“So,” Chris said.
“At least in the NBA you know who the fuck you’re working for. Your uniforms got colors, but you know who owns the team, who manages the team, and who you running for. In this league, we can’t see who’s behind it. Tyriq is the front man. But who does he report to?” I tried to get them to look at all the angles.
“If you believe that they’ll pay out to the champions, none of that shit even matters. We running for the money. That’s it,” Ameer said.
“But we all on different teams,” Chris said. “Ameer’s on the red and you on the black. I’m on the green,” he pointed out.
“It don’t matter,” I told Chris. “It just increases our chances of winning. Whichever one of us wins some paper, we cut it three ways, no matter what happens. That’s what up,” I said.
“You right. That is what’s up,” Ameer agreed with me.
“Oh, yeah. I can’t do the date with Homegirl tomorrow night. My team got tomorrow evening on the schedule. It looks like if y’all still want to do it, I’m a have to do it on a weeknight, maybe a Thursday evening when we ain’t at the dojo.”
“Thursday evening,” Chris repeated. “That’s whack. But we’ll do it. Girls are good on any night!” he said.
At the train station we went our separate ways. On the ride home, I kept breaking the basketball situation into separate puzzle pieces. Ameer was right, it is all about the money. And if I could get my hands on a chunk of money like that, even after we cut it up, I could match Umma’s effort and speed up our move out of Death Valley, Brooklyn, into an even better house in a peaceful and safe place for her and Naja.
At the same time, I kept wondering what exactly the hustlers got out of it. Maybe it was a war over territory battled out on the court. Maybe it was all about ticket sales, concessions, or merchandising. Maybe it was a betting front. Maybe it was just a good-ass distraction from what the fuck was really going on.
After a while, I wondered if I was just thinking too hard. Maybe the hustlers was just some niggas with money to burn, who came up with a main attraction for Brooklyn cats to pile up at while they showcased their whips, jewels, and bitches.
21
VEGA
Seemed like half of New York was outside Madison Square Garden trying to get in. The New York City evening air was more cool than cold as spring approached, but some degrees hotter around the Garden where people gathered.
I took careful steps in my Clarks. I didn’t want dog shit smashed into the grooves of my new soles. I didn’t want none of these overeager cats accidentally stepping on my new shoes.
It wasn’t hard to spot Vega. He was rocking a red Kangol and red suede Ballys, black slacks, and a red dress shirt.
The whole team and the coach had fresh cuts, including me. I could smell the scents of coconut oil and Afro Sheen and a strong cologne that I wouldn’t wear cutting through the odors of grime, gum, and piss on the New York pavement. But the bright and colorful lights of Seventh Avenue, the crowd for the Garden, the rest rushing to shop at Macy’s, made us forget any foul smells and made this the place to be. Besides, tonight we weren’t outsiders. We were ticket holders.
Vega greeted each Brooklyn teen in our crew as they arrived with a hand shake and a swift survey of what they was wearing, saying only two words, “Nice, nice.” He pinched the jute and burlap material on my tan dress shirt and said, “I like dat.”
Vega used his eyes to keep a silent head count going. Every few seconds, he checked his Hamilton watch. When the second hand hit the thirty mark, the last teen showed up. Vega waved for us all to follow his lead.
We ended up where the rest of the Garden crowd wasn’t. We were at the VIP entrance to the Garden, where the college ballplayers were arriving in droves. There was a stream of Syracuse University players, over six feet tall easily, like it wasn’t nothing to it. They climbed down from polished trucks and up out of new whips. We Brooklyn teens was all watching what they was wearing on their bodies and their feet. We even checked the gym bags they carried, some by Nike, by Adidas, Puma, and whatnot. Vega watched us watching them and said casually, “And they say there is no money in college ball, yeah right.”
Three black vans filled with St. John’s players, coaches, and personnel pulled up. These cats poured out of the vans singing, giving each other pounds, waving at the crowd, and giving the small gathering of spectators a show. I liked the way it seemed like those players had a strong camaraderie and spirit, one team, one goal. Dudes from my hood wasn’t like that.
