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  “Ruffy ‘the Man’ Williams, center.”

  “Colin O’Brien,” the small white guy said, “guard.”

  “Malcolm Small, forward.”

  “Tomas Dvorski, forward,” the other white player said. He pronounced his name as if he was saying toe-mus.

  “Abdul Ghoia, forward.”

  “Bobby Rice, lover!”

  We all shook hands and said “Hey” to the new players. There weren’t that many white guys in Baldwin, but we didn’t have any problems, so it was all good. I showered, got dressed, then went over to where Fletch was counting supplies.

  “What you think?” I asked. “We going to do it the second half of the season?”

  “Depends on how deep your game is,” he said.

  “It’s deep, my brother.”

  “We’re going to find out just how deep,” Fletch said, looking up at me. “Hope you can tell me that at the end of the year.”

  Fletch is one of those quiet guys who know the game and leave all the rah-rah stuff home. They said he could rock it back in the day, but he didn’t run his mouth about it.

  I knew my game was deep enough. Ball is me and I’m ball. It doesn’t make any difference to me what people talk about when they say that all brothers want to do is hoop and rap.

  I found Ruffy and asked him what he thought about the team, and he said he was surprised that House didn’t have us scrimmage with the white boys.

  “I need to find out if I got any competition,” he said.

  We walked down the street together with me thinking that if House was serious and Fletch was serious, maybe they thought it was going to be a big year for us.

  The way I figured, the Chargers were just a little short on D and about four points shy of Big Time, which is cool for a public school that doesn’t recruit like some of the prep schools in the area.

  When I got home, my father was talking about how he needed to join a gym and get into shape again.

  “It’s about time you tried losing some of that belly,” I said.

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell your mother,” he said. “She’s talking about me walking to work. Now, how would I look walking all the way from here down to 128th Street and Amsterdam Avenue?”

  “Richard, you know if you join a gym, you’re going to go for two weeks and then all the money you invested in it is going to be lost,” Mom said.

  “How are you going to feel if I die of a heart attack because I’m out of shape?” Pops came back.

  “You can die of a heart attack looking like Superman,” Mom said. “Then all the people will just be saying how good you look in your casket.”

  Twenty-two blocks, which was how far our house was from the bus garage, wasn’t that far a walk, but I knew my father wasn’t going for it. He needed to do something, though, and he knew it.

  The principal of Baldwin Academy is Dr. Cornelius Barker. Everybody calls him Dr. Doom because once a year he shows up in a white suit, white socks and shoes, white shirt, and white hat, and you know that is the day when he is going to call anybody who’s really been messing up into his office and give them the bad news. Right after Christmas it had been my turn.

  I got into the outer office and had to sit on the bench with Stringy-Hair Patty Thompson, Don’t-Give-a-Crap Charles Stover, Don’t-Take-a-Shower John Poole, and Sean Conway, who was too busy selling bootleg videos seven days a week to even come to school half the time. When it was my time to go into the office, Dr. Barker gave me five and asked me how I was doing.

  “I’m all good,” I said. “I’m not failing anything.”

  “Hey, I know that.” Dr. Barker leaned back in his chair. “You know I keep my eye on you. I know my buddy Steve Joyner down at Johnson C. Smith called you about signing a National Letter of Intent. He said you weren’t too interested.”

  “Yo, Dr. Barker, if I sign, it means I got to go to Johnson C. Smith or I can’t play anywhere else for a year,” I said.

  “It also means an athletic scholarship,” Dr. Barker said. “Where else did you apply to?”

  “University of Washington,” I said. “That’s my dream. Then Kean University over in New Jersey, ’cause their coach—he used to be at St. Peter’s—likes my game. Arizona, because I like their game. And Virginia Union is my fallback because a friend of mine said that a lot of people check out their actions. Plus I’m going to hook up a few last-minute applications when my folks get the money.”

  “Okay, two of your picks are checking you out because of me,” Dr. Barker said. “That’s J. C. Smith, where I went to school, and Kurzinsky at Kean, because I knew him from Jersey City. Let me tell you this, young brother: The world keeps spinning whether you’re ready to make a choice or not. Be careful what you’re walking away from.”

  “I know where you’re coming from, and I’m heavy on it, sir.”

  “I hope so,” Dr. Barker said, standing up.

  Dr. Barker was for real, and his looking out was serious. I knew he was talking about maybe hooking me up with some black college. He had done it before, but I also knew that all the heavy ballplayers, black or white, were going to the big schools. I didn’t just want to go to college, I wanted to play ball in college. Okay, maybe I wanted to go sit on some campus and read about myself in the paper. What my dream really was—and I didn’t want to lay it out in front of Dr. Barker—was to play in the NBA and then maybe do a commercial for a smoking car. I’d probably have to learn to drive, but I knew I could hook that up.

  What the guys knew was that my game was money. All I needed was to show proper and we would come in either first or second in our division. We were already six and one with just a fall to Bryant. Bryant was seven and zip with half the season over. We were going to play them one more time, and if we could beat them, we had a shot to be numero uno. The trouble was that Bryant had a monster squad, and in the first game they caught us napping and beat us even without Boogie, their best player.

