The White Boy Shuffle

seven

FOR SOME REASON Coach Shimimoto was reluctant to end practice. Usually these postseason workouts were light affairs, mostly intrasquad scrimmages followed by a dunking contest. This one he kept prolonging with wind sprints and full-court defensive drills. He finally blew his whistle and motioned for the team to gather around him. Exhausted, we flopped to the floor, sucking wind and hoping Coach Shimimoto would take pity on our fatigued bodies.

“What does ‘concatenate’ mean? Tell me, and you can go.”

Harriet Montoya, the only person with strength enough to speak, raised her hand. I didn’t have much faith she’d know the answer; the day before she had defined “repeal” as putting the skin back on an orange and peeling again, and we had had to run thirty laps backward. “Concatenate means together. Not like all-in-the-same-boat together, but like connected, like a bicycle chain.”

“Close enough. Remember that definition, you soon-to-be revolutionaries.” With that, Coach dismissed us into a cool late April afternoon.

On the way home I was wondering what Coach meant by “soon-to-be revolutionaries” when I noticed a distant column of black smoke billowing into the dusk like a tornado too tired to move. “What’s that?” I asked Scoby. “Eric Dolphy,” he replied, referring to the stop-and-go shrieking that was escaping from his boom box. “No, I mean that,” I said, pointing to the noxious-looking cloud. Scoby didn’t know, but he was more than willing to make up for his ignorance in smoke formations by lecturing me on the relevance of Dolphy’s sonic turmoil to teenage Negromites like ourselves.

Midway through the seminar in music appreciation another silo of smoke twisted into the dusk, this one closer to us. The driver of a rundown Nova sped down Sawyer Drive, leaning on her high-pitched horn for no apparent reason. Scoby turned up the volume on the tape deck just a bit. Another car flew through a stop sign, then reversed its direction. When the car drew parallel to us, the driver flashed a gap-toothed smile, then shot a raised fist out the window and raced away. Soon every driver that passed was joyriding through the streets, honking the horn and violating the traffic laws like a Hollywood stunt driver in the big chase scene. The driver of a Wonder Bread delivery truck pulled a B-movie U-turn, hopped on the sidewalk, then peeled out down an alley. Dolphy’s horn matched the curbside cacophony flutter for flutter, screech for screech.

“How does the music make you feel, man?”

“I feel like I’m dry heaving while free-falling from fifteen thousand feet.”

“That’s it, man, you getting it. Feel, Gunnar, feel. Let the jazz seep into your pores.”

People began spilling from their homes. They paced up and down the sidewalks, looking tense and unaware they’d left their front doors wide open. Something was wrong; no Angeleno ever leaves the door open. I caught the eye of a middle-aged man wearing white patent leather shoes, ochre-colored polyester pants, and a Panama hat and standing on his front porch looking desperate for someone to talk to. “What’s happening?” I asked.

“Them cracker motherfuckers did it again.” The Rodney King verdict; I’d completely forgotten. “They let them racists go. I’m surprised the judge didn’t reprimand the peckerwood so-called peace officers for not finishing the job.”

Let go? What did that mean? The officers had to be found guilty of something — obstruction of traffic, at least. I doubted the man in the patent leather shoes’ version. I could hear the TV in his living room, and I peeped through his doorway. The smirk on the reporter’s face told me the man was right, even before I heard her say, “Not guilty on all charges.”

I never felt so worthless in my life. Uninvited, Scoby and I walked into the man’s living room, set our bookbags on his coffee table, and sat on the couch. I looked out the window and saw a store owner spray-paint BLACK OWNED across her boarded-up beauty salon. I wanted to dig out my heart and have her do the same to it, certifying my identity in big block letters across both ventricles. I suddenly understood why my father wore his badge so proudly. The badge protected him; in uniform he was safe.

Sitting on that couch watching the announcer gloat, my pacifist Negro chrysalis peeled away, and a glistening anger began to test its wings. A rage that couldn’t be dealt with in a poem or soothed with the glass of milk and glazed doughnut offered by our kind host.

“There’s a poem in there somewhere,” the man said. He and Scoby must have been talking about me. I wanted to slap Scoby; he sat there giggling, egging the man on with a fling of his hand. “What do you write about?” the man asked.

“I write about whatever.” I envied Psycho Loco. Strangers never asked him, “What kind of people do you kill? Could you do a little killing right now, just for me?” Psycho Loco dealt with his rage by blaming and lashing out; there was no pretense of fairness and justice, due process was whatever mood he was in, clemency was his running out of bullets while shooting at you.

“Have you ever published anything?”

“Yeah, back in Hillside he writes his poems on the wall.”

“I been published in a few magazines too. There’s a company in New York that wants to publish a book of my shit.”

Even at its most reflective or its angriest, my poetry was little more than an opiate devoted to pacifying my cynicism. Poetry was a sixteen-year-old’s Valium: write a couple of haikus and stay away from fatty foods. I now know that Psycho Loco’s violence was no less a psychological placebo than my poetry, but watching the acquitted officers shake hands with their attorneys and stroll triumphantly into the April sun, I saw his brutality as a powerful vitriolic stimulant. I wanted to sip this effervescent bromo that cleared one’s head and numbed the aches and pains of oppression. Psycho Loco had the satisfaction of standing up to his enemies and listening to them scream, watching them close their eyes for the last time. Psycho Loco had a semblance of closure and accomplishment. He was threat. The American poet was a tattletale, a whiner, at best an instigator. You write about blowing up the White House and they tap your phone, but only when you buy some dynamite will they tap you on the shoulder and say, “Come with me.”

