Marine Park: Stories (12 page)

It was a basketball court that he hadn't remembered ever being there before. Once he'd prided himself on knowing all the basketball courts in the neighborhood. They all had their character, like different positions. The Marine Park main courts, showcase courts—when the
Times
wrote a piece about basketball in the city, they mentioned it. The old men putting up tents between the courts and playing dominos. Read: black, but the newspaper didn't say it. The newspaper didn't mention Orthodox Jewish point guards reaching for their yarmulkes; the black men, polite, pausing the game if the yarmulkes fell off. You had to kiss them first, even Andrew knew that. It was the only thing a game stopped for. After, everyone went off in their own cars, to their own neighborhoods.

This basketball court, it didn't have anything like that, just a couple kids, a guy and his girlfriend, playing Horse on the far court closer to the water. Some other kids hanging on the benches, drinking something. Not a court near the water like Manhattan, where the water was a character in itself—not like a vacation home. The water was an accident here. It was rough grass and overgrown baseball fields until Gerritsen Creek, Dead Horse Bay.

Andrew watched the guy and girlfriend taking turns shooting, his fingers in the chain-link fence. He had never been the type of kid who dribbled a basketball wherever he went; it was too showy. He took one with him, held against his side, to the park on off times, to practice his shot. There was a certain symmetry to it, the shot and the rebound, alone, the plodding along. The way you could continue to do the same thing over and over again, the only difference being the angle, the force of the shot off your fingers.

Behind him, he heard a car drive up and slow. Andrew turned. It was a white car, clean and overwaxed. Andrew squinted at the window and he thought it was Ed Monahan's car, Ed's squirrel face behind the half-tinted glass. The car stopped. It seemed like there was a face turned to watch, scowling. Then the car started again, and fled, and Andrew turned around.

He heard the last bounce of the ball. The girlfriend stood with the ball against her stomach, the boyfriend in front of her. A girl from the crowd of drinkers was yelling at them.

Want to see ghetto? the girl was saying. Want to see ghetto? I'll show you ghetto. And she stomped, in the way of earth-shattering steps, to where the girlfriend was standing. She grabbed her hair, and started to pull her down.

Things got complicated then. Andrew would read about it in the
Gazette
some days later, but he could never tell if it was right in its entirety. The boyfriend pushed the hair-puller away; another boy came up to him with a box cutter. Andrew didn't see a slash, more just two forward motions, and the boy moaned. The girlfriend was on the ground and someone was stomping on her chest. People were running by Andrew from the shops across the street, onto the court like a full-court press, trying to break the thing up, but Andrew couldn't move. The baseline, painted white, was streaked with blood. A mob of people was on the court. And Andrew, Andrew walked slowly away, back to his car. Slowly he crossed the street and left the basketball court behind him.

Some moments later, a hand knocked on the passenger-side window. Javi was standing there, smiling, holding a bouquet of flowers. Andrew leaned over to open the door. For the daughter, Javi said.

 • • • 

Andrew drove slowly, as if he could no longer afford speed. He didn't think Javi had seen anything. He didn't think he would have to explain—the girl stomping forward, extending her arms. They did not speak in the car, with the sun starting to go down, the arch-necked streetlights coming on. Javi kept twirling the top of his hair. He hummed softly, even though the radio was on.

Javi had told Andrew once about where he came from, a Mexican valley somewhere. His family, father and sons, mother and daughters, all were haircutters. They had been to school for it. Only Javi had come to America. It was colder here, Javi said, but often cold there in the winter. Being near the water made it temperate. In the winter, some months, Javi took up and left, went with his daughter back to Mexico, closed the shop. Andrew remembered looking at the sign, the lights off.

At the train they shook hands, hard clasps, fingers tight. OK, my friend, Javi said. All finished. He took his bouquet and left. Andrew watched as he put the flowers in his teeth to use the MetroCard, to swipe himself through.

Andrew began to drive, aimlessly. He needed to go back to his apartment in the city, park the car in the parking garage below the building, which he paid good money for. He had to be at work at eight thirty, something that didn't seem likely to change, at the new job if he got it or anytime in the future. He imagined waking up to get to work at eight thirty for an unimaginable stretch ahead, the long days passing like opposite-lane cars.

Where could he go? He could go to the house where he grew up, watch the light die with his parents. He could park on their block, walk in, ring the bell, and watch their surprised faces. Talk to them about the future. He did not. He went off R to Fillmore, to the edge of the park, the Marine Park basketball courts, spread out on the corner of the green.

Just before he got to the chain-link, someone yelled from behind him. Hey, the voice said. Andrew turned. It was Ed Monahan. Hey, Ed said again. What's the idea? You following me around or something? Up this close Ed looked more haggard than he used to. He looked smaller than Andrew remembered, though his arms were taut. What're you doing back here anyway? I heard you were a city man now. Ed was just below Andrew's face. His forearms, hairy and muscular, twitched.

