Rucker Park Setup (7 page)

Coaches use that kind of talk all the time to get their team stoked. I don't think any of our kids really bought it. But the crowd behind our bench can hear every word, and they start making noises at us, like we're pussies. None of us can stomach that shit. I see in kids' faces how they're ready to run over anybody who'd get in front of us. So I guess Mitchell got what he wanted.

Non-Fiction's pulled so tight around Fat Anthony that I can't see him. But I know he's going off with his mouth, because his players are all stone silent, nodding their heads.

The court's filled with little kids putting on a dribbling show, and Stove's watching from the sideline. Some of those squirts aren't even big enough to reach the basket with a shot. But they dribble like they were born with a ball in their hands.

One time, J.R. and me saw a TV special on Pistol Pete. He was one of the greatest ball handlers ever. Pistol Pete was a skinny white dude from the South whose pops was a basketball coach. When Pistol was a kid, he never went anywhere without the rock. He was the first one to get to the yard in the morning, and the last to leave at night. For hours every day, he'd work on his handle. There's even a film of him dribbling out the window, sitting in the backseat of his pops's car.

“Nobody in my family's got any wheels,” complained J.R., after we saw that show. “But I don't care. I'm takin' a ball with me everywhere, till I get a handle like Pistol!”

So we snuck a ball into the movies inside a gym bag—the same as Pistol Pete. We both sat at the end of a row and took turns dribbling during the flick. First, some girl cursed us out over the noise we were making. Then her boyfriend came over. He was diesel from the floor up and threatened to slap the shit out of us. J.R. and me just kept our mouths shut and put the rock away. After that, we quit on the idea of copying Pistol Pete.

Before the last little kid leaves the court, Stove grabs him by the waist and lifts him up over his head. Then the kid shoots the ball into the basket. And I think about how many times Stove probably lifted J.R. like that when he was small.

Greene gets the mike from Acorn, and one of his beats starts playing low over the PA system.

“I see the city sent a whole mess of po-lice officers here tonight. And we all know how a whole mess of po-lice can just make a bigger mess out of things,” says Greene, laughing at his own joke. “But that's the way it is when you throw a party in the hood. The city's got to keep both eyes on you. Frisking everybody that comes in the joint, like the park ain't yours no more. See, they got to watch you close. They're afraid you'll all get together and figure a way to dig yourselves out the hole they got you in.

“Now, just think about the word ‘po-lice' for a minute. The ‘po' part is for poor people. You know like, ‘I'm so
po
I got to run my game to survive.' The l-i-c-e part is for lice, like the bugs that get into your scalp. So po-lice are just bugs in the scalps of poor people. That's why they're always in your hair.

“But I found a way out of that trap when I hit it big in the music business. I got myself a shitload of money, and I wasn't
po
no more. Then I went out and bought myself a big stick—the only kind they respect. I'm not talkin' 'bout a two-by-four. No. No. I got myself an asskickin' lawyer to whomp 'em good with. And I wrote a rap about it.

“Pump up the volume on that beat so I can spit this proper.

“Rucker Park, check out this rhyme—

9

THE CROWD GOES wild for Greene's rap, stamping their feet till the ground starts to tremble. But none of the cops are clapping, and I know they'd like to shove that mike up Greene's ass for what he said.

Stove's eyes are down on the ground while Greene takes his bows.

“Just gimme your gun, Sergeant. I'll shoot that ass-hole myself!” Acorn tells the cop closest to the court, not even caring if Greene hears him.

“He's got no respect! No respect for how this game gets put on!” Fat Anthony yells to Acorn.

Acorn takes the mike and waits for the crowd to quiet down.

“We support artistic expression in the community, so props to J-Greene,” says Acorn in a cold voice. “But we also want to recognize that we couldn't have this game without help from the city and the police department. So a special thanks to them as well!”

We walk onto the court and start to warm up. That's when Acorn goes behind the scorer's table and unwraps the gold championship trophy. He pulls back the plastic and the brown paper from it, with everybody watching. Then he puts the trophy on top of the scorer's table for both teams to drool over.

The trophy never gets put out till the second half because that's when the championship game gets won. You can't get lazy and coast to the title—not at Rucker Park. You have to scrap till the last second on the clock to go home with something that important. Just because you smack the other team in the mouth first and get a lead, doesn't mean they're going to quit. If you don't keep fighting hard, they could come back and knock
you
out.

“Four times I took that trophy home,” Fat Anthony hollers at his squad. “And I tell you, sweet five is in the air tonight. Take a deep breath with me, everybody! Can you smell it? I said, ‘Can you
smell
it?'”

Mitchell brings us together at our bench. He's been laid-back for most of the tournament, but his eyes are locked on ours, and he's breathing fire now.