“Nigger, you ain’t never said nothing about no book.”

“Nigger, you ain’t never asked.”

I wanted to taste immediate vindication, experience the rush of spitting in somebody’s, anybody’s, face. The day of the L.A. riots I learned that it meant nothing to be a poet. One had to be a poet and a farmer, a poet and a roustabout, a poet and a soon-to-be revolutionary.

I looked at Scoby and said, “Let’s break.” We gathered our things, thanked the man for his kindness, and prepared to leave. We spent an awkward moment in silence till the man asked, “Is that Dolphy?” Scoby nodded, and we made our way toward the commotion, listening to Dolphy play his horn like he was wringing a washrag. I couldn’t decide whether the music sounded like a death knell or the cavalry charge for a ragtag army. We turned the corner onto Hoover and Alvarado and walked into Carnaval, poor people’s style. The niggers and spics had decided to secede from the union, armed with rifles, slingshots, bottles, camcorders, and songs of freedom. Problem was, nobody knew where Fort Sumter was.

In the middle of the intersection, the Wonder Bread truck we’d seen before was careening in circles, trying to find a path through the labyrinth of flaming dumpsters and rioters. Another stranded teamster in a beer truck crashed into a barrier and broadsided the Wonder Bread man, sending both vehicles sprawling on their sides. The Wonder Bread truck slid to a stop ten feet in front of Scoby and me like a huge shuffleboard disk, its engine sputtering and wheels spinning. The driver scrambled out of the cab. Before he could bolt into the street, I slammed him against the side of the truck. Bug-eyed with fear, he babbled something about having “never done nothing to nobody.” I’d never seen anyone afraid of me. I wondered what my face looked like. Were my nostrils flaring, my eyes pulsing red? I was about to shout “Ooga-booga” and give the guy a heart attack when Scoby clambered from the rear of the truck, chewing on a cupcake and holding loaves of bread. Our captive dropped to his knees, begging for mercy. He took out his wallet and showed us pictures of his kids, as if they were for sale. I took a doughy satchel and swung it at his face, striking him solidly in the cheek. I know it didn’t hurt, but the man whimpered in shame and resigned himself to the beating. Nicholas and I pummeled him silly with pillows of white bread until it snowed breadcrumbs.

Hillside was surprisingly quiet. There were no roving bands of looters, no brushfires. Hillside seemed to be biding its time till morning. Manny Montoya and his wife Sally opened the Barbershop and Chiropractic Offices and turned it into a way station for weary rioters coming back from the festivities on the other side of the wall. Handing out free tamales and steaming bowls of ponchi soup, Sally proudly told stories about how Hillsiders had historically acquitted themselves well in Los Angeles’ riots. Beating back an armada of drunken sailors in the zoot-suit riots in the summer of ’43, blowing up four police cars and poisoning six police dogs with cyanide-laced chitterlings and chorizo in the Watts riots of ’65, torturing and killing an entire squad of National Guardsmen from Pacoima in the infamous Hillside death march during the I’m-Tired-of-the-White-Man-Fucking-with-Us-and-Whatnot riots of ’68. Manny smiled at his wife’s recounting and predicted that La Insurrección de ’92 would be the biggest of them all.

The tamales made me thirsty and I headed over to Ms. Kim’s store to buy something to drink. When I got there, she was yelling in Korean and pressing Molotov cocktails into the hands of a small group of bystanders, pleading with them to burn down her store.

“Loot, goddamn it. You saw video. Remember Latasha Harlins. Burn my fucking store down. I feel better. Rod-ney King! Rod-ney King! Rod-ney King!”

The crowd refused. Ms. Kim was too well liked. Maybe if she had been one hundred percent Korean they’d have busted a few windows just for appearance’s sake.

Holding one of her makeshift grenades, Ms. Kim lit the oil-rag fuse and strode to the front of the store. The crowd surged to stop her, and she held them at bay by waving the torch in their stunned faces. Then she wheeled and sent the bomb hurling through the glass doors. The flames slowly crawled across the floor, whipping through the aisles, then scaling the counter. Ms. Kim silently hook-shot another cocktail onto the roof and watched her store burn with a satisfied smile. A few folks tried to douse the flames with garden hoses, but Ms. Kim cut their hoses in half with a Swiss Army knife, then went looking for the police to place herself under arrest.

The next afternoon Scoby and I sat in his basement watching the rest of the city burn on television. A parade of relatives marched through his house hawking their wares. “Look what I came up on.” Holding up sweaters and jackets that smelled like smoke for our perusal. “Gunnar, you’d look good in this. Got a lamé collar. Bill Cosby would wear this jammie. You Nick’s man, two dollars.”

“Nigger, move, you in front of the TV.”

It was hard not to be envious of somebody who had some free shit and a little crumb of the California dream. I too wanted to “come up,” but I didn’t think I was a thief. The television stations were airing live feeds from hot spots around the city, showing looters entering stores empty-handed and exiting carrying furniture on their backs like worker ants carrying ten times their weight.

