Winners (5 page)

“This used to be a basketball court up here, huh.”

Carlos frowns. “Yeah,” he admits. “The place was a dump, they tell me.”

“My buddies used to come here, back when it was Mike’s.”

“That so.” Carlos looks unhappy. Carlos knows this isn’t working out. He takes them downstairs, points them in the right direction, and lets them go.

Downstairs is better, a huge open space with machines and free weights, ample room for stretching. Light streams in from all sides. Despite the prettiness of it all, there are some big guys here, too, lording over the workday rabble, men staring at their blood-engorged muscles in the mirror, their mouths slack, examining their own thighs with a kind of exhausted, bovine lust. The music pumps in steadily overhead, a huge bass and beat with a single piece of high-pitched chorus looped a thousand times.

They tour slowly, looking for something Sam. Jimmy shrugs and settles down on a bench press, lying flat while Shane sets up the bar for him. It’s a very reasonable weight but his brother lifts it up and down just four times before his arms begin to shake. Shane leans forward, ready to spot if necessary. Jimmy glares at him, clanks the bar unevenly back to rest.

“I am a little pussy boy,” he says. “I’m such a little bitch.”

“Jimmy.”

“Take some weight off.” Jimmy jabs a finger at the weights above him. “I don’t have those muscles, I mean, what’s the point of them anyway?” He bangs on his chest, punching his failed pecs. “Is it just cosmetic? I mean, it’s like, am I ever going to be in a prone situation where suddenly I have to lift a heavy object up and down? Ten times. With just my arms. For what, for earthquakes, when you’re trapped under a large chunk of ceiling?”

“You could end up with a really fat chick.”

“That’s a good point,” Jimmy says. “There must be practical applications for all these weird machines.” He looks around thoughtfully. “But what the hell was Sam doing here?”

“Getting big.”

“Yeah, but here? With the Narcissus boys and the richie rich? You see the dues on this place? You either gotta have bank or be here every day to make it worth it.”

“Maybe Rex is wrong.”

“Maybe.” Jimmy sits up. “One way to find out.”

Jimmy heads off to talk to management with some cockamamie story while Shane lingers near the entrance to watch who comes and goes. Across town, at the Firehouse, the first game is getting under way. Maybe Sam is over there, just arriving, calling winners. That’s where Shane should be, for sure.

Someone says his name and he shakes off visions of the open J to find Super Mario standing in front of him. Super Mario: an old lapsed regular from the game.

“Hey there,” Shane says. He puts out his hand and they do the slap and bump. “I thought you died and went to Oakland.”

“No, worse. I got a job.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. No more Tuesday Friday for me.”

“Well you know where we are.”

“Yeah and it kills me.” Mario’s a pure shooter, with short fast legs and an unorthodox quick release.

“This your gym?”

Mario nods, sneering as if he’s caught a noxious scent. “Last man standing. I was here when it was Mike’s and then my new job is right around the corner. So here I am today. With the other digerati.”

“Some big dudes here too.”

“Yeah.” Mario leans in. “Weird place,” he hisses. “Geeks, hulks, and fags, with a few gangsters thrown in. Came out the other night and the car next to mine, Frank’s giving Frank the business.”

“You could still come up Saturdays.”

“Don’t talk to me about Saturdays.”

“Yeah, huh.”

They’re blocking the throughway and have to step aside for a very well-dressed man with a huge watch sparkling on his wrist. The guy smells expensive and seems to spend an extra second taking in Shane and company, but when Shane frowns at him the expensive guy just smiles and nods pleasantly, slipping past them. The problem with these people is that they’re mostly too damn nice.

“You here a lot?” Shane says.

“Some.”

“So you ever see Sam? The kid?”

Mario smiles. “Yeah, I see him all the time. Bunch of the guys used to come here, but him and me the only ones left.”

Bingo. Shane looks around for Jimmy, but his brother’s nowhere to be seen.

“We’re looking for him,” Shane says. He’s about to explain but stops himself, leaves it at that. Mario nods, as if looking for Sam is an acceptable something to do.

“Usually he’s here a ton, one of those gym rats.” Mario’s thinking. “But not lately. I haven’t seen him for a while.”

“We’ll get his number from the gym.”

Mario shrugs, as if he doubts it. “The thing is,” Mario says, “I’m pretty sure he lives around here. Told me about this game one time, somewhere close. It’s funny, I see him all the time but the kid never talks. We talk, it’s usually me asking him about you guys, what’s going on at the Firehouse.”