“See what I was telling you? You have to want it. Those niggas right there want it and tonight they gonna take it,” Vega said, getting caught up in their hype.
I never seen so many people packed in one place before. There was mad energy and excitement. Not one seat was empty except when somebody ran to the bathroom. Can’t front, quite naturally I started counting the black faces in this huge crowd. Most of the black faces were actually the ballplayers for Syracuse and St. John’s. Otherwise there were small handfuls of Blacks sprinkled here and there up against a sea of white fans who were pumped up like their lives depended on it. The food vendors began weaving in and out of each of hundreds of rows with their Cokes and franks, peanuts, popcorn, T-shirts, and team flags.
We Brooklyn teens had good seats, not on the floor but close enough to it. The twelve of us plus our coach dominated our row. We remained standing though. We were too excited by the newness of being on the inside. Besides, there was about fifteen girls flaunting their blue-and-orange panties, cheering for their players.
Everything moving caught my eye—the way the players were being introduced over the powerful speaker system, their names and jersey numbers announced with pride, then echoing around the crowd of 25,000 cheering fans. I watched the way each player reacted differently, some soaking up the downpour of admiration, others playing it down, some looking up at themselves as the cameras caught them in a candid close-up and projected their faces onto the mega screen above the scoreboard, some looking anxious to get the game going. I felt that anxiety.
Just the strength of the lights shining down on the flawless triple-polished court, the unripped new white nets, and undented rims, got me amped. I imagined myself down there playing on that court for the love of the game. Maybe my entire team was thinking the same thing. Maybe that’s exactly what Vega wanted us to be thinking. Well, if it was what he wanted, it was a smart plan. And these tickets must have set him back some. I saw scalpers hawking less expensive seats than we had for more than a hundred dollars.
It didn’t matter who any of us was rooting for. Vega was rooting for St. John’s, so if we thought anything different, we better had kept it to ourselves. He watched the game like he had money on it. The drawback was, when the first half was over his team was losing by thirteen points.
“Don’t sleep,” Vega said. “Get ready for the big comeback.” He was talking to each of us, the strangers on his new team, but it was as if his voice was mic’d up to the ballplayers’ earpieces, ’cause just when he called it out, they burst out with a new setup, new confidence, and an unbreakable fury. For sixteen straight minutes they flipped the pressure on those Syracuse boys, and all hell broke loose when St. John’s player Ron Rowan pulled up and hit a fourteen-foot jumper with only eight seconds remaining in the game, bringing St. John’s to a one-point lead over Syracuse. While everybody went wild, Vega stood cool, chanting, “Eight seconds, eight seconds, it ain’t over, keep the pressure on, defense, defense!”
Syracuse player Dwayne Washington must’ve felt the same about the remaining eight seconds and the possibilities it left open. Washington drove to the basket with only three seconds left and was so sure his shot was on the money, he started celebrating before his feet touched the polished floor.
Just when him and his Syracuse boys thought they had it hemmed, St. John’s player Walter Berry unveiled his wingspan and blocked the shot. The buzzer sounded. St. John’s took it, the Big Eastern Championship, 70
to 69!
While our section of the Garden cheered and jumped and bumped one another, I stood still, thinking, Here is one thing that I’m real good at. This game is completely legal. And, everywhere in America, the whole country thinks it’s okay for a young man to play ball. You can’t get arrested for it. You can get paid and win props. You can get into a position to buy your moms a house, no problem, and save the family you love, while doing something that you love to do.
Vega told us to hang back while the crowd spilled out into the aisles, into the corridors and out of the building.
Soon enough, we were on the train together heading further uptown to get something to eat at a venue Vega chose. On the train each of us remained standing once again, leaving the seats for the other tired passengers. I don’t think any one of the thirteen of us was scheming on any of the riders that night. We were all just thinking, hoping, dreaming that this night would work out in our favor and eventually put some paper in our pockets.
