The Residue Years (12 page)

Not much, I say. Coupla points, an assist, a bonehead play.

Good or bad? she says.

Try average, I say.

Next thing I know, Mom's screaming KJ's name when I swear the boy ain't done shit but toss the ball inbounds. KJ gazes up at us with game-time eyes as fierce, no, fiercer, than mine ever were.

That's my boy, she says. My baby.

When I was my brother's age, with not a care I'd admit to beyond my box score, I lived for playing games in front of my family, ached for the times when a cousin or an aunt or unc would attend, but especially Mom, who missed many more than she made.

How's the electric-blue chariot? I say. You still in love?

Yes, in love, she says.

All to the good, I say. So everything's working? No troubles.

None that I know of, she says.

Great, I say. So you good on funds for gas? Your pockets straight otherwise?

Son, you've done enough, she says. More than enough, she says. Let's enjoy the game.

Next time downcourt KJ dribbles hard left and banks a layup over a boy that's hit his growth spurt hella-early. It's a nice play, but you'd think my bro rescued a newborn from bullets, with the racket Mom makes: thunderclaps and stomping and high-pitched rah-rahing.

Mom, I say. It's two points. One. Two. That's all. Which means it's our two points.

No. It's your brother's two points, she says. You could show more support.

Support, I say. Me? Wow, Mom. Like really, wow, forreal.

KJ's game is one of those back-and-forth contests where each mistake is mega, the extended remix of an original blunder—BKA nerves for the players, fever for us. You know what I'm saying, an atmosphere to birth a hoop hero—or lay a hyped prospect's name to early rest.

Midquarter of next quarter, KJ shakes by his man, spins out of control, and slings a pass that smacks his teammate dead in the face:
BLAM!
His teammate drops to a knee and then falls on his back. He covers his mug and moans. The coach flurries off the bench with a towel in hand. Bench-warmers fly on the court and make a half-moon around the boy. Can't tell you how long the youngster mewls, how long the coach presses a towel against a gang of blood and tears.

Oh my gosh, Mom says.

He'll be cool, I say. Bloody nose or a headache. No worse.

Well, I hope so, she says. But I meant your brother.

KJ is gaping at the harm from steps back, his face my face from years ago, high school, maybe further: a boy with something precious knocked clean the fuck right out of him.

Second half, no fist-pumping pom-pom plays for Team KJ—not a one till minutes in, when he reaches for a steal, lets his man slip past, and, trying to recover, hazards a hero-block that damn near decapitates a boy. The refs' whistles trill in sync. The opposite bench screams flagrant foul. The boy lays out for counts, gets up woozy, heads to the line. KJ's coach calls time-out and hastens to meet his players, but KJ drops his head and drags tacit past the huddle. He grabs the farthest seat, a chair a motherfuckin city block from anyone else, and makes himself an avalanche. With
attitude like this, he seems headed down the same implacable road I was, seems a trial or two from blowing the faith of the ones who believe and don't have to. This is what I'll tell him later, when we're away from the lick of this flame.

Better for him is what I want for him if better for him exist.

The coach sends the team out minus KJ. He stomps to my brother's distant seat and screams. KJ drops his eyes. Do you hear? Coach says. I know you hear. He grabs a clutch of KJ's jersey and yanks him to his feet. He pulls him so close it's lash to lash. Get out of here! he says. Get out of here now, he says. Go!

KJ snatches away. He turns and kicks an empty seat legs-up. He marches into game play and stands at center court. He tears off his jersey, slings it across the floor towards his bench, balls his fists, and seethes—at his coach, his teammates, the boys sprawled by the baseline, the adults who've peeked in from concessions; he seethes with his muscled gut swelling and the veins standing out in his neck.

Mom springs to her feet, but I catch her wrist and hold her still, feel her pulse as a song in my palm.

Don't, I say.

She stills a beat, a beat and shakes free. She scrambles down the bleachers, leaving her coat back, as if she isn't as old and harmed as she is.

Me chasing her.

She chasing him.

KJ a hurricane now whirling outside.

We keep it alive.

It was Big Ken and his brothers (my pimpish uncs), it was Uncle Sip, who made me dream and kept that hope buoyed as best
they could. It was them who bought me mini-balls and mini-hoops for birthdays, who drove me to Biddy Ball camps, who would take me to the park for one-on-ones and practice. It was them who talked of the neighborhood legends, the city's rare semi-pros, the small few who got a chance to see the lights. It was those men who preached to me, Make them all know your name. But it ain't them and me no more. Or it is me. But me and my bros. Me prodding KJ, prodding Canaan. Doping them with this dream. But tell me this, will you, is it so wrong? Is it? What kind of solipsistic black-hearted robot would I be to wish against my brothers succeeding in ways that I failed?

