Murder At the Foul Line

STRING MUSIC by George Pelecanos

WASHINGTON, D.C., 2001

Down around my way, when I’m not in school or lookin’ out for my moms and little sister, I like to run ball. Pickup games mostly. That’s not the only kind of basketball I do. I been playin’ organized all my life, the Jelleff League and Urban Coalition, too. Matter of fact, I’m playin’ for my school team right now, in the Interhigh. It’s no boast to say that I can hold my own in most any kind of game. But pickup is where I really get amped.

In organized ball, they expect you to pass a whole bunch, take the percentage shot. Not too much showboatin’, nothin’ like that. In pickup, we ref our own games, and most of the hackin’ and pushin’ and stuff, except for the flagrant, it gets allowed. I can deal with that. But in pickup, see, you can pretty much freestyle, try everything out you been practicing on your own. Like those Kobe and Vince Carter moves. What I’m sayin’ is, out here on the asphalt you can really show your shit.

Where I come from, you’ve got to understand, most of the time it’s rough. I don’t have to describe it if you know the area of D.C. I’m talkin’ about: the 4^th District, down around Park View, in Northwest. I got problems at home, I got problems at school, I got problems walkin’ down the street. I prob’ly got problems with my future, you want the plain truth. When I’m runnin’ ball, though, I don’t think on those problems at all. It’s like all the chains are off, you understand what I’m sayin’? Maybe you grew up somewheres else, and if you did, it’d be hard for you to see. But I’m just tryin’ to describe it, is all.

Here’s an example: Earlier today I got into this beef with this boy James Wallace. We was runnin’ ball over on the playground where I go to school, Roosevelt High, on 13^th Street, just a little bit north of my neighborhood. There’s never any chains left on those outdoor buckets, but the rims up at Roosevelt are straight and the backboards are forgiving. That’s like my home court. Those buckets they got, I been playin’ them since I was a kid, and I can shoot the eyes out of those motherfuckers most any day of the week.

We had a four-on-four thing goin’ on, a pretty good one, too. It was the second game we had played. Wallace and his boys, after we beat ’em the first game, they went over to Wallace’s car, a black Maxima with a spoiler and pretty rims, and fired up a blunt. They were gettin’ their heads up and listenin’ to the new Nas comin’ out the speakers from the open doors of the car. I don’t like Nas’s new shit much as I did Illmatic, but it sounded pretty good.

Wallace and them, they work for a dealer in my neighborhood, so they always got good herb, too. I got no problem with that. I might even have hit some of that hydro with ’em if they’d asked. But they didn’t ask.

Anyway, they came back pink-eyed, lookin’ all cooked and shit, debatin’ over which was better, Phillies or White Owls. We started the second game. Me and mines went up by three or four buckets pretty quick. Right about then I knew we was gonna win this one like we won the first, ’cause I had just caught a little fire.

Wallace decided to cover me. He had switched off with this other dude, Antuane, but Antuane couldn’t run with me, not one bit. So Wallace switched, and right away he was all chest out, talkin’ shit about how “now we gonna see” and all that. Whateva. I was on my inside game that day and I knew it. I mean, I was crossin’ motherfuckers out, just driving the paint at will. And Wallace, he was slow on me by, like, half a step. I had stopped passin’ to the other fellas at that point, ’cause it was just too easy to take it in on him. I mean, he was givin’ it to me, so why not?

’Bout the third time I drove the lane and kissed one in, Wallace bumped me while I was walkin’ back up to the foul line to take the check. Then he said somethin’ about my sneaks, some-thin’ that made his boys laugh. He was crackin’ on me, is all, tryin’ to shake me up. I got a nice pair of Jordans, the Air Max, and I keep ’em clean with Fantastik and shit, but they’re from, like, last year. And James Wallace is always wearin’ whatever’s new, whatever it is they got sittin’ up front at the Foot Locker, just came in. Plus Wallace didn’t like me all that much. He had money from his druggin’, I mean to tell you that boy had everything, but he dropped out of school back in the tenth grade, and I had stayed put. My moms always says that some guys like Wallace resent guys like me who have hung in. Add that to the fact that he never did have my game. I think he was a little jealous of me, you want the truth.

I do know he was frustrated that day. I knew it, and I guess I shouldn’t have done what I did. I should’ve passed off to one of my boys, but you know how it is. When you’re proud about somethin’, you got to show it, ‘specially down here. And I was on. I took the check from him and drove to the bucket, just blew right past him as easy as I’d been doin’ all afternoon. That’s when Wallace called me a bitch right in front of everybody there.

