I've heard Stove take down lots of coaches who were ready to blow because they thought they got cheated out of a few seconds.
“The time you pissed away in the beginningâthat's the same time you're cryin' about now,” Stove would tell them. “The game's finished. Go home and hug your family while that time's still in front of you.”
I'm close enough to the see the gold face of the dude on top of the trophy. His eyes are smoothed over, and I can't tell for sure if they're open or closed. I can see the seams and grips on the ball he's holding over his head. I never noticed before, but the hand down by his side is closed tight in a fist.
A whistle finally blows, and I pop up to my feet. I feel the blood rushing to my head, and everything's spinning. But I push through till it all comes back steady again.
Stove's waving me onto the court. My eyes start at his face. Then they follow the stripes on his referee's shirt down to his shadow on the ground.
“Let's go, Mackey,” I hear his voice. “Come on in.”
Stove
I look at Mackey and thinkâhe's almost a grown man.
I remember playing against J.R. a couple of years back, and suddenly, I couldn't get by him anymore. You wake up one morning and your son's stronger than you are. And while I was feeling bad about it, J.R. was flying high, because it was his turn to prove himself. But I got used to it and gave him the space he neededâas much as I thought he could handle. He never disappointed me once. It was almost the same for me with Mackey, and part of me felt like I had two sons.
But Mackey's turned into something different, or somebody poisoned him. My blood boils thinking about it. And if I find out Anthony brought any of his shit into my house, and had something to do with J.R., I'll tear him in fucking half.
I've been in plenty of fights on basketball courts. But all of them exploded out of something that happened on the spot. Maybe somebody threw an elbow, and I just lost it. It was never personal. Not like this. I never walked onto a court before looking to settle up.
Players should decide gamesânot referees. The best refs are invisible, and you can't even remember they were there. But I'm not about to fade into the background tonight. I'm going to do whatever I have to. And before it's over, somebody's going to see me.
13
FAT ANTHONY RAISES his arms, hollering in Hamilton's direction.
“I got a sub comin', ref! Hold on!” says Anthony.
Spider runs over to the scorer's table and yanks at his sweats. The snaps up and down the sides pop open, and the sweats fly off him with a
thip
.
The dude's all arms and legsâthat's how he got the tag “Spider.”
He runs right up to me and throws his feet down in front of mine. I know right away that Spider's going to shadow me everywhere I go. He's fresh off the bench, and all his energy's supposed to go into stopping me.
It's like Fat Anthony is making it easy for me now. All I have to do is let Spider cut me off from the ball, or throw a couple of passes away with him hanging all over me. Then he gets props for sticking to me like glue, and all I have to do is suck it up and say I couldn't shake him.
I start down court with Spider on my ass. His eyes are on my stomach, with his arms spread out wide. And every time I turn my feet, he switches his around, too, and keeps centered in front of me.
One of our kids tries to get the rock into my hands. But he can't because Spider's right there, playing the passing lane.
“Hold the Mustard's caught in Spider's web,” says Acorn. “âCan you find the way out?' said the spider to the f ly.”
Now half of Rucker Park is cheering for Spider.
I keep a look on my face like it's nothing to me. That I haven't started to flash my speed yet, and that Spider's just a little mosquito I'm getting ready to swat. But before I can get free, Non-Fiction steals the ball and heads the other way with it.
J.R. and me were playing three-on-three at the park last summer when somebody on the other squad had to split. None of the regulars were left, so we asked some grown man standing on the sideline if he wanted in. “Sure,” he said, and whipped off his jacket. That's when we saw that one of his sleeves was empty, and he only had one arm.
I traded looks with J.R. while the dude sprinted across the court to get loose and jumped up at the rim with his arm stretched to the sky.
“I know the teams,” the dude said, getting in front of me on defense.
