Ball Don't Lie
Table of Contents
For Al and Roni de la Peña
Dreadlock Man,
with his fierce fists and suspect jump shot, sets his stuff ($1.45 sandals, key to bike lock, extra T-shirt) on the bleachers and holds his hands out for the ball. It’s ten in the morning and Lincoln Rec has just opened. Sticky’s at the free-throw line working out his routine, while all the regulars come swaggering in.
Come on, little man,
Dreadlock Man says.
Give up the rock
.
Sticky throws an around-the-back, no-look dime. Watches Dreadlock Man rise into the air with his awful form—calves tightening, dreads scattering, eyes poised on the goal—and let go of a sorry-looking line drive. Before he comes back down to the dusty old hardwood, he yells out:
Peanut Butter!
Says it every time he takes a jumper.
Peanut
Butter!
That’s what he wants everyone to call him, but nobody does.
When the ball ricochets off the side of the backboard, entirely missing the rim, he says what any man would say:
Hey, yo, Stick, let me get one more
.
Hawk passes through the door, from sunny day into old dark gym. A big black man. Wears bright wraparound shades and baggy shorts, the new Jordans on his size-sixteen feet. Hawk has a little money to his name. He’s one of the few Lincoln Rec ballers who does. Some of the regulars say he made a few movies a couple years back. A stunt double maybe or security on the set. If you look quickly, get a fast profile shot, you might think he looks like someone.
Hey, yo, Dreadlock Man
, he says, megaphoning a hand around his mouth.
I got five says you brick that shot
. The whole side of his shaved head flexes as he chews hard at his gum.
Dreadlock Man takes a couple awkward dribbles and rises again.
Peanut Butter!
This time his ball arcs through the air without backspin. A Phil Niekro knuckleball that thuds off the back of the rim and drops into Sticky’s waiting hands.
Damn, Dreadlock Man, your shot’s straight broke
. Hawk falls into the bleachers laughing, goes to lace up his new sneaks.
Other dudes come strutting into the gym. Slapping hands. Slinging their bags onto the bleachers and talking trash.
Sticky high-dribbles to the other end of the court, spins in an acrobatic reverse. He points up at an invisible crowd.
Dreadlock Man watches, hands on hips. Yells out:
Come
on, Stick, we tryin to shoot down here
.
A couple other balls get tossed into the rotation. Everybody shooting short set-shots to get warm, stretching out stiff shoulders and legs. Most of these cats are just out of bed. A couple have pulled themselves off a piece of cardboard on court two, having spent the night where all the homeless stay.
Lincoln Rec functions both as a great place to hoop and a small-time homeless shelter.
Sometimes things overlap.
Sticky comes dribbling down from the other side of the court with his left hand. He goes right up to Dante, who’s just walked in carrying a duffel bag, the best player in the gym, and shoots a soft twenty-footer over his outstretched hand. Dante and Sticky watch the ball smack both sides of the rim and bounce off toward the east sideline.
Go get that brick, Stick,
Dante says.
Bring it back my way
so you could watch a real shooter.
Dante played ball overseas for six or seven seasons; he’s slick with both the rock and his mouth. Some cats say,
Watch
it, man,
to newcomers,
dude will beat you two times
. Then they sit back and clown those who brush off their warning:
Told ya, dawg. Didn’t I tell him, Big J, when he walked his
sorry ass in here?
Yeah, I heard it, OP. I was sitting right there when you
said it.
Dante’s skin shines black as night, and his hair is scare-crow wild. The devil’s growth fingers out from his chin.
Sticky skips a bounce pass to Dante, who pats it around his back a little, through his legs some, close to the ground with his tips like a magician, and then fires up a twenty-five-footer that nestles in the gut of the net.
You see how I play the
strings, young Stick?
He laughs a little and nods his head:
Just
like that, baby boy. That’s string music.
Dante struts off the court with hip-hop rhythm, brushes past a businessman (who’s stopped in to watch these black guys play: arms folded, subtle smile) and lies down near the bleachers to stretch his thirty-seven-year-old back.
This is Lincoln Rec on a Thursday, midsummer.
It’s the best place in L.A. to ball. Some sports mag even did a cover story about it a few years back. Gym manager Jimmy’s gold-tooth smile spread right across pages seventy-two and seventy-three. The article talked about how one court houses the homeless and the other accommodates the fearless. How Michael Cage sometimes shows up. Cliff Levingston. Eddie Johnson. Bill Walton was quoted saying: “It’s the sweetest run in all of Southern California.” The gym is in the middle of a pretty good-sized park, adjacent to some museums and business offices. The place gets so dark that when you’ve been in there a while and you go to peek your head outside to check your car, your eyes freeze up and hide like you’ve just stared in the sun.