“Sure,” Shane says. “That other game he talked about, you remember where it was?”

“Oh yeah.” Mario smiles, happy to be of help. “Rec Center. Potrero Hill.”

T
HEY DRIVE OUT
of Multimedia Gulch and stop at a metal-grated corner store to ask directions. On the other side of the street, a few doors down, four young Latinos are hanging out in trouble wear, leaning against one another, moving in small concentric circles. The store blares opera music from a speaker mounted above the door, a loud fuzzy tenor bellowing Italian through the streets for his lost or slutty love. Inside, behind the speaker, the store is relatively quiet as Shane buys a sweet iced tea and Jimmy makes tiny conversation with the Asian man behind the counter.

“Potrero Hill Rec Center,” Jimmy repeats. The man shakes his head. “Rhode Island Street.” The man shrugs. All the streets up here are named after states, and something about that makes it impossible to remember the order. What’s the difference between Wisconsin, Connecticut, Arkansas, Rhode Island?

Jimmy taps the counter, studies the man to see if he’s lying. “Big opera fan, huh?”

“Ah, you know, these guys out there?” The storekeep points one finger past them to the street. “They no good. Used to hang out in front the store all day. Block the door, bad business.” He gives a yellow smile. “But they hate this fucking music. Now they stay away.” He bobs his big head and laughs. Shane picks a direction and sticks with it, passing a line of brand new construction, flimsy live/work lofts for sale at something unspeakable. Shane has never been on this street before. It winds and gently curves, the pavement growing wild with potholes and turning quickly rough and darker, deep-stained with Rorschach oil blots. The van bucks and jolts like a frightened horse. Stop sign. On the corner in front of them, a group of black guys in skull caps and puffy jackets examine the van together. Behind them, the tiered slope of buildings climbs the hill in amphitheater rows, the orange roofs burning in the morning sun.

“Yeah,” Jimmy says. “Da projects.” He rolls down his window.

They turn left, skirting the development while the corner guys track them like prey or an entertainment sent to help break up the day. Shane doesn’t look at them. It seems like eye contact might make something here ignite. Jimmy stares though with unmasked curiosity and one of the guys calls out to him, menace or invitation, it’s hard to tell. Shane leans into the gas pedal and the van leaves the guys but not the projects there behind. The projects don’t end easily. The place is enormous at close range, concrete building after building creeping up the hill, wrapping around the corner, continuing unchecked out of sight. The street that navigates the projects’ edge seems extra wide, a moat to keep castle folk inside.

At the crest of the hill appears a liquor store with its own collection of guys standing outside. “Stop here dude,” Jimmy says. “I’m gonna ask.”

“Yeah right.” Shane rolls through a stop sign but Jimmy is already leaning out the window, calling out to everyone’s surprise. “Yo, what’s up,” Jimmy says.

The two nearest guys stare him down. Shane has stopped the van’s forward motion but he is not happy about it. He whispers his brother’s name.

“There a Rec Center up here?” Jimmy says. The guys don’t answer. “Rec Center,” Jimmy repeats, totally uncowed. “Somewhere around here they play ball.”

The two guys laugh, not kindly. “Shit motherfucker play ball,” one says to the other.

“Mary Poppins motherfucker play ball,” the other says, laughing hard.

“In that Chitty-Chitty hoopdi, nigga, don’t play no ball.”

Jimmy’s about to say something else but Shane hits the gas and they’re out of there. In the sideview he sees the two figures step out onto the street and gesture after them in obscene and happy triumph.

Then, suddenly, the projects disappear. A line of noble old Victorians stand up tall on the left, and an enormous baseball field spreads out to the right, separated from the projects below by a planted row of eucalyptus and twenty-foot-high chain-link fence. In the green expanse of this mountain fortress, clusters of white people are standing in the grass, watching dogs run madly around the infield and chase each other toward deep left. That’s where the Rec Center sits, a half cylinder like an aircraft hangar, decorated with sports figures painted in a child’s hand. A football player, number 32, stands front and center, looking small in his tight-fit jersey with the telltale football tucked in to run.

“Who’s 32?” Jimmy says, as they park.

“O.J. Simpson.”

“Local hero.”

The small door to the gym is propped ajar. They hear the pounding of a ball before they enter, but inside there’s just one little kid shooting around by himself. Good gym: six glass backboards, elevated spectator stands to one side, springy new wood floor. A scorer’s clock sits low against the wall, and directly opposite, competing for attention, blares a television set aimed at the empty stands. That nervous adolescent smell of gym: dust and damp cotton and rubber. Near the entrance hang pictures of league teams and famous visitors.