“Boys, you see that trophy? I played pro ball in New York for eight years, and maybe you think
that's
special. But I never got a chance at winning Rucker Park!” snorts Mitchell. “You know who else never got that chance? J.R. That got ripped away from him with everything else. J.R. would have given anything to run up and down this court, all out! So don't any of you dog it for a second. Play with everything you got 'cause J.R.'s runnin' with you out there. I guarantee it! Now take one more look at that trophy, and make damn sure the next time you see it, Non-Fiction's not carryin' it off the court!”

Kids are bouncing up and down, and that speech has got my feet moving, too. Only I know that J.R.'s not out here with us. He's at my crib, standing inside his good kicks, waiting on me to set things right.

Acorn's telling the crowd who Holcombe Rucker was, and how the tournament helps get kids scholarships to colleges all over the country.

“Holcombe called this game the ‘Ghetto Express' 'cause it got our kids into places nobody thought they could ever go,” says Acorn. “But he believed in more than basketball. He wanted our kids to study once they got into a school. And he didn't just talk it, he walked it. Holcombe Rucker enrolled in college himself at thirty-five, and left the Parks Department to become a New York City teacher.”

History was J.R.'s favorite school subject. He even got an A on a paper he did on Holcombe Rucker one time. His pops would bring him home stamps from the post office with pictures of people we'd never heard of. Then J.R. would look up what they did. And every time somebody talked to us about a college, J.R. asked if he could study history there.

I step onto the court and take one long breath. I look straight up, so I don't have to face anybody. The stars are just starting to shine in the sky. I can't tell one from the next, or which one J.R.'s mom taught him how to wish on. Then I feel the pressure building up inside my chest, till I can't take it anymore. So I bring my eyes back down to everything around me. I empty my lungs and start to breathe again.

Both squads switch hoops for the second half. Now we're shooting at the basket Non-Fiction was gunning for, and guarding the one we were trying to score at. And if I closed my eyes and spun around in circles, it wouldn't matter which basket I was facing when I opened them again. I still got work to do for both sides.

We won the opening tap, so Non-Fiction gets the ball to start this half. They inbound the rock and come right at us. Fat Anthony calls out a set play. Their ball handler comes free around a pick. He drives for the hoop and lets go of a shot. Then out of nowhere, one of our kids pops up and slams the ball back down his throat.

“Dinner has been served!” crows Acorn over the crowd. “And the menu reads, SPALDING RUBBER—OFFICIAL SIZE AND WEIGHT.”

Without thinking, I turn to J.R.'s pops. I bring my hand up to my forehead and wipe away the sweat. Stove taught J.R. and me that move as a salute to a monster blocked shot.

“Wilt Chamberlain was over seven feet tall. He was the most famous player in the world and even scored a hundred points by himself in an NBA game,” Stove told us maybe fifty times. “But a bald-headed guy off the street named Jackson stuck Chamberlain's shot to the backboard in the tournament. It sent chills up my spine to see. But Jackson didn't whoop it up or anything. He just wiped the sweat off his head, like it was nothing.”

A park player pinned Chamberlain's shot and didn't crack a smile. That's something special. So anytime we saw a block that good, J.R., his pops, and me would wipe the sweat from our heads, too, out of respect for what that dude Jackson did.

But Stove's hands are down at his side. He's looking at me like I lost my mind. That he couldn't celebrate anything with me, not after I fed him that bullshit story about how J.R. got killed.

I hate the way Stove treats me now, like he's waiting for me to step up. I wish he'd just slap me in the mouth and call me a liar. That way I could hate him, too.

Non-Fiction scores a basket, and I walk the ball back up court. Fat Anthony's staring right at me, and Stove's looking at Anthony and me together. For a second, I can't juggle anything else inside my head except the two of them.

I go to plant my foot, but the ground isn't there.

That's when I see a white jersey flying at me. I try to get my balance back, but I can't. The guy's right on top of me. I see his hands flash past mine. He picks my pocket clean and streaks the other way with the ball. I'm left there frozen in front of everybody, with nothing.

“Lord! Lord! Call the cops! There's a thief in the park!” blasts Acorn.

I hear the guy's footsteps going the other way. He's long gone. I only turn back around to chase him because I have to. And I won't look up to watch him score.

Our lead's down to one point, and Greene's having a shit fit on the sideline.

“Mustard, use the sight God gave you!” screams Greene, lowering his shades so I can catch a glimpse of his eyes.

I never spent a dime of Fat Anthony's money. It wasn't like I could throw a party without J.R. asking how all that cheddar got into my pockets. So I kept the cash in my clothes drawer, inside a balled-up pair of sweat socks.

Before J.R. got killed, I took the money out and counted it every night. I'd feel it in my fingers and snap the bills down into a pile, dreaming of my own apartment. Then I'd push the edges tight on every side, till it was all even. But I haven't undone those socks since.