Chicago, 1991. I had just turned 23 when I became strung out on streetball, needing a fix at least 6 days a week, up to 10 hours a day. The court where I hung out the most was in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood. Bucktown was still a year or two away from becoming gentrified at that time. It was a neighborhood full of Hispanic households that had more kids than bedrooms. There was also a handful of starving artists types who lived in Bucktown because they were young and idealistic enough to think that going hungry was romantic and being poor and suffering was the only legit way to be creative. The rest of the neighborhood was filled out with white trash, wanderers and homeless types who loitered outside corner taverns with names like Danny’s or Estelle's. On the larger four lane streets that formed the borders of Bucktown was the usual assortment of laundromats, second hand clothing and thrift shops, a few greasy restaurants, and still more bars.
Tucked away in this neighborhood on the corner of Wolcott and Cortland was the court where I spent most of my days that summer, and it was there that I was dubbed with the nickname “Flea”. At other courts I had different nicknames like ‘the Caucasian,’ ‘Whiteboy,’ or ‘Mayonnaise.’ But on Cortland it was ‘Flea’. The last game I ever played there was one I’ll never forget. It was a typical day, late summer, clear sky, bright hot sun. At noon there were four guys on the court shooting around with me. A Nirvana song had been running through my head as I practiced using my off hand. I had heard of college coaches making their players tie their dominant hands to their shorts and go through a scrimmage like that, using their weak hand only. So I was doing the same thing - playing with my right hand stuffed in the pocket of my shorts - when I hoisted up a bank shot and a white Oldsmobile with no license plates and a tiny flag of Puerto Rico hanging from the rear view mirror pulled up alongside the playground. The basketball rim had a couple of loose lug nuts holding it to the backboard so it wobbled and bounced like and epileptic spring board as the ball rattled through the net.
“Hey!” someone called as I hurried to gather the ball after it bounced onto the pavement.
A gangbanger, not even old enough to vote, had raised himself out of the passenger side window of the white Oldsmobile and was pointing a small caliber handgun over the roof directly at me. The song in my head that had been steering me around disappeared and the other four guys on the court slowly began backing away in unison.
The gangbanger called out, “Which of you’se is with the Unknowns.”
Five other gangbangers were crowded in the Olds, all decked out in white and blue t-shirts, and it slowly dawned on me that this was a drive-by. I didn’t know if any of the kids I was shooting around with were in the Unknowns—a local rival gang, but I pulled my hand out of my pocket and took a step toward the Oldsmobile. Behind me I could sense the others still hedging backward so I stopped and shook my head at the kid with the gun as if to indicate he and his buddies were in the wrong place. Then the kid with the gun and I locked eyes for 6 or 7 seconds. Uncertainty. It may not seem too smart to stare down a guy twenty yards away who’s pointing a gun at you, but I have to admit I had a strange fascination in being in that position. Generally I’m bored with everything—except when I’m playing hoops. But here I was with a gun pointed at me and it wasn’t boring at all. It was a curious feeling; I wasn’t panicking, yet I wasn’t exactly calm either. After another second and half the gangbanger kid frowned as if he was disappointed about something then ducked back into the passenger side window, said something to the driver, and the Oldsmobile pulled away real slow, not in any hurry, until it turned the corner and disappeared.
I’d heard that in order to be accepted into some gangs you had to shoot someone in a rival gang. I wasn’t in a rival gang or anything, but I still wondered why the kid didn’t shoot me - it probably would have been enough to get him into the gang. But I know that sometimes it’s hard to pull the trigger. I had been having thoughts of sticking a gun to my own head and blowing my own brains out around that time. Many of those summer nights I’d lay in bed, unable to fall asleep and these images would come. I couldn’t help it. These thoughts just invaded my mind, almost every night. Then one night I actually did pull a gun to my own head, but when I went to pull the trigger I couldn’t get my finger to do it. I imagine that’s what happened to the gangbanger—he just couldn’t make his finger pull the trigger.
When the white Olds was gone, all of the kids who had been shooting left as well. But suddenly feeling territorial I decided I was going stay. Physically the schoolyard wasn’t much to look at; uneven pavement, broken whiskey bottles, fast food wrappers and graffiti tags spray painted up and down the brick wall of the school building. But conceptually, tucked away somewhere in between Sector 3 (my imagination) and Sector 4 (my memory) this playground was paradise. It was the reason I got out of bed each morning, even though the days were too hot and it would have been much easier to lie on the mattress in front of my clanky fan and wallow in the stench of my own sweat and body odor.