 

FIRST ZION BAPTIST CHURCH

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One of those places you think can save you
if need be, from yourself.
—Grace

It's more a drone than singing that fills the room when I walk in. It's a warble and then not one. The deacon approaches the podium and I make my way past a white-gloved usher woman to a pew near the back. The deacon's suit coat hangs knee-length. He reads announcements and when he's done he calls up Pastor Hammond. The pastor, a freckle-faced man with black backcombed hair, rises from his seat and strolls up to the pulpit, where a massive Bible rest under a bent microphone. Amen, he says, offering a glimpse of a gold-capped front tooth. He nods at the choir and they stand and the choir director moves out in front with his hands at his sides and his head down. The director lifts his head and the choir hums the first notes of “Amazing Grace.”

Pastor Hammond—he was a guest speaker at my last church—asks the church to be seated. He clears his throat and sips from a goblet. Today, saints, he says, I want to speak to you about temptation. He unbuttons his jacket and grips the lectern and gazes out. The devil tempted Jesus to make stones into bread, he says. But Jesus refused. I said, the devil tempted Jesus to make stones into bread but Jesus refused. And when Jesus said no, the devil took him to the highest mountain and said he'd give him all the
kingdoms and the glory if Jesus would get down on his knees. But Jesus, the pastor shouts, told that devil, I only worship
one
God. Jesus, amen, told that devil, I serve one God and one God only. And surely, the pastor says, and slaps the lectern, if Jesus could pass up all the world's glory, then we can forsake the tiny temptations of our lives. He goes on and while he does the pews fill up and the members clap and here and there shout amen. The pastor stops and wipes sweat from his neck and face and waves his handkerchief and calls up his wife, the first lady. He fades to a seat pushed against the wall. The first lady takes the podium, looks out at the church, lays her Bible on the lectern. Today, saints, I'd like to speak to you about marriage, she says. The Bible tells us not to count another's blessings. It warns us not to live beyond our means.

Not often, but sometimes talk of marriage makes me think of my ex, a man I met in NA—this should have been my first clue!—of the time I fell in starry-eyed love and married his non-working self at the courthouse months later. His name was Larry and he smoked and drank. The day after we exchanged vows, Larry earned a key chain that might as well have been the master key for every liquor store in the land. He jumped right back on the bottle, and before long, before I'd relapsed myself, he fell right back into puffing too. The man was an expert if ever there was one. He left on a hunt for his potion one October night and we didn't see him until after New Years, the cold day he strolled in whistling as if the world had wound to a halt while he was gone.

The first lady preaches and the pastor, legs and arms crossed, beams from his seat. She finishes and the church applauds, big
booming claps. The choir stands and sings “Soon and Very Soon.” The members sway in their dark blue robes with yellow stoles, the faces of praise. The women wear dark coats of makeup, the men sport beards edged just so. The pastor strolls up after the song and he thanks the choir and his beautiful wife for her kind and wise words.

Now, saints, he says, and saunters to the edge of the pulpit. I'd like to hear of the Lord's good work.

The first to testify is a couple—the wife wears a diamond spec for a ring, the husband a crushed tie—who sit in my row. The husband thanks God for clothes, for a roof, for a decent car to get back and forth. God is good, he says. Praise Him.

A woman testifies next, tells the church how after her husband left, she stayed home a month straight trying to starve herself blind, says she would've whittled to dust if the pastor hadn't came by and prayed her back to faith.

The next to witness is a man at the front of the church. He says that the Lord brought his daughter back after she'd been gone so long it gave him a stroke. He tears up, and there's a certain part, a better part of me, that sympathizes.

The first time I was grown and joined a new church was after what happened to my cousin. She was younger by not many years and more of a sister. I introduced her to one of Kenny's brothers and they dated against our family's wishes. She went missing months later, and we all assumed she'd ran off with him, that Kenny's brother had convinced her to prostitute. We didn't believe otherwise until we found out the brother had been in jail. My cousin was gone from summer through fall. Then one night the news ran the story of a woman found in Overlook Park. The anchor said the woman had been stabbed dozens of times and left
for so long her body had begun to decompose. The next morning the boys and I drove to Mama Liza's. We hadn't been there long when the police knocked, asking questions and I could feel right off why they had come.

The next Sunday I joined First AME Zion and gave my life to Christ, for my cousin, my sister, for what I'd done to my family, for what I must've known I'd do all too soon to myself.

The choir sings “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The pastor dabs his face once more and waits for calm and glides again to the edge of the pulpit. Is there anyone here who needs prayer, he says, who wants to give their life to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?

An elder woman in a gray wig, a boy in slacks that stop too high, a man in an oversize double-breasted suit, they amble to the front of the church and kneel before the pastor and the cross. Those who stayed back hum and sway. My neighbor nudges me and asks if I'd like to go and I shake my head. If I was a girl, Mama Liza would lead me to the front and stay by my side. But she's gone. The organist fingers chords and it's a language all its own. More of the brave drift down and submit.