There’s a way to deal with this kinda shit. You learn it over time. I go six-two and I got some shoulders on me, so it wasn’t like I feared Wallace physically or nothin’ like that. I can go with my hands, too. But in this world we got out here, you don’t want to be getting in any kinda beefs, not if you can help it. At the same time, you can’t show no fear; you get a rep for weakness like that, it’s like bein’ a bird with a busted wing, sumshit like that. The other thing you can’t do, though, you can’t let that kind of comment pass. Someone tries to take you for bad like that, you got to respond. It’s complicated, I know, but there it is.

“I ain’t heard what you said,” I said, all ice-cool and shit, seein’ if he would go ahead and repeat it, lookin’ to measure just how far he wanted to push it. Also, I was tryin’ to buy a little time.

“Said you’s a bitch,” said Wallace, lickin’ his lips and smilin’ like he was a bitch his own self. He’d made a couple steps towards me and now he wasn’t all that far away from my face.

I smiled back, halfway friendly. “You know I ain’t no faggot,” I said. “Shit, James, it hurts me to fart.”

A couple of the fellas started laughin’ then and pretty soon all of ’em was laughin’. I’d heard that line on one of my uncle’s old-time comedy albums once, that old Signifyin’ Monkey shit or maybe Pryor. But I guess these fellas hadn’t heard it, and they laughed like a motherfucker when I said it. Wallace laughed, too. Maybe it was the hydro they’d smoked. Whatever it was, I had broken that shit down, turned it right back on him, you see what I’m sayin’? While they was still laughin’, I said, “C’mon, check it up top, James, let’s play.”

I didn’t play so proud after that. I passed off and only took a coupla shots myself the rest of the game. I think I even missed one on purpose towards the end. I ain’t stupid. We still won, but not by much; I saw to it that it wasn’t so one-sided, like it had been before.

When it was over, Wallace wanted to play another game, but the sun was dropping and I said I had to get on home. I needed to pick up my sister at aftercare, and my moms likes both of us to be inside our apartment when she gets home from work. Course, I didn’t tell any of the fellas that. It wasn’t somethin’ they needed to know.

Wallace was goin’ back my way, I knew, but he didn’t offer to give me a ride. He just looked at me dead-eyed and smiled a little before him and his boys walked back to the Maxima parked along the curb. My stomach flipped some, I got to admit, seein’ that flatline thing in his peeps. I knew from that empty look that it wasn’t over between us, but what could I do?

I picked up my ball and headed over to Georgia Avenue. Walked south towards my mother’s place as the first shadows of night were crawling onto the streets.

It’s five a.m. I’m sitting in my cruiser up near the station house, sipping a coffee. My first one of the night. Rolling my head around on these tired shoulders of mine. You get these aches when you’re behind the wheel of a car six hours at a stretch. I oughta buy one of those things the African cabbies all sit on, looks like a rack of wooden balls. You know, for your back. I been doin’ this for twenty-two years now, so I guess whatever damage I’ve done to my spine and all, it’s too late.

I work midnights in the 4^th District. 4D starts at the Maryland line and runs south to Harvard Street and Georgia. The western border is Rock Creek Park and the eastern line is North Capitol Street. It’s what the newspeople call a high-crime district. For a year or two I tried working 3D, keeping the streets safe for rich white people basically, but I got bored. I guess I’m one of those adrenaline junkies they’re always talking about on those cop shows on TV, the shows got female cops who look more beautiful than any female cop I’ve ever seen. I guess that’s what it is. It’s not like I’ve ever examined myself or anything like that. My wife and I don’t talk about it, that’s for damn sure. A ton of cop marriages don’t make it; I suppose mine has survived ’cause I never bring any of this shit home with me. Not that she knows about, anyway.

My shift runs from the stroke of twelve till dawn, though I usually get into the station early so I can nab the cruiser I like. I prefer the Crown Victoria. It’s roomier, and once you flood the gas into the cylinders, it really moves. Also, I like to ride alone.

Last night, Friday, wasn’t much different than any other. It’s summer; more people are outside, trying to stay out of their unair-conditioned places as long as possible, so this time of year we put extra cars out on the streets. Also, like I reminded some of the younger guys at the station last night, this was the week welfare checks got mailed out, something they needed to know. Welfare checks mean more drunks, more domestic disturbances, more violence. One of the young cops I said it to, he said, “Thank you, Sergeant Dad,” but he didn’t do it in a bad way. I know those young guys appreciate it when I mention shit like that.