Games go to eleven straight up. No win by two here. Fouls are called by the offense. The ball they use is dead weight. The leather has soaked up so much sweat from so many different dudes over the years, it takes a lot of legs just to get it up to the rim.
Other than that, there’s a constant sour smell in the air, a NO DUNKING sign that
nobody
pays attention to, and an unwritten rule that all who step foot through the gym doors with the intention of getting on the court better come with their A-game. “If you’re gonna run with the big dogs,” the article reads, “you can’t pee like a puppy.”
Sticky does what he does every day. He stands on the free-throw line with his ball. Simple as that. It doesn’t matter who says what to him, if a ball caroms out his way, or nothing: He’s not moving. He puts his rock between his knees and goes to tuck his shirt in. Pulls his shirt back out and retucks. Pulls it out and retucks. Ball between his knees, watching everybody shoot warm-up jumpers. Pulls out and retucks. Pulls out and retucks. There are eighteen, nineteen guys by this time—shooting around, running a quick game of twenty-one to get loose—this is the only way Sticky can make sure he finds himself balling in the first game. Pulls his shirt out and retucks. Pulls out and retucks. He’s seventeen and white; these guys are men. Even though his game has improved from here to the 405, and most regulars swear they’d make room on their squad, there’s still that thought in the back of his head that he might not get picked up.
He can’t kick the aftertaste of that first month he started showing up, way back before he was a sophomore. It’s only been a year and some change, but any baller would swear it’s been longer. He’d cruise into the gym wearing all his state-issued gear, a bottle of tap water and bag of granola in his backpack, and the kid wouldn’t get in one game all day. He’d just sit up in the bleachers like the thirteenth man, feeling like a scrub, headphones on his ears and basketball in his hands, figuring out on the sly who he could take. Absorbing the rhythms of squeaking sneaks and slapping hands, mouths left running all day and the rap of body against body in the paint.
Shoot em up!
Dante yells from the side, touching his toes with both hands.
And here’s Sticky, already on the free-throw line with his ball. Simple fifteen-footer. Shot ninety-two percent this past season on JV. Ninety-four percent in league. He bounces twice with the left, wipes right-hand sweat off on his sock and cradles the ball. Same deal, different day. Pulls in a deep breath, runs an index finger across his bead necklace three times (just like that, peeking up at the rim: one, two, three). Middle finger in the groove of his rock, thumb between the felt-penned 7 and F. Shot’s up and it rips through the bottom of the net.
First two who knock down free throws are captains. Sticky’s got first pick.
OP follows and misses way short.
Hawk has one go in and out.
Dallas shoots an air ball.
I just got here, man. My first shot
.
Finally Trey gets a generous bounce and the ball rolls in.
I got Dante,
Sticky says.
All right then,
Trey says,
gimme Slim
. . . .
I Almost Forgot
to tell you about Sticky. . . .
How he keeps his raisin-brown hair cropped close. Faded up on the sides with some fancy-ass clippers he snatched from Macy’s. How he’s long and thin like somebody’s stick-figure sketch, scissored off lined paper and Scotch-taped to a basketball court. How he goes everywhere with his duct-taped Walkman cranked up—loud rips of Jay-Z and Tupac before hoops, old-school Alexander O’Neal when it’s time to chill. Sometimes the right-side phone goes out for a sec, but the kid knows just where to slap to get it going again. Only time he pulls the headphones off is when he’s about to hoop or get with some little honey.
Sticky places the deck and phones in his bag, along with his flea-bitten ball, and zips up. Then he slides his stuff under the first bleacher. Slides it back out and back in. Back out and back in. Back out and back in. When something in the process fits just right he wraps the straps around the side support three times and ties up.
There’s twelve bucks in that bag, and Sticky knows to watch it all day. Some pretty shady dudes roll through Lincoln Rec. Guys that’ll thumb through stray bags when everybody’s head is in the game, looking like rats in a trash bag for something quick to jack. A watch or earring. A fat gold chain. Somebody’s hard-earned twelve bucks.
Some guys would steal from their best friend’s bag if it came right down to it.
Sticky scrounged up all that cash this past week at the Third Street Promenade, after extended sessions of hard-core hoop. He panhandled with a bowl like back when he was a kid. Same spot and everything.
Hard-earned currency.