Listen Ed, Andrew started, but he couldn't finish it. He wanted nothing more than a game of basketball. A good one-on-one game, the feel of a body hitting another body, bouncing off, hitting again. Something he hadn't felt in a while.

Listen, he said vaguely.

You listen, said Ed. Get back in your car, pussy, and get away.

So Andrew hit him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd thrown a punch. His hand, as it connected with the bones in Ed's face, broke—or that's what it felt like. The knuckles moved up, higher than his fingers, though that didn't make physical sense. Ed staggered back, and then he was on him.

Andrew found himself on the pavement, his face getting hit from side to side. He had that anxious feeling of first blood, the adrenaline jumping through the veins to tell the body, all is fine. A few minutes later it wouldn't feel that way anymore, and it would just be pain, until someone pulled Ed away, with flashing lights. On the pavement, Andrew imagined many things. He imagined that it was a basketball fight he'd gotten into, a righteous one; that someone had called a hard foul and he was upholding the call, and then the perpetrator attacked. He imagined that his face, black and blue and purple the next morning probably, would look like a bouquet of flowers, cherry red with dried blood and green the stems for all the infected parts. And he imagined that Ed Monahan, on top of him until he was pulled off, was having a harder time than he might have, because he had no grip on Andrew's head, his newly cut hair not long enough to hold on to. Andrew felt thankful for his haircut, for the cool breeze he felt passing by his neck.

W
ay down south and east and close to the water, where Avenue U runs parallel to the salt marsh, and the sounds of the trucks heading toward the Belt Parkway keep sane people up at night, in a house that used to belong to his parents lives Ed Monahan. Some nights Ed stays up shivering, thinking of all the ills that befall this country. Sometimes while he watches the news he thinks of ways things could be better. He owns a gun, the same one his daddy did, his daddy who was a police detective, and worked as a court officer once he retired. One day in the court Ed Monahan's father worked in, a man made it around the metal detectors that the technicians were just installing, back before they were mandatory, and in the middle of the grand jury proceedings the man, who had been brought in to be a witness, stood up and fired three shots at the defendant on the stand. Two missed. Ed Monahan's father, who had been seated at the front with his arms crossed, keeping his eye on the defendant, who in his opinion looked “shifty,” took one step forward and raised his gun. With one bullet, he downed the shooter. It was a true shot, but the shooter survived, and went on trial and got fifteen years prison. It was the first time Ed Monahan's father had fired his gun. Niggers, he said.

In the morning, Ed Monahan, who had never successfully held down a full-time job, gathered his belongings and his merchandise and packed them onto his bicycle, in wide burlap motorcycle packs he'd bought from the army surplus store on Atlantic Avenue. He put in all the string shaving cream, fire snaps, boxes of hard candy that wouldn't melt, and toy BB guns that made clicks when you pressed the trigger down rapidly. He had a ponytail that he washed every morning. He had a girlfriend who some nights slept over, who would take her clothes off and lie naked beside him, while he struggled to get himself prepared—though this morning she was not. He had black T-shirts that he wore every day with his jeans. When he had his T-shirt on, over the wifebeater, gray from hand-washing and age, that he wore even in the summer, he wheeled his packed bicycle out of the house and toward the open street by Avenue U. Summers, he had a job to do. He was saving up to buy a car. He got up early. He felt good about himself. He got on his bike and rode the couple of blocks toward the playground in Marine Park.

 • • • 

Basketball was the only thing he'd ever enjoyed. Nobody else really understood it, or understood what it meant to him. His father hadn't—had only wanted him to get taller and stronger and faster, fast enough to beat the black kids in CYO ball, when Ed Monahan played for Good Shepherd. For a while, he was—tall and strong and fast enough. But some things don't stay like that forever, and his growth spurt ended at fifteen. He held on for a couple years, even walking onto a team in college. But a kid from the projects got the point guard job instead of him, and he quit after the first year. My kid doesn't ride pine, Ed Monahan's father said proudly. Now Ed only watched the Knicks at the Mariners Inn, every once in a while. He hated, with an intensity, the people who were diehard fans and wouldn't miss a game.

This was the Mariners Inn that Ed Monahan biked slowly by, where the firemen, retired or on disability, stood outside to have a smoke. Morning, Ed, one of them said, as Ed passed. Ed nodded back, and his thin ponytail bounced up and down. Almost out of earshot, the retired fireman said, Fag, and put out his cigarette and went inside. Ed Monahan kept biking.