I never felt more lost on a basketball court in my life. I didn't know what to do against him. I didn't want to blow by, like I needed to beat on a guy with one arm to show my skills. So I kept passing the ball off and never pulled the trigger on some wide-open shots I had. That whole time, the dude kept looking at me, like he was waiting for me to get serious and play for real.
We should have been winning easy. But the score was tied up.
“You gotta crank it up, Mackey,” said J.R., tightening a fist in front of him. “I don't wanna lose to
these
guys.”
Then the one-armed dude scored a basket on me down low that I didn't try to stop him on. After that point, he turned right to me with the ball tucked under his arm.
“Listen here, man,” he said, stopping the game. “I watched you play for a while before I got on this court. I stepped to you on D 'cause I respect your game, and it was gonna be a challenge. That basket I scored, it means nothin'â'cause you goin' light. See, you don't show
me
any respect by playin' that way.”
My tongue was cemented inside my mouth, and I just nodded my head. Then he stuck his arm out for me to slap his hand. I brought my arm down fast and heard the
smack
when our hands hit.
I drained the next shot with him up in my face. We won by a point, and took two more games after that.
I'm not sure how much I'm going to have to disrespect Spider to keep the score right. He's going to think it's his two good arms and legs that got me off my game. But it's not.
Non-Fiction cuts the lead to six points. Spider's up in my grill, and I jet past him to get the ball. Then I throw on the brakes, so I can get everyone set up and run the show.
Junkyard Dog's got Bones on his backside down low. It's a mismatchâBones doesn't have anywhere near the size to keep Dog from going where he wants. But the two of them are locked up tight, going at each other for everything. Dog is pushing in with all his strength, and Bones is trying to shove him out the same.
Their expressions are exactly alikeâthe muscles in their faces and all across their foreheads are straining. That's how J.R. looked anytime he went after you on the court. It's what I see in his pops's face tonight, too.
Dog sticks one arm up to tell me he's ready for the ball. I cock the pass over my head, and they brace their bodies against each other's one last time, scrapping for position.
Suddenly every muscle in Bones's body goes soft, and he backs away. Only Dog is still pushing. It's one of the oldest tricks in the yard, and something Stove used to pull on J.R. and me. Without Bones pushing back, Dog loses his balance and goes falling backwards to the floor. That's when I let go of the pass, and it sails out-of-bounds.
“Timber!” screams Acorn. “That was a mighty big tree to cut down.”
The crowd is howling over Dog hitting the deck.
I stare at Stove like maybe he wants to blame me for pulling the chair out from under Dog's ass. The scorekeeper's making a mark in his book. I know he's putting a turnover next to my name for throwing that pass away.
“That should be a foul!” shouts Greene. “He made him fall!”
“Greenie, you think that's a foul?” roars Fat Anthony. “I think you been rappin' yourself in the head too long.”
Mitchell's trying to calm Greene down, explaining why the play's good. But Greene doesn't want to hear it.
“That's punk-ass shit,” snaps Greene as Bones jogs past.
Junkyard Dog's super-hyped now. He's got on a frigid ice-grill, and his beams are fixed on Bones. Then halfway down court, Dog's shoulder slams into Bones's. But Bones stiffens up on the hit, throwing his shoulder, too.
“Just one time I'll let that go!” Stove warns them.
There's almost eight minutes left, and it feels like the time's moving in slow motion. Kodak's got the ball for Non-Fiction, and forces a shot up with one of our kids all over him.
“No! No! Nâ” starts Fat Anthony, till the shot slips through the net. “Yeah, baby! Yeah!”
Kodak keeps his feet fixed to that spot for a second, with his wrist frozen in a perfect gooseneck for everybody to see.
“That's what coaches call a good/bad shot,” says Acorn. “The only thing good about it was it went in.”
I start back up court with the ball and hear everything break loose ahead of me. So I bend my neck around Spider to see. It's Dog and Bones. They're tangled up together, throwing blind punches past each other's heads.
“
Ooooooh!”
