King Suckerman

Seventeen

Yo. Mitri!”

“Hey, Marcus!”

Dimitri Karras sat behind the wheel of the Karmann Ghia, looking for a place to park. Marcus Clay had spotted him while walking down the sidewalk of McKinley Street on the way to the library.

“Hurry up and get your shit on, man, we’re waitin’ on you. I just went and called you from a pay phone to find out where you were at.”

“I’ll be right there,” said Karras, hitting the gas and pushing the Ghia up to the top of the hill. He found a space, changed beside his car, and jogged down McKinley, cutting right at the rec center alley to the area behind the library.

The game was to be played on a fenced-in outdoor court. Since this was Chevy Chase, the asphalt was free of glass and debris, the hoops had been strung with chains, and the court was lit by powerful overhead lamps.

Karras passed a row of kids and more kids behind them, all jammed up against the fence. Someone had set up a portable eight-track player, and the Commodores’ “Gimme My Mule” was playing loudly, with the emphasis on treble over bass. A teenager wearing painter’s pants and a painter’s cap was doing the robot next to the box while a couple of his friends looked on.

For an early evening summer contest in the Urban Coalition league, the place was packed. Though loosely organized at best, league rules required that starters be registered. From there on in, though, anyone could get in the game as long as he cleared it with the team captain. Karras saw more players than usual, with an obvious number of ringers, as he entered the gate.

“Come on, Dimitri!” yelled Clay from across the court. “Get it on!”

Karras went over to Marcus, greeted a couple other players he knew who were standing next to the bench. He patted Clay on the arm. “Good to see you, man.”

Clay looked into Karras’s eyes. “What’s up with you, man?”

“I don’t know. Just had a weird day, I guess. I’ll tell you about it later.”

“You ready to play some ball?”

“Sure. But why so many people?”

“Adrian Dantley’s supposed to show tonight.”

“Damn.”

They heard some commotion from outside the fence. A Mark IV with peace-sign covers on the headlights came to a stop and double-parked right on the street. A very big man got out of the driver’s side and walked toward the gate, the kids outside the fence slapping each other five even as they moved out of the man’s way.

“Who’s that?” said Karras.

“Looks like Zelmo Beaty to me,” said the player next to Karras.

“Utah Stars?”

“Last time I checked.”

The game began. Karras caught the tip and took the ball to the top of the key. He bounced one in to Clay, who took the turnaround J from eight feet out. The chains danced as the ball went through the hoop.

The other team brought the ball up. They had a Greek kid by the name of Ted “T. J.” Tavlarides, a former baseball pitcher for Wilson who could get possessed and drop the pill from way outside. When he got into a zone his boys called him the Mad Stork. He was in one tonight; on the next two possessions, he swished two in a row from twenty-five.

“I don’t need no doctor,” said Tavlarides to his defender, as the second shot dropped.

“Cover his ass,” said the team captain to the player who had just been used.

Clay took a pick, slanted into the lane, came up against a wall of defenders, and dished a no-look over to Karras in the corner. Karras took the jumper, bricked it off the back of the rim. Clay skyed, got the rebound, whipped it out to Karras in the same spot. Karras felt the velvety backspin on the ball as it left his hands. He knew it was good, and it barely kissed the chains.

“Way to get up,” said Karras to Clay as they ran the length of the court to get back on D.

“I always get up,” said Clay.

“By Larry Brown,” said Karras.

The two of them smiled, touched hands.

Adrian Dantley rotated in for Tavlarides, and Zelmo Beaty came in for Marcus Clay. On the next ball out, Jo Jo Hunter, a Player of the Year from Mackin, checked in for Karras. By the second half, when the sky had darkened and the overhead lamps had been turned on, many of the town’s recent inductees to local basketball royalty had found their way into the game: Gerald Gaskins, Al Chesley, and James “Turkey” Tillman, all from Eastern’s ’74 championship team; Hawkeye Whitney, out of Dematha; and Tiny “Too Small” Jones, who could shoot the eyes out of the bucket most any time. Clay was in and out, and he performed respectably, but Karras never saw another minute of play. He was perfectly happy to ride the bench, watching up close the exquisite battle on the court, a night of ball in D.C. that Karras and many others would not soon forget.