Soon as I drove south I saw that the avenue- Georgia Avenue, that is-was hot with activity. All those Jap tech bikes the young kids like to ride, curbed outside the all-night Wing n’ Things. People spilling out of bars, hanging outside the Korean beer markets, scratching game cards, talking trash, ignoring the crackheads hitting them up for spare change. Drunks lying in the doorways of the closed-down shops, their heads resting against the riot gates. Kids, a lot of kids, standing on corners, grouped around tricked-out cars, rap music and that go-go crap coming from the open windows. The farther you go south, the worse all of this gets.

The bottom of the barrel is that area between Quebec Street and Irving. The newspapers lump it all in with a section of town called Petworth, but I’m talking about Park View. Poverty, drug activity, crime. They got that Section 8 housing back in there, the Park Morton complex. What we used to call the projects back when you could say it. Government-assisted hellholes. Gangs like the Park Street and Morton Street Crews. Open-air drug markets; I’m talking about blatant transactions right out there on Georgia Avenue. Drugs are Park View’s industry; the dealers are the biggest employers in this part of town.

The dealers get the whole neighborhood involved. They recruit kids to be lookouts for ’em. Give these kids beepers and cells to warn them off when the Five-O comes around. Entry-level positions. Some of the parents, when there are parents, participate, too. Let these drug dealers duck into their apartments when there’s heat. Teach their kids not to talk to the Man. So you got kids being raised in a culture that says the drug dealers are the good guys and the cops are bad. I’m not lying. It’s exactly how it is.

The trend now is to sell marijuana. Coke, crack and heroin, you can still get it, but the new thing is to deal pot. Here’s why: In the District, possession or distribution of marijuana up to ten pounds-ten pounds-is a misdemeanor. Kid gets popped for selling grass, he knows he’s gonna do no time. Even on a distribution beef, black juries won’t send a black kid into the prison system for a marijuana charge, that’s a proven fact. Prosecutors know this, so they usually no-paper the case. That means most of the time they don’t even go to court with it. I’m not bullshitting. Makes you wonder why they even bother having drug laws to begin with. They legalize the stuff, they’re gonna take the bottom right out the market, and the violent crimes in this city would go down to, like, nothing. Don’t get me started. I know it sounds strange, a cop saying this. But you’d be surprised how many of us feel that way.

Okay, I got off the subject. I was talking about my night.

Early on I got a domestic call, over on Otis Place. When I got there, two cruisers were on the scene, four young guys, two of them with flashlights. A rookie named Buzzy talked to a woman at the front door of her row house, then came back and told me that the object of the complaint was behind the place, in the alley. I walked around back alone and into the alley and right off I recognized the man standing inside the fence of his tiny, brown-grass yard. Harry Lang, sixty-some years old. I’d been to this address a few times in the past ten years.

I said, “Hello, Harry,” Harry said, “Officer,” and I said, “Wait right here, okay?” Then I went through the open gate. Harry’s wife was on her back porch, flanked by her two sons, big strapping guys, all of them standing under a triangle of harsh white light coming from a naked bulb. Mrs. Lang’s face and body language told me that the situation had resolved itself. Generally, once we arrive, domestic conflicts tend to calm down on their own.

Mrs. Lang said that Harry had been verbally abusive that night, demanding money from her, even though he’d just got paid. I asked her if Harry had struck her, and her response was negative. But she had a job, too, she worked just as hard as him, why should she support his lifestyle and let him speak to her like that… I was listening and not listening, if you know what I mean. I made my sincere face and nodded every few seconds or so.

I asked her if she wanted me to lock Harry up, and of course she said no. I asked what she did want, and she said she didn’t want to see him “for the rest of the night.” I told her I thought I could arrange that, and started back to have a talk with Harry. I felt the porch light go off behind me as I hit the bottom of the wooden stairs. Dogs had begun to bark in the neighboring yards.

Harry was short and low-slung, a black black man, nearly featureless in the dark. He wore a porkpie hat and his clothes were pressed and clean. He kept his eyes down as I spoke to him over the barks of the dogs. His reaction time was very slow when I asked for a response. I could see right away that he was on a nod.

Harry had been a controlled heroin junkie for the last thirty years. During that time, he’d always held a job, lived in this same house and been there, in one condition or another, for his kids. I’d wager he went to church on Sundays, too. But a junkie was what he was. Heroin was a slow ride down. Some folks could control it to some degree and never hit the bottom.

I asked Harry if he could find a place to sleep that night other than his house, and he told me that he “supposed” he could. I told him I didn’t want to see him again any time soon, and he said, “It’s mutual.” I chuckled at that, giving him some of his pride back, which didn’t cost me a thing. He walked down the alley, stopping once to cup his hands around a match as he put fire to a cigarette.

