Team Seven (17 page)

Outside I see Papa Tanks’s little legs sticking out from beneath his gold Volvo.

“Afternoon, Pop!” I say. He inches out from beneath the Volvo and lifts his goggles to look at me. He takes out his handkerchief, blows his nose, then flips the goggles back on and disappears back under the car. He’s never liked me.

I look up the walkway and Roland is idling outside the fence. I want to spit on him when he leans his head out the window stretching his arm toward me as I pass by.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Eddy Battel? Put it here, brother.”

I keep walking and don’t respond. I get in the station wagon and fire it up. It backfires twice, then starts and the gas light flashes on. I hop out of the car, jogging to catch Ruby before she comes out of the house. Roland smiles at me as I jog by.

“Ho! Thought I was going to have to give ya a jump, man.”

I stop because he’s the right nigga to say the wrong thing.

“Fuck you, crackerjack.” I smack the roof of his car. “Test me if you want. I fail every time.”

We make eye contact and he starts winding up his window. This is when the tough guy disappears and the bitch comes out. Roland suddenly becomes winded and develops convenient amnesia. The foolish-chatter stops and his head recoils into his little neck and all of a sudden he’s got the helium voice.

“Whoa! Eddy, come on! Relax, man, brother. Chill!” he squeaks out through the crack in the window. I keep walking and meet Ruby in the doorway of the house. Her makeup’s fresh, curls tight, and she smells sweet. I put my hand on her hip and she stiff-arms my chest and steps back.

“Eddy, move!”

“The car needs gas.” I grin.

“You are so trifling.” She rolls her eyes and digs a twenty-dollar bill from her purse. “Now move!” I step to the side and she booty-bumps past me, then stops and turns around and
hands me another ten. “And make sure the kids eat.” I watch her walk to the car. Roland is eyeballing all of this and he smiles again with them fucking teeth. Ruby gets in the car and unbuttons her jacket and pulls off her scarf and freezes. He’s tattling, he couldn’t wait. He turns back around with his bitch ass and waves again, and now Ruby’s mean-mugging me. He rolls down the window.

“Good day, pal. Be blessed.”

They burn rubber and pull away in his red Acura Legend. The sky is still ash gray, and I watch their black silhouettes in the rear window as they pull off. Ruby’s arm raises and she rests her hand up on the side of Roland’s headrest.

Like I said, we deserve each other.

Andre power walks by me with his hood on and I watch him bop to the car, clutching his gym bag. He slams the passenger door behind him. My head hurts, I still ain’t got right on the day and I don’t care how bad he thinks he is—I ain’t in the mood for no shit. I hear the front door slam and I look up as Nina’s locking it. She starts walking toward me. She’s wearing makeup too. Her jeans are spandex-tight and her shirt’s about a half inch too short, showing off a chrome belly button ring that I was not aware she had. She too brushes by me and gets in the car and I follow behind her. I put on a cassette tape from one of my shows a few weeks back in Providence, and we pull off.

As soon as we get over the bridge into Mattapan Square we hit a red light. Andre sucks his teeth like he’s offended. He snatches open his gym bag and takes out his headphones. He rezips the gym bag and stuffs it between his legs. He turns his music all the way up and resettles into the seat. As he rustles around I can smell the weed all over him. Feels like I should say something but I don’t ’cause there’s nothing to say.
He pulls the drawstrings on his hood, hiding his face, and slouches deeper in his seat. I look at him.

“Just leave him alone. He’s always crabby before his games.” I look up at Nina in the rearview mirror.

“Well, maybe he—” She raises a finger in the air and stops me.

“Well, maybe you ought to know.” She cuts her eyes at me. “There’s a lot you don’t know about!” I can feel her mounting her daddy-do-wrong soapbox, so I turn up the music.

“You can’t hide behind that music forever!” She crosses her arms and braces back into the seat, pouting and looking out the window. I don’t answer her and keep looking ahead as I drive. Andre takes off his hood and headphones.

“Easy!” He turns around and looks at Nina. Then turns back around and slaps the dashboard. “Look at the time! Damn, man, we ’bout almost late. Coach hate it when niggas is late!” He lets out a growlish groan. “I should’ve just rode with that man.”

“Yeah, you’ll have your chances,” I shot back.

“Well, don’t do me no favors then, nigga.” He looks at me.

