Wallace and them, they work for a dealer in my neighborhood, so they always got good herb, too. I got no problem with that. I might even have hit some of that hydro with ’em if they’d asked. But they didn’t ask.
Anyway, they came back pink-eyed, lookin’ all cooked and shit, debatin’ over which was better, Phillies or White Owls. We started the second game. Me and mines went up by three or four buckets pretty quick. Right about then I knew we was gonna win this one like we won the first, ’cause I had just caught a little fire.
Wallace decided to cover me. He had switched off with this other dude, Antuane, but Antuane couldn’t run with me, not one bit. So Wallace switched, and right away he was all chest out, talkin’ shit about how “now we gonna see” and all that. Whateva. I was on my inside game that day and I knew it. I mean, I was crossin’ motherfuckers out, just driving the paint at will. And Wallace, he was slow on me by, like, half a step. I had stopped passin’ to the other fellas at that point, ’cause it was just too easy to take it in on him. I mean, he was givin’ it to me, so why not?
’Bout the third time I drove the lane and kissed one in, Wallace bumped me while I was walkin’ back up to the foul line to take the check. Then he said somethin’ about my sneaks, some-thin’ that made his boys laugh. He was crackin’ on me, is all, tryin’ to shake me up. I got a nice pair of Jordans, the Air Max, and I keep ’em clean with Fantastik and shit, but they’re from, like, last year. And James Wallace is always wearin’ whatever’s new, whatever it is they got sittin’ up front at the Foot Locker, just came in. Plus Wallace didn’t like me all that much. He had money from his druggin’, I mean to tell you that boy had everything, but he dropped out of school back in the tenth grade, and I had stayed put. My moms always says that some guys like Wallace resent guys like me who have hung in. Add that to the fact that he never did have my game. I think he was a little jealous of me, you want the truth.
I do know he was frustrated that day. I knew it, and I guess I shouldn’t have done what I did. I should’ve passed off to one of my boys, but you know how it is. When you’re proud about somethin’, you got to show it, ‘specially down here. And I was on. I took the check from him and drove to the bucket, just blew right past him as easy as I’d been doin’ all afternoon. That’s when Wallace called me a bitch right in front of everybody there.
There’s a way to deal with this kinda shit. You learn it over time. I go six-two and I got some shoulders on me, so it wasn’t like I feared Wallace physically or nothin’ like that. I can go with my hands, too. But in this world we got out here, you don’t want to be getting in any kinda beefs, not if you can help it. At the same time, you can’t show no fear; you get a rep for weakness like that, it’s like bein’ a bird with a busted wing, sumshit like that. The other thing you can’t do, though, you can’t let that kind of comment pass. Someone tries to take you for bad like that, you got to respond. It’s complicated, I know, but there it is.
“I ain’t heard what you said,” I said, all ice-cool and shit, seein’ if he would go ahead and repeat it, lookin’ to measure just how far he wanted to push it. Also, I was tryin’ to buy a little time.
“Said you’s a bitch,” said Wallace, lickin’ his lips and smilin’ like he was a bitch his own self. He’d made a couple steps towards me and now he wasn’t all that far away from my face.
I smiled back, halfway friendly. “You know I ain’t no faggot,” I said. “Shit, James, it hurts me to fart.”
A couple of the fellas started laughin’ then and pretty soon all of ’em was laughin’. I’d heard that line on one of my uncle’s old-time comedy albums once, that old Signifyin’ Monkey shit or maybe Pryor. But I guess these fellas hadn’t heard it, and they laughed like a motherfucker when I said it. Wallace laughed, too. Maybe it was the hydro they’d smoked. Whatever it was, I had broken that shit down, turned it right back on him, you see what I’m sayin’? While they was still laughin’, I said, “C’mon, check it up top, James, let’s play.”
I didn’t play so proud after that. I passed off and only took a coupla shots myself the rest of the game. I think I even missed one on purpose towards the end. I ain’t stupid. We still won, but not by much; I saw to it that it wasn’t so one-sided, like it had been before.
When it was over, Wallace wanted to play another game, but the sun was dropping and I said I had to get on home. I needed to pick up my sister at aftercare, and my moms likes both of us to be inside our apartment when she gets home from work. Course, I didn’t tell any of the fellas that. It wasn’t somethin’ they needed to know.
Wallace was goin’ back my way, I knew, but he didn’t offer to give me a ride. He just looked at me dead-eyed and smiled a little before him and his boys walked back to the Maxima parked along the curb. My stomach flipped some, I got to admit, seein’ that flatline thing in his peeps. I knew from that empty look that it wasn’t over between us, but what could I do?
I picked up my ball and headed over to Georgia Avenue. Walked south towards my mother’s place as the first shadows of night were crawling onto the streets.
It’s five a.m. I’m sitting in my cruiser up near the station house, sipping a coffee. My first one of the night. Rolling my head around on these tired shoulders of mine. You get these aches when you’re behind the wheel of a car six hours at a stretch. I oughta buy one of those things the African cabbies all sit on, looks like a rack of wooden balls. You know, for your back. I been doin’ this for twenty-two years now, so I guess whatever damage I’ve done to my spine and all, it’s too late.
I work midnights in the 4th District. 4D starts at the Maryland line and runs south to Harvard Street and Georgia. The western border is Rock Creek Park and the eastern line is North Capitol Street. It’s what the newspeople call a high-crime district. For a year or two I tried working 3D, keeping the streets safe for rich white people basically, but I got bored. I guess I’m one of those adrenaline junkies they’re always talking about on those cop shows on TV, the shows got female cops who look more beautiful than any female cop I’ve ever seen. I guess that’s what it is. It’s not like I’ve ever examined myself or anything like that. My wife and I don’t talk about it, that’s for damn sure. A ton of cop marriages don’t make it; I suppose mine has survived ’cause I never bring any of this shit home with me. Not that she knows about, anyway.
My shift runs from the stroke of twelve till dawn, though I usually get into the station early so I can nab the cruiser I like. I prefer the Crown Victoria. It’s roomier, and once you flood the gas into the cylinders, it really moves. Also, I like to ride alone.
Last night, Friday, wasn’t much different than any other. It’s summer; more people are outside, trying to stay out of their unair-conditioned places as long as possible, so this time of year we put extra cars out on the streets. Also, like I reminded some of the younger guys at the station last night, this was the week welfare checks got mailed out, something they needed to know. Welfare checks mean more drunks, more domestic disturbances, more violence. One of the young cops I said it to, he said, “Thank you, Sergeant Dad,” but he didn’t do it in a bad way. I know those young guys appreciate it when I mention shit like that.
Soon as I drove south I saw that the avenue- Georgia Avenue, that is-was hot with activity. All those Jap tech bikes the young kids like to ride, curbed outside the all-night Wing n’ Things. People spilling out of bars, hanging outside the Korean beer markets, scratching game cards, talking trash, ignoring the crackheads hitting them up for spare change. Drunks lying in the doorways of the closed-down shops, their heads resting against the riot gates. Kids, a lot of kids, standing on corners, grouped around tricked-out cars, rap music and that go-go crap coming from the open windows. The farther you go south, the worse all of this gets.