On Sunday, I met Angelo at the courts beneath the Triborough Bridge. My body was sore and aching all over from balling the previous morning at the Proving Ground. In comparison, Angelo was playing on a fresh pair of legs, having skipped those wearing battles. After five exhausting minutes of going one-on-one against him, I decided to simply play caddie for Angelo, passing him the rock so he could continue to polish his jumper.
“I would have never let that happen at the movies with Mia—be totally ambushed by a wild sex scene,” said Angelo, an instant before I delivered a crisp chest pass to him at the top of the key and he drained the shot.
“Really? How would you have known? There was no review of it in the newspaper. I checked,” I said, retrieving the rock for him.
“It’s simple. I would have seen the movie first by myself. Then there wouldn’t have been any surprises,” he said, sliding to his next spot, a few steps beyond the left elbow.
“That would have been a crazy amount of trouble,” I responded. “More work than fun.”
“Yeah, but you only get one chance to make a first impression,” he said, asking for the ball with his open hands. “And on a first date, that initial impression is even more important. My prediction is you won’t get this girl back to another movie anytime soon. Not unless she picks it.”
“I wouldn’t ask Mia to another movie,” I said. “Maybe a picnic in the park. Something where we could just sit in the sun and talk.”
“How’d it go with Pirate and Jumbo? Was it round two?” asked Angelo, missing his first shot of the morning as the rock rattled around the rim and out.
“You’re way out of the loop. They both put that nonsense behind them on Wednesday night,” I replied.
“Sorry, I got better things to do than stay tuned to Pirate’s personal soap opera—As the Pointed Elbow Swings,” mocked Angelo.
“Pirate was actually pretty calm yesterday,” I said.
“Until he blows another mental fuse and goes after somebody,” said Angelo.
“Deep down, Pirate’s a good guy,” I said.
“Sure, he’s the type to show up at your funeral crying and carrying flowers. After he was the one that killed you,” said Angelo, pounding the rock in his left hand. “You think too much of him, Pets. He’s not a hero, and he’s not a role model. Pirate could become a bad influence on you.”
“No way,” I said defiantly. “Other than having a passion to ball, I’m nothing like him.”
* * *
Late Tuesday afternoon, I was itching to get my body moving. I wanted to put it in motion and keep it that way for a while. So I hustled out my front door. With my first step into the street, without a single thought about stretching, I started running at just a half stride off full speed.
I quickly turned the corner and ran down Mia’s block. In my mind, even if she was sitting on her stoop, I was going to stay focused and run right past. The only way I’d stop was if she hollered my name or jumped out in front of me. Forty yards from her house, I decided I wasn’t even going to look at her stoop. I was going to keep my eyes focused straight ahead. But just as I hit the adjoining driveway, I heard a voice and glanced off to the side.
It was Mia’s little sister, jumping rope on the pavement.
Nice way to stick to a plan, I mocked myself.
When I hit the bottom of the block, I never broke stride. I turned right and saw Snake’s sleek Corvette parked on the corner. Revving my own engine a little more, I sailed on past, leaving it in my dust.
To my left stood the massive Con Edison electric plant, with its huge generators and coils that sat in the open yard, sometimes humming in the extreme heat. A block off to my right was a Carvel ice-cream store that Dad had named “Free-vel.” That’s because during a big blackout one steamy July, when Con Edison went down for something like fourteen hours, all the ice cream in that store was about to melt. So the owner gave out cones and sundaes to everyone for free. To this day, plenty of people in our neighborhood still called it “Free-vel.”
“I coined that name,” Dad would say, whenever anybody used it in front of him. “I should get a nickel every time it comes out of somebody’s mouth.”
The Proving Ground came up fast in front of me. There were games going on, even one on the main court. But I could tell by a quick peek that the ball being played there at the moment wasn’t worth my time. Especially not in the shadow of staying fresh for tomorrow night.
I sprinted almost another mile up to La Guardia Airport, where the commercial jets come roaring in, maybe two hundred feet overhead. If you’re ever standing in their landing path and look up at the right time, those fleet jets will leave you with the feeling that you’re going absolutely nowhere.