When it was done, Karras and Clay walked out of the gate to the street, stopped at Clay’s Riviera.

Karras said, “That was bad.”

“No question.”

“We on for tonight?”

“Yeah. I got Rasheed closing up. Let me swing by my crib, have a shower. I’ll be over with Elaine in about an hour, okay? Give you time for you and your little... friend to get ready, too.”

“Cool.”

“And Dimitri. Don’t be talkin’ about the game all night, hear? It just plain bores the fuck out of my woman, man.”

“All right, Marcus. I won’t say a thing. You see that move Dantley made against Zelmo, though?”

“Mitri, man—”

“All right. See you in an hour, hear?”

Clay got into his Riviera, turned the key. Karras walked over to McKinley and found his ride. He slipped Coney Island Baby into the deck, listened to his favorite Lou while cruising through Rock Creek Park under a star-filled dome of night.

“Man,” said Wilton Cooper to Bobby Roy Clagget, “what the fuck is that?”

A canary yellow muscle car came to a stop in front of the Northeast row house, its Hemi bubbling beneath the hood. Ronald Thomas cut the engine, stepped out of the driver’s side. Russell Thomas climbed out of the passenger seat, left the door open in the street. Both brothers were smiling with pride.

“You like it, Coop?” said Ronald. “I mean, it’s bad, ain’t it?”

Cooper got up off the stoop where he had been sitting, waiting for the Thomas brothers to return with his new ride. He went to the back of the car, where the word “Daytona” was written across a wide black stripe, and put his hand on the elevated spoiler that sat up higher than the roofline.

“Like it?” said Cooper.

“Yeah, man, you know.”

“I done told you, Mandingo, what I wanted was a nice fast Dodge. You told me your cousin knew a boy could get rid of my Challenger, hook us up with somethin’ plated and new.”

“Cuz did hook us up, Cooper. Can’t get much faster than a Charger Daytona. You talkin’ fast, this motherfucker flies, man. Got a four-twenty-six and a Dana rear.”

“Oh,” said Cooper, “I can see that the vehicle is fast. What you don’t see, Ronald, is we might have the law on our asses right quick. What I was thinkin’, when I told you to pick us out a new ride, was you’d have the presence of mind to get us somethin’ more inconspicuous and shit. Instead, you bring us this Big Bird — lookin’ thing right here with a six-foot-high spoiler, looks like a motherfuckin’ rocket ship.”

“Got a pistol-grip shifter on it, too, Cooper,” said Russell.

“Shut up, Russell,” said Ronald.

“And by the way,” said Cooper. “You ever seen a brother drivin’ one of these? Uh-uh, man, and if you claim you have then you a lyin’ motherfucker. Seen a few Chinese motherfuckers drivin’ these things, maybe, or a bunch of ’em standin’ around with the hood up, pointin’ at the engine, talkin’ fast, shit like that. But never any brothers.”

“Look,” said Ronald. “If you like, I’ll go on back, see that boy we picked this up from. He had this other ride available, a red seventy-four Sport with accent stripes. Just like the kind Starsky and Hutch used to drive.”

“Uh-uh, man. All the sissies in the joint was way into Starsky and Hutch. I’ll just go ahead and pass on the Sport.” Cooper looked at Russell, pointed to the open passenger door. “Close that wing, man.”

Russell went around and shut the door.

Cooper eyed the car for a while, then turned to Clagget. “What you think, B.R.?”

“I know it’s gonna get us some attention.” Clagget’s mouth turned up in a pus-lined, toothless grin as he studied the lines of the Dodge. “But it is kind of bad, blood. You know?”

“If you like it, little brother,” said Cooper, “then I guess it’s all right.”

“What we gonna do, Cooper?” said Ronald Thomas.

“Time we paid a visit to Trouble Man,” said Cooper. “B.R., go up to the house and bring the hardware on down.”

“We leavin’ now?”

“Yeah,” said Cooper. “Right now.”

Cooper knew he should leave town, right away, with the money and the drugs. Drive as far away from his doom as he possibly could. Looking at the car, though, he felt a pleasant kind of calm. What’d that prison psychiatrist call it that time, when he was talking about how it felt to bust out of all your chains? Liberated. Yeah, that was how he felt: free.

He could do anything, now.