“Hey, isn’t that the Montgomery Ward Plaza?” The mall was about ten minutes away, just outside the wall.

“Yeah, there go Technology Town.”

“Oh shit, fools coming up on free computers and shit.”

Scoby and I looked each other in the eye for about a nanosecond, then stormed out of the house. Running down the streets, we argued over the merits of an IBM-compatible versus an Apple.

“Dude, I’m looking for a Wizard Protean.”

“What? You can’t carry out a desktop. Go for a laptop. You get all the qualities of a Protean, plus mobility. Your dumb ass is trying to steal a whole mainframe.”

Coach Shimimoto’s arduous workouts had served their purpose. We reached Technology Town fresh and ready to celebrate Christmas in April. Leaping through the broken windows, we tumbled over a stack of plastic shopping baskets and landed in a snowbank of Styrofoam package filler. We were too late. All the presents had been opened. The showroom was stripped bare. Broken shelving dangled from the walls; overturned showcases spilled over onto the floor, serving as caskets for dead batteries and the shells of broken stereo equipment. Unraveled cassette tape hung from the overhead pipes like brown riot tinsel. Even the ceiling fans and service phones were gone.

“What happens to a dream deferred?” I said in my best classical recitation voice. Scoby cursed and threw a nine-volt battery at my head.

“Fuck Langston Hughes. I bet when they rioted in Harlem, Langston got his.”

“Does it dry up like a wino in rehab? Or gesture like a whore, reeling from the pimp’s left jab?”

Kicking our way through the piles of cardboard, we left the store and stood in the parking lot thinking of our next target. People were still ransacking Cribs ’n’ Bibs, the toddler shop, but rattles, powdered milk, and designer diapers didn’t interest us. Scoby snapped his fingers, shouted, “What Did You Say?” and sprinted toward the alley that ran behind the mall.

What Did You Say? was a car accessory emporium that specialized in deafeningly loud car stereos and equally loud seat covers. I couldn’t figure out how Scoby planned to get in the place. What Did You Say? was known to be impenetrable. A solid metal garage door that had foiled the attempts of a Who’s Who of burglary specialists sealed the front entrance. The famed barrier had withstood ramming from hijacked semitrucks, dynamite, and every solvent from hot sauce for Lucy’s Burritos to 150-proof rum mixed with corrosive black hair products.

When we got to What Did You Say? the steel door was still in place. Scoby and I put our ears against the door and heard what sounded like mice scurrying around inside. We zipped around the back and found a small opening smashed into the cinder-block wall, a guilty-looking sledgehammer lying atop a pile of rubble. Every ten seconds or so a contortionist would squeeze through the hole, bearing some sort of electronic gadgetry. Standing nearby in tears was fat Reece Clinksdale. Reece was bemoaning his girth, because he was too big to fit in the hole and was missing out on the rebellion. He wiped his eyes and stopped blubbering for a bit.

“You guys going in?”

“I guess so,” we answered.

“Well, you better hurry up. I think most of the good stuff is gone.”

Reece was right. The crawlspace was starting to give birth to zoo animals. Guys were popping headfirst through the hole wrapped in sheepskin and leopard-skin seat covers and looking like cuddly animals at the petting zoo. I helped deliver a breech baby alligator seat cover who’d decided to exit feet first and had to be pulled through the cement birth canal.

When the traffic was light enough to make an entrance, Scoby and I slid through the hole. The absolute lack of chaos was amazing. Instead of a horde of one-eyed brigands pillaging and setting fires, the looters were very courteous and the plundering was orderly. Everyone waited patiently in a line that wound through the aisles and into the storeroom. Once you were in the storeroom, a philanthropic soul handed you a box off the shelf. You didn’t get your choice of goods, but no one complained. If you wanted something else, you just got in line again.

Looting wasn’t as exciting as Scoby and I had hoped it would be. Nicholas came up on a car alarm and I on a box of pine-tree-shaped air fresheners.

On the way back to the neighborhood, we saw Pookie Hamilton drive by in his convertible bug. I whistled and Pookie pulled over to the curb, waving for us to get in the back seat.

“Where you headed, Pook?”

“I just got a page from Psycho Loco. He needs some help.”

I hadn’t forgotten about Psycho Loco’s planned big score, but the greedy look in his eyes whenever he talked about “the heist” told me that I didn’t want to be involved.

“Drop me and Scoby off at my house.”

“No time, G.”

“Well, where we going?”

“Montgomery Ward’s.”

When we pulled into the Montgomery Ward parking lot, there were Psycho Loco, No M.O. Clark, and Joe Shenanigans standing behind Psycho Loco’s van next to a huge iron safe. Grimy, covered with sweat, the boys were overjoyed to see us. So this was “the heist.”

“What the fuck? Are you motherfuckers crazy?”

“Chill, homes. We just want help lifting this thing into the van.”

“How did you get it out?”

“Look,” Scoby said, pointing to a set of rubber wheels attached to the bottom of the strongbox. Only Montgomery Ward would build a mobile safe. I had two thoughts. Why are all safes painted beige, and would my mother come visit me in prison?

“Dude, I can’t be wearing no stone-washed prison outfit for the rest of my life. That shit makes me itch.”

