Chameleon (28 page)

THERE SHE IS.
Miss Chocolate Peach.

Catch up to her.

“Excuse me, miss?”

Her head doesn’t turn. Did she hear me?

“Miss? Oh, miss! Excuse me. . . .”

She stops. Her head turns.

I run up. She stares at me. A breeze brushes black hair across her hazel eyes.

Pinkish red lips say, “Were you calling me?”

Peach fingernails streak through her hair.

“Yeah, ah . . . yes, I was.”

She folds her arms.

Speak up.

“I’m a photographer for the
Times,
and I . . . ah, would like to photograph you for a new feature we have called ‘L.A. Woman.’ Would you mind?”

Her skirt caresses her sleek legs.

Her lips caress my ears with her answer: “Really? You wanna take a picture of me?”

Click-click, click-click.

“So, ahhh . . . what’s your name?”

Click-click, click-click.

There’s another one. Catch up to her.

A blue sarong caresses curved corners.

“Really? You wanna take a picture of me?”

Click-click, click-click.

And there’s another. Catch up to her.

“So, ahh . . . what’s your name?”

Click-click, click-click.

“What about my friends — don’t you wanna photograph them too?”

A clinging polka-dot one-piece next to a smiling orange bikini.

“Definitely.”

Click-click, click-click. Click-click, click-click.

“We’re headed to our apartment down on the beach to get cleaned up. You wanna join us for a little party?”

“A party? Sure — why not?”

Pop.

The boardwalk. Me. Surrounded by cops.

“Young man, put down the gun!”

Pop.

“Mister photographer man, come inside. Could you grab us some towels, please?”

Peach. Blue. Polka dot. Orange. Sand on skin.

Pop.

“No sudden movements! Lay down your weapon!”

How many cops? One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.

Pop.

“Oh . . . what happened to your eye, you poor thing?”

Peach fingertips on purple flesh.

Pop.

Red lights swirl. Blue lights swirl.

A bullhorn: “Young man, put the gun down . . . NOW!”

“You’ll never take me alive, pig!”

Pop.

“Ooooohhhh! Your skin is soooo soft.”

“And that hair . . .”

“Yeahhhh . . . I could run my fingers through it alllll day.”

“Me tooooooo.”

Fingers on scalp. One hand. Two hands. Three hands. Four hands.

Pop.

“Young man, lay down your weapon or we WILL shoot.”

“I’m not afraid to use this!”

We WILL shoot. We WILL shoot.

Pop.

“Can you help me out of this sarong?”

Fingernails on my face. On my arms. On my chest. On my legs.

A breathy breeze in my ears from four pairs of lips.

Pop.

Gun in my hand. I swivel in a circle. Finger on the trigger.

“You’ll never take me alive!”

Twitch.

Bang-bang. Bang-bang. Bang-bang. Bang-bang.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . .

Shake-shake-shake-shake.

“Shawn, Shawn! You OK?”

“I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”

“Didn’t do what?”

Dad?

I blinked my eyes open and sat up. Where am I?

“What happened?”

The clock blinked nine o’clock as the alarm buzzed the room. Dad turned it off.

“Your alarm went off and you started screaming at the top of your lungs. You all right?”

Morning lit up the room and billowed the curtains open. Everything looked normal. Under the sheets I touched my body to make sure all my parts were there. Aww, man! Not again; my pajama bottoms clung to my crotch. I scooched under the covers and pulled the blanket up to my neck.

“Yeah”— my heart raced —“must’ve been a bad dream.”

“You remember what happened?”

Pop:
Sand on skin.

“Not really.”

“Well, come on, get up. Time to go to church.”

Dad left the room. I closed my eyes. Dang!

I peeled the blanket off and checked the sheets; they were dry. Thank goodness. I must have been sleeping on my back when it happened. Dad popped his head in the door as I ran my hand across the sheets. I jumped up when he said, “Come on, Shawn, get dressed.”

