meet him. What’s the holdup? I say and catch him by the arm. He yanks away, jerks so tough he sends a small package tumbling. He breaks to pick it up.
What they’d told me for most my life is life has options.
But whose life, and when?
What’s that? I say.
Nothing, he says. It’s nothing. He looks shook and keeps the bit balled in his fist. Meantime, Canaan climbs out and gawks.
Let me see, I say. As if I need to see.
No! he says. He backs away, but trips in a pothole, and lands on his ass. I pounce on him, pry open his fist, and find the bit wrapped and clipped just like mine.
What in the fuck is this! I say. What in the fuck are you doing?
Mr brother stands on his own and brushes gravel from his ass and elbows. He tugs his shoulders, and as if by some sort of supernatural gift, he’s heads taller—has never looked this big, nor this sure, nor this doomed.
Answer me! I say.
He twists to look at Canaan and swings to look at me. His eyes and my eyes dueling.
What I’m doing what you do, he says.
Right now, now, it takes nothing to see me beating him half to death. Though when I wind up to swing, I can’t swing. My kith as my witness, I drop the bit, and stomp and stomp and stomp until I’ve crushed it all to dust.