“Hey, they got Jason Kidd up here,” Jimmy says. “Gary Payton.”

Shane strolls over to check it out. Both the big-time hometown NBA stars are there indeed, Kidd smiling, Payton scowling, wearing the loose jerseys of a summer league.

“Who knew.”

“Someone.”

They strip down out of their sweats and start shooting around. The little boy has been watching them and moves closer now, holding the ball with both hands.

“Hey,” Jimmy says to the boy, “what’s up, little man?”

“You here all by yourself?” Shane asks.

The boy scowls and hugs the ball tight as if daring them to take it from him. The ball seems about twice as big as his head.

“We gonna run today or what?” Jimmy asks.

“Yeah,” the boy says. He dribbles the ball with maximum concentration, then looks back at Jimmy for approval.

“Damn,” Jimmy says, very seriously. “Little man’s got game, huh. How about the big boys, they gonna come up here today?”

The boy nods, his eyes bouncing slowly back and forth between them. “They mostly black people up here,” he explains finally. “But they let you play.”

Shane smiles and tries not to laugh but Jimmy loses it, tilting his head back and practically hooting. “Oh yeah?” Jimmy says. “That’s good. I’m glad, ’cause we like to play with all kinds of people.” He leaps forward suddenly and swats the ball out of the boy’s hand and the two of them go running down the court, Jimmy high-stepping with the stolen ball, the boy shouting in delighted hot pursuit.

***

The first guy to show is tall and skinny. He scuffs his shoes on the floors and ignores them, retreating back outside to wait for someone legitimate to show. He returns a few minutes later with a threesome, one short and two big, with weight rooms and tattoo parlors in their arms, all of them half shouting at one another. They glance at Shane and Jimmy sitting in the stands, watching baseball on TV. Shane nods, trying to play it cool. Wait for while, see if Sam shows, strike up a conversation when things get under way. But Jimmy has his own ideas, walking straight down to the court to talk.

“You wanna start some threes?” Jimmy says. They shake their head, ignore him. “Wait for full, huh,” he says. “That’s cool.” He bounces around them on his big feet like a puppy, a little frisky yellow puppy yelping among laid-back Labradors. “Yeah,” Jimmy presses on, “friend told us about this run up here, said we should come up.”

The four of them have still not spoken a word to him, but they’re looking at him carefully now.

“Sam,” Jimmy says. “You know him? About twenty years old, six foot one, light-skinned guy, freckles, big hair, long arms? He lives over here somewhere, pretty good player. Friend of mine.”

“Goddamn,” one of the guys says. He shakes his head in disgust, takes a shot that skittles off the rim.

“Five-oh, five-oh,” his buddy says, stepping back.

“Shit’s deep undercover,” the other says, laughing and shaking his head. “Shit nigga talk about light-skin dark-skin motherfucker.”

“Chocolate thunder or cafe au lait.”

“Sam-bo, right, he be looking for his Sambo.”

“No,” Jimmy says. “Hey.” He keeps talking but Shane can’t watch anymore, staring at the television, keeping the Jimmy shape in the corner of his eye only, hoping he doesn’t have to come to anyone’s rescue. Rescue—scrape his brother off the floor, more like it.

Jimmy shuts up but stays down there with them, grabbing the ball when he can, shooting around. Shane watches his brother keep an eye on the numbers as more guys trickle in. He knows Jimmy isn’t thinking about Sam anymore. He’s thinking about getting in the first game. The first game matters. They’ve both been in this position before, alone and separately, and know that when you’re the only white guys waiting, and no one knows you—forget it. No one wants to play with the white guy any more than they want to play with a billy goat or that little kid who’s shooting around. Shane knows that when you’re unknown and white they don’t want you unless you look like you might be able to bench press a dump truck or stand about eight feet tall or just hit twenty-five straight jump shots warming up. The gym looks at Shane and Jimmy and sees one white guy who talks too much and another who might be scared or turn to stone when he hears the chorus of intimidation sure to be tossed his way. Shane sees himself and his brother through their eyes, and thinks: these dudes could go either way. Do their part or mess your whole team right up.

Jimmy makes it happen. He waves Shane down to the court and Shane walks out there slowly, arms hanging loose, nodding at their reluctant teammates, sizing up the competition. No pressure—just if they don’t win, they don’t shine out there, no way anyone’s going to talk to them. No way they are going to get to play again.

