Marine Park(44)
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.
It’s only one, Ponytail, Fordham said. We play by ones here.
• • •
Check, Ed said. Ball in, agreed Fordham. He checked in the ball. Ed passed it to the fat black man down low, who immediately passed it back. This time Ed didn’t just shoot it—he waited until he could look Fordham in the eyes. Look at me, his eyes said. This is the beginning. And then he shot, one fluid motion. Three, Ed said. Nigger, can you count? Fordham asked.
Ed got the ball back. He scored twice more, and then Fordham started calling things.
• • •
Travel, he said. Ed had taken half a step and a dribble toward the wing. Get out, Ed said. Respect the call, said Fordham. Ball never lies. And he tapped the ball out of Ed’s hand, took the test three, sunk it. Ed gave up possession.
The next one was carry. Carry, called Fordham. Man, get out of here, Ed said. Fordham just cocked his head to one side, until Ed passed him the ball for the ball-never-lies shot. He made it. Ed let him take it.
Then charge. All his years of street ball, nobody’d ever called a charge on him. He’d barely tapped Fordham on his way to the middle. Come on now, Ed shouted, let’s be reasonable. His fat black teammate piped up, Yeah, come on now, that wasn’t much of a charge. You fucking people, Ed continued, spitting. Hey now, the fat black man turned on him. What’s all this? You people, Ed said again. You ruin everything. Can’t play with you for nothing.
The Hasid had edged off the court.
Fordham was holding the ball dangerously against his hip.
I think you better leave now, Fordham said. You better get off my court.
Yeah, I’ll head, Ed Monahan said. Just my kind of day, he said. He walked over to where he’d locked his bike up, but it was gone. Faggot, Fordham said from behind him.