ON A PLAYGROUND at the edge of the West Village, I’m sitting on the end of a metal slide and finally eating the pizza when two guys climb through the hole in the fence, hey, Yo-Yo, what do you think of Bird? says the first one, a short, stout Mexican guy. Yo-Yo snatches the basketball from his hands and bounces it twice through his legs. He looks me in the eyes, I chew the pizza. Hey, Yo-Yo, says the Mexican guy, what do you think of Larry Bird? Yo-Yo dribbles two more times and says, he got nothin’, Eduardo. Yo-Yo shoots and scores, and Eduardo in baggy pants comes over to me. Hey, white boy, what do you think of Larry Bird? He doesn’t look at me, he looks past my eyes at my left ear. Larry Bird is the best player of his generation, I say with my mouth full. What? asks the Mexican guy. Yo-Yo is standing behind him, spinning the ball in his hands. You’ve got to be kidding, I think, drinking the rest of the milk, you’ve got to be kidding, the short, stout one is talking, and the tall one is waiting and playing, and in a moment the short, stout one will threaten me, and the tall one will want to play me for honor or my nuts, I think, putting the milk down between my feet. Afterward I’ll be told never to show my face on this playground again, because this is their turf, those are the rules in the ghetto, those are the rules on television. What? asks the Mexican guy again, what did you just say? and his voice makes a small leap. Listen, kid, I say, not meaning Eduardo or Yo-Yo, but rather myself and that I’m sitting on a metal slide and eating pizza while Grace is asleep upstairs. Okay, I think, I have a headache and blood stains on my T-shirt, I’m drunk, and Tuuli and Felix are playing by their own rules in my apartment, under my roof, and if this is all a game, then I’m up for it, I’ll play along. I say, Larry Bird was the most complete player of his generation, and your mother saw it on television and cried with joy, I say, since she definitely can’t read, so shut up and play. Eduardo laughs and spits on the pavement. Yo-Yo stares at me, now he’s spinning the ball on his finger. What are you doing here, white boy? asks Eduardo, as if he didn’t hear me, he’s not talking to me, he’s just talking, wasn’t that your mother calling you a minute ago to come home and fuck her? Is your father shitfaced again? Shut up and play, I say, taking fifteen dollars out of my pants pocket, your mother, your father, your sister, if I win, the money stays here along with yours, and you do a job for me tonight. I put the money on the ground between my feet and place the milk container on top of the bills. To eleven, says Eduardo, throwing fifteen dollars in the pot. Rule one: whoever scores keeps the ball, two: it’s a foul when I say so, and three: if you lose, you fuck off. Got it, I say, and Yo-Yo asks, you drinking milk, pansy ass?
Yo-Yo and I play in jeans, Eduardo sits on the slide and smokes, foul, he says. Yo-Yo has a good inside game, Yo-Yo can jump, but Yo-Yo has no outside shot. I have the ball and fake Yo-Yo out with a crossover, the first shot goes in from the free-throw line, a moment later one from outside, two points, then I score again from the left, I’m winning three nothing, crybaby, I say, wimp, pussy, come on! I say to Yo-Yo, come on. I drive past Yo-Yo with the ball through my legs, seven nothing. Yo-Yo grins at me and throws the ball at my knees. I catch it and am about to drive past him on the right, I think, today the thorn is coming out, tonight these two will carry my sofa out of the Lorimer Street apartment, they don’t look like movers for nothing. I see them carrying the boxes of books, the records, and for a brief moment I know I’m going to win, but on the very next offensive possession Yo-Yo’s hand comes down past the ball on my arm. I miss my shot, I shout, that’s a foul, asshole, and Yo-Yo snags the ball from the backboard. Ref didn’t see it, says referee Eduardo, and Yo-Yo keeps the ball, streetball, white boy. Yo-Yo can jump, Yo-Yo weighs ten kilos more than I do, all in the upper arms. At nine in the morning Yo-Yo throws his T-shirt on the ground and boxes me out so I tear my pants and my knee on the asphalt. Eduardo calls fouls that aren’t fouls, Eduardo rolls a joint and smokes, traveling, he says, as I make a clean drive past Yo-Yo. Yo-Yo has a good inside game and pushes me under the basket with his broad back, Yo-Yo dunks on me, Yo-Yo is fast, Yo-Yo makes a midrange shot, and now Eduardo is shouting “in your face” and “pussy” and “yo mama.” Seven to five, then seven to nine. I roll up my sleeves, I gasp for breath, I’ve used up my vocabulary and my strength, because for weeks I’ve been preoccupied with other things. I feel my twisted ankle, there’s a hole in my shooting hand, and when two other people are making the rules, you’re outnumbered. Once again the calculation is off. Good work, Svensson, I think, as Yo-Yo leaves me in the dust and the ball rattles through the chain net, seven to eleven, it’s over. Larry Bird’s a bitch, shouts Eduardo, your girl is a bitch. She is not, little man, I say, I don’t care about Larry Bird and I don’t care about basketball, but don’t talk about Tuuli, man, don’t talk about Tuuli! My knee is bleeding, Yo-Yo puts his T-shirt back on, and Eduardo takes the money from under the milk container. I take one of Tuuli’s cigarettes out of my jacket and offer one to Eduardo and Yo-Yo. Eduardo gives me a light and my money. Keep it, white boy, he says, you look like you need it. And what now? What now? I limp to the hole in the fence, nothing can come of this, I think, enough is enough, and Eduardo calls after me, the rules of streetball, brother.