“Check ball.”

The guy who is covering Shane stands about the same height, a little thinner in the shoulders and legs and arms, younger by at least ten years. Brand-new Reeboks, bright red shirt. He stares at Shane with open disdain. Yeah, you ain’t gonna do shit. Shane doesn’t stare back. He cuts through the middle, sets a pick across but no one seems to notice. Red Shirt follows him at a brisk walk, barely interested in his whereabouts. The ball swings over to Shane on the wing, and Shane catches it, squares to the basket, gives a quick fake. Red Shirt doesn’t move, standing with his back straight and face bored, looking through him as if checking out a mildly pretty girl in the empty stands. Shane passes it back out, and his defender smiles: I told you. But the next time the ball comes Shane’s way, Shane doesn’t hesitate, he snaps the ball and immediately turns to shoot. At the last minute the guy ducks and stomps in Shane’s direction like a rhino, trying to startle him, but all Shane sees is the back of the rim as he flops his wrist and watches the ball go cleanly through. He makes three shots like that, misses one, and Red Shirt just lets it happen as if defense is beneath him. Shane tries not to enjoy himself too much, knowing that someone out there is bound to notice. White boy hits a couple open shots, someone’s gonna decide to shut him down.

Jimmy has a harder time of it. They’ve played so long in their pale game that now his brother relies too much on quickness. Now the force of gravity has changed. There are guys plenty quicker than him here. He has the ball stolen a few times, his shot blocked. Shane can see him playing nervous, rattled. This is when Jimmy’s temper flares, when he is a danger to himself and others. Shane can’t worry about that right now. Red Shirt gives him one more open shot from the elbow, Shane drains it, and just like that, they win.

The next team gathers like a storm cloud at one end of the court. Shane’s teammates decide the white boys rate an introduction.

“Darius.”

“Kev.”

“Jo Jo.” The natural team leader is Shane’s age, maybe, his height, more muscular. “These next guys got a squad,” Jo Jo says. “We take them, we run all day.”

“All right.”

Jo Jo shakes his head to make sure Shane’s listening. “We gotta push it, get out and run. They ain’t gonna give you that J. ”

“I bet,” Shane says. “Let’s run.”

The next squad is big and quick and mad. He’s forgotten games like that, when you can’t call a foul near the basket unless someone attacks you with a chair. Jimmy tries it and everyone starts yelling at him at once. Not here: the name of the game is you’re gonna get hit. Shane’s man stays close this time, breath like a damp dishtowel brushing against his face. Pushes him. Grabs him. For the first few minutes Shane doesn’t touch the ball. He acts tired and cowed, lulling his man to sleep. Then he busts back, hits a medium range shot, then slow again. Slow slow quick. He gets free again and hits one way back, two full steps past the three-point line. Fuck yes. He’s stronger than he was the last time he played indoors, and this distance seems fine and manageable. It still surprises him, sometimes, what his new body can do.

“Ooh, like Hornacek and shit,” someone yells from the sideline. “He killing you Vee.”

Vee swears, shakes his head. Bullshit.

Things get tough. Vee wants the ball down low and gets it. He puts his shoulder against Shane’s and spins him like a revolving door, lays it in. “Stop fouling, bitch,” Vee says. After that the man is everywhere, pushing Shane, roughing him, daring him to look him in the eye or say a single word. When Shane finally gets the ball, Vee reaches out and rips it out of his hands. A cry of disgust goes up from Shane’s teammates. He’s not exactly scared, but for the first time in a long time, he feels like things on the court are out of his control.

You can’t let the Vees of the world do this to you, Shane thinks. He looks at his enemy. The guy has a mother and father, a girlfriend or a wife, a kid or a dog. The guy is just another guy. The next time Vee tries to post him up, Shane keeps shifting, giving the man nothing to push on, nudging him off balance. Vee keeps trying but can’t get good position.

They steal the ball from Jimmy, picking off a lazy pass, and pound it back inside to their big man. Shane’s teammate Darius lets the guy back him down, lets the guy put up the shot—and then launches himself to get it, one greedy hand stretched up suddenly above the rim. He’s so high that he has time to aim and swat the ball in a clean line into Shane’s hands, who tosses it out perfect, the ball bouncing and floating for sprinting Jo Jo to catch up. He lays it in, slaps the backboard with a solid thump. “Game time!”