I drove back over to Georgia. A guy flagged me down just to talk. They see my car number and they know it’s me. Sergeant Peters, the old white cop. You get a history with these people. Some of these kids, I know their parents. I’ve busted ’em from time to time. Busted their grandparents, too. Shows you how long I’ve been doing this.

Down around Morton I saw Tonio Harris, a neighborhood kid, walking alone towards the Black Hole. Tonio was wearing those work boots and the baggy pants low, like all the other kids, although he’s not like most of them. I took his mother in for drugs a long time ago, back when that Love Boat stuff was popular and making everyone crazy; his father-the one who impregnated his mother, I mean-he’s doing a stretch for manslaughter, his third fall. Tonio’s mother’s clean now, at least I think she is; anyway, she’s done a fairly good job with him. By that I mean he’s got no juvenile priors, from what I know. A minor miracle down here, you ask me.

I rolled down my window. “Hey, Tonio, how’s it going?” I slowed down to a crawl, took in the sweetish smell of reefer in the air. Tonio was still walking, not looking at me, but he mumbled something about “I’m maintainin’,” or some shit like that. “You take care of yourself in there,” I said, meaning in the Hole, “and get yourself home right after.” He didn’t respond verbally, just made a half-assed kind of acknowledgment with his chin.

I cruised around for the next couple of hours. Turned my spot on kids hanging in the shadows, told them to break it up and move along. Asked a guy in Columbia Heights why his little boy was out on the stoop, dribbling a basketball, at one in the morning. Raised my voice at a boy, a lookout for a dealer, who was sitting on top of a trash can, told him to get his ass on home. Most of the time, this is my night. We’re just letting the critters know we’re out here.

At around two I called in a few cruisers to handle the closing of the Black Hole. You never know what’s going to happen at the end of the night there, what kind of beefs got born inside the club, who looked at who a little too hard for one second too long. Hard to believe that an ex-cop from Prince Georges County runs the place. That a cop would put all this trouble on us, bring it into our district. He’s got D.C. cops moonlighting as bouncers in there, too, working the metal detectors at the door. I talked with one, a young white cop, earlier in the night. I noticed the brightness in his eyes and the sweat beaded across his forehead. He was scared, like I gave a shit. Asked us as a favor to show some kind of presence at closing time. Called me Sarge. Okay. I didn’t answer him. I got no sympathy for the cops who work those go-go joints, especially not since Officer Brian Gibson was shot dead outside the Ibex Club a few years back. But if something goes down around the place, it’s on me. So I do my job.

I called in a few cruisers and set up a couple of traffic barriers on Georgia, one at Lamont and one at Park. We diverted the cars like that, kept the kids from congregating on the street. It worked. Nothing too bad was happening that I could see. I was standing outside my cruiser, talking to another cop, Eric Young, who was having a smoke. That’s when I saw Tonio Harris running east on Morton, heading for the housing complex. A late-model black import was behind him, and there were a couple of YBMs with their heads out the open windows, yelling shit out, laughing at the Harris kid, like that.

“You all right here?” I said to Young.

“Fine, Sarge,” he said.

My cruiser was idling. I slid under the wheel and pulled down on the tree.

Just around midnight, when I was fixin’ to go out, my moms walked into my room. I was sittin’ on the edge of my bed, lacing up my Timbies, listening to PGC comin’ from the box, Tigger doin’ his shout-outs and then movin’ right into the new Jay-Z, which is tight. The music was so loud that I didn’t hear my mother walk in, but when I looked up, there she was, one arm crossed over the other like she does when she’s tryin’ to be hard, staring me down.

“Whassup, Mama?”

“What’s up with you?”

I shrugged. “Back Yard is playin’ tonight. Was thinkin’ I’d head over to the Hole.”

“Did you ask me if you could?”

“Do I have to?” I used that tone she hated, knew right away I’d made a mistake.

“You’re living in my house, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You payin’ rent now?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Talkin’ about do I have to.”

“Can I go?”

Mama uncrossed her arms. “Thought you said you’d be studyin’ up for that test this weekend.”

“I will. Gonna do it tomorrow morning, first thing. Just wanted to go out and hear a little music tonight, is all.”

I saw her eyes go soft on me then. “You gonna study for that exam, you hear?”

“I promise I will.”

“Go on, then. Come right back after the show.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I noticed as she was walkin’ out the door her shoulders were getting stooped some. Bad posture and a hard life. She wasn’t but thirty-six years old.