Scoby tried to comfort me. “You can wear any kind of shirt you want, just no rhinestones or metal buttons. Besides, I haven’t seen one police car the whole day.”

He was right. I hadn’t even noticed. The entire day had been an undeclared national holiday. Los Angeles was a theme park and we were spending the day in Anarchyland. All stores and banks remain open, but unstaffed. From this point, waiting time for this attraction is zero minutes. I calmed down.

The safe was unbelievably heavy, which everyone but me took as a positive sign. I thought the thing could just as easily be empty or filled with employee timecards as stuffed with valuables.

On our third try we almost had the safe inside the back of the van when we all heard an extremely disheartening sound. “What’s that?” everyone asked.

“Uh, the Doppler effect,” I said.

“Shit, it’s the cops.”

With a final strain we edged the safe onto the bumper of the van, but our knees buckled under the weight and the safe dropped to the ground with a heavy thud. The sirens were getting closer. No one had the energy for another lift, but we couldn’t leave the safe in the middle of the parking lot, not with visions of Spanish gold doubloons dancing in our heads. I looked in the van and saw a length of rope. How stupid we’d been. All we needed to do was tie one end to the safe’s handle and the other end to the van’s bumper and we could drive away, pulling the safe along behind us.

I heard the cop car pull into the parking lot. My back tightened in anticipation of hearing a gunshot or a threatening “Get your hands up and step away from the vehicle.” What I did hear was something I hadn’t heard in years: my father’s voice. I told the boys to keep going and I’d distract him. I turned around to see my father step out of the car, gripping a shotgun in one hand.

“Dad. Long time no see. Things must really be hectic if you’re out on the streets.”

I heard the van slowly pull off, and I looked back to see the safe trailing behind it like a tin can tied to the car of newlyweds headed for their honeymoon. When I turned to face my father, the hard rubber butt of the shotgun crashed into my jaw. I saw a flash of white and dropped to the pavement. My father’s partner stepped on my ear, muffling his words.

“You are not a Kaufman. I refuse to let you embarrass me. You can’t embarrass me with poetry and your niggerish ways. And where did you get all these damn air fresheners?”

Something hard smacked the side of my neck, sending my tongue rolling out of my mouth like a party favor. I could taste the salty ash on the pavement. Ash that had drifted from fires set in anger around the city. I remembered learning in third grade that snakes “see” and “hear” with their sensitive tongues. I imagined my tongue almost bitten through, hearing the polyrhythms of my father’s nightstick on my body. Through my tongue I saw my father transform into a master Senegalese drummer beating a surrender code on a hollow log on the banks of the muddy Gambia River. A flash of white — the night of my conception, my father twisting Mama’s arm behind her back and ordering her to “assume the position.” A flash of white — my father potty-training me by slapping me across the face and sticking my hand in my mushy excrement. Soon my body stopped bucking with every blow. There was only white — no memories, no visions, only the sound of voices.

“Gunnar, my young revolutionary, while you were in a coma, you got a letter from the Nike Basketball Camp. You’ve been chosen as one of the hundred best ballplayers in the nation. Actually, you’re number one hundred.” — Coach Shimimoto

“Son, your father and I both think it’s best for you to transfer to another school. We’re sending you to El Campesino Real in the Valley.” — Mom

“Dude, you got fucked up.” — Nicholas Scoby

“You gots to get better, cuz. We can’t figure out how to open the safe.” — Psycho Loco

* * *

The safe sat in the middle of Psycho Loco’s den, a three-dimensional puzzle daring to be solved. Old Abuela Gloria, reportedly an expert safecracker in Havana during Batista’s glory days, was wearing a stethoscope and listening to the tumblers click as she spun the combination dial back and forth.

“Isn’t Abuela Gloria deaf?” I asked Ms. Sanchez.

“Yeah, but she insisted on trying.”

Abuela Gloria removed the stethoscope from her ears and pulled on the latch. Nothing happened. “Fucking goddamn box.”

Scoby was calculating possible permutations of a combination lock numbered from zero to one hundred. He’d already tried thirty-two-thousand different combinations while I was in the hospital. Psycho Loco came in from the kitchen and tossed me a cold Carta Blanca. The beer sailed over my head and I had to stretch my aching arms to catch the tumbling bottle.

“Damn, you did that on purpose. That shit hurt.”

“Just a little physical therapy to speed up your convalescence.”

“Thanks.”

“When you flying to Portland to the basketball camp?”

“August sixth, end of the summer. I should be healed by then.”

Scoby knelt beside the safe, flipping the dial from number to number and shaking his cramping hands in frustration as his magic failed him.

“Gunnar, look at the safe. Maybe you can figure out a way to open it.”

“What I know about opening a safe? That thing almost got me killed. I don’t give a fuck if you never get it open.”

I was lying and Psycho Loco knew it. I hadn’t taken my eyes off the box since I’d been there. I couldn’t shake the word “treasure” from my head: rubies, gold lanterns, and ancient scrolls. I wanted to free the genie and fuck up my three wishes.

I wish I knew how a bill changer can tell the difference between a one, a five, and a ten-dollar bill.

I wish I could dance like Bert Williams.