Shoot. I had to clean myself up without him noticing. Unlike our house, Dad’s house is on the small side, so it’s harder to hide when stuff like this happens. I poked my head out the doorway and saw him in the kitchen with his back to me. Now’s my chance. I tiptoed into the bathroom and locked the door. The smell of bleach filled the bathroom as I peeled the sticky pajama shorts off. Is that me? I twitched my nose and glanced into the mirror. FLASH. Peach fingertips on purple flesh flashed over my brain, disappearing as fast as the image appeared.

“Shawn, you better be up, boy!” Dad called from the kitchen.

“I’m brushing my teeth.”

I tiptoed back into my room and got dressed. A few bowls of cereal and we were out the door.

Dad said, “I see you combed your hair this morning,” as he started the car.

“Of course.”

A blue sky greeted us as we stepped outside. The air hung still and hadn’t heated up yet as we wound our way to the bottom of the hill. A right turn here. A left turn there. One stop sign. Another stop sign. A right turn and we were there. Church — our Sunday basketball game. B-ball is our religion, and this is where we celebrate it. Dad’s been bringing me here ever since he moved in, so we’ve become regulars. There are about twelve to fifteen players that always show up, but I’ve always been the youngest and still am.

Since Dad has been out of town and missed my last couple of visits, he hasn’t seen how much better I’ve gotten in the last few weeks. Playing every day with the fellas since school got out did that.

I still remember my first game here. Dad told the guys to treat me like everybody else — no special treatment just because I was young. At first I was mad and scared because I was much smaller than everybody else. But Dad said, “As long as you can pass the ball and play D, guys will always wanna play with you, no matter how young or small you are.”

His words bounced into my head as we exchanged soul claps with the guys on the court. I’ve gotten bigger and better since that first game and can now hold my own on the court no problem.

“The two Shawns. Number nine and ten. Let’s do this!”

That was House. The biggest and oldest player on the court. A honey-colored brutha built like a cinder block, he was good to have on your team. I don’t know exactly how old he was, but he had all kinds of braces on his body and huffed and puffed hard whenever he played. Get him down in the low post, though, and he was a monster — tricky, sneaky, smart, strong. He used everything he had to win, but he always played clean and was the unofficial leader of the game. I guess you could say he was “the preacher.”

“Ball getting too boring for you, Li’l Shawn?” House said, pointing to my eye. “Now you taking up boxing?” he added, eclipsing the sun.

“Nah, I, ah . . . It’s a long story.” I shrugged.

“Say no more — we all got one of them. So look here. It’s gone be you, Darryl, George, J.J., and me. Big Shawn, you running with the other squad.”

In the barbershop I’m Junior. Here I’m Li’l Shawn. I’m not so little anymore, but as long as me and Dad have the same name, I’m always gonna be called one or the other.

“Take who takes you,” House shouted as he handed the other team the ball at the top of the key. Everybody lined up on their man according to size, and I ended up guarding Dad. Dang!

Usually we play on the same team because the guys thought it was more fair that way. Not anymore. Me and Dad were now closer in size. I was as tall as him but not as strong. But still, he hasn’t seen me play in a while, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve.

“You ready to be taken to school?” Dad said.

Sneakers scraped the gray concrete as the ball got tossed into action. He might have been bigger and stronger than me, but Dad wasn’t nearly as fast as Andre, who I’m used to guarding all the time, so when a pass got tossed in his direction, I stepped in front of him and snatched it up. I pushed the ball up the middle of the court with George on my right and J.J. on my left. House’s husky voice boomed behind me: “Trailer! Trailer!”

George is the high-flyer of the three, so I dished it off to him, and he floated in for a reverse layup.

“Y’all see that? Lord have mercy . . . Li’l Shawn’s got some skills! One–nothing, us.”

House’s voice thundered over the court as he, me, and George slapped five. I raced back down to pick up Dad.

“So your D is even tighter, huh?” Dad said as he moved into the post.

I shrugged. “You know.”

The ball flew around the court. Dad danced between the blocks. I hated playing him down here because he had so many moves. I couldn’t let him touch the ball. I waved my hands side to side to deny him the ball, but he caught a lob thrown his way anyway.

Shoot. I knew what was coming next. His body swung from the right baseline into the lane, and his right arm rose into his patented hook shot.