I jabbed my right hand back into my short’s pocket and dribbled the ball down to the other end of the court where, just to the right of the free throw line, there was a gradual mound. Some sort of shifting in the earth or unsettling of the cement had caused this bump to rise up, just slightly noticeable—unless you knew it was there. I practice dribbling over it, knowing that it was possible to use this bump as a mechanism to gain a step on a defender.
I picked up this little trick from Martin. Martin, a tall, handsome angular Mexican, was the undisputed neighborhood superstar. 31 years old, always dressed in profession styled warm-up jersey, Martin was a true streetball artist. With Martin it was all smoke and mirrors. He was the master of deception, making everything he did look like he wasn’t making any effort at all. At the blink of an eye he could be cleaning up a rebound, nailing down an outside shot or making a slick steal. But his best work was in the post, down around the basket. Slippery, seemingly misdirected inside moves that split double-teams, and then a quick release to the hoop was his trademark. Miraculously, he seemed to find a slightly different way of doing it each time - as though he was just creating the move for the first time. Martin was always easy going and respectful of others and he usually arrived around 3:30 in the afternoon - as did the other regulars (approximately 95% Hispanic here at Cortland). Some came slowly, some came running, some came straight from work and some slithered out of strange and dark corners of the neighborhood.
By 6 pm that day the sun was hovering just above a row of trees lining the other side of the street. Visibility was good, but an elongated purple shadow began to stretch its way across the court. Somewhere in Sector 3, I had begun realigning my DNA: instead of being a 5’10” out of work lazy white guy wearing hand me down sneakers, I’d become a 6’6” basketball Jones with his own Converse high-top named after him. Meanwhile the young ones and the less serious had been pushed off to the sidelines as the mood for the rest of the afternoon was set. Some days it was serious, competitive, stress filled, trash talking, elbows flying, grudge matches. Other evenings it was more relaxed—trick shots, jokes with the token fat guy and one-on-one matches with the little Mexican kid who wore a baggy white t-shirt that was so big you couldn’t see what the advertisement on it read. He was one of a group of 7 or 8 little kids that bombarded the court between games, trying to get in as many shots as they could until they were pushed off once the real games started. And as always there was a flock of new school punkwipes, gangbanger types who were battling the latest NWA lyrics back and forth at the teen-aged chicks in baggy pants and tight fitted tops: “Bitches ain't shit, but ho’s and tricks. Lick on these nuts and suck the dick.” Occasionally I’d catch a glimpse of the teenage chicks, their busts and buttocks blossoming in the summer sun as they packed together on the other side of the chain link fence like a row of carnations. And of course there was the ice cream guy, with his push cart and jingle bells (ding-a-ling, ding-ding) to provide concessions to the 20 to 30 kids who were just there to hang out on the sidelines. But as the summer heated up, the mood at Cortland took on the competitive edge more often than it did the relaxed one. Certain players began to drop out while others began to emerge.
Martin’s arch rival was a thirty four year old black named J-ball who traveled up from Union Park on the Near Westside about once a week with a couple of other brothers—Green Jeans and Waxy. Green Jeans (about 6’3” and solid build) and Waxy (distinguished by his Super fly Afro circa 1974) were both in the habit of draining outside jump shots while telling you all about themselves in the process. “You can’t guard me,” “See this one, this one’s in your face all day long mutha fuckah,” and so on. But even they knew better than to say anything is Martin’s direction.
Before J-ball and his crew showed up, mainly because of Martin, there was a certain semblance of constructive competitiveness maintained between everyone on the court. It wasn’t unusual for friends to compliment each other, even if they were on opposing teams. “Good move,” or “Nice shot,” and stuff like that. But J-ball had his own twist on this; he’d kiss up to Martin between games, saying things like, “Damn Martin, you’re like Michael Jordan to everyone around here. They all love you, the little kids and everyone, like you was Michael Jordan.” He’d say it with just enough smile to keep things nice and friendly between him and Martin, but as soon as the game began, J-ball would do everything in his power to disrespect Martin on the court.
On my last day at Cortland, with only a few hours of sunlight left, J-ball and his crew pulled up in his rust bucket yellow Ford Ltd. (I think it was ’73) and before he was even out the door he was calling, “I got NEXT dammit! I got game!” spinning his genuine leather Spalding ball out in front of him. J-ball had come to humiliate the Hispanics, as he liked to do once every week or two just to get some kicks.
Martin gathered Amelio, a wide body and beer gut with an automatic set shot (when he was feeling it) who liked to play the point and distribute hard slap-fouls to compensate for his lack of quickness. Then Martin picked Mundeez, a tall skinny 19 year old and the most explosive scorer on the court who could drive the lane or hit from outside. And to round off the quartet Martin eyeballed the sidelines, scanning the ranks for a hard-nosed defender who was also aggressive on the boards. He looked at me, the only true white boy in the lot (besides a clumsy, giant Ukrainian guy).