And here he goes again with that corner-boy tough-voice. I jerk the wheel as we swerve across three lanes onto the rumble strips of the breakdown lane and I stomp the brakes.

“I won’t!” I clap my hands together. “You think you hard? You got something to prove? I’m right here, make a move!” I peer over into his face and we lock eyes. He doesn’t look scared, but being scared ain’t got nothing to do with getting your ass beat.

Nina’s arm slices through our glares.

“Come on, y’all, can we please just make it to the game?”

Andre looks away. I keep my glare locked on him for a few
more seconds just to make sure we’re clear. I take my foot off the brake pedal, turn up my music, and we ease off.

We pull into the parking lot of East Boston High and I already don’t want to be in this part of the city. A fat little white man with rosy red drinking cheeks is pacing out front of the gym smoking a cigarette, his hair gelled up all hedgehog-like. He’s got on a yellow-and-black swishy suit, the same color as Andre’s gym bag. Andre looks at the man, lets out an aggravated sigh, and rolls down his window.

“Coach, I’m coming, I’m coming—my bad,” he yells to the man and starts grabbing for his gym bag. “Let me out. Let me out, Pop.”

The man looks down at his watch. “Battel! Fifteen minutes to tip-off and you’re draggin’ ass. Get in there!”

Andre snatches his sneakers from his gym bag, tosses the bag in the backseat, and runs up the steps to the gym. “I should bench your ass,” Coach Hedgehog says as he blows smoke and Andre runs past him inside.

I take my foot off the brake and the car rolls a bit as I hear the squeak of Nina’s open door and hit the brake pedal again.

“Excuse me! Forget I was in the car?” She sucks her teeth.

“I didn’t mean—” The door slams and she starts walking toward the gym.

I park the car and a black family in a white minivan parks next to me. The side door opens and a young boy and girl run out to the back bumper and stop. The parents get out and the mother takes her time unclipping the hinges of their other little girl’s car seat. I wait for them all to exit, then start walking up to the gym behind them. The older two run ahead playing
as the parents hang back, walking the little girl between them, each parent holding one hand as her arms stretch up and she waddles along. I remember back to when I thought having kids was all it took to keep us all together.

As I get closer to the gym I see the brightness of the lights and hear a buzzer going off. It ratchets up my headache and I stop to rub my temples. I watch the family walk up the stairs to the gym. Nina’s holding the door for them. She waves for me to hurry up.

We walk in together and there’s an admissions and concession table set up in the little lobby. It sounds like a million basketballs are bouncing and it’s not helping my headache. I can see Andre and his team in the layup lines. A stout white woman with a floral turtleneck is sitting behind the table.

“Would you two like to buy a weekend family admission pass for twenty dollars?” she asks.

I almost laugh in her face and look at Nina, who looks offended. She fixes her eyes on the woman, who is stressing her jaws with a smile.

“We’re assistant coaches. You sure coaches pay to enter these things?” Nina grabs her back pocket like she’s going for a wallet and the woman hunches into her double chin looking embarrassed and crosses her hands over the bulge of her stomach.

“Of course, of course.” The woman chuckles and motions her arms toward the door.

We walk past the table into the gym. Nina winks at me and I smile. The game hasn’t started yet and Nina heads off to grab us seats while I head for the bathroom.

The dirt under my nails looks metallic as I wash my hands. I see myself in the mirror. My eyes have dark raccoon circles and I have a few little cuts on my chin. The back of my head
feels tender from falling down last night. I lift my shirt. Janet got a few scratches off on my stomach too, but the bite didn’t break the skin. I run some cold water and wet my face. My jaw hurts from grinding my teeth. I dry my face and walk back out to the concession table and use a couple of Ruby-dollars to get a coffee. I’ll give myself till halftime before I grab some smoke and a beer so I can start feeling more normal about things.

Nina is sitting with a bright-skinned black couple, clearly parents of one of Andre’s teammates, both wearing the same black-and-yellow team travel gear, looking as square as can be. The husband has a
Boston Herald
stretched across his lap and the wife is knitting something. Nina knows these people. They’re all laughing as I walk up the bleachers. The man stands up and flaps his arms open like he wants to hug me. He has a wet-looking S-curl in his hair with matching patches of gray on the sides.