At the playground, Ed made an exploratory circle on his bicycle. It was the type of day where everybody was around the sprinkler in the middle, kids and adults. Some of the adults were parents—firemen or cops on their off hours, office workers on vacation. There were grandmothers and grandfathers, still trim in polo shirts tucked into their shorts. They looked like they could outrun Ed, still. Ed hadn't kept his speed up, though he was still trim. He blamed it on the cigarettes. Because Ed hadn't played football as a kid, even though he was an absolute wizard at basketball, the rest of the neighborhood youth disowned him. His nickname was Pussy Ed, all the way up to seventh grade. Even when he led Good Shepherd to the St. Francis de Sale's Christmas Tournament title—but some things can't be overcome.

When he guided his weighed-down bike into the confines of the playground, the grandparents edged a little closer to their grandkids. The parents, some of whom knew Ed, left it alone. Ed pulled in a deep breath, and while doing so he felt that the whole park was holding its breath around him. He yelled: Crackers! Candy! String cream! Under a dollar! The parents looked down at their feet. The children, their heads turning away from the water, came running.

In Ed's business you make your money in dimes and quarters; there's nothing wrong with that. He had blisters on his fingers from the coin roll-ups he was constantly using, to put the money together to bring to the bank. He didn't spend much—he had the house from his daddy. In the winter he worked as an ice guard at the Aviator rink. The coins added up. While the children walked or jogged to him, he heard their coins' metallic bounce in his mind's ear.

How much for Gobstoppers? a chubby little shit in a red bathing suit asked.

Two dollars, said Ed. He'd bought them in quantity, each pack for twenty-five cents.

The chubby kid unrolled two sweaty dollar bills from his hot palms, leaving one unknown bill in his grasp. Here, he said. Gimme.

Is that how you ask for it? said Ed. The kid didn't answer. Ed didn't have anything better to say. Whatever, he said.

The children, in a screen around Ed and his bike, forced their smudged coins and bills on him, some crisp twenties from their parents, to whom he had to return a handful of ones and quarters. The playground, centered before Ed's arrival around the old sprinkler, exploded to the four corners with the sounds of fake gun pops and the rainbow colors of string cream.

One small girl came up to Ed and asked if he was selling jump ropes. Some days he did—cheap plastic ones for which he made a five-dollar profit. Sorry, he told the girl, his ponytail wagging. How about a plastic shooter? He picked out a pink one in its shrink-wrapping from his bag.

My
mother
, the girl said, eye-pointing to a dumpy little woman reading a magazine on a bench, doesn't approve of guns.

Ed looked the woman up and down, on the bench. She was wearing Crocs. He'd heard about those on TV, from commercials during Knicks games at the Mariners. He leaned down close to the little girl, who herself leaned closer to hear what he said. That's some cunt shit, he said. What does that mean? the little girl asked. He had nothing to say.

When one of his saddlebags was noticeably lighter, Ed straddled his bike, pedaled through the playground entrance, passing the woman with the magazine and the fat kid in red shorts, and coasted toward the 0.84-mile oval that was the crown jewel of Marine Park. Coming around the bend, he passed the basketball courts he'd grown up on as a kid, when he was the unlikely underdog, white but good. Filled with black kids still, none of whom could shoot. Ed had to admit, even from a quick glance, and he knew it would continue as he pedaled past them: the kids could play. More athletic than he'd ever been. He heard one of the rims shudder as someone tried to dunk.

In the Avenue U parking lot there were three cars waiting for him. They were pulled up against the green, so that they could have been watching the cricket games. Windows closed, air-conditioning on. When Ed reached the middle of the lot he thought in his head about shouting, Peanuts! Crackerjacks! But it would be unwise—he'd always been lucky about police. Instead, he kickstood his bike up on the edge of the cement, pretended to fix a flat. A husky Irish man got out of a car to talk to him.

Holding? he asked Ed in an undertone.

What I always do, said Ed. But step inside my office.

I don't want much, the man said, fingering the sweat stains on his shirt.

Just take it out of the pack, Ed said. I'm working on a damn tire over here.

The man unzipped the pack, and took out a small ziplock bag. In its place, he left a number of bills. Ed didn't count them, because he didn't have to. That's fine, Ed said. Fine day we having today.

The man, once he had his ziplock bag, didn't look at Ed, as if he had something communicable. He started walking away. Then he turned around.

You be here Wednesday? he said.

Ed sighed. Sure, he said, why not. The man nodded and went back to his car.

Ed Monahan watched the car pull away, skid around the parking lot entrance, shoot down Avenue U. There were some slum spots as you moved away from Marine Park. Who knew where the guy was headed. Ed only sold the soft stuff. He hummed to himself as he fiddled with the tire on his bike—he took faking it to an art form. From behind him, he heard another car door slam. Two more ziplock bags, and he sent them away like children.

