Rucker Park Setup (11 page)

His words rip right through me. I'm shaking all over, and if I could, I'd curl up on the court, crying my eyes out like a little baby.

Stove steps back from Fat Anthony to look at me good. I know he heard everything out of Greene's mouth, and I can see his eyes turn to fire.

I wish I could jump into Stove's arms. I'd hug him tight and bury my face in his chest. I'd tell him how he's been like my second pops. That J.R. was my blood brother, and I'll never have another friend like him. But he'd probably spit in my face and tell me how he hated my guts. That I don't deserve to call anybody family.

“Let's finish this!” demands Stove, emptying his lungs into his whistle.

Non-Fiction brings the ball up court, and my mind's everywhere but on the game. Spider's cutting back and forth, and I just follow him. I'm almost numb inside, and only my legs are still strong. So I keep on running, trying to hold my balance.

Kodak nails another tough shot, and our lead's down to two points, 65 to 63.

Spider's set in front of me, and I want to slap the confidence right off his face. I throw my feet into high gear. He bites hard at every fake, and the crowd roars as I make him dance.

“Spider needs a new pair of socks,” says Acorn. “He just got juked out of his.”

I blow by him and miss an easy layup.

I can't look anybody in the face, so I watch the ball get passed around, and the seconds slip off the clock.

The next time Kodak touches the rock, he dribbles straight into the teeth of our defense. There's nothing in his eyes but basketball. No fear. No thinking. Nothing. And I'm jealous to my bones. Then Kodak plants a foot and pulls up. The defense slides past him, and he lets loose a one-handed floater that finds the bottom of the basket.

“Good gracious! That boy's in
the Zone
!” blasts Acorn. “This game's all even.”

The Zone's a place where your mind and body are on the exact same wavelength. You make moves without thinking about them, and everything's natural and pure.

A thousand things can creep into a shooter's head and screw him up—the defense, the crowd, or anything you carry onto the court with you. You start thinking about every part of your stroke and get thrown off. But when you're in the Zone, you might as well be on the court alone, because nothing can get close to you. It's just you and the basket. There's no pressure, and everything just flows like it's supposed to.

But I know I'll never find that feeling again. Not on a basketball court. Not anywhere.

It's crunch time, and kids on our squad are looking for me to take over.

I pass the ball off to one of our guys, then he pushes it right back at me. It happens again with the next kid, and I feel like I'm playing Hot Potato.

One of our kids steps up and sets a solid screen on Spider. I pop free, with a wide-open shot staring me in the face.

“That's automatic!” somebody screams from our bench.

I raise up to shoot, but none of it comes natural. It's like there's a hundred pieces to my stroke, and I got to build one on top of the other. My eyes are zeroed in on the front of the rim. But just before I release the rock, everything I've done flashes through my mind in fast-forward. Then, before I can blink, it's gone with the shot.

The ball hits iron and goes straight up in the air. Everybody's fighting for position, and Kodak presses his body up against mine to block me off from the basket. When the ball can't go any higher, I see the seams stop spinning. It floats down, and falls through the heart of the basket, without even jiggling the net.

We're back in front by a basket, and Mitchell's chasing me down the sideline.

“Mustard! Mustard, stay on Kodak!” he yells. “Be the stopper!”

I stay in front of Kodak and try to cut him off from the ball. If he's in the Zone, I don't want him bringing that at me, because I got nothing inside me to stand up against it now.

Non-Fiction misses their next shot, and I chase down the rebound. Spider comes flying at me, and Kodak, too. They're both right on top of me, with their arms straight up. I'm trapped in the corner and can't see past. I bring the rock into my stomach to protect it. It feels like it weighs a ton, and it's all I can do to hold on. Then I feel myself falling out-of-bounds.

“Time-out!” I scream.

I hear Stove's whistle and drop the rock to the floor.

The clock's frozen solid with three minutes and three seconds to play.

Our kids are clapping for me, and Mitchell comes up the sideline to meet me.

“Heads-up play, Mustard. You saved us a possession,” says Mitchell, walking me back to the bench.

“The championship and more!” says Greene, putting a fist into the chest of every kid coming off the court.

But when it's my turn, I close my eyes and try to shut out every word. Then I feel the bump from his fist, and it's like getting shoved out of a nightmare into something even worse.

Mitchell's telling everybody what he wants us to do. Only I'm still not listening to anything outside of my heart beating.

Junkyard Dog squeezes my shoulder, like everything he ever wanted was riding on
me
now. I look down, and J.R.'s initials are staring back at me from everybody's kicks. Then Mitchell breaks the huddle and looks me in the eye.

“Mustard, all the real hot dogs are sitting in the stands wishing they were playing for the championship,” he says. “You're a leader. These kids look up to you 'cause you got the guts to go out there for you and J.R.”

“And don't let that fat fucker get in your ear,” says Greene, getting in front of my face. “I'm countin' on you to be
my
boy.”

I look into Greene's shades and see my reflection—one in each eye. I don't know which one is Mackey, and which is Hold the Mustard. I don't know how they got split like that, or if they were ever both the same. I just know that I can't stand the sight of either one of them.

Stove comes back from the scorer's table holding a silver stopwatch. Then he calls Fat Anthony and Mitchell together.

“Coaches, I'm not confident in the way that clock's been moving,” says Stove, showing them the face of the watch in his hand. “I'm gonna keep the time on the court, too, to check it. I just want you to understand that in the end, my time's what we're gonna live by.”