  James “Boogie” Simpson had game and then more game behind that. The sucker was unreal. He was six four, midnight black, laid-back, and always smiling like he knew something you didn’t. And what he knew was what he was going to do to your game if you brought it onto his court. Bryant had beaten us when Boogie was out with some kind of infection. When he got better, he just resumed busting every team he faced.

  The word was that Duke and Marquette had been asking about Boogie. When they faced us, the dudes with the pads and measuring tapes would be watching him, and that was going to be my chance to show what I could do. If Duke tapped me on the shoulder, even Dr. Barker would sit up and take notice.

  There were three reporters and a photographer at practice the next afternoon.

  “They’re interviewing that white dude,” Sky said.

  “What for?”

  “I guess because he’s that white dude,” Sky came back.

  They were talking to the new guy, Tomas. When Sky said they were interviewing him because he was white, the other white guy, Colin, gave him a look, but he didn’t say anything.

  We shot around a little, and Fletcher had us doing layups while we were jumping over a heavy punching bag, which nobody liked.

  “Yo, coach, suppose we fall on the bag and ruin our whole career?” Abdul asked.

  “If you can’t even avoid a punching bag, you’re not going to have an NBA career,” Fletch said.

  “They don’t do this in the NBA,” Ruffy said.

  “Yeah, they do,” Fletch said, “only they use those expensive bags. They call them assistant coaches.”

  House and the new white player finally finished the interview and called us together. We ran wind sprints for ten minutes while some guys took photos, then we did calisthenics with dumbbells for ten minutes, then more wind sprints. All the players were into the sprints, but Ruffy and Abdul were doing some serious heavy breathing.

  The drills running backward were usually fun, but House had his serious face on and was yelling at everybody, so we played al
ong. Then we did some sidestepping and some more wind sprints. After the newspaper guys left, Ricky asked the coach why they had shown up for a practice. He got put off big-time.

  I dug the newspaper guys being around. What I knew was that if I didn’t get any press and the college coaches didn’t know about my game, I wouldn’t be getting any phone calls. The real deal was that you either got onto a Division I team, the big schools, or the National Basketball Association didn’t want to talk to you.

  “Hey, man, which is my good side?” Needham Brown came real close and put his face near mine. “I don’t want no lame pictures over my stats in the paper.”

  “Square business, man,” I said. “You don’t have a good side.”

  Needham looked at me as if I were crazy. The thing was, the dude thought he was good-looking, which was like a bad joke. Needham looked like one of those little jumpy dogs with big eyes that can’t get their bark straight. The thing was the guy could pull some serious chicks, though. I couldn’t figure it.

  We did another drill, jumping with one-pound weights in our hands, and then House sent us into the locker room.

  “It goes like this,” he said. “You saw those reporters out there. This year the papers are going to be doing more stories on high school ball. Those newspaper reporters are going to keep coming around as long as we’re winning. We start losing and nobody is going to pay us any attention. And we’re going to keep winning as long as we understand what we’re doing on the court and play the kind of ball we’re supposed to be playing.”

  What I was wondering was if the reporters were interested in the team, as House said, why were they only talking to the white player? What was that supposed to mean?

  On the way out Tomas came over to me and asked me why the team was called the Chargers.

  “They call us the Chargers because we buy our own uniforms,” I said, feeling stupid even as I said it. “We don’t pay cash, we just charge the uniforms and then take them back at the end of the season.”

  Tomas didn’t go for it, I could tell. Meanwhile, Needham cracked up the way he did every year when we told that to a new man. It wasn’t even funny, but we did it every year anyway.

  I wondered why Tomas had come over to me. I thought that House must have told him something about me or somebody told him something about me. I was the main man on the Chargers. Maybe he thought he was going to take the team over.

  With high school ball you usually have one dude who can bust it and three or four dudes who can play some. If you get two dynamite dudes, then you can smell a league championship, maybe even move a little higher. You can’t do much in the all-state finals on the East Coast, because all the prep schools go out and recruit the best ballplayers. Baldwin was all right, though. Baldwin was always in the hunt for the division championship.

  After practice Ruffy grabbed the downtown bus, and I caught up with Tomas and Needham. Needham was running his mouth about how some new woman he had met loved him and even gave him money.

  “She’s about twenty-two,” he said. “I think she works part-time as a model and part-time in the post office.”

  Yeah.

  “Yo, Tomas, where you from, man?” I asked.

  “Prague,” he said, reaching out his hand. “You know the Czech Republic?”

  “Not really.”

  “It’s in eastern Europe,” Tomas went on. “I’ve been in the United States for two and a half years.”

  “You play ball in—where did you say you were from?”

  “Prague.”

  “Yeah, you play ball there?”

  “Sure,” he said. “I also play ball here in the gym in Queens last year. You know Flushing?”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said. “Where you live now?”

  “On 142nd Street, near Broadway,” he answered.

  I said good-bye to Tomas on the corner, and Needham ducked into the corner store. He said he had to pick up some toothpaste for his grandmother, but I knew the dude was probably getting some chips and didn’t want to share them. No problem.