Because I forgot Lua, I go back to Grace’s apartment. At the bakery where I was kneeling a short while ago, I buy coffee and croissants, and because in the West Village there are convenience stores everywhere and Grace meant the vodka and not the milk, I buy a bag of ice cubes and walk up to the fourth floor. Breakfast, I say when Grace opens the door, and give her the coffee and croissants. Lua wakes up and barks, I stand soaked with sweat and still covered in blood in front of Grace. I hold the dripping bag of ice cubes behind my back. You’re weird, she says, and climbs back into bed. I hop in the shower, that’s enough, I think under the cold water, things can’t go on like this, and because I’m now faster than I was two hours ago, I mix two martinis in water glasses and, wearing Grace’s purple bathrobe, go back to the bedroom, where she’s still lying on her side. I can pick up where I left off. I let a drop of condensation drip from the glass onto Grace’s hip and kiss her on all seventeen characters one after another. At the thirteenth she wakes up, or at the thirteenth she reveals that she’s already awake, and when she takes the glass and drinks, a shiver runs over her skin, as if we’d stopped and turned back time. Grace puts her glass on the windowsill next to the bed, then mine too, forces me directly onto my back, or I let her force me. And because we’re playing by other rules here and now, she at first keeps her mouth off my cock and takes a big bite into my face again like last night by the elevator. Then takes the cue “breakfast” and has me for breakfast, I think, and the word “cue” is right on cue, because between kisses Grace immediately breathes in my ear again, directly in my ear, and reels off her squealing sounds like the actress she is. She lets down her hair and brushes it across my face, and I reach around her narrow waist with my left hand, grab her ass too far down and too far in, pull it too far apart to be going for her ass and end up with index finger and middle finger directly on her pussy. But she can’t be that fast, and she isn’t, so I bring both hands up to her head, and with my hands on her ears I tell her without many words that this is the time and place for kissing and drinking martinis. I take a glass and a sip and warm the vodka, then I turn her over and plunge between her legs and spit her full to have something to lick, and lick her empty. Does vodka burn? I ask myself and her, but Grace is caught up in the wordless script she’s still rehearsing. I come up and now she drinks from the glass and disinfects our tongues, because pussies are the dirtiest places in the world, she’s read, she doesn’t like her own taste, so it’s a good thing the vodka’s there. Grace’s tongue dipped in vodka, and still, to my amazement, she kisses and breathes in my ear at the same time. She does that for a long time, her hand holding my cock. Eventually she straddles me and leans her head back, she does what she has to, she goes berserk and tosses her head back and forth, her hips roll, her bed on rollers moves through the room, and I think about Vonderlippe, about Lua, and watch my hands, see how they do most things right, how Grace and I go through the motions, how she loudly and ardently comes and scratches and claws and notices that I’m not coming, and then keeps going and going and getting louder. How she fulfills her expectations and I don’t stop her, how I close my eyes and concentrate. And suddenly Tuuli is there, not only the thought of her body, but also how she sounds, and it’s her name that fills my head. As I explode behind my closed eyelids and then open my eyes again, I’m surprised to be in Grace’s apartment, in Grace, at the end of the night on which I wanted to remove the splinter. The porcelain dog and Lua look at me.