Our late-night dinner was at a spot on 175th Street and Broadway named Malecon’s. Whole chickens were roasting in their wide windows. The streets surrounding the place were lit up now at 11:10 P.M., same as if it was early evening. The streets were packed with youth, adults, and even babies being pushed in carriages. Inside, the restaurant was popping. Almost completely filled, there was still a line of people, plus more arriving to begin ordering dinner at this late hour.
Our table must have been reserved, I thought. There was six small tables pushed together, six chairs on each side and one at the head. I took the corner chair by the side window. Almost immediately I noticed that same buttermilk Porsche with the buttercream leather interior and the gold piping. It was parked on the side block.
Brooklyn heads were pressed against Manhattan menus. Only a couple of them tried to find out from Vega what some of the Spanish words on the menu meant so they could get their food orders right.
Not focusing on the menu, I was scanning the restaurant. My eyes landed on one group of nine well-dressed young cats, probably in their twenties or late twenties. I could tell each of them had a different status by the quality of their jewels and clothing. Only one of them wore a Rolex. He was rocking a twenty-four-karat gold, thirty-six-inch chain with a unique piece, a solid-gold baby shoe. I realized immediately I had seen it once before. He was a top-quality cat. He was definitely the only one in the restaurant wearing a cashmere dress shirt and diamond cuff links. I glanced down at his Gucci suede driving shoes. “Top grade,” I thought to myself.
“You gon’ order, man?” one of the players asked me. I looked up at the thirty-something-year-old Boricua waitress stuffed in a tight dress, smiling down on me with her pad in her hand and pencil ready.
“I’ll take the mofongo with chicken,” I ordered and pulled out my twenty dollars and laid it on the table.
“I got the team tonight,” Vega informed me. “Put your money away.”
I held the twenty up toward the smiling waitress and said, “Just add this to your tip.” Vega smiled quick and nodded. “A’ight.” The waitress folded the bill, slid it in between her breasts, and left, smiling, and rushing to place our team’s big order.
Instantly Coach went around the table trying to recall each Brooklyn teen’s name from memory. He messed up right away and called one of our team members Mateo instead of Michael. The guys laughed at his mistakes.
“Who could do better? You niggas don’t even know each other’s names,” Vega challenged. He laughed a little and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and said, “Here goes twenty for whoever can call out the names of every team member, no mistakes.”
Two players tried and failed immediately, causing everybody to crack up. Neither one of them knew my name ’cause up until now I never said nothing, never signed nothing. For some reason Vega turned toward me and said, “How ’bout you? Go ahead, give it a shot.”
“Panama Black,” I pointed out first. I remembered his name ’cause he was black like me and wore two gold-framed teeth in the front of his mouth. “Machete,” I called out second, ’cause who’s gonna forget a dude named after a deadly weapon? “Jaguar,” I called out next. I remembered his name because I was always intrigued by people who named themselves after animals. My father named his friends and enemies after certain animals when telling a story, a technique he learned from Southern Grandfather. Whichever type of animal a guy picked to name himself after, I was sure it told something about his ways and personality. “Braz,” I called out next. I heard him speaking on the pay phone once right before our last basketball meeting started. He was speaking Portuguese and that caught my attention. I wondered whether he was from Angola or Brazil.
I called off all eleven team members’ names easily, ending with my own. “Midnight,” I introduced myself.
I lifted his twenty-dollar bill off the table. A couple of guys clapped two times for me, gave me props. Next thing I know, Vega is telling the player Panama, seated right next to me, to switch seats with him. As the waitress delivered some of the food orders, the new coach sat on my side.
Eventually, Vega said to me quietly, “I see you got it.” I didn’t know what he meant.
“You want your twenty dollars back?” I asked him, figuring he was a sore loser like the cats on my block who fight and bust shots after losing a dice game.
“No. You won it fair and square,” he said. “But let me tell you something,” he said with a slight Spanish accent slipping into his Black English. “Always remember to make me look good. I take dis shit personal.”
I didn’t answer back nothing because I didn’t know what he was talking about. I ate my food quietly and so did he, while the other players’ conversations grew louder and louder.