 • • • 

There was a tap on his shoulder, and Ed turned around. Hi, honey, his girlfriend Margie said.

Ed looked her over. She was tall in the way that women are and you don't realize it, or, rather, short but because they're women you think they're tall. She was wearing a Guns N' Roses T-shirt, like she usually did. She was skinny. If Ed worried about things he would worry about this, but he didn't. Instead, he pulled her toward him and put her hand on his crotch. Been waiting for you, Ed said.

Margie extracted her hand from where he had placed it, and instead put it on his hip and into his side pocket. She fingered the slightly damp clump of bills he had mushed there. Seems like it, she said, and withdrew some of the clump, and looked at it.

Keep away from that, Ed Monahan said. I worked for that. Whatever, Margie said.

Ed locked his bike up against a telephone pole, and then he and Margie walked across the street to the salt marsh nature center. The cottontails were high this early in summer, the wind off the bay blowing them back and forth. There was a gravel path that had been cut by the Army Corps of Engineers a few years ago, which made it more respectable. Used to be just about anything was growing in and around the waters. Ed took Margie here for walks in the salt marsh often, because he didn't like to pay for the movies.

I went into the city today, Margie was saying. Went shopping.

Yeah? Ed said.

Took an hour and a half to get in, because the Q train was slow.

It happens, Ed said. That's why I don't go. What's the point?

I was thinking maybe the two of us could go in for dinner one night, though, Margie said. Ed pretended that he was fascinated with the view of the Marine Parkway Bridge. Ed? Margie said.

Sure, he said. Maybe. For New Year's or something. I think we could handle that. They arrived at the only tree in the salt marsh. Here, he said. And he sat down.

Margie stayed standing above him.

What? she said.

Come on, Marge, don't make me have to beg, Ed said. He began unzipping his pants.

Let's go to the city one day, Margie said. Before New Year's. Like Halloween. We can go to FAO Schwarz.

Ed's penis, by this point, was flopping in the cool air.

Sure, he said. Sure, anything you want. Come on.

Margie knelt down.

Do you promise? she said.

Yes, he said. Yes, yes!

All right, Margie said. I'll let you wait on it. This way you'll be sure to remember. And she walked away back toward Marine Park.

 • • • 

Ed Monahan picked himself up, and zipped up his jeans. He stood, breathing hard, under the tree for a minute, giving time to compose himself. Little shit, he said, under his breath, even though he knew that only crazy people talked to themselves. Little pussy shit, he thought in his head. Pinko-commie-liberal shit.

Ed fumed out of the nature center, crossed wide Avenue U, and continued into the parking lot. He went to his bike and started fumbling with the lock, until he realized that the motorcycle pack zipper had been jimmied. It was flapping open on one side. All his leftover string cream and plastic shooters were gone. Ed gargled a noise up in his throat. Who steals from a drug dealer? he wanted to know.

He looked around him. He squinted at the other people around the parking lot. There were the Caribbeans playing cricket. Dressed all in white, like cruise ship waiters. The fucks, he thought. They wouldn't dare. He looked at the people walking by on Avenue U. He looked at the do-rags hanging out of the back of their jeans. Ed's eyes narrowed. But what could he do? He got on his bike and rode away.

Coming around the oval, closer and closer to the flagpole, at the base of Marine Park, he approached the basketball courts, the perfect showcase ones that people were playing on, all hours. At the chain-link fence he paused and dismounted. Locked his bike up again.

Ed had always been a good basketball player; it was the only thing he had talent for. He'd been born, sometimes it seemed, dribbling. His daddy encouraged him. It's a white man's game, he'd say. Don't you forget that. And with the three-point line, who could say it wasn't? Ed was a born shooter.

At the Marine Park courts, he left his bike behind him, and walked out into the open, his jeans tight against his legs. Who's next? he asked a black man who was wiping sweat from his forehead with a rag.

 • • • 

Ed found a good three, and they had next, and it was only two points left. He had a Hasid on his team, and the fat black man. It seemed like the team they were up against had been on court for days. One of them, in a Fordham jersey, dunked for the second-to-last point.

I'll take Fordham, Ed said, when they got on the court. The black man shrugged and fell in down low. The Hasid put a hand up to check his yarmulke, and took the man on the wing. Ed, who had the ball in his hands, was ready to check it. All right, Ponytail, let's do this, Fordham said. Just shut up, Ed said.

Fordham scored first, and he did it easily, juking left against Ed, and it was all Ed could do to stay on his feet. One, said Fordham. But then he passed it off to a teammate, who missed his shot. Ball, Ed called, from the top of the key, and the Hasid shrugged and gave it to him. He didn't have to think about it, he just caught and shot. He didn't have to look. He could hear the cleanness of the ball going through a rim with no net. Two, Ed said.