Ball Don't Lie: List 3

There was the beat of an after-hours club, tucked nameless between an empty warehouse and a condemned apartment building.

The seasoned veteran of the house. The resident who knew the system inside and out and could go into detail to some new kid with questions.

Sticky pulled the house basketball out of the Old Navy bag and set it in his lap. He examined the tiny rips in the synthetic leather.

There were construction postings and idle tractors, a streetlight dug out of the ground and lying on its side.

As she pops the gum in her mouth she devises a plan.

The black cop is a tall lanky dude, 6' 5" at least.

Now don’t get all sassy, kid, the white cop says.

He who is the victim one minute, is the perpetrator the next, the white cop says to his partner.

That’s the way he was trained to do it. Somebody finds out he didn’t follow protocol and then it would be his job on the line.

Their apartment was above a Hostess wholesale shop. In the beginning, Baby would go downstairs and buy Cup Cakes every Sunday evening when they were half price.

He broke through their horseshoe and made a beeline for the bleachers where he had his bag tied up.

My real name ain’t no Johnson. I came walkin in here three years ago as Dimarcus Jackson, same name as my granddaddy. A distinguished name.

He knew one of the next five at least, cause he had a knack for stuff like that.

Boo face-guarded Sticky all around the court, nose to nose. He was oblivious to everything else.

The only thing that stopped Sticky’s barrage on Rob was when Crazy Ray came stumbling out onto the court for a second time.

He lifted himself off his piece of cardboard on court two, started launching into his typical tirade, pointing his finger at the guys in the game and walked right into a fast break.

When nobody makes the move to give up any change, she continues by, parks her cart near the trash receptacles and reaches two hands into the mess.

No matter how you look at it, this ain’t no righteous world.

Now, when you don’t got enough to live an adequate life you can do one of two things: either you can sit there and accept your fate, or you can do somethin about it.

You ignorant to your own circumstances.

Because even though Sticky’s white and he’s black, there are obvious similarities: the passion for playing ball, the grace with the rock, the way every move on the court comes from some inherent instinct.

Wong is fifteen and Korean; he walks around the neighborhood all day in thick army fatigues, clutching a water gun and pretending it’s the real thing.

They wrestle around on the dirty rug, laughing and talking trash. Knocking things over with erratic arms and legs.

When he flips the light on, roaches scurry back into corners of the room. Underneath the cracked linoleum or behind somebody’s tossed-to-the-side towel.

I learned how astronauts use this stuff called polymers in space that they grow food in, Julia says. It absorbs four hundred and eight times more water than dirt.

Smoking long fancy cigarettes and giggling at a crowd of gawking guys.

As Anh-thu is diligently sweeping through the back of the store, Laura comes walking up to her with a brown paper bag.

Everything happening so fast, like when you’re on some pitch-black roller coaster at Disneyland. Space Mountain. Everything flashing by before you even know what’s happening. All you have time to feel is the exhilaration, the twists and turns, your heart climbing into your throat.

And besides, she thinks, how appropriate that he be late today, after she has just discovered that late is all that she is.

...after the tall Indian doctor is out the door, the man who came in holding an X-ray and offering heavily accented words of encouragement, who proceeded to stick needles and tweezer out metal shards and tug and blot and stitch, who disclosed in the breathy voice of a woman that the situation would remarkably be devoid of any long-term complications because of where the bullet entered the hand...

...after the tall Indian doctor is out the door, the man who came in holding an X-ray and offering heavily accented words of encouragement, who proceeded to stick needles and tweezer out metal shards and tug and blot and stitch, who disclosed in the breathy voice of a woman that the situation would remarkably be devoid of any long-term complications because of where the bullet entered the hand...

A sterile black and white clock counts the seconds.

And there’s a relentless warm hum inside his head.

It’s Sticky’s first day back at Lincoln Rec after a mini hiatus.

...kind of blasphemous, ain’t it?