I go for mine; I got to shine.
Now throw your hands up in the sky.
Kanye West is pumping through the boom box. The boom box, with its ten-inch woofer, bounces the sound off the nearby tenements, and the word shine has an echo that amplifies the macho essence of the game.
It’s the courts in Laurel Park, at the corner of Laurel Street and Center Avenue, Compton, California. The game is “you stay, you play.” Hold the court, and you play; lose, you’re a dog, leaning on the fence with your arms crossed in an attitude that says, I’m better than anyone here if I want to be. Crips and Bloods own this turf, but here on the courts, gang is put aside for the game.
It’s early evening, before the lights come on. The heat of the August day and the sweat of the men rise into the air, mixing with the LA smog to create an acrid, moist heaviness that envelops the game, holding everyone in the vortex, focusing their effort.
Kanye is continuing to rap about the good life and getting it all for free, no matter where you are—from New York to Atlanta, Miami to right here in LA.
The teenager is compact, powerful, a force of energy, one with the basketball. He moves not with the grace of a dancer, but with the darting intensity of a small animal who knows he has to be quicker and smarter just to be in the game.
They’re playing twenty-by-ones, and you have to win by two. There are no foul shots in the game. When a foul happens, you play on, because the crowd is your jury. There are no refs and no rest. He slides behind a teammate’s pick and elevates. The boy has hops as he hangs in the air, and the jump shot is pure.
Swish. The net doesn’t even move.
His teammates appreciate it. “Dog,” one yells, “that is NBA!”
“A Kobe,” another chimes in, meaning Kobe Bryant of the Lakers.
“Hollywood, dog,” a third adds. “Big-time Hollywood.”
Now he’s on defense. Never watch a head fake, his coach has taught him. Head and shoulders mean jack. It’s all below the waist. Knees and hips. Slide. Slide. Keep your feet under you. Don’t leave your feet. Stay down. Hands up. Watch the ball. Don’t get screened off. Anticipate the pass.
Yes! His instincts are right, and he steals the ball. He’s out in front, flying down the court, and although he’s small, he gathers himself just inside the foul line. Knees flex, now soar. He’s in the air, cradling the ball, and somehow he’s above the rim ready to rock the baby. A slam dunk right over the biggest dude on the court. It’s a sure thing.
But it doesn’t happen. Instead, he’s hanging in the air, suspended in space, unable to find the ground, unable to feel his feet, unable to come down because . . . because . . .
HE SCREAMED, HIS DREAM becoming the ultimate nightmare as reality brought him crashing to earth. He could not feel his legs. He could not feel his feet. When his hands reached out and touched his knees, he could not feel them. He clawed at them, digging his nails into his skin until he bled, willing himself to feel. But there was no feeling, and the knowledge that he was paralyzed from the waist down caused him to scream again, bringing the nurse and the shot and the tortured sleep that he wished could be death.
Better to have died when the IED exploded than to live like this, Antwone Carver thought as the drug-induced sleep took over. Better to be dead.
WHEN HE AWOKE AGAIN, the nurse was standing over him. She looked down to read the hospital bracelet. “I’m Ms. Anderson,” she said. “And you’re Antwone Carver?”
He did not nod, but his eyes said yes.
“Well, Mr. Carver, I’m here to clean you up. How about a shave and a nice sponge bath?”
The young Marine didn’t respond, so she took that for a yes.
She brought the bed to a sitting position, filled a metal bowl with warm water, and began to shave him. Antwone noticed she was really good at it, perhaps because she had performed this task many times on guys who couldn’t do it for themselves. He did not answer any of her questions, nor did he make eye contact with her, even though she was quite pretty.
Finishing the shave, she emptied and refilled the bowl and then began to sponge him down. This was more than he was willing to accept.
“Just leave me alone, will you, ma’am?” he asked, turning his head away from her. “Just leave me alone.”
“I can’t do that, Corporal Carver. I’ve been told you have a visitor, and we want you looking your best.”
A visitor? Antwone’s eyes finally found her face. “Who’s here to visit me?”