I wish I had a lifetime supply of superballs, so I could bounce them as high and as hard as I pleased without worrying about losing them.

I ran my hands over the safe’s tapered edges, then stood back, waved my fingers, and said in a slow, spooky voice, “Open sesame.”

“We did that shit already. Ala-kazam, hocus-pocus — we even paid that voodoo lady on Normandie fifty dollars to open it with some of that ol’-time Yoruba religion.”

“What happened?”

“She got chicken blood and pixie dust all over the fucking place. Damn near burned the house down with all the candles.”

I turned the safe so the door faced me. The wheels creaked under its weight. “I wish we could open this thing right now. I can’t take the suspense. Psycho Loco, how did you know where to find the safe?”

Psycho Loco laughed. His mother groaned. “I feel like Ma Barker,” she said, and left the room.

“Gunnar, you got to have patience. I’ve been planning to steal this thing ever since I was ten. You remember how the toy department in Montgomery Ward’s was like twenty-five feet from the door?”

“Yeah, that was stupid. Fools used to run through there, grab a G.I. Joe doll or a Hot Wheel car and break.”

“Well, there was this race-car set that I wanted, the Tommy Thunder 5000. It came with a racing helmet, the headlights on the cars worked, the whole nine. But it was too big and heavy to pick up and walk out with — I had to get it closer to the door. So every day after school I moved the box one inch closer. I did this for the entire fifth grade.”

“Straight genius.”

“Little by little, my Tommy Thunder 5000 was steadily easing toward that front door. Finally I had the box close enough to the door. On the day I was going to take it, I was so happy, I invited every kid I knew over to my house to race them cars. I get to the store and my Tommy Thunder 5000 is gone. In its place is a potted plant. In one day Montgomery Ward’s turned the toy department into gardening supplies. Where the electric trains used to be were mounds of fertilizer. The video game cartridges were transformed into seed packets. I went berserk and started yelling for the manager. ‘Where’s my goddamn Tommy Thunder 5000? Who moved my race-car set? I demand to speak to the manager.’ Security tried to get me to leave, but I wouldn’t leave. I started pissing on rosebushes, demanding to see the manager. The manager comes down and escorts me to his office on the second floor in the back, near the linens. He asks me why I’m so upset and I explain to him how I’d been slowly stealing the Tommy Thunder 5000 and by moving the toy section near the escalator he fucked up my summer. So to cool me out he says, ‘Sorry about the Tommy Thunder 5000, but to make up for your troubles you can have anything you see in my office.’ I look around. He got lollipops, candy canes, and stuffed animals in there. I see the safe sitting in the corner. I go, ‘I want that,’ pointing to the safe. He goes, ‘You can’t have that, young man. That’s valuable property,’ and hands me a candy cane. I’m like, ‘Motherfucker, you said anything. That safe is mine, you watch.’ And ta-da, nine years later, look where the safe sits, in my living room.”

“You are patient, yeesh. Must be that Apache blood. I hope you ain’t waiting for the white man to disappear too.”

I looked closely at the safe. The tag dangling from the handle flapped in the current of a household draft. The tag read, “Montgomery Ward Duro-Safe. This safe is solid tungsten. Airtight, fireproof, and guaranteed to withstand pressure up to 3500 pounds per square inch.” I knew there had to be a way to open it; this was a Montgomery Ward product. Nothing they made worked. Their television sets came with wire hangers and a pair of pliers to turn the channel after the knobs fell off.

I had an idea. I asked Abuela Gloria for her safecracking kit. I set the small metal box about three feet behind the safe, asked Scoby, Ms. Sanchez, and Psycho Loco to help tip the safe onto its back. There on the bottom of the safe was the combination, written on a dirty white label.

4 turns to the right to 67

3 turns to the left to 23

2 turns to the right to 55

1 turn to the left to 63

The best thing about treasure is the assortment. I didn’t think gold bars really existed. I thought they were a movie prop used to speed up the plot. Yet there was a shoebox full of domino-size ingots stamped MONTGOMERY WARD 24K. Stacks of dusty paper money sat in the back, looking afraid to come out from their hiding place. Silver and platinum rings, brooches, and tiaras inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds glittered under the lamplight.

It was surreal to watch Psycho Loco divide the bounty, tossing stacks of money and gold bars around the room like so many paperweights. We played The Price Is Right for the jewelry. Whoever was closest to guessing the stickered price won the bauble.

For a while living in Hillside was like living in the Old West in a thriving goldmining town’s bubble economy. Psycho Loco customized his van. Scoby bought a car and every jazz CD on his extensive list. Joe Shenanigans, who let out a hearty “Mama mia” upon receiving his share, moved to Brooklyn and tried to join the Mafia. Ms. Sanchez went door to door selling jewelry at discount prices. No M.O. Clark got plastic surgery to remove his fingerprints. His hands looked like they’d been steamrolled, sanded down, then varnished. He got a kick out of harassing the palm readers on Hollywood Boulevard. Those soothsayers who didn’t pass out after looking at his glassy palms usually had the temerity to bullshit about No M.O.’s clearheadedness and his smooth future.