The crowd gets louder with every miss, till Dog connects on one. Then the noise jumps to another level.
Dog pulls his fist back from Bones's temple, looking to nail him again. But Bones shoves both hands up under Dog's throat, knocking him back. The cops come rushing onto the court, and I can't tell the refs' whistles from police whistles.
Bones wrestles Dog to the ground, and Stove gets on top of them before the cops. He's got an arm over each of their necks and won't back off, no matter what the cops tell him.
“This is for the refs, not police!” screams Stove from the pile.
That's when the cops let Hamilton in, and he pulls Bones clear.
The crowd cheers as Stove walks Junkyard Dog back to the bench and hands him to Mitchell instead of the cops.
“They both threw punches,” Stove tells the scorekeeper. “They're both gone from the game.”
“Why my guy, Ham? Why my guy?” screams Fat Anthony. “He was only defending himself!”
But Hamilton just shakes his head.
It's almost natural for those two to mix it up. Bones won't bend on anything, and Dog can't take it when somebody gets the best of him. So
bang!
It's on. But a few days from now, they'll probably be on the same side in some pickup game, fighting to win together and watching each other's back.
It's not that simple for
me
âthings won't snap back like that. And I can't get even with anybody, because it's me who caused it. Maybe J.R.'s pops can get revenge, but I know that's going to touch me, too.
Stove starts over to me for the rock. I flip it to him, like that could stop him from getting any closer. Then he points to the sideline for somebody on our squad to put the ball back in play. Only I won't budge, and some other kid runs over.
There's seven and a half minutes left to play. But that's game-time. The clock gets held up on every stop in between, and nobody knows for sure how long it'll take for everything to get decided.
Fat Anthony
Some things you can't set up. They give them to you gift wrapped. Bones for Dogâthat's a trade I'll take right now. They lose twice as much as we do 'cause they got to lean even more on Mustard.
Down by just four pointsâI can feel the momentum switching to us. I'm gonna win this bet and the championship, too. I see it comin', so let me tell Father Time on the clock to cool his heels, and let it flow natural.
Monty's been down with me forever. I never talk to him and he never talks to me. The money just shows up in his pocket come tournament time. Monty wraps the plug to the clock around his leg nice and tight. Then every time he leans back, the plug edges out of the socket and cuts the juice. I can get an extra eight or ten seconds a minute that way when we're on the wrong side of a score. But things are lookin' good now, and I'll give him the sign to back off.
That's rightâlook at me, Mustard.
Fuss with that damn Spider, too.
Let me fill up your mind till there's too much to think about.
14
SPIDER'S HAWKING ME all over the court. He thinks he's the shit and that he's got my number. I hate that everybody else is probably thinking that, too. He's way up in my face, and I finally shove him off to get free. That's when Stove blows his whistle and shoots an arm straight out to show everybody what I did.
“Good call, ref! Good call!” yells Fat Anthony, clapping his hands. “That Mustard must be piss-yellow now!”
Spider takes the ball out on the sideline next to Fat Anthony, with me guarding him. I can see the sweat on Anthony's neck and the flesh flapping under his chin when he opens his mouth. Then Fat Anthony lifts his eyes up to mine. He knows exactly what I am inside, and how it took just five hundred bucks for me to sell out my team.
“Better not let your daddy down,” says Fat Anthony as Spider inbounds the ball.
Stove waves both arms over his head, stopping the clock.
“Don't you talk to a player on another team,” says Stove, straight to Anthony's face. “I'm warning you, I won't let you disgrace this game.”
“I'm talkin' to my kid! You hear me?
My kid!
” explodes Fat Anthony. “Don't get between me and my players, Stove!”
“You get a second technical, you'll be out of this game,” Stove warns him. “I'll make you leave the park.”
Greene's going ballistic from our bench.
“I already showed you once how I set traps for rats, Fat Man,” snarls Greene. “Keep away from my boyz, 'cause next time I settle up with
you
!”