Across the street from the airport was a row of single-family houses. That’s where a neighbor used to take us kids trick-or-treating for Halloween.
“People who own their own homes have money,” he’d say, as I piled into the backseat wearing a Captain America mask and carrying a plastic shield with a star in its center. “They give out full-size candy bars. Not those cheap mini ones.”
That neighbor was right and had us trek there practically every year.
A half mile later, turning back toward home, I heard the sound of a ball bouncing in a small yard almost hidden behind a freeway underpass. I’d played there maybe once before in my life. The place had never made much of an impression on me. But this time, as I was running by, I saw somebody on the court put down a move that caught my eye.
I came to a stop on the street, breathing hard. Then I saw a second sweet offensive move by that same player. That’s when I decided to jog inside.
There were six guys playing half-court, three-on-three, with another body on the sideline waiting for next.
“I’ve got next with you,” I told that lone guy waiting, pointing a finger toward the center of his chest.
He nodded in response.
The scorer on the court who’d caught my eye stood about six foot one, slightly taller than me. He possessed a solid first step to the hoop and a quick release jumper that was consistently finding the bottom of the basket. He was being guarded by a guy probably six foot four, with long arms and a lot of reach. Only that defender wasn’t up in his face. The two of them were obviously friends, and the taller guy was just going through the motions, basically getting eaten alive by that scorer.
I wanted to see what that scorer could do against me, against someone who hungered to stop him cold. The more I watched his moves, the more I could see the slight holes in his game. I studied his timing and the angle he raised up with the rock to get it into shooting position.
By the time that game finished, I walked onto the court confident I was about to shut that scorer down. Only I hadn’t counted on the fact that we needed another player—one of the losers to complete our three-man squad.
The tall dude who’d been guarding the scorer asked us, “Can I run with you guys?”
My partner told him, “Sure.”
I stood right in front of the scorer and handed him the rock.
That’s when the tall dude said to me, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m guarding your friend here,” I told him curtly. “What does it look like I’m doing?”
“I always guard Milo,” he said with a lot of attitude.
“Well, not anymore,” I responded, looking him dead square in the eye. “This game, he’s mine.”
“You’re not going to be able to stop him,” said the tall dude.
“I just watched him take you apart piece by piece. You didn’t even seem to care,” I said. “I can’t help but do better.”
“Yeah, how about I don’t play?” snapped the tall dude.
“Great, don’t play,” I replied, almost laughing at him. “I could find somebody off the street to play with more passion than you.”
Then the tall dude cut in front of me to be in a position to guard his friend. So I lowered my shoulder and shoved him out of the way.
“What’s your problem?” the tall dude raged, with Milo holding him back.
“You’re the one with the problem,” I said. “You’ve got bad hearing. I already told you, I’m guarding him.”
The tall dude might have beaten me into the ground. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard Angelo’s voice. Pirate could become a bad influence on you. At that instant, I made the connection between me and Pirate and how I was acting. But I was already into that argument too deep. I wasn’t about to back down.
So I just glared at the tall dude, ready for anything.
“It’s not worth it,” Milo told him. “Let’s just play ball.”
After exhaling—huh—so loud that people in the next county might have heard him, the tall dude stepped aside and groaned, “Okay. Let’s see what this guy’s got.”
That was the moment I felt like I owned them both.
Play started, and I instantly put the clamps on Milo. He couldn’t find a good shot to take. My hip was jammed into his and he didn’t have any path around me. I had him completely boxed out, so I grabbed nearly every rebound.
That’s when something magical happened. Something that could only take place on a basketball court between strangers.
I found the tall dude cutting open to the basket and fed him for an open layup. I did that three more times inside the next few minutes. Suddenly, the tall dude was exchanging high fives with me. Then I delivered the ball to our third player, who scored too.
That game was basically over five points after it began. We won easily, and Milo only scored on a desperation shot near the end, one from almost thirty feet away that I dared him to take. That was alright by me. I understood that left him with at least an ounce of pride.
“Why don’t you guys show up at the Proving Ground on Saturday morning,” I said, jogging out of the park. “That’s where I play. But be prepared.”
All the way home, I made a mental list of how Pirate and I were different.