First Round Lottery Pick (11 page)

The first game of the NBA championship series had just ended, and Tori was asleep on my chest when my cell phone rang. It was Toy. He wanted to come by and pick me up so we could talk. I didn't want to be bothered, but it had been a rough day. I looked down at Tori's hand gently clutching her stomach and decided that getting away for a minute or two wasn't a bad idea.

 

 

Toy stopped and parked his car at The Strip Club.

“Man, they ain't going to let me up in here.”

“That's where you're wrong. Your status carries privileges, if you didn't already know.”

We went to the back door of the club that had VIP written on the door. Toy knocked twice, and a puffed-up bouncer who looked like he played for the Browns came to the door wearing a black shirt, do-rag, and shorts. He took one look at Toy and waved him in. He then looked up to me, nodded his head, then reached out to shake my hand.

It didn't take but a few seconds after we walked in before I began to feel like people were staring.

Toy found a table in the back. As we sat down, he smiled. “You comfortable? You all right?”

“I'm cool.”

“Get used to the stares and looks. It's part of the lifestyle. You been in the newspaper every day for the last few weeks, so when people see a star they stare.”

I could see the inside of the packed club through a large tinted window because VIP was sectioned off. I sat back and took it all in—at least four stages with the brass poles; females working them hard, while men made it rain, not to mention peeled eyes on the other side of the window looking at the ladies in thongs and no tops.

Toy yelled over the music, “First time, in a club?”

I nodded yes.

“Well, get used to this too. This is how the professional players relax . . . unless you going to stay in your room like a hermit and call girls in. But if you do, please don't catch a case.”

“So what you want to talk about, Toy?”

“Look, Barcelona may deal you. They don't know. They like you, but they feeling if they can get two first-round picks later from a team, they will trade and wish you nothing but luck.”

“Just business, man. I understand.” I looked off into the club.

“You don't seem to be interested.”

“It's cool, man. I just got a lot on my mind.”

“Like what? I should know these things.”

“My girl.”

“And Jalen, I bet,” he snuck in.

“How you know that?”

“That there's another reason why I wanted to bring you out to talk. Look, I know
J
's your boy, and I'm not spitting venom on him, but that knucklehead is running buck wild, and you need to check him. If you don't believe what I'm saying, I can take you in the streets and show you what I'm talking about.”

“I know. I just found out about it, and I tried to talk to him.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. He goin' to make it right.”

“Drugs, skin flicks, a rap label with Murder One? What the hell is he thinking?”

“Money got to him. That's all I can think of.”

“If I were you, I wouldn't have paid him until you left for overseas. Langston, you have to keep people who ain't never had nothing close to you. I don't care how much you love them. You can't let them out of your reach. Treat them like little kids.”

By that time I knew Toy was right. Jalen was my boy, but anything he ever had was handed down to him after being recycled three or four times. But since we both were that way, I had to defend him a bit.

“Look, if he would have been talking all this he's doing before he got paid, I would have held out on him. But I should have kept my eyes open, 'cause Jalen has always been about doubling his up.”

“How much you line his pockets with?” Toy asked.

“A hundred seventy gees.”

Toy's eyes bugged out. “Gotdamn! He can do a lot of damage on the streets with that.”

“Already has. Got my name on a package running the entire East side.”

Toy was scanning the club. “And I hear they're making money hand over fist too.”

“You heard my name on the package, Toy?”

“
L
, look at me. The streets know me. We friendly like that.”

“Man, I don't need this right now.”

“That's why you gotta let him go. Cut him off.”

“I already told him to close shop.”

“That ain't what I'm talking about.”

“What you mean?”

Toy pushed up his chair closer to the table to make sure I was the only one who could hear him. “Exactly what I said. Let him go. Make sure people in the hood know he ain't riding with you anymore.”

“Man, ain't nobody ever going to believe that. Me and Jalen been hanging since we been on tricycles.”

“Yeah, and he still acting like a three-year-old who found a Blow Pop on the sidewalk next to the candy shop. He has put our shit in jeopardy. Don't you get what I'm telling you?”

I still wasn't comfortable with Toy coming across like we were partners by mutual choice.

“I know that look,
L
.”

“What you mean?”