I refused any payment for my part in the heist. I only wanted to satisfy my curiosity, not fence gold bars and pray that the money I was spending was untraceable. Psycho Loco overlooked my morality but said he would make sure I profited. He began to take a strange interest in my personal life. What did I plan to do with my future, what size family did I want, did I believe in corporal punishment for kids. When Psycho Loco asked, “What would you do to instill respect for human rights throughout the world?” I realized that I was filling out an application of some sort by proxy. I didn’t know what I was applying for, but at the time I thought maybe Psycho Loco was entering me in a beauty pageant.

* * *

I spent the last two weeks of my sixteenth summer away at camp, not shooting rapids and learning Indian folk songs but shooting baskets and learning when to double-down and give weak-side help.

E-mail from Camp

Dear Ma,

How you? I know Christina and Nicole are a little chubby but I can’t believe you couldn’t tell they were pregnant until they were eight months gone. I guess when you work at a free clinic sometimes “you can’t see the forest for the…” Never mind, I never understood that proverb anyway. I’m sorry to hear that you all aren’t getting along, but why don’t they stay at the unwed mothers’ home rather than live with Dad? Sorry for the third degree, the thought of my sisters having babies at the same time is a little unsettling. Maybe things will be better when I leave the house. I know I haven’t been the ideal son.

Thanks for the Nabokov, it’s appropriate in this place with these bossy white men slobbering over skinny kids. Ma, I swear they look at you like they want to fuck you, using every and any excuse to slap your butt. “Gunnar, your shoes are laced properly.” Butt slap. “Kaufman, you ate all your lima beans.” Butt slap.

Life as the one hundredth best high school basketball player in America is a trip. As numero ciento I’m the last in line to do everything. Last to eat. Last to use the shower. Last to get issued the camp sweats and practice uniforms with 100 emblazoned on the back. In the “college prep” class, I have to sit way in the back. Not that I’m missing anything. College prep amounts to an etiquette lesson on how to behave once we get there. “Don’t get involved with any student groups, and uphold your professionalism and the school’s honor on and off the court.” Then they pass out a crib sheet with the definitions to twenty words guaranteed to be on the SAT.

The best part about camp is you get to meet people from other places. I’m living in a dorm room with Khalil Ibrahim and Zane Cropsy, campers ninety-nine and ninety-eight, respectively. Khalil is from Miami. He’s always complaining that he should be rated higher than ninety-nine but the coaches discriminate against him ’cause he’s gay. He’s right. I overheard one counselor telling a scout that the reason Khalil’s court sense is so good is because his “homosexualness gives him a heightened awareness of where other boys are on the court, but his presence may be detrimental to a team of normal kids.” Khalil’s sexuality gives him one advantage, though: no one slaps his butt.

Zane is from New York City, Manhattan. Or as he says, “Maa-hat-ehn.” It’s hard to talk to Zane because his speech consists entirely of rhetorical filler. He responds to everything with “Word up, know what I’m sayin’, on the strength,” like he’s having the deepest conversations in the history of speech.

Don’t worry about me, Ma, I’m fine. I’ve been deloused and the condescending white people are feeding me. Word up, on the strength.

Love, your son,

Gunnar

* * *

Dear Christina and Nicole,

I’m sorry to hear you all and Ma aren’t getting along because of the pregnancy thing, but I can’t believe you’d rather live with Dad than stay at the hippo house. You know my motto: fuck that nigger. If you have boys, make sure you don’t leave them alone with him. The photos of your bloated bellies are hilarious. When I told you to talk to Coach Shimimoto if you needed anything, I didn’t know he’d use your stomachs for artistic canvases. The tattoos make you look like African yakuza, and the swelling gives them a kind of 3-D effect. Christina, View #36 of the Hollywood Sign from Pete’s Bar at Sunset is cool. I like how Coach used your bellybutton as the focal point, turning it into an ashtray and going from there. Nicole, Beer Bottle and Butterfly is absolutely amazing. Its bold yet welcoming color scheme captures the transformation of inorganic societal byproduct into a state of synthetic beatitude barely distinguishable from the natural order. Did that make sense? No? Good, I’ll be an art critic when I grow up. I told you Shimimoto was a good guy. Did he give you the bullshit rap that his style is derivative of the ancient ukiyo-e school as practiced by Hokusai and Ando Hiroshige? Don’t believe it — same madness he said in art class. His stuff is a straight rip-off of the Aztec/Diego Rivera/lowrider murals on the freeway underpasses. Shimimoto been in the ’hood too long and don’t want to admit it. Wouldn’t it be funny if the ink seeped through your pores and the babies came out green and peach? Anyway, judging from his letter, it sounds like he’s enjoying the Lamaze classes. See you when I get back.

Take care and

puuussshhhh!