“Oh, I think it’s someone you’ll want to see.” The nurse smiled knowingly. “In fact, I know it’s someone you’ll want to see. A very beautiful woman. I think I heard her name is Darla.”
Darla. The sound of her name caused the young man’s upper body to jump. “Darla’s here?” My Darla is here. His voice quavered. “Does she know? I mean, has anybody told her that I’m . . .” The words stuck in his throat, and the young nurse, seeing his face, tried to help.
“You mean does she know that you’ve had a spinal injury? Yes, I believe someone has talked to her, so let’s get you cleaned up. We don’t want to keep a beautiful woman waiting.”
Feeling a little desperate, Antwone said, “Ma’am, when you finish . . . I mean, when you finish cleaning me up, could you help me get dressed?”
“I don’t know, Corporal Carver. That’s unusual, considering your condition.”
“Listen. I’ve been going to therapy. I mean, they move me around and stuff. What’s the matter with me can’t get any worse. Just help me put on my uniform, please. I want . . . I want my wife to see me as a man, a Marine.”
The nurse smiled. “Okay, Corporal,” she said, “I’ll get some help, and we’ll get you all spit and polished.”
“Spit and polished” was a long way from how Antwone Carver grew up. Born in South Central LA, in a family of eight with no knowledge of his father, Antwone hovered on the edge of a life in the gangs. His mother, Ruthie, did the best she could to raise her children with moral and Christian values, but the streets and peer influence are powerful things. Antwone spent some time in juvie for shoplifting before good fortune smiled: a U.S. Marines recruiter came to his high school and was impressed with the kid’s skills on the basketball court. The next time Antwone got in trouble for stealing a car, he remembered the recruiter, and a deal was made with the courts allowing Antwone to take early enlistment in the Corps and ship out to Parris Island for basic training. Esprit de corps, some call it. The drill sergeants call it “getting right.” It’s when a young man crosses over and decides that the Corps is his family.
That’s what happened to Antwone Carver. Over the next three years, even after one tour with Desert Shield during the incursion into Iraq, Carver decided he would be a lifer, expecting to be a sergeant major with a big pension and security.
Returning home after Desert Shield and waiting for his next assignment, Corporal Carver was billeted at Camp Pendleton in San Diego. And there, in a club, on a night he would never forget, he met and fell in love with Darla Clark. He used to tell his buds that Darla was his ebony princess, and the fact that she had married him was right out of a fairy tale. “Beauty and the Beast,” he’d say. Darla was everything that he was not—poised, articulate, and beautiful.
Two years older than Antwone, Darla Clark had graduated from San Diego State and was in her second year as a fifth-grade teacher. For the first time in his life, he overcame his natural shyness and courted her aggressively, doubting that they would ever really connect but being compelled by love to try.
Darla told Antwone that she admired his devotion to country and felt he would love her unconditionally, always be faithful, and raise their children with the values and principles he was developing in the Corps. They married just before he shipped out for his second tour in Iraq, this time not as a conquering Marine but as part of a police force, driving around in Humvees and personnel carriers, waiting to be blown up by insurgents.
That’s exactly what had happened, and now Darla was here and he would be seeing her for the first time as a cripple. What would he say? What would she say? He didn’t know, but he was worried and frightened. For the first time in a long time, Antwone Carver doubted himself, wondering if his beautiful wife could still find something to love in the young Marine with a body broken by war.
And then—there she was, just as he remembered her, just as he had dreamed of her night after night in the Iraqi desert: the turned-up nose, the full lips, the dark eyes that danced just for him, her hair cut short and stylish, her body tight and toned. She crossed the room, bent over, and kissed him.
“Is it okay?” she asked softly. “To kiss you, I mean?”
He reached up and clasped her to him, nearly lifting her onto the bed. “There’s nothing wrong with this part of my body,” he said, kissing her neck. “It’s just my legs.”
As he held his wife in their first loving embrace in more than eight months, he sensed that something else might be broken, something that couldn’t be fixed, even by love.