I felt left out because Angelo and Monk were constantly talking about the freshman classes they were going to take in September. They’d carefully plotted their plans for college, while I’d basically chosen a school on a whim and only got accepted due to low enrollment for that coming semester. Back in July, they had both received letters from their schools listing all the possible classes and schedules. My letter didn’t arrive until the second week of August.
I didn’t have that letter open for more than a few minutes before I was on the phone with Angelo.
“How many credits do you think I can handle?” I asked, with the pages spread out in front of me on the kitchen table.
“I’m taking eighteen. That’s six classes,” answered Angelo, who had been a top-notch student in high school.
“That sounds like a mountain of work. My last math class was a joke. The descriptions of the ones here look serious,” I said, considering I’d graduated without taking a single statewide exam. “Maybe I’ll just go for twelve credits and have Fridays completely free.”
“Then you can have a full day to prep for Saturday morning at the Proving Ground,” said Angelo, in a pointedly sarcastic tone. “You can probably pick up three credits for your personal study of urban pirates. Call it life experience.”
I didn’t take any offense at that because Angelo was absolutely right. I was interested in putting together a schedule that left me time to ball in the street.
Suddenly, that summer morning took an extra shine.
As I hung up the phone, out the kitchen window I saw a girl on the other side of the block. She was on the second-floor balcony, painting the wrought iron fence that surrounded it. Only she might as well have been painting the Mona Lisa, because I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Her blonde hair was tied up in a red bandana, and her clothes were covered in streaks of paint. She looked to be about my age. I was fairly sure I’d seen her face before. Maybe as a kid. But she had definitely grown up since.
Every few minutes or so, I’d go back to the kitchen window to check on her progress. All the while, my brain was devising a plan to meet her. I didn’t consider it cool to open the window and call out to her across the way. The best idea I came up with was to knock on her front door and ask to borrow a paint brush. I was actually going to do it. Only the next time I looked, she was gone.
A moment later, through the alleyway beside her house, I saw her walking toward the top of the block. I bolted for the door in hot pursuit. I grabbed a basketball on the way out, just to have something in my hands.
She was walking westward, in the direction of Astoria Park. I kept a good three-quarters of a block behind her, trying to figure out where she might be headed. I only knew that she was walking fast and with a purpose. Eventually, she turned into the backyard of the local elementary school, PS 122.
I figured fate was on my side because there was a pair of basketball hoops there. She stopped at the school’s back door, where a bunch of parents had gathered.
A couple of junior high–aged kids were shooting at one of the baskets.
“Hey, how come all those people are waiting by the door?” I asked the kids on the court.
“Summer camp lets out in a few minutes, at three o’clock,” one of them replied.
That’s when I took the ball in my hands and purposely dribbled it off my sneaker. It rolled through the gate separating the hoops from the school’s back door. If I’d been bowling, it couldn’t have been a more perfect strike, stopping right at her feet.
She bent down to pick it up as I jogged over.
“Thanks,” I said, as she handed me the ball. “Don’t you live around the block from me? On Twenty-Seventh Street?”
“Sure, I remember you,” she said, smiling. “I haven’t seen you in a long time. Here to play ball?”
“Yeah. How about you?” I asked.
Her name was Mia, and she was there to pick up her eleven-year-old sister. Fate continued to be on my side, as I glanced at the T-shirt Mia was wearing. It read “Baruch College.”
That was the school I was about to attend.
“I’m starting Baruch in September,” I said.
“It’s a great school. You’ll like it,” said Mia. “I’m actually a freshman there too. But I got a chance to take a class there this summer.”
“Thing is, I don’t know much about the campus and the different buildings,” I said, as her sister emerged from the doorway, along with a bunch of other kids. “Would it be okay if I knocked on your door some time? Get a few insights from you?”
“Not a problem,” Mia said.
After Mia and her sister left, I settled at the open hoop and shot the rock for maybe twenty minutes. I felt like I’d just scored the winning basket in a big game. I was proud of myself, basking in the glory of a patchwork plan that had remarkably come together. I felt almost superhuman, like I could accomplish anything.
I didn’t know much about the lottery, except that my parents played it every week without success. But right at that moment, I felt like I could predict the winning numbers.
* * *
That Saturday at the Proving Ground was incredibly physical. Players were pounding each other left and right. The yard resembled the Roman Colosseum more than a basketball court. And for the most part, the participants were willing to fall on their swords before ever uttering the word “foul.”
Angelo and Monk, sensing the mood of the morning, had smartly made early exits. I wasn’t that bright.
Pirate was pissed about Wednesday night’s tournament drubbing. His elbows were working overtime, slashing at anyone who blocked his path to the rim. Thankfully, Pirate was on my squad, though I still made sure not to get in his way.
With our team short of height, I guarded J-Train. He was too big and powerful to push and shove against. So I took the path of least resistance. I tried sticking to him like flypaper, with my relaxed body glued to his. It worked, and J-Train was having a terrible time trying to shake loose.
“You’re like my damn shadow,” complained J-Train. “You gonna follow me to the toilet too?”
Despite his frustration, J-Train didn’t hammer me with an elbow. I was playing him cleanly, and he responded the same way with me.
Some dude stepped off the handball courts and into our game, taking somebody’s place who’d had enough. I could tell by the way he moved that he hadn’t played much ball. But he must have been watching me stick to J-Train, because he tried doing exactly the same to him.
Without a second’s hesitation, J-Train throttled the dude by the throat and body slammed him to the concrete.
I could feel the hurt inside my own bones just watching that.
“Don’t you ever believe you can do me that way,” J-Train hollered, standing directly over him.
Eventually, guys helped that dude to his feet before he limped out of the park. Then I assumed my place next to J-Train, this time leaving an open space between us.
“It’s one thing for you to guard me close, Paulie,” said J-Train, his eyes still glowing with anger. “I’m not about to have some handballer belly up to me.”
That’s when I realized it was all about perception. J-Train could stomach me stopping him because I had a rep as a defender. But he wasn’t going to be challenged by someone who’d barely played the game thinking he could do it too.
The violence didn’t end there.
Two minutes later, Pirate and Jumbo exchanged a hard bump. Pirate responded with a flurry of wild punches at Jumbo’s head. Jumbo tied him up inside his octopus-like arms. But Pirate broke free and grabbed a small ice chest off one of the benches before trying to crack Jumbo’s skull open with it.
Jumbo stalked out of the yard, cursing at Pirate.
“You need help! Serious help!” screamed Jumbo, heading toward the Brown Betty. “You’re going to kill somebody over basketball one day.”
It was all five or six guys could do to restrain Pirate, who had totally lost it on the court for the second time inside a week.
That fight signaled the end of the games that morning. Nobody had a taste for playing after that, including me. And I began to worry, on a really bad day, just how far Pirate could go in losing his temper.
Conflict resolution is a highly valued social skill. It’s something streetballers absolutely understand. After all, not every intense disagreement, on either the court or the sideline, ends in an all-out brawl with blows exchanged. Because if it did, there would be very little basketball played. Nearly every game would have to be halted before the final score, and most of the players would leave dissatisfied—with their streetball appetites unfulfilled. So streetballers learn how to defuse tense situations. They understand that people have different goals and personality traits. In the midst of this physical and often aggressive game, ballers learn to use their words. They generally know how to both listen and speak, using tone of voice, body language, and distance from someone who is angered as means of cooling a confrontation. It is a skill that serves ballers far beyond the boundaries of a basketball court—at home, school, and work and in personal relationships.