I spent a few more minutes listening to the radio and checking myself in the mirror. Pattin’ my natural and shit. I got a nice modified cut, not too short, not too blown-out or nothin’ like that. A lot of the fellas be wearin’ cornrows now, tryin’ to look like Iverson. But I don’t think it would look right on me. And I know what the girls like. They look at me, they like what they see. I can tell.

Moms has been ridin’ me about my college entrance exam. I fucked up the first one I took. I went out and got high on some fierce chronic the night before it, and my head was filled up with cobwebs the next morning when I sat down in the school cafeteria to take that test. I’m gonna take it again, though, and do better next time.

I’m not one of those guys who’s got, what do you call that, illusions about my future. No hoop dreams about the NBA, nothin’ like that. I’m not good enough or tall enough, I know it. I’m sixth man on my high school team, that ought to tell you somethin’ right there. My uncle Gaylen, he’s been real good to me, and straight-up with me, too. Told me to have fun with ball and all that, but not to depend on it. To stick with the books. I know I fucked up that test, but next time I’m gonna do better, you can believe that.

I was thinkin’, though, I could get me a partial scholarship playin’ for one of those small schools in Virginia or Maryland, William and Mary or maybe Goucher up in Baltimore. Hold up-Goucher’s for women only, I think. Maybe I’m wrong. Have to ask my guidance counselor, soon as I can find one. Ha, ha.

The other thing I should do, for real, is find me a part-time job. I’m tired of havin’ no money in my pockets. My mother works up at the Dollar Store in the Silver Spring mall, and she told me she could hook me up there. But I don’t wanna work with my mother. And I don’t want to be workin’ at no Mac-Donald’s or sumshit like that. Have the neighborhood slangers come in and make fun of me and shit, standin’ there in my minimum-wage uniform. But I do need some money. I’d like to buy me a nice car soon. I’m not talkin’ about some hooptie, neither.

I did have an interview for this restaurant downtown, bussin’ tables. White boy who interviewed kept sayin’ shit like, “Do you think you can make it into work on time?” and do you think this and do you think that? Might as well gone ahead and called me a nigger right to my face. The more he talked, the more attitude I gave him with my eyes. After all that, he smiled and sat up straight, like he was gonna make some big announcement, and said he was gonna give me a try. I told him I changed my mind and walked right out of there. Uncle Gaylen said I should’ve taken that job and showed him he was wrong, for all of us. But I couldn’t. I can’t stand how white people talk to you sometimes. Like they’re just there to make their own selves feel better. I hired a Negro today, and like that.

I am gonna take that test over, though.

I changed my shirt and went out through the living room. My sister was watchin’ the BET videos on TV, her mouth around a straw, sippin’ on one of those big sodas. She’s startin’ to get some titties on her. Some of the slick young niggas in the neighborhood been commentin’ on it, too. Late for her to be awake, but it was Friday night. She didn’t look up as I passed. I yelled good-bye to my moms and heard her say my name from the kitchen. I knew she was back up in there ’cause I smelled the smoke comin’ off her cigarette. There was a ten-dollar bill sittin’ in a bowl by the door. I folded it up and slipped it inside my jeans. My mother had left it there for me. I’m tellin’ you, she is cool people.

Outside the complex, I stepped across this little road and the dark courtyard real quick. We been livin’ here a long time, and I know most everyone by sight. But in this place here, that don’t mean shit.

The Black Hole had a line goin’ outside the door when I got there. I went through the metal detector and let a white rent-a-cop pat me down while I said hey to a friend going into the hall. I could feel the bass from way out in the lobby.

The hall was crowded and the place was bumpin’. I could smell sweat in the damp air. Also chronic, and it was nice. Back Yard was doin’ “Freestyle,” off Hood Related, that double CD they got. I kind of made my way towards the stage, careful not to bump nobody, nodding to the ones I did. I knew a lot of young brothers there. Some of ’em run in gangs, some not. I try to know a little bit of everybody, you see what I’m sayin’? Spread your friends out in case you run into some trouble. I was smilin’ at some of the girls, too.

Up near the front I got into the groove. Someone passed me somethin’ that smelled good, and I hit it. Back Yard was turnin’ that shit out. I been knowin’ their music for like ten years now. They had the whole joint up there that night, I’m talkin’ about a horn section and everything else. I must have been up there close to the stage for about, I don’t know, an hour, sumshit like that, just dancing. It seemed like all of us was all movin’ together. On “Do That Stuff,” they went into this extended drum thing, shout-outs for the hoodies and the crews; I was sweatin’ clean through my shirt, right about then.