“Wanna run Amigo?” he asked.
J-ball, aware of old school protocol, had seen the white bread and found it necessary to comment, “Whiteboy, if you came out to get a sun tan you came to the wrong place. The beach is that-ah way,” as he swooped his head exaggeratedly toward the east. A little laugh spread around the sidelines, but I noticed he called me “Whiteboy”, instead of “White Bread” which was somewhat less insulting.
I tightened my shoelaces and stood up, “I’ll run.”
“Well if you all are gonna run with a white boy,” J-ball announced, as though running with a white boy was a disability, “then I’m gonna have to run with a white boy,” and he choose the giant Ukrainian guy to round out his foursome.
Since J-ball’s squad had just arrived, our team got the ball first. It was a ritual of Martin’s to be the last one to touch the ball before the game officially started. That way, the game didn’t start until Martin said it starts. Martin tossed the Spalding inbounds to Amelio then jogged down to our end of the court. J-ball’s team started out in a zone defense, confident that they wouldn’t have to exert too much energy to defend against us. They didn’t even press.
Green Jeans fronted Martin down in the post, denying him the ball. So Amelio swung it over to me on the wing. I did a dribble drive cross court and bounced an entry pass to Martin that just barely threaded the needle. The giant Ukrainian lumbered over to help Green Jeans double team Martin, which left Mundeez open for a jumper in the corner. Martin knew he could spilt the defenders, but most likely they would only foul him so he wouldn’t get off a good shot. Of course our team would get the ball back on the foul, but that wasn’t the type of game that Martin wanted to run. He knew to beat J-ball’s squad he was going to have to get his teammates involved. So he made his move to the bucket, extending the ball out way above his head as if he was about to throw up a shot, but then with only the slightest flick of his wrist, dished the ball over to Mundeez who was in position for a 16 foot jump shot. The ball left Martin’s hands just a split second before Green Jeans and the Ukrainian sandwiched him with a hard foul. Bone and meat crashed and bruised as all three players collided into each other like stock cars in a crash up derby. Mundeez lined up his 16 footer, fired the shot and missed the “gimme”. Green Jeans rebounded the ball and threw a baseball pass down court to where J-ball was waiting for the easy lay-up. As J-ball flipped the ball into the hoop he announced, “One thing I can do…is finger roll.”
Midway into the game a dim street lamp from across the street clicked on. J-ball’s team decided to turn up the heat and switched from zone defense to man-to-man. As a result his team was on top and J-ball was looking for new ways to challenge himself and rub in his superiority.
“This games too easy,” he cracked, hitting from outside to put his squad up 9 to 4 in a game to 15.
“Damn,” Martin hurried to take the ball out of bounds. “Flea, let’s switch guys,” he said, directing me to guard J-ball.
J-ball began to laugh. “Oh day-um... you all must be desperate putting a white boy on me.” J-ball pretended not to remember me, but I’d played against him and even with him before - a couple times at Wicker Park and once or twice over at Commercial Park just off Chicago Avenue. One thing I had noticed about him was that he was a master of the game within the game. If he didn’t think his defender was a challenge to him, as the game progressed, he would disrespect the defender and also challenge himself by taking an extra step backward, lengthening the distance on his shot. This would draw the defender further and further from the lane and loosen things up down low giving his teammates have more room to maneuver for a rebound (or to be open for J-ball to hit them with a quick interior feed). By the time I began to defend him he was shooting from nearly out-of-bounds.
Next time he touched the ball, J-ball dribbled it lackadaisically at his side. In mock consternation he surveyed the court. “This games too easy,” he declared.
I crowded him, knowing not to go for the steal, which would only give him his chance to shoot. I held my ground instead, face up, my feet apart, one hand in his face and the other hand free to slap at the ball—the textbook defensive position. J-ball juked as if to drive. I heard the screech of sneakers scuffling the pavement, causing me to shuffle slide to the right. But J-ball simultaneously backed off a step, giving him ample spacing for his jump shot. Realizing my mistake, there was nothing I could do but watch as J-ball’s shot left his hand.
Like every natural jump shooter, J-ball’s jumper had its own distinct peculiarities. Whereas Michael Jordan would bite his lower lip in concentration, J-ball liked to widen his eyes, sorta like an old lady examining her fingernails after a manicure. “Oh , that’s nice,” he seemed to say, “That’s real purty.” Also he had this hitch where he released the ball high above his head, instead of out in front of his him (like most shooters do). This made it difficult for a defender to reach out and block it. It is such a natural hitch in his shot that I imagined he learnt it at a very young age, probably playing against older and taller boys. Last of all, when he shot, J-ball’s feet were relatively close together, making his center of gravity more stable and giving him a little extra lift from his legs (even though his feet only got a few inches off the ground). This accounted for the spectacular range and steady alignment on his shot.