“One up,” someone shouted as we ran up court.

“Don’t worry ’bout that, Li’l Shawn. Ain’t nothin’ you can do to stop that,” House said.

I brought the ball up. Dad picked me up at half-court. I passed it off to George on the right, then cut left. The ball flew into House, who whipped a pass across the court to J.J. “Jump shot, J.J.” His wrist flicked the ball into a perfect arc and splashed through the net. I was still focused on J.J.’s flicked wrist as House shouted, “Get back! Get back!”

Dad had taken off downcourt, and a long pass got hurled over my head. He caught it like a football receiver and converted the easy layup with nobody on him at the other end. He winked at me as he ran back up court.

Come on, Shawn, you gettin’ lazy! You know better. I threw my hands up. House tossed the ball in to me, and I yo-yoed it up the court. House made his way to the left blocks. George was on the right. Darryl ran from the left baseline to the right, while J.J. clapped his hands at me for the ball on the right side of the key. I dribbled near House on the left and lobbed a pass in to him. Dad got up on me with his arms out. I faked left and cut right, headed for the basket. Hard. House dropped a no-look bounce pass that I caught and converted into a layup with Dad nowhere near me.

That must’ve got Dad going, because he scored a few more points over me with his hook shot and there was nothing I could do. House tried to get me a few easy shots, but his man kept dropping over to help Dad crowd me, so I threw up a couple of bricks.

My teammates passed me the ball less and less. At one point I felt like I was just running up and down the court for no reason. What’s the point of playing hard if I’m not even touching the ball?

I lifted my eyes to the sky and noticed a lone white cloud swirling in the sea of blue. I blinked and a white bikini appeared. A blue belly button in the middle winked at me. Peach fingernails circled it like the breeze swirling the cloud.

“Li’l Shawn, come on, get your head out the clouds. I said switch on D. You on Darryl’s man now,” House said.

Dad had punished me all day with his hook shot and was the only consistent scorer on his team. I knew they wanted to get him the ball, so I spied on him while guarding my man, who spent most of his time standing around waiting to shoot a jumper. He hadn’t hit one yet, so I had a feeling I could leave him to double down on Dad. My man backed up to give Dad room to work, so I dropped off him and dropped down on Dad as he went into his move, but instead of shooting the ball, Dad tossed it over my head and back to my man, who hit a wide-open jumper. Of course.

“Point up. Come on, Li’l Shawn, get in the game,” House said, tossing the ball in to me.

I glanced up high to the ocean-blue sky, and the bikini-shaped cloud had been stretched into what looked like a lightning bolt lying on its side, thin and skinny with a crick in the middle. I brought my eyes back to earth and eyeballed all the players on the court. I was the youngest by a whole bunch of years. I’ll bet I was also the fastest one out here.

I focused my eyes on the basket. Like a mustang held captive for years with the gates to freedom finally thrown open, I ran. I ran without the shackles of fear dragging me down. I ran with the freedom of youth at my back. I ran with the energy of a lightning bolt and flashed past a defender as he tried to step in my path. My right hand crossed the ball to my left as all sound disappeared. My eyes focused on the rim and nothing else. A body stepped in front of me. Another one. A dribble to the left. A dribble to the right and the rim rose in front of me. I lofted my feet off the ground and rolled the ball off my fingertips with a grand flourish.

The ball never had a chance. A hand extended out of nowhere and sent it back in the direction I had just come from. A member of the opposing team caught it, spun, and dribbled in for an easy layup.

“DANG!” I shouted on my side of the court as “Game!” leaped out of a mouth on the other side.

My teammates dropped their heads in unison, and three pairs of eyes burned through me. The fourth pair belonged to House, who towered over me and said, “Million-dollar move with a ten-cent finish.”

I stood alone under the basket as everyone else hit the water fountains. I lifted my head to the sky and saw the cloud that had drifted into my thoughts was now scattered across the sea of blue in cotton-candy-like wisps. My eyes tilted from the blue of the sky down to the gray of the concrete. Dad’s sweat-drenched arm draped a stain on my shirt as we walked off the court toward the sideline.