I had to pee like a motherfucker, but I didn’t want to use the bathroom in that place. All the hard motherfuckers be congregatin’ in there, too. That’s where trouble can start, just ’cause you gave someone some wrong kinda look.

When the set broke, I started to talkin’ to this girl who’d been dancin’ near me, smilin’ my way. I’d seen her around. Matter of fact, I ran ball sometimes with her older brother. So we had somethin’ to talk about straight off. She had that Brandy thing goin’ on with her hair, and a nice smile.

While we was talkin’, someone bumped me from behind. I turned around and it was Antuane, that kid who ran with James Wallace. Wallace was with him, and so were a coupla Wallace’s boys. I nodded at Antuane, tryin’ to communicate to him, like, “Ain’t no thing, you bumpin’ me like that.” But Wallace stepped in and said somethin’ to me. I couldn’t even really hear it with all the crowd noise, but I could see by his face that he was tryin’ to step to me. I mean, he was right up in my face.

We stared at each other for a few. I shoulda just walked away, right, but I couldn’t let him punk me out like that in front of the girl.

Wallace’s hand shot up. Looked like a bird flutterin’ out of nowhere or somethin’. Maybe he was just makin’ a point with that hand, like some do. But it rattled me, I guess, and I reacted. Didn’t even think about it, though I should’ve. My palms went to his chest and I shoved him back. He stumbled. I saw his eyes flare with anger, but there was that other thing, too, worse than me puttin’ my hands on him: I had stripped him of his pride.

There was some yellin’ then from his boys. I just turned and bucked. I saw the bouncers started to move, talkin’ into their headsets and shit, but I didn’t wait. I bucked. I was out on the street pretty quick, runnin’ towards my place. I didn’t know what else to do.

I heard Wallace and them behind me, comin’ out the Hole. They said my name. I didn’t look back. I ran to Morton and turned right. Heard car doors opening and slammin’ shut. The engine of the car turnin’ over. Then the cry of tires on the street and Wallace’s boys laughin’, yellin’ shit out. I kept runnin’ towards Park Morton. My heart felt like it was snappin’ on a rubber string.

There were some younguns out in the complex. They were sittin’ up on top of a low brick wall like they do, and they watched me run by. It’s always dark here, ain’t never no good kinda light. They got some dim yellow bulbs back in the stairwells, where the old-school types drink gin and shoot craps. They was back up in there, too, hunched down in the shadows. There was some kind of fog or haze out that night, too, it was kind of rollin’ around by that old playground equipment, all rusted and shit, they got in the courtyard. I was runnin’ through there, tryin’ to get to my place.

I had to cross the little road in the back of the complex to get to my mother’s apartment. I stepped into it and that’s when I saw the black Maxima swing around the corner. Coupla Wallace’s boys jumped out while the car was still movin’. I stopped runnin’. They knew where I lived. If they didn’t, all they had to do was ask one of those younguns on the wall. I wasn’t gonna bring none of this home to my moms.

Wallace was out of the driver’s side quick, walkin’ towards me. He was smilin’ and my stomach shifted. Antuane had walked back by the playground. I knew where he was goin’. Wallace and them keep a gun, a nine with a fifteen-round mag, buried in a shoe box back there.

“Junior,” said Wallace, “you done fucked up big.” He was still smilin’.

I didn’t move. My knees were shakin’ some. I figured this was it. I was thinkin’ about my mother and tryin’ not to cry. Thinkin’ about how if I did cry, that’s all anyone would remember about me. That I went out like a bitch before I died. Funny me thinkin’ about stupid shit like that while I was waitin’ for Antuane to come back with that gun.

I saw Antuane’s figure walkin’ back out through that fog.

And then I saw the spotlight movin’ across the courtyard, and where it came from. An MPD Crown Vic was comin’ up the street, kinda slow. The driver turned on the overheads, throwing colors all around. Antuane backpedaled and then he was gone.

The cruiser stopped and the driver’s door opened. The white cop I’d seen earlier in the night got out. Sergeant Peters. My moms had told me his name. Told me he was all right.

Peters was puttin’ on his hat as he stepped out. He had pulled his nightstick, and his other hand just brushed the Glock on his right hip. Like he was just lettin’ us all know he had it.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he said easylike. “We got a problem here?”

“Nope,” said Wallace, kinda in a white-boy’s voice, still smiling.

“Somethin’ funny?” said Peters.

Wallace didn’t say nothin’. Peters looked at me and then back at Wallace.

“You all together?” said Peters.

“We just out here havin’ a conversation,” said Wallace.