“You think, 'cause I got some baggage, I can't get right. Let me tell you something. Just by landing you has had my phone ringing off the hook from kids who have heard from somebody that they should go pro overseas just like you. But guess what?”

“What's that?”

“They have a better chance of hitting the lottery than seeing that dream come true. You right now have the chance to do real big things, and it's a shame you don't see the big picture yet. The only reason you don't see it is because no one has schooled you on all the possibilities, except for Coach Pierce, who is as old-school as they come, and your mother, who, with all due respect, doesn't know a damn thing about basketball and what this can do for you on a global level. Now, if your dad was in the picture, it would be different 'cause I know he knows business, but he ain't involved. You know what I mean?”

I sort of laughed Toy off.

“Don't diss me,
L
. I'm trying to get you to understand.”

“Back off, Toy. I'm listening.”

“How do you think I got your deal with the shoe company in the first place? You think they just saw you in a magazine and said, ‘He's the one we want'?”

Toy had my attention, because I had wondered how it all came about.

“Well, that's not how it happened. I pitched you to them. Told them you were from the life of every young black boy's dream who come out the hood. Don't get me wrong. You got other young bucks out in them suburbs who dream about the league too, but guess what,
L
? That ain't their only dream or possibility. Them marketing cats at New Funk wanted you 'cause I got in their heads and let them know that you were the truth, of everything going on in the ghetto.”

“The truth, huh?”

“Gotdamn right! Tell me something. How many ballers from the hood make it to the pros?”

“I don't know, Toy.”

“I know you don't. It's only twelve active on the roster at one time that play that eighty-one-game schedule. So out of those twelve, on the thirty teams, how many of them slots you think the owners going to let some ghetto-ass, grit-eating negro, who grew up in the projects pasting posters of Magic, Jordan, and Iverson on them cinderblock concrete walls we both know so much about have?”

“I don't know, Toy, but I know you're going to tell me.”

“I don't know either, but I tell you this. It's only three or four pure ghetto ballers who know what it feels like to hear their stomachs grumbling strong for two, three days at a time who are in the league. If there were more, New Funk would have already had a soldier in the league to rock their gear. You feel me?” Toy took a deep breath, looked over the club, then back at me. “Look, man, all I'm trying to say is, you're truly what the players in the league are trying to mimic. And once you get your ass in there after two years overseas, you're going to have to be strong. Understand what I'm saying. Look through all the cornrows you see, way past the humongous Afros, tattoos, hard looks, and snarls you get. Them players putting on forays, Langston. They ain't harder than the softest fool you done walked past every day in the hood on your way to school. I done played with most of them, and they ain't doing nothing but filling a void created by the hood and hip-hop music then expanded to the league. Why you think they have a dress code now? Better yet, how come none of them so-called, roughnecks have put their foot down and said, ‘To hell with the dress code. I've been dressing hard all my life?' 'Cause they frontin'. You see what I'm sayin'? Gettin' paid off trends from the hood. New Funk knows that. You're going to be representing every black kid from the hood who thinks his only shot of being somebody is playing ball.” Toy got up from the table and walked away to the bar to talk to someone he knew.

He must have had me twisted though. Even though I did agree with some of the things he said, he had to know about the hood and the love between me and Jalen. I knew Jalen was out there rolling with a big smile on his face because he had new money, but he was the one person I knew had my back, whether he was doing right or wrong.

Earlier that night for some reason I thought back to the time Jalen stepped up to a guy twice his size with a pistol and told him to back up off me because he was willing to die for me. That was the hood love I knew I had with Jalen. I decided right then and there, no matter how Toy felt about it, I was going to call my boy up later that night to tell him to stop his madness and get ready to get down to business, so we could get away from the hood.

My thoughts must have really been deep because I barely paid any attention to the lights when they were dimmed even lower than they already were, and the topless girl in a thong sat down next to me with a mask covering her face. She licked her lips a few times. “You having a good time?” she whispered.

“It's cool,” I told her. “Just chilling. Sort of like on business.”

“Oh, we all on business, baby. Believe that. You ain't never been up in here before, have you?”

“Naah, not really.”

“Oh, I know who you are. You're that ballplayer 'bout to go pro.”

I didn't like getting recognized so easily. It made me feel like everyone who looked at me wanted something. I nodded my head yes to her.