I step back onto the middle of the court, but nothing's changed for me. None of the clocks have moved a second, and it's like I'm still trapped in that corner of the court.

15

I'M SHADOWING KODAK when a Non-Fiction player throws a pass away. The ball's headed out-of-bounds, and Kodak's streaking to save it. I stick right with him, and the scorer's table comes up fast.

I've been holding something back ever since that morning I took Fat Anthony's money. First I held back on J.R., thinking I could hide it from him. Now I'm holding back the truth from Stove and screwing over the team. Only I can't play that line anymore.

Kodak dives across the table for the ball, and so do I.

I don't care if I break a leg or crack my skull wide open. It's better than being backed into a corner with no way out.

The scorekeeper grabs his book off the table.

Kodak reaches the rock first, slapping it backwards. It hits square in my hands and I shove the ball back off Kodak last. Then I go crashing through the trophy and land upside down on the ground with it cradled inside my arms. The marble bottom's jabbing me in the stomach, and the gold ball that kid holds is pressed up against my throat.

I swallow hard, and feel for every part of me. But nothing's broken.

Then I get pulled back up to my feet and hear all the arguing.

Hamilton's saying the ball was off me last. That the rock belongs to Non-Fiction. I know he's wrong, and maybe Fat Anthony finally got the call he's been working Hamilton for all game.

“Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. Thank
you
,” says Fat Anthony. “That's what we need here—a sharp set of eyes.”

Kodak's already back on the court. And when Stove sees I'm still in one piece, he yanks the trophy away from me, setting it back on the table right.

Mitchell and Greene are both blowing a fuse.

“Christ, Hamilton! You couldn't see that from the other side of the court!” argues Mitchell. “Stove, you were closest to it. Why didn't you make the call?”

“It's more bullshit! That's why!” shouts Greene.

Then Greene turns away from the refs. I watch his whole body start to coil. He rips his shades off and stares straight at me. His eyes are blacker than anything I've ever seen, and they drill two holes into the deepest part of me.

“What are you jumpin' over tables with that joker for? The ball was gonna be off them,” hisses Greene. “What, you wanna be somebody's hero now?”

My heart's beating wild. I can't control my breathing, and if I wanted to run, I couldn't.

 

THAT'S HOW I felt when Greene put the knife to my throat in the park—that day we were supposed to play his squad for the first time. It got back to him that Fat Anthony had a kid on the Greenbacks in his pocket, and that the bet was in the bag.

“It's either you, or you know who it is!” demanded Greene, backing me up against the fence with his posse circled around.

The couple of kids hanging around the park all jet.

Greene started rattling off names of kids on our squad, and I was scared shitless.

J.R. and me had covered for each other hundreds of times before on anything that would ever go wrong. So when he got to J.R.'s name, I just nodded my head, thinking that would buy some time till I found a way out.

Then Greene pushed me down on a bench and was pumping me for more when J.R. walked into Rucker Park. Greene hid the knife inside his hand, and J.R. walked over to us blind. My eyes were screaming out for him to run. But he didn't see it in my face till he was right on top of us.

“I hear your moms went and died 'cause she was too ashamed to look at a piece of shit like you,” snapped Greene, stepping onto the court with J.R.

J.R. looked over at me quick, but I was empty inside.

“I thought that's how you got sent to that group home!” J.R. shot back.

Greene turned to his posse, slapping his knee and pretending to laugh. Then he flashed them the knife, and rammed it into J.R.'s stomach.

I just sat there frozen with every muscle tied up so tight I couldn't move.

J.R. was doubled over on the court, screaming in pain.

“You did-n't see a fuck-in' thing!” Greene told me, stabbing the air with every syllable.

Then him and his posse took off running and bounced into their rides.

“Mac-key!”
J.R. cried one time, reaching his hand out to nothing.

Then J.R.'s eyes closed for good, and I bolted, too, because it was like I murdered him myself.

“THAT WAS A pure hustle play, divin' for the ball like that,” says Mitchell, getting in front of Greene. “That's the kind of effort we need. You just gotta use your head more, Mustard.”

My mouth's bone dry as Stove puts the ball back in play.

Kodak gets hold of the rock, and everybody else wearing a white jersey clears away. It's an isolation play, and he's supposed to take me one-on-one.

We're just a few feet from where J.R. got killed.

I set myself in front of him, bending at the knees. I lift my heels off the floor. I'm up on my toes, and all my weight's balanced on the balls of my feet.

Kodak juts his jaw to the left, and every part of me jumps that way. I should be watching his stomach, but I can't take my eyes off his face. That's what I want to see again when I look in the mirror—a baller on fire, not some rag doll with its stuffing knocked out.

I bite at another bluff, and my body nearly bends in two. Then I jerk my feet back underneath me and chase after Kodak as he blows by. I have to catch him, because there's nothing left for me if I don't.

Kodak sprints for the hoop, raising the ball in one hand for the layup. I feel something run up through me from the ground, then an explosion in my legs. I leap forward with every bit of strength I can find. Then I reach across Kodak's body, and slap the rock out of his hand.

I hear the crowd in my ears and Acorn blasting something over the mike. But none of that matters to me anymore.

Stove blows his whistle, pointing at me for the foul.

I turn to the scorekeeper, lifting one hand up high to show I'm guilty.

Kodak's headed to the foul line with a chance to tie the game. I keep watching his face. He thinks I'm staring him down, trying to put a chill into him, so he steps to me.