Sergeant Peters gave Wallace a look then, like he was disgusted with him, and then he sighed.

“You,” said Peters, turnin’ to me. I was prayin’ he wasn’t gonna say my name, like me and him was friends and shit.

“Yeah?” I said, not too friendly but not, like, impolite.

“You live around here?” He knew I did.

I said, “Uh-huh.”

“Get on home.”

I turned around and walked. Slow but not too slow. I heard the white cop talkin’ to Wallace and the others, and the crackle of his radio comin’ from the car. Red and blue was strobin’ across the bricks of the complex. Under my breath I was sayin’, Thanks, God.

In my apartment everyone was asleep. I turned off the TV set and covered my sister, who was lyin’ on the couch. Then I went back to my room and turned the box on so I could listen to my music low. I sat on the edge of the bed. My hand was shaking. I put it together with my other hand and laced my fingers tight.

After the Park Morton incident, I answered a domestic call over on First and Kennedy. A young gentleman, built like a fullback, had beat his girl up pretty bad. Her face was already swelling when I arrived and there was blood and spittle bubbling on the side of her mouth. The first cops on the scene had cuffed the perp and had him bent over the hood of their cruiser. At this point the girlfriend, she was screaming at the cops. Some of the neighborhood types, hanging outside of a windowless bar on Kennedy, had begun screaming at the cops, too. I figured they were drunk and high on who knew what, so I radioed in for a few more cars.

We made a couple of additional arrests. Like they say in the TV news, the situation had escalated. Not a full-blown riot, but trouble nonetheless. Someone yelled out at me, called me a “cracker-ass motherfucker.” I didn’t even blink. The county cops don’t take an ounce of that kinda shit, but we take it every night. Sticks and stones, like that. Then someone started whistling the theme from the old Andy Griffith Show, you know, the one where he played a small-town sheriff, and everyone started to laugh. Least they didn’t call me Barney Fife. The thing was, when the residents start with the comedy, you know it’s over, that things have gotten under control. So I didn’t mind. Actually, the guy who was whistling, he was pretty good.

When that was over with, I pulled a car over on 5^th and Princeton, back by the Old Soldier’s Home, that matched a description of a shooter’s car from earlier in the night. I waited for backup, standing behind the left rear quarter panel of the car, my holster unsnapped, the light from my Mag pointed at the rear window.

When my backup came, we searched the car and frisked the four YBMs. They had those little-tree deodorizers hangin’ from the rearview, and one of those plastic, king-crown deodorizers sitting on the back panel, too. A crown. Like they’re royalty, right? God, sometimes these people make me laugh. Anyhow, they were clean with no live warrants, and we let them go.

I drove around, and it was quiet. Between three a.m. and dawn, the city gets real still. Beautiful in a way, even for down here.

The last thing I did, I helped some Spanish guy try to get back into his place in Petworth. Said his key didn’t work, and it didn’t. Someone, his landlord or his woman, had changed the locks on him, I figured. Liquor stench was pouring out of him. Also, he smelled like he hadn’t taken a shower for days. When I left him he was standing on the sidewalk, sort of rocking back and forth, staring at the front of the row house, like if he looked at it long enough the door was gonna open on its own.

So now I’m parked here near the station, sipping coffee. It’s my ritual, like. The sky is beginning to lighten. This here is my favorite time of night.

I’m thinking that on my next shift, or the one after, I’ll swing by and see Tonio Harris’s mother. I haven’t talked to her in years, anyway. See how she’s been doing. Suggest to her, without acting like I’m telling her what to do, that maybe she ought to have her son lie low some. Stay in the next few weekend nights. Let that beef he’s got with those others, whatever it is, die down. Course, I know those kinds of beefs don’t go away. I’ll make her aware of it, just the same.

The Harris kid, he’s lucky he’s got someone like his mother, lookin’ after him. I drive back in there at the housing complex, and I see those young kids sitting on that wall at two in the morning, looking at me with hate in their eyes, and all I can think of is, where are the parents? Yeah, I know, there’s a new curfew in effect for minors. Some joke. Like we’ve got the manpower and facilities to enforce it. Like we’re supposed to raise these kids, too.

Anyway, it’s not my job to think too hard about that. I’m just lettin’ these people know that we’re out here, watching them. I mean, what else can you do?

My back hurts. I got to get me one of those things you sit on, with the wood balls. Like those African cabdrivers do.

This morning I studied some in my room until my eyes got sleepy. It was hard to keep my mind on the book ’cause I was playin’ some Method Man on the box, and it was fuckin’ with my concentration. That cut he does with Redman, called “Tear It Off”? That joint is tight.