I didn't ask her to, but she straddled my lap. Then she looked around at the other girls in the room who had come in with her who were already dancing for guys sitting up in VIP. She told me to relax and enjoy her show.

She didn't have to move but once or twice after she climbed up into my lap before I realized she had me excited, so I just went with the flow.

Everyone was enjoying themselves, including Toy, who sat on a stool at the bar getting his.

The dancer was working it so hard on my lap, I was beginning to wonder if she taught Ciara how to work it. She started nibbling on my neck then my ear. Then she asked if I wanted to walk with her to a room downstairs.

At first I told her no, but she kept kissing my neck, like she knew it was my spot, and she made me change my mind. I lifted her off my lap and stood her on the ground.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me down to whisper in my ear. Then she pulled off her mask. “Told you I'd get you back.”

It was Katrina.

I was sleeping like a baby until I heard, “
L
, wake up. It's almost twelve.”

All the pushing and nudging, combined with my hangover, made me want to scream out.

“
L
, you have to wake up. You have to get out of here.”

I pushed my eyes open.

Tori just kept talking. “I thought you had something to do?”

My head was under a pillow, so the guilt from being with Katrina didn't hit me until Tori ripped the covers off me and I saw her face.

“Don't you have some place to be? That court thing or something?”

“I do?” I really couldn't remember.

“And don't forget about your interview with
Sports Illustrated
. I think you said they were calling around four.”

“What time is it?”

“I told you almost twelve. Dang! You are so out of it. Where did Toy take you last night?”

“The Strip Club.”

Tori echoed me. “The Strip Club?”

“Mmm-hmm.” I felt myself dozing back off.

“Stop lying, Langston. You know you weren't up in no stank strip club.”

“If you say so.”

I felt Tori plop her little one-hundred-twenty-pound self on the bed. “Why? Why did you go there?”

“I didn't go. Toy took me.”

“I know that much, fool. But for what?”

“I guess that's where he hangs out to talk business.”

“Business?”

“Yeah, he was trying to tell me about how all the black kids in every ghetto and hood in America going to be looking up to me.”

“Oh, word?”

“Yeah, and the main reason I got the shoe deal was because I'm the product of the hood and I don't have to front about knowing the streets, like a lot of players do.”

Tori was silent for a moment. “So you see anything you like in there?”

“Naah.”

By this time I was out of the bed and in the bathroom, dumping mouthwash into my mouth.

“C'mon, you can tell me.”

I got rid of the mouthwash in the sink. “Everyone looked the same to me.”

Tori folded her arms. “Well, you know it's okay if you want to see other females right now.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“'Cause you should. You know my mother doesn't want me to get an abortion. She told me she doesn't know if it's right, and if I wanted to have the baby, she would take care of it, while we live our lives.”

“Your mother said that?”

“Yes, but my sisters think I should go down to the clinic as soon as possible and have the abortion.”

I was speechless. I never formed an opinion on abortion. The whole thing about the situation was almost too much for me. It really was just too damn early to even discuss.

“What's wrong,
L
?”

“Nothing.”

“Has to be something. All of a sudden you changed and got quiet on me.”

“Just thinking about all this stuff Toy was talking about last night.”

“'Bout me?”

“No. About how things are because I'm going pro. Tori, you know that if I wasn't going pro and this shit happened to you, I would kill somebody, right?”

“I know,
L
. Don't say it, okay.”

“And it pisses me off 'cause the police ain't doing nothing about it. They act like what happened to you don't even matter. I'm just saying, going pro is kind of like turning me into some kind of punk or something 'cause I can't even begin to reach out and find who did this to you. I just want some ‘get-back.' ”

“That's not true,
L
. You ain't nobody's punk. This is turning you into a man. Everybody can see it.”

Nothing Tori could say was going to change my mind about how I felt. It just seemed like get-back was in my blood just as much as anything else. It was a part of me and something I knew I was never going to let go of.

Tori said, “So, you thought about what I should do?”

“About what?”

She tapped on her stomach, making me a little queasy.

“No. I mean, not really. It's your choice.”

“But if I have this baby, it would never know its father.”

I was blunt. “How many of us know that anyway?”

“So you think I should have it?”

“I'm just saying, Do you think it's reason enough to just kill the baby 'cause you don't know who the father is?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I don't.”