“You must be Andre’s father. Charles Watson, I’m Aldrich’s dad. It’s a pleasure. Andre was just over to the house last night for the team pasta party. Some kid you got there. You must be proud.”

“I’m Eddy.” I stretch my hand out and look down at his big shiny watch. He gorilla-grips my hand and snatches me close for a half embrace. I almost spill my coffee and force a smile.

“This is my wife, Trina.” She drops the yarn balls in her lap and tilts her glasses down to see me, raising a limp hand in my direction. She smiles, showing no teeth, and gently touches two fingertips lightly on both sides of my hand and we make a shake motion, being careful not to actually touch hands. We make eye contact and her eyes open shock-wide and narrow and I look her off and say nothing and settle into my seat.

I watch as both teams’ starting fives walk onto the court,
milling around slapping high fives and saying, “Good luck,” waiting for the ref to toss the jump ball. Andre’s a starter and I don’t know the last time I saw him play. Maybe when he was in grade school. The ball tips off and bounces to Andre, and immediately he attacks the hoop and gets fouled. He makes the layup and pounds his chest, yelling, “And one!” Everyone starts cheering and my head pounds harder.

Charles leans into me, bouncing his eyebrows.

“God, I love watching that kid play,” he says.

“So, Charles, what number’s Aldrich?” I ask as Andre shoots his free throws.

“He’s number seven.”

“Where’s he at?”

“The bench.” He points.

I nod okay, and say no more. It looks like this is the game to see. The gym has five ball courts of games going on but everyone seems to be packed in around this one. As the half unfolds, Charles sits telling me more than I ever knew about my son. First off, this league is called AAU. This is one of the best AAU teams in Massachusetts and all these kids are supposedly “pipelined”—as Charles put it—to play ball in college. On the weekends, more often than not Andre rides with the Watsons to tournaments.

Charles’s got Andre caddying golf at his fucking country club and they take him along with them on their Martha’s Vineyard vacations. I don’t really know how to feel about all this. But it’s more than I can do for him, so again I say nothing.

Charles says he’s been teaching Andre to play the guitar. He’s thinking about giving him one for his birthday. This sends an electric jolt up my spine. I turn and look him in the face.

“Oh, yeah? What kind of music you teaching him to play?”

“Just some rhythm and blues, a little Muddy Waters.” He tosses his hands up. “Oh, you don’t mind, Ed-O? Andre said you’re a drummer. I’d hate to step on a musician’s toe. I only play for fun.”

I don’t answer. The more Charles keeps talking the less I want to hear what his light-skinned country-club ass has to say. From the sounds of things, Andre’s better off without a nigga like me around.

I look out at Andre on the court and his eyes are still red, with the slant of sideways sunflower seeds. He might smoke a little reefer, but he’s nothing like me and maybe that’s good. I tune Charles out as he starts blabbering about the life insurance company that he runs and playing squash at the YMCA on the weekends. Now what kind of black man plays squash? I focus in on the game.

Andre’s out there tearing shit up, bullying kids, cursing out the refs, talking shit to the other team’s coach. Aldrich finally gets in and throws Andre an alley-oop right as the time expires, and Andre dunks it on a scrawny little Spanish kid as the buzzer sounds. Then he turns around and chest-bumps the kid, screaming “Penga!” in the little yellow boy’s face.

The gym erupts, everyone’s standing, the kids lining the courts are jumping up and down falling all over each other. A lanky ref runs up in his tight black pants and windmills his arms in Andre’s face and blows his whistle, spiking his hands together into a T to call a technical foul on Andre. Andre looks at the ref and starts laughing as Coach Hedgehog runs onto the court and ushers him back over to the bench, sitting the whole team down.

Coach Hedgehog’s pulling at his collar, his face is tomato
red, and all the kids on the sidelines are reenacting the dunk and laughing. Nina is more embarrassed than amused, but Charles is right, I am proud.

That’s my boy out there and who’da knew, he’s got Battel blood in them veins after all. Charles can take him wherever he wants, but I made him and he’s my son. Andre looks across the gym and we make eye contact and I smile and give him the thumbs-up. But then I realize he’s looking at Nina, who’s fanning her arms up and down, puffing out her cheeks, telling him to breathe. She nudges me.

“So, where we going to lunch?” she asks.

“You don’t want to see the second half?” I ask.