“With the more success through basketball, the more confident I became, and the more I learned how to have a greater voice, and learned how to love myself.” —Cheryl Miller, Basketball Hall of Famer
Throughout that next week, I did hundreds of pushups and sit-ups. I was getting ready for what I figured would be my fight with Pirate, or his proxy, that coming Saturday. I started out on Monday morning at Astoria Park, sprinting a fast, flat mile. Then I did several laps around the quarter-mile track there, running backward and slide-stepping sideways in a defensive basketball crouch.
My eyes were focused on the ground in front of me. That’s when I saw a second shadow closing in on mine. Before I could spin around, it leaped into the air and came crashing down on my shoulders.
“There he is, the marked man,” said Angelo, who’d come jogging up from behind and grabbed me in a bear hug. “Arrrrr! Be careful that Pirate doesn’t make you walk the plank.”
“Think it could get that ugly?” I asked as we began to jog together.
“He only tried to beat you with a wooden club,” Angelo replied. “Anything could happen. Those guys are maniacs. You know how many times I took a jumper and one of them tried to get under my feet to make me sprain an ankle. Reggie seems like the only normal one, and he’s naturally out of control. Monk thinks we should call it quits down there. We already won week one. What’s to gain?”
“Not me. I’m going back,” I said with total conviction. “If it’s pouring rain, thunder and lightning, I’ll be standing there next Saturday. Just to prove the point.”
Getting into a throw-down with Pirate was the last thing I wanted. I wasn’t even sure that I could survive a fight with him. That he wouldn’t wipe the yard with me. But there was something I feared much more: losing the respect of everyone at the Proving Ground. Deep down, I knew that getting past this one-on-one war with Pirate would take me a long way in earning a reputation as a streetballer.
On Wednesday night, our five-man squad met at the courts beneath the Triborough Bridge. We played one game against another group of guys. But we just sailed past them without an ounce of real resistance.
“We might be wasting our time here now,” said Jumbo, who’d barely broken a sweat. “It’s just a good tune-up for Saturday. Nothing more.”
Monk was campaigning for us not to go back to the Proving Ground.
“It’s not basketball. There are no rules. It’s like that movie Rollerball come to life. You could win, lose, or die there,” said Monk.
“Hey, I’ve been in the army with live rounds of ammo going over my head. This isn’t life and death,” said Hot Rod. “The actual basketball part is good. They make the right pass to the open guy and play tough defense.”
“Yeah, they stress the fundamentals and violence,” quipped Angelo, behind a wry smile.
“I’m starting at an elite university in September,” said Monk, who’d been accepted into Lehigh in Pennsylvania. “Do I really need to spend time with these cutthroats and maybe begin the semester with a broken leg?”
Angelo was going to be a freshman at NYU, while I’d gotten into a city college by the skin of my teeth.
College hadn’t been in my original plans. But I’d gotten a taste of the working world when UPS hired me to sort packages for the Christmas rush. I stood in front of a loud conveyor belt with six empty trailer trucks behind me. I had to memorize the route of each truck, putting the packages into the right one. I’d grab two boxes at a time. One might be addressed “Albany” and another “Fishkill.” I’d tuck each beneath an arm before seeing a third box rolling toward me marked “Troy.” Then I’d forget which box was already under what arm, and I’d have to read them both again. That’s when the belt would suddenly increase speed. The packages piled up at the end of the conveyor, eventually falling to the floor. The boss would rip me in front of everybody. UPS didn’t fire me until after Christmas. But they wrote on my personnel chart in big letters “UNMOTIVATED.” That hurt because I felt like they didn’t even know me.
“What do you say, Pets?” asked Monk. “You’ve probably got the most to lose with the Pirate after you.”
“I just want to play ball. I’ll deal with the rest, if that’s the trade-off,” I answered, trying to convince myself as much as anybody else. “But I’m going back there.”