  Then I started thinking about Tomas again. Why had the reporters interviewed him and not all of us? The only thing I could think of was that House had told them that Tomas was the man to watch on the Chargers. There was definitely some stink in the air.

  House had probably seen Tomas play in Flushing. The coach lived near Shea Stadium and sometimes refereed games at the community center. Most of the good players who came from out there were either Chinese or Korean. They were quick, but they didn’t have much size. Tomas might have looked real good against smaller players.

  Got home from school and Jocelyn was pissed. The girl stays mad.

  “What’s your problem?” I asked.

  “I’m supposed to ask two of my friends and two people in my family why George Washington was selected as the first president of the United States.” Jocelyn sucked her teeth after every other word.

  “Yeah, so what’s wrong with that?”

  “I think we’re all supposed to say something stupid and then my teacher can tell us his answer and go back and tell all his friends how slow black people are,” she said.

  “So why was he the first president?”

  “Because they had put his picture on a one-dollar bill and he asked how come he was on the one and Benjamin Franklin was on the hundred-dollar bill,” she said. “They had to think fast, so they said because he was going to be our number-one president.”

  “Jocelyn, that is so retarded!”

  “You want me to fix you something to eat?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I was a little surprised Jocelyn was going to make me something, but I figured she was upset, so I sat down at the table.

  “Peppers and eggs?”

  “Okay.”

  There were some green peppers in the fridge, and Jocelyn got them out and started cutting them up. She was good in the kitchen because she had fast hands.

  “If he’s supposed to be teaching me something, then go on and teach it,” she said as the knife chopped away. “Don’t be taking time out to diss me on the side and then acting like I don’t even know you’re dissing me.”

  “What did you get in history last year?” I asked. “And wait a minute; I thought your history teacher was a brother.”

  “He’s not a brother,” Jocelyn said. “He’s an African Somerian.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Some of the time he’s acknowledging his African heritage and some of the time he’s holding his breath and pretending he’s white.” Jocelyn put the peppers on the fire and sprinkled in some minced garlic and it was smelling good. “People like that end up saying how slavery wasn’t so bad.”

  “You’re too hard on the dude,” I said.

  Jocelyn put on the television and switched on the black station while the peppers and garlic cooked. There was a rap video on, made by some chick who just got out of jail.

  “You think she’s hot?” she asked.

  “Hey, where’s the Czech Republic?” I asked.

  “It’s right under Poland,” she said. “You know where Poland is?”

  “No.”

  “You find Germany on the map, then you go a little to the right—that’s east; then you run into the Czech Republic,” Jocelyn said. “It’s a little smaller than New York State, so you know it’s not big-time or anything.”

  “I guess.”

  “Why did you ask?”

  “This new guy on the basketball team is from there,” I said.

  She scrambled the eggs in a dish, then poured them over the peppers and garlic. I watched her stirring, giving the eggs a half flip, and then letting it sit while she got a plate from the closet. By this time Pops had caught the smell and came into the kitchen.

  Jocelyn put the plate of peppers and eggs in front of me and handed me a knife and fork.

  “They look okay?”

  “They’re better than okay,” I said.

  “Take a mouthful right now,” she said.

 
; I took a mouthful.

  “So you going to loan me thirty-five dollars for a new memory chip?”

  Jocelyn is just stone wrong and she knows it.

  The first game in the second half of the season was a non-league game against Wadleigh. Wadleigh was a trip because the whole team was made up of skinny Latino brothers who could out-and-out fly. If they got you in their running game, you were over before you started, because they never got tired. The only way to stop them was to get an early lead and then control the boards so they couldn’t run. It also helped to beat on them a little if the refs let you get away with it.

  We went downtown to their raggedy-butt gym, checked out their fly girls, and had just started our warm-ups when Ricky came over and told us who was starting. House had put both the white boys in the starting lineup with me, Ruffy, and Sky. Ricky was mad big-time, and so was I. On the bench before the game House came up with some noise about getting in as many combinations of players as possible because it was a non-league game.

  “I want to see what works and what doesn’t,” he said.

  “You didn’t see what worked in the first games?” Sky asked.

  “I’m still trying out things,” House came back. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I knew the guy who was supposed to be guarding me. He lived in the Bronx and ran with the Latin Deuces. He had a funny way of holding his face, and his cousin, a foxy mama I tried to get next to once, told me he had been shot in his face when he was nine. I called him Stoneface behind his back, but I didn’t mess with him too tough because the dude acted like he might have been a little off.

  Wadleigh got the ball first, and House called for a one-two-two zone, which is seriously wack against a running club. While you’re falling back into a zone position, they’re going past you to the hoop. Stoneface brought the ball down, faked toward Colin, then flew past him and made a layup over Sky. They had the first deuce.

  On defense a little dark-haired guard took the ball away from Colin before he got to half-court. They had four points.

  Just about the whole first quarter was Wadleigh’s show. They were doing anything they wanted to and we were flatfooted. Colin couldn’t play any D at all and was doing his toreador moves, watching guys go past him.