I figured I was done for the day, and there wasn’t no one around to tell me different. My mother was at work at the Dollar Store, and my sister was over at a friend’s. I put my sneaks on and grabbed my ball and headed up to Roosevelt.

I walked up Georgia, dribblin’ the sidewalk when I could, usin’ my left and keeping my right behind my back, like my coach told me to do. I cut down Upshur and walked up 13^th, past my school, to the court. The court is on the small side and its backboards are square, with bumper stickers and shit stuck on the boards. It’s beside a tennis court and all of it is fenced in. There’s a baseball field behind it; birds always be sittin’ on that field.

There was a four-on-four full-court thing happenin’ when I got there. I called next with another guy, Dimitrius Johnson, who I knew could play. I could see who was gonna win this game, ’cause the one team had this boy named Peter Hawk who could do it all. We’d pick up two off the losers’ squad. I watched the game and after a minute I’d already had those two picked out.

The game started kind of slow. I was feelin’ out my players and those on the other side. Someone had set up a box court-side and they had that live Roots thing playin’. It was one of those pretty days with the sun out and high clouds, the kind look like pillows, and the weather and that upbeat music comin’ from the box set the tone. I felt loose and good.

Me and Hawk was coverin’ each other. He was one of those who could go left or right, dribble or shoot with either hand. He took me to the hole once or twice. Then I noticed he always eye-faked in the opposite direction he was gonna go before he made his move. So it gave me the advantage, knowin’ which side he was gonna jump to, and I gained position on him like that.

I couldn’t shut Hawk down, not all the way, but I forced him to change his game. I made a couple of nice assists on offense and drained one my own self from way downtown. One of Hawk’s players tried to claim a charge, doin’ that Reggie Miller punk shit, his arms windmillin’ as he went back. That shit don’t go in pickup, and even his own people didn’t back him. My team went up by one.

We stopped the game for a minute or so, so one of mines could tie up his sneaks. I was lookin’ across the ball field at the seagulls and crows, catchin’ my wind. That’s when I saw James Wallace’s black Maxima, cruisin’ slow down Allison, that street that runs alongside the court.

We put the ball back into play. Hawk drove right by me, hit a runner. I fumbled a pass goin’ back upcourt, and on the turnover they scored again. The Maxima was going south on 13^th, just barely moving along. I saw Wallace in the driver’s seat, his window down, lookin’ my way with that smile of his and his dead-ass eyes.

“You playin’, Tone?” asked Dimitrius, the kid on my team.

I guess I had lost my concentration and it showed. “I’m playin’,” I said. “Let’s ball.”

Dimitrius bricked his next shot. Hawk got the ‘bound and brought the ball up. I watched him do that eye-fake thing again and I stole the ball off him in the lane before he could make his move. I went bucket-to-bucket with it and leaped. I jammed the motherfucker and swung on the rim, comin’ down and doin’ one of those Patrick Ewing silent growls at Hawk and the rest of them before shootin’ downcourt to get back on D. I was all fired up. I felt like we could turn the shit around.

Hawk hit his next shot, a jumper from the top of the key. Dimitrius brought it down, and I motioned for him to dish me the pill. He led me just right. In my side sight I saw a black car rollin’ down Allison, but I didn’t stop to check it out. I drove off a pick, pulled up in front of Hawk, made a head move and watched him bite. Then I went up. I was way out there but I could tell from how the ball rolled off my fingers that it was gonna go. Ain’t no chains on those rims, but I could see the links dance as that rock dropped through. I’m sayin’ that I could see them dance in my mind.

We was runnin’ now The game was full-on and it was fierce. I grabbed one off the rim and made an outlet pass, then beat the defenders myself on the break. I saw black movin’ slow on 13th but I didn’t even think about it. I was higher than a motherfucker then, my feet and the court and the ball were all one thing. I felt like I could drain it from anywhere, and Hawk, I could see it in his eyes, he knew it, too.

I took the ball and dribbled it up. I knew what I was gonna do, knew exactly where I was gonna go with it, knew wasn’t nobody out there could stop me. I wasn’t thinkin’ about Wallace or the stoop of my moms’s shoulders or which nigga was gonna be lookin’ to fuck my baby sister, and I wasn’t thinkin’ on no job or college test or my future or nothin’ like that.

I was concentratin’ on droppin’ that pill through the hole. Watching myself doin’ it before I did. Out here in the sunshine, every dark thing far away. Runnin’ ball like I do. Thinkin’ that if I kept runnin’, that black Maxima and everything else, it would just go away.