Then Jumbo told Monk, “We whipped the players here tonight because our last game was against stronger competition. We already owe those lunatics something, even Pirate.”
The soles of my kicks had nearly worn out. I never wanted to break in a new pair on the court and risk getting blisters that might ruin my game. So I always bought new sneakers in advance and would get used to them just walking around.
That Friday, I went up to Steinway Street to shop at the sneaker stores. It was more than a mile walk from my house in the blazing heat. By the time I got there, I was sweating up a storm. Approaching the first sneaker place, I saw Pirate’s wooden ladder leaned up against a bank’s tall glass window panes, a squeegee and some rags at its base. Pirate’s car was parked at the curb beside it. Only Pirate was nowhere in sight.
A chill shot up and down my spine. With my next step, I turned in the opposite direction and started walking away, twice as fast. The only positive thing I could say about myself is that I wasn’t running.
I didn’t get much sleep that night and even shadow-boxed my bedroom wall a few times.
The next morning, I decided to leave for the Proving Ground early, at around 7:25 a.m. Jumbo had asked me if I wanted a ride. I guess he was concerned about me getting caught there alone. But I’d turned him down.
I took a basketball with me, and before I left the house, I wrote my name on it in capital letters with Mom’s indelible laundry marker: “PAUL VOLPONI.” Then I dribbled the rock all the way there to get myself in a good rhythm and occupy my mind.
As I walked through the gates of the Proving Ground, my ears were tuned to the sound of two things—the rock pounding the pavement and the loud beating of my heart.
For nearly fifteen minutes, I shot the ball alone on the court. Then beyond the chain-link fence, I heard a car pulling up. It was Pirate’s. I held the rock close to my chest and watched him walk into the park with his left arm in a sling.
“Come over here, you prick,” he said, in a tone that probably could have sounded a lot more threatening. “Look at what you did. You think this stopped me? I worked my regular route cleaning windows all week with a busted wing.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. But what came from my mouth was, “I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“This is nothing. I’ve broken lots of bones playing ball,” he said before he swiped the rock from my grasp with his good arm.
Pirate dribbled halfway down the court and sank a long one-handed set shot.
Then he walked back to the bench and began to lace up his kicks—a pair of black Chuck Taylor high-tops with a small section of canvas cut out to avoid blisters on his little toe.
“You go to school or something?” Pirate asked.
“I start college in September,” I answered.
“So you’re good at reading, with books and things,” he said. I nodded my head. “There’s nothing wrong with that. Keep studying. Don’t be in a hurry to work. That’s what I tell my daughter, and she’s older than you.”
“Thanks. I will,” I said, breathing much easier.
There was a long pause, as if Pirate was finished with me. So I walked off to retrieve the rock. When I got back to the bench, Jumbo was already parking the Brown Betty. He had Angelo in the front seat, riding shotgun. At about the same time, Gene the Dream, Surfer Joe, and Snake arrived. They were followed by Hot Rod and Big Reggie.
None of the Proving Ground regulars seemed surprised that Pirate was about to play with a dislocated collarbone.
“Hi, Mr. Pirate,” said Monk upon his arrival, trying to ingratiate himself. “How’s your collarbone feeling? Is it okay?”
That drew a sharp round of curses from Pirate, aimed point-blank at Monk.
“What did I say?” asked Monk, in an apologetic tone.
That took what was left of the pressure off me.
“This week you don’t get to play your team. We’re choosing up sides among the first ten,” said Round Mound, coming through the gate. “No more special treatment for you guys.”
Then Pirate popped out his upper teeth and strode onto the court. He played an amazing game with only one good arm, scoring a bunch of baskets and even throwing a few elbows at people.
I don’t really remember who won or lost that morning. Probably because it didn’t matter much. I just know that our guys mixed with theirs on different teams. I was even Pirate’s teammate once or twice. That meant, for a while at least, I had his back and he had mine. And when the games finished, I left there feeling more like a legitimate streetballer than I ever had before.