Gunnar

* * *

Scobe,

What’s happenin’, nukka? Coolin’? Niggers out here have heard of you. You’re an underground legend. They be asking me is it true you never miss and why don’t you shoot more. The coaches are asking about you too. How tall are you? What’s your quickness-to-speed ratio? Shit like that. As you can see, they really want to get to know you as a person. Anyway, expect to get much attention next year. I may not be around to watch, though; tomorrow I go into battle. I have to play camper number one, Leon “Housequake” Tremundo. The boy is fucking gigantic. He’s 6' 6" and about 245 lbs. from Washington DC. We play dominoes at night and this fool can hold nine bones in one hand so you know, cuz, is like big as fuck. He can dunk from anywhere on the court. He got names for every one, too: the Girls at St. Ignatius Swoon Boom, the Buff Rough Motherfucker Stuff, the Anti-Gravity Levitation Mid-Air Hesitation Crazy Elevation Stupid Escalation Geronimo Look Out Below Cold Crush Two-Hand Flush. I heard during practice the kids on his team have to wear padded helmets ’cause Leon Tremundo killed one of his teammates who was stupid enough to take a charging foul against him. The guy doesn’t move that fast, just keeps moving. It’s like he plays in slow motion, just flows up and down the court like lava. You can’t stop him, he kind of just overwhelms you and you get swamped trying to guard him. If I survive, I’ll let you know. His girlfriend is Missy Gibson, the actress from that sitcom Talented Tenth. You know, the show where a bunch of seddity motherfuckers be saving the community by rewarding exemplary African-American citizenship with a piece of fried chicken. “By deciding to wait until marriage to have sex, Leroy and Martha are celebrating traditional African values. Here go a thigh, a wing, and a biscuit.” Notice they don’t never say nothing like “Lucinda decided to have a clitoridectomy. Wow, that’s African, have some chicken gizzards, mmmmm.” Anyway, back to this behemoth, Leon Tremundo. Every time he dunks on a nigger, he runs into the stands to kiss Missy Gibson. Then she looks at whoever it was he served and blows that nigger a kiss. Sounds like true love.

Remember the pamphlet the camp sent me with pictures of Jacuzzis, the horseback riding, and shit? Well, it’s all true. The place is sweet as hell. Me and this white boy from Topeka are the only ones who ride the horses. I eat lunch real fast, then run to the stables. My favorite horse is Chuckles. He’s really gentle. You hop on his back and he takes off down the trail at a leisurely pace. I don’t have to steer or nothing, just prod him to go faster every now and then. The horse knows each trail like ten-year-olds know the alphabet; they’ve repeated it a million times but haven’t tired of the sounds and twists and turns. I imagine Chuckles’s whinnies and snorts are equine for “H, I, J, K, Elemenopee, Q, R, S, T.” I sympathize with these animals ’cause this place makes me feel like a racehorse. Every morning I get up at six o’clock to get weighed, fed, and put through my paces.

The only good thing about the place is it’s fun to see the whities having to earn they propers for a change. We be disrespecting these peckerwoods something terrible. We have one play called “Milkshake,” which is whoever has a white kid guarding ’em takes that clown to hole.

I’m rooming with these two fools, Touch from Miami and Z-Groove from Brooklyn. They’re cool, but all they do is talk about basketball, 24–7. We come back to the crib after eight hours of playing and analyzing basketball and the first thing they do is stick a highlight reel of their hero, Cleotis Jacobin, into the VCR. (We have a big-screen television set in our room.) Cleotis Jacobin plays for Crawdad A & M, a small Division XI school in southern Alabama. The man can literally fly. He shoots a three-point lay-up where he comes flying down the court and takes off from behind the arc and swoops to the basket like he’s riding a magic carpet or something. Whenever he jumps, you can hear the crowd in the background chanting “One Mississippi! Two Mississippi!” until he lands. On one move he goes baseline against Tallahassee School of Cosmetology, jumps in the air, stops, hovers, then spins right, sails for a bit, then changes direction and starts floating left. I swear to God, Allah, Jehovah, Buddha, James Brown, nigger’s in the air so long the crowd gets to three Mississippi. It was Ham Hock Night, so when he finally touched down the fans threw fatty pieces of pork and bottles of hot sauce onto the floor in appreciation. The reason Cleotis is playing in obscurity is because he cannot shoot. He has absolutely no touch. Jacobin goes to the glass like Peter Pan but finishes like a Kennedy. It’s like he’s playing basketball with a shot put. In one game he launched a jumper that hit the rim so hard the net fell to the floor. In another he shot the ball and it sailed through the backboard like a rock through glass.

So between Touch and Z-Groove and the adventures of Cleotis Jacobin, I’m going stir-crazy in this hole. I even brought up sex just to talk about something other than basketball. You know I rarely talk about sex. So I say, in my best macho baritone, “Hey, Missy Gibson got it going on justa bit, don’t she?” But wouldn’t you know it, these guys use basketball as a metaphor for everything. Touch is like, “Yeah, she cute, but she don’t make my starting five.” Starting five? “I got Lena ‘Methuselah’ Horne at the point guard, seventy years old, running the show like a vet. Fredi Washington at the two spot, dead but still full of shake ’n’ bake. My big fella in the middle is Iman: statuesque, smooth, good hands. Dorothy Dandridge at a small forward, and Lark McCarthy, the nightly news anchor, at the power spot. Halle Berry is my sixth man off the bench, instant offense.” Z-Groove has all dark-skinned lineup: Denzel Washington and Lightning Hopkins at the guards, the forwards Richard Roundtree and Michael Jordan; his center was Woody Strode.

Cuz, I been having nightmares in this hole. Woke up last night sweating and shit, screaming, shaking. Scared the piss out of Z-Groove and Touch. Z-Groove tried to play it off by saying, “What you dreaming about, having a threesome with Gary Coleman and Emmanuel Lewis?” Very funny, right? I didn’t know what the hell I was carrying on about. All I knew was that it had something to do with death. Like I was running through different scenarios of how I’d like to die. So we got into a conversation about death or more specifically our demises, from which I concluded that niggers aren’t afraid to die but are worried about how to die. We was up till five in the morning talking shit.

