I reach out and curl my fingers around the plastic, letting them sit there while we stare at each other with Brandy staring hard at us. “I’ll chop it up with you later, kid.”
* * *
Mom always toldme she could see fear in a boy’s eyes. It’s how she’d pinpoint the troublemakers on my AAU teams. They were the ones that eventually stopped showing up to practice and later, when we got older, most of them stopped showing up in life.
“I’m pretty sure this the move Marshall used to bag Mama,” Marcus says, sinking a three pointer with the flick of his wrist.
The ball goes through the netless hoop and bounces off the court.
“On God.” I laugh, jogging toward it and swiping as it bounces past the double cup, gun, and TWIC card he left lying at the edge of the court.
I don’t know what the rest of the team does with their host families but with mine, we ball—in CeCe’s driveway when her and Phat are asleep, at the court in their neighborhood, and sometimes in the street of whatever random house Marcus is hanging at on the days he skips out on his job at the Port.
Thunder claps in the distance and sweat sticks to our bodies because a quick shower in Texas doesn’t do shit to calm the humidity in the air.
I dribble up to him.
Fear dances along the edges of his irises. He smiles and I hear Phat’s voice like I did when he first pulled up with her booming through his car’s speakers.
“Mama said her fingers was numb again this morning,”she rasped.“Can you call Dr. Evanston’s office for me?”
I didn’t think it was possible to miss a girl I’d never been inside of, but Mom must’ve told God I needed some act right for dipping on him, so he sent it as fat cheeks and an attitude. Now I’m missing a girl I never fucked.
“This probably the one AW used to get Angie.” I cross Marcus up, but he doesn’t stumble because he’s too solid.
He howls, clapping his hands as I drive to the hoop and finish with a layup.
Playing basketball with Marcus is like playing ball back in Inglewood or Compton with dudes who were faster than Westbrook, shot better than LeBron, and refused to call the Staples Center by its new name. Dudes like that never looked at me any different no matter what someone had accused me of because I played AAU with their brothers, was brave enough to fuck some of their sisters and I wasn’t a lame that needed to claim I was affiliated with any of them. I didn’t need the clout or the protection because nobody ever had to ask me where I was from. So when the Pauley Pavilion banned me from their courts, they kept theirs open for me even though I wasn’t their blood or loc. I was thelil’ homie—and sometimes that felt better than being Pops’ Junior.
I bounce the ball toward Marcus, and he grips it, pulling his jeans up at the waist.
It’s been five years since his soles touched the smooth hardwood of an indoor court. He told me one night in his driveway between sips of lean and I can’t tell if he’s lying or just the product of a mythical goated dude named Marshall that died fulfilling his purpose in life.
Marcus dribbles toward me and I push my arms out, basking in the raindrops that touch my arms while I press him but he shakes me.
“This the one I used to bagmybitch,” he yells, jabbing his shoulder into my chest and whipping around me.
He’s so smooth I almost miss the ball whirling behind his back when I blink.
“She don’t like it when I call her a bitch outside the bed though.” He laughs, finishing with a layup. “So I gotta call her my gal unless I want her to fuck my head up with what the preacher talking ‘bout at bible study this week and what myotherbitch posting on IG.”
I belt out a laugh that makes my stomach tight because I recognized the other voice chirping from his car after Phat’s call. It was her little sidekick from practice, with a mouthful of metal and rosy cheeks:“I want you to come to church with me this Sunday. It’ll be good for us.”
He dribbles back to me with a sparkling smile.
“What about you, Kid?” He laughs, bouncing the ball back to me.
I catch it, curling my hands around its rubbery outside. “What about me?”
“Show me.” He shrugs, squinting. “Show me the move that got you yours.”
Mine?
She didn’t even know she was mine.
I gulp down Phat’s voice and try to nudge her out of my head, but like I said before, she’s persistent. I dribble against the pavement, staring into Marcus’ eyes.
He’s not Bryson, so his arms shoot up and his chest pushes into my shoulder. “Oh, this it?”