Twelve bucks to buy the stuffed bear he spotted in some old lady’s card shop about a week ago. His girl Anh-thu’s sixteenth birthday is today and he’s set on hooking it up right. Figures he’ll put the gold bracelet he’s planning on swiping from a department store on one of the little brown bear’s arms. Give it to her first thing tonight when they meet.
But check it out, Sticky would never steal from an old lady’s card shop, he’s got morals about things like that. Some gold from a department store, though? That’s ripe for the taking.
He has the exact gold bracelet all picked out and everything. Saleslady called it a snake because of the way it wraps around itself. So slick and shiny and it never kinks.
You could
crumple it all up in your hand,
the lady said, spinning and pulling at it in her palm.
And it still won’t kink. See?
Sticky spied it a few days back after his boy Sin sat him down and told him how it goes.
Dude, you gotta score your
girl a gift,
he said as they rolled through Foot Locker, lifting new hoop shoes off the rack, checking them from every angle and then sticking them back up.
Not somethin all dumb,
either. It’s like this: if you tryin to get with some little lady, but
you ain’t sure, flowers are cool. Candy. But if you hangin with
her consistently, you gotta step up big
.
He looked Sticky right in the eyes when he said it, a pair of the new Iversons hanging in his right hand.
There’s no gettin around it, man. It’s mandatory
.
A couple minutes later Sticky spotted the snake in Macy’s and stopped Sin cold.
This is it, dude,
he said, running his fingers along the glass set up to keep grubby hands away.
This is the one I gotta get her
.
Sin stepped up next to him, squinted his eyes to get a better look.
All right,
he said, nodding.
OK
.
Yeah, she’s gonna dig this,
Sticky said.
I just got this feelin
about it.
Sin touched the glass, and Sticky called the lady over.
Lift the bracelet, pay for the bear: He’s had it all worked out like this for almost a full week.
It’s been a crazy hot summer in Los Angeles. Hot and dry. Like a tray of crackers just pulled from the oven. Like the whole city was pulled up by the roots and set down in the Mojave. Overheated cars line the freeway shoulder.
Abandoned. The parking lot in front of the gym is an afternoon mirage. The sun pushing its hot rays so deep into the newly laid pavement, it feels like you’re walking on grainy-black bread dough. Packs of businessmen slip two fingers between their throat and collar on the lunchtime march back from their cars, waiting for a cool breeze that never shows up. After midday games, all the guys jockey for the water fountain like a group of camels looking for a two-week fix.
Some of the old-timers go on and on about this global warming thing people are talking about, how all the concrete and packed freeways are going to be the end of this crazy city.
Feel like I’m in hell today,
Old-man Perkins says to no one in particular.
Man, I done felt like this almost every
day this summer
.
You said it, OP,
Slim says as a ball falls into his hands. He banks one in off the glass and holds his hands out for the change.
Already told you I’m out. I’m gonna go back where I
got most my peoples, up in Carolina. Soon as I get my last
check, poof, I’m yesterday’s news
.
Others sit in front of the huge gym fan and pass around cold beer in a water bottle. Jimmy posted a sign that says NO ALcOHOL right above the entrance, did it just this summer, but a little beer in a water bottle doesn’t bother him much. Not when the gym’s as stuffy as it is today. Not when a guy can break a sweat just talking. Everybody’s mouths cracked and full of cotton.
The blazing sunlight sneaks in through the slightly propped door. About seven or eight feet of warped rectangle glare that the team shooting at the south bucket has to deal with all game. But there’s no getting around it. Gym policy. Jimmy tells everyone it’s something handed down to him, something his boss made completely clear, door has to stay open all day. Guys sitting out who know the deal stand in the door out of courtesy. And it helps. Sometimes Jimmy himself stands there, arms folded, watching the games. Sticky tells everybody he can figure out what time it is by looking at the way the rectangle is folding up on itself.
Check ball,
Old-man Perkins yells.
Yeah, y’all, it’s already two games down, man
. Johnson counts all the guys, one at a time, with a slow index finger.
Three games down, matter a fact
.
Sticky ties the drawstrings on his shorts, waiting for the first ten to walk out onto the court so they can get things started. He unties his drawstring and ties again. Unties and ties. He’s a thin 6
’
3’’ at the top of the key, with skinny legs poking out of old hoop shorts. A fat homemade tattoo on his left shoulder, BABY, and deep brown eyes that pierce through anyone who catches his stare.
He unties and ties again.
Sticky’s face is chiseled and tan. He doesn’t talk much, but when he smiles all the girls seem to like what he’s saying.
Unties and ties.
A couple uneven scars map his face. One that zigs and zags above his right eye from a knife (got cornered in an alley back in Long Beach and wouldn’t give up his three bucks. Slash). Another circles up behind his left ear. The skin charred and purple about the size of a pencil eraser. He says he has no idea how he got that one.