I watched the sharp cat with the Rolex on the other side of the restaurant signal to Vega. Vega saw the signal then looked toward the restaurant door. Another cat entered the place carrying a bunch of Foot Locker shopping bags.
At one in the morning we were all standing on an outdoor Brooklyn ball court. Vega threw every team member who complained about playing ball in their dress-up clothes a new pair of shorts and sneakers from the Foot Locker bags.
“Did you niggas think you was on vacation?” he asked the team with a new seriousness. “You don’t ever get something for nothing. It’s time to run it.”
I wasn’t mad. This is around the same time I would normally be hooping it on my own. Now we were divided into two squads.
I went on and played it like I was on St. John’s.
We had 24,989 fewer fans, but I could see the nine well-dressed cats from the dinner spot standing outside the fence, their cars shined up and double-parked, talking among themselves.
When I pulled up to take a jumper, I told myself, “If this one goes in, the light-skinned cat with the Porsche, Rolex, and diamond cuff links is the boss.”
I sank it. It was all net.
Heading home at 2:30 A.M., coach and ballplayers on a train, the real hustlers riding in their cars, Vega asked me, “How did you do that?”
“Do what?” I asked him.
“Remember all those names,” he said. I could see my little twenty dollar triumph was still fucking with his head. “Did you know some of the guys before the league started up?” he asked.
“Nah,” I told him.
“Then how did you do it? In the gym, each player only mentioned his name once.” He was staring me down for a real answer.
“I don’t know,” I answered. I wasn’t gonna tell him that I study people, their names and faces, mannerisms and gestures, jewelry and possessions, cuts and bruises. I wasn’t gonna admit that I am a ninja who is always anticipating an attack. Why should I tell him? Sensei taught me that there is an art to concealing my weapons. I could see now that my mind, my memory, and my observations are weapons too.
Rethinking the moment, maybe I shouldn’t have exposed my weapons to Vega just to win his twenty dollars. Maybe I alerted him and caused him to pay closer attention to me in the futu
re.
22
A SWEETER LOVE
My schedule now was tighter than it had ever been before. I realized that being happy about the ten-thousand-dollar wedding commission Umma and I had headed our way was only one level. The next level was the doubling, tripling, and quadrupling of our workload, Umma’s and mine. I spent my days doing several more deliveries than ever before. I was traveling to new, faraway routes like Mount Vernon and even New Rochelle.
I encountered new businesses and new business people. Orders had to be placed, tents rented, painters hired. I even ended up at a midtown Manhattan music store renting band equipment from a request the wedding party made. I had to go deep into Brooklyn to locate the Tambour and Dallooka drums that are specific to the Sudan.
Even our Sunday family days were being consumed with all of us working side by side for that money. Naja was a polite part-time receptionist on the Umma Designs phone. She also was becoming skilled at mixing oils exactly how Umma taught her, and preparing the elixirs for the crystal bottles.
Squeezing in dojo practice, weapons training, basketball practice, and keeping up with homeschool work, it was looking real tight on me spending time with Akemi. But I was thinking about her five or six times every day.
Determined, I doubled up my efforts on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Even on Wednesday, the day me and her were gonna get together, my feet were moving fast on the pavement early that morning, so that by the time I met up with her, I wouldn’t be focused on unfinished business.
Her eyes slowed me down and softened me. This was our truest form of communication.
Today there was no more winter whip or frost in the air, only a subtle wind. Coats were out and sweaters, hoodies, and long-sleeved T-shirts were in. It was March 21, the first day of spring.
I could see that she also had used her time well. She seemed real relaxed. Her skin and hair glistened. She was wearing a cantaloupe-colored jumper. It was a loose fit, not hugging or riding the curves of her shapely petite body. It looked fashionable but was too short. She had her legs covered with tights colored several psychedelic shades of tangerine, a style only an artist type would find and choose to wear. She had her little feet tucked into a creamsicle-colored pair of Pumas, a color I never seen before, foreign kicks.