Me: Touch, how you wanna go out?

Touch: Definitely on the floor dunking, bang. (Raises his hands in the air simulating a dunking motion.) And you know that. Word up. Have a mad large funeral. Big-ass tomb and shit. Mausoleum with eternal candles, and I’d hire some out-of-work actors to cry at my grave twenty-four hours a day.

Z-Groove: I hear you, kid. Not a bad way to die, but everybody goes out dunking, word up.

Me: What you mean?

Z-Groove: Did you ever see Come Back Charleston Blue?

Me: No, I read the book.

Z-Groove: Figures. I don’t know about the book, but in the movie there’s this hit-man, bodyguard-type nigger named Stretch or some shit, and he playing ball in the park at night. He goes up to stuff this two-hander and gets machine-gunned in the chest and dies hanging on the rim with his ’fro still perfectly combed.

Touch: That’s make-believe. Any real motherfuckers die dunking?

Z-Groove: You ever hear of this disease called Marfan’s? I did a book report on it last year. It affects tall, elongated motherfuckers. They’re born with a thin aorta, and if they overexert themselves it tears and they die. A while back Sports Illustrated did a story on Marfan’s, talking about this gangly-type brother who had the disease but didn’t know it and died dunking in a pick-up game.

Touch: What about Hank Gathers? That baller with the weak heart who died a few years back after finishing an alley-oop in front of a house full of folks.

Z-Groove: That’s awright, only thing is I don’t want white people saying I went out happy like a good b-ball-playing nigger. Know what I’m saying?

Touch: What I want to know is, how come none of these overweight, hysterical coaches never bust a gut on the sideline and collapse in the middle of a big game? That shit never happen to white folks.

Me: All I know is I want to die, but I don’t want to die alone.

Scoby, this death thing is for real. I can’t avoid it so I might as well embrace it. Right? Dude, am I going crazy? Have you finished with Ella Fitzgerald yet?

Later,

Gunnar

P.S. I know, I know, you’re saying what was my starting five? Midnight movies at shooting guard, Joan Miró at point guard, thunderstorms at small forward, the beach at power forward, and metamorphic rocks at center.

* * *

Dear Psycho Loco,

Enclosed are the photograph and medical records you requested. Why won’t you tell me what this is for? The photo is a bit mug shot-ish, but the best I can do. I been thinking about death out here, something about being surrounded by rickety old ex-athletes trying to relive their youths. I’ll talk to you more about it when I get back. Thanks for the money, Robin Hood, I hope you kept your promise not to lend me any ducats from the heist. I snuck out and went downtown to buy some books. Here are the answers to the questionnaire you sent me.

Height — 6' 4"

Weight — 187 lbs.

Favorite authors — Zora Neale Hurston, G. K. Chesterton, Richard Pryor, and Charles Chesnutt

Favorite foods — Fish tacos and grape juice

Greatest inventions — Right on red, multiball pinball machines, and the ballpoint pen

I should have the results of the sperm count by the end of the week. Incredible medical care at this mug, they got to keep they niggers physically fit.

Miss ya and stay up,

Gunnar

* * *

Scoby,

Since I’m writing you this letter, it means I played against Leon Tremundo and survived. Leon didn’t kiss Missy Gibson once, and after the game she refused to let him touch her. “How you let that black white boy dog you!” The coaches tried to offer me jersey number eight (apparently I don’t penetrate enough), but I turned them down.

Easy,

* * *

Mama,

You can do something with my part of the college money, I don’t think I’ll need it. I was sitting in the bleachers when a white man wearing a Raleigh State shirt sat next to me. He didn’t say anything, but he took out his wallet and opened it so I could get a good look at what was inside, a brick of hundred-dollar bills. I thought about taking it and sending it to Christina and Nicole, but unfortunately, you raised me better than that.

Your still poor

ghetto child,

running wild,

Gunnar

* * *

Dear Motome Shimimoto,

I want to thank you for never screaming at me, but I’m not sure if I should. I threw the ball cross-court yesterday and this coach from Wyoming Tech, whose name I don’t even know, started yelling at me. As if it were an honor for the greatest coach within spitting distance of the Grand Tetons to shout at me. The other kids put their heads down for a moment, then kept playing. I took one step up-court, then beelined straight for Coach Crude. When I got over there, he tried to stare me down. I put my nose on his forehead and told him if he ever raised his voice in my direction again I’d kill him. Did I overreact? Coach, as soon as I said it, I knew I didn’t mean it. So did he. But the fucker still crumpled to his knees and started pleading for forgiveness. Afraid I’d never consider attending his powerhouse program. Guess I’ll never be one of those black role models who “transcends race,” will I? Thanks for never yelling at me, but maybe if you had I’d be used to it and wouldn’t take these assholes so seriously. I think you should tell the coach over at El Campesino not to yell at me. I’d appreciate it, thanks. Can you ask Christina and Nicole not to do anything gross like saving the afterbirth in a jar?

Sincerely,

Gunnar