Finally Dante slips off his platinum watch and tosses it into his bag. Shady characters know Dante’s platinum is off-limits. His fists come down hard, anybody will tell you. There are silent understandings in even the most messed-up settings. A delicate balance. He stands up and struts out onto the long dusty court.
Let the runs begin,
he says, and gives daps to Dallas. He straightens out his tucked-in shirt and starts in on Trey.
You didn’t ask for all this, did you, Treydaddy? To have to come out here and try to check a big baller
like myself?
Trey pushes out an uncomfortable laugh, wipes hands on his shorts. He looks down at his shoes and kicks his heel into the floor a couple times.
We’ll see what up, D,
he says, and pushes out another laugh.
Dante makes ten and everybody matches up on defense. Rob snatches the ball out of New York’s hands and bounces it hard off the ground with both hands. Power dribble.
I
got white boy,
he says, and shoves the ball into Sticky’s chest, glaring.
Rob is: faded Malcolm X T-shirt covering faded yellow skin. Thick gold rope and dookie yellow cornrows.
I’m
gonna slap the handcuffs on you, white boy
.
Slim, you match up with Dallas,
Trey says, pointing to Dallas on the wing.
Big Mac, you d-up New York
. He rolls up and slaps Big Mac on his big butt.
Keep this reboundin fool off
the boards
.
I got this light-in-the-ass cat,
Big Mac says, and throws a couple playful jabs into New York’s ribs.
I got Dante, Trey says. Y’all help out in the middle when he
drives.
Rob spits on the ground, runs his sneaks through for grip. He turns to Sticky and holds his hands out for the check.
Sticky tosses a bounce pass into his waiting hands. Rob spins around with the ball on his hip. Y’all good? he says to his squad. But just as he is about to check the ball in play, Slim throws his hands in the air.
Hold up, hold up, Rob. I got a rock in my shoe.
Slim jogs over to the bleachers and starts unlacing his shoe.
Before anybody can start in on Slim, Crazy Ray staggers up to the sideline from the homeless court. You lazy sons a
bitches,
he says.
Look at ya. Don’t know nuthin about no goddamn game of basketball. A bunch a gang-bangin thugs is all
you is
. Ray’s words spew out forty proof, and he points an old bony finger at everybody on the court. Like he does every day. A dark green plastic bag, outdoor size, wrapped around his thin upper body. Hanging down like a dress. He takes a few more unbalanced steps until he’s standing at half-court. Armholes cut out on both sides. Pulled over a dull orange T-shirt.
Halloween in late July.
His black face mashes up and he yells:
Ain’t like it was
back in my day. We had respect for the game
.
Everybody starts in on Ray to get off the court.
Go on, old man, get back over where you belong.
Ain’t nobody tryin to hear about no 1940.
Somebody get that decrepit, cryin-ass bum off the court.
I got em, I got em,
Dallas says, hustling over to Ray.
Let’s
go, old man, come on
. He takes hold of both arms and backs him up slow.
Ray shakes a fist over Dallas’s shoulder as he retreats. Y’all got no heart, he says in a weaker voice. No heart. And then the tears start rolling down his cheeks. Big heavy tears that launch off his quivering chin. The second he wipes all the wet away with a big right hand, six or seven more make the dive.
Same script, different day.
Dallas settles the Crazy Ray situation whenever it pops up. Most of the time it’s just once a day. He’ll walk out onto the court each morning with the same rap, get pulled off by Dallas and break down as he shouts a last line or two. But some days the old cat has a little more energy and comes staggering out again before closing. When most guys have taken off and all that’s left are a couple ragged games of three-on-three.
Sticky spits on his right hand, watching. Lifts his right foot up and wipes the dust off his sole. Spits and wipes. Spits and wipes. He’s watching Dallas handle Crazy Ray, but he’s thinking about that smooth-looking gold bracelet. Figuring out the different ways he can go about snatching it. Trying to picture Anh-thu’s face when he drops it on her tonight. Never thought he’d actually be excited to get a girl a gift. But Anh-thu’s different. Anh-thu’s his lady.
He spits again and wipes his right sole. Spits and wipes. Does the same thing again and again and then starts in on the left. Spits and wipes.
Spits and wipes.
Spits and wipes.
Dante watches the whole deal from a few feet away, says to him:
Hey, yo, Stick,
as Slim jogs back out onto the court claiming he’s cool now, he’s ready.
Yo, Stick, for real, what the
hell you doin over there?