His shot sailed over my head, the ball spun like a distant planet, softly, silently through the cool blue evening air in a perfect trajectory toward the basket, until it sunk through the hoop untouched but for the bottom of the net that resulted in that crisp, familiar “swish”.
“This game’s too easy,” J-ball gawked.
Martin grabbed the ball before it could hit the pavement and hustled it out of bounds, up to Amelio. The guy with the afro, Waxy, was all over me, not respecting my space. I felt serious, maybe too serious. Waxy crowded me so that I couldn’t square up on my jump shot and said, “You can’t score on me whiteboy. I’ll block that shit right back to where it come from.”
“He’s more worried about your damn afro blocking his shot that you blocking it,” Martin yelled as he tangled up with Green Jeans and the giant Ukrainian in the post. I passed the ball back out to Amelio on the point. Our team was dead, no energy. I swung through the lane, crisscrossing with Mundeez, catching someone’s elbow in my jaw. Martin stepped into Waxy and lowered his shoulder squarely into Waxy’s chest. I heard a thud followed by a gasp of air leaving Waxy’s lungs as Martin’s ‘pick’ allowed me just enough time to pop out to the three point line, if I hurried. But Amelio was out of breath, like an overworked old mule, and slow to ricochet a bounce pass over to me, barely skipping it there before Waxy recovered from Martin’s pick. Waxy and his funky afro came chasing. He’d recovered the cocky smile from earlier and was confident that he was gonna reach me and reject my shot before I could square up to the basket.
Since the gangbanger incident earlier in the afternoon, the Nirvana song that had been running around in my head had been missing. Suddenly the sporatic patter of Waxy’s sprinting footsteps recreated the drum beat, and the song, somewhere out of sector 4 in my head, came banging back.
There are certain moments and certain shots during the course of a game that can define the entire game for a player. Certain shots depending on whether you make them or miss them, can influence an entire career. When Michael Jordan, as a freshman at the University of North Carolina hit the game winning shot in the NCAA finals, it was one of those shots that elevated his confidence and had a mark on the rest of his career. Conversely when Charles Smith of the New York Knicks choked in the final game of the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals and missed three straight shots form underneath his basket, that effort marked him in the annuals of NBA lore as a loser and a choke artist.
When I heard Waxy’s footsteps and saw him coming towards me I realized that, in my own little world of lifetime street ball highlights, this was going to be one of those shots. It was either going to make me or break me. But there was no time to think about that. I had to focus. John Paxson, after hitting a three pointer with just 1.8 seconds left in the game that clinched the third straight NBA championship for the Chicago Bulls, described the shot in terms of proper mechanics. He described it in therms of repetition. He had taken that shot thousands of times. It was simply a matter of getting your feet squared up, using proper balance then releasing the ball and following through. It was something that he and every other NBA player had done over a hundred thousand times in their lives. But the amazing thing about that shot was the time and space it happened in - and the heightened level of concentration it took to balance aggressive with composure within such a time and space.
I saw the hoop—it was comfortably familiar; orange and rusty, broken chains dangling from it. And I saw the look of nonchalance burrowed behind Waxy’s brown eyes, strangely mixing into the murky late afternoon shadow that was now stretched across most of the court. I pulled the trigger, but had to shorten up on my follow through - just enough to avoid Waxy’s outstretch arms. The ball spun through the air and splashed through the hoop—all net. The giant Ukrainian simultaneously let a fart. The first threads of dissension among J-balls’ team appeared.
“Man, why is white guy’s farts stink the worse!” J-ball wailed, motioning to the Giant Ukrainian. “What do you guys eat?”
“That wasn’t me,” the Ukrainian protested, sounding too slow to hang with J-ball.
“It’s all that wiener schnitzel and Sour Crout and shit. Damn!” J-ball made an ill advised pass; Martin intercepted it. Something had changed. Martin tossed the ball ahead to me and I dropped in a quiet lay up.
But once again J-ball returned to the game within the game. This time so did I. He called for the ball and positioned himself to shoot. I gave him plenty of room to square up for his outside shot, but this time, when he squared up to release, he saw something in my eyes. I made no effort to block his shot, but instead I charged straight at him, tapping his elbow and letting my momentum carry me, pounding him chest-to-chest and knocking him off balance—a solid hard foul that caused his shot to bank off to the left of the board.
“Foul! Man!” J-ball cried. “Man what the fuck is this, rugby! Don’t you white boys know the difference between basketball and football!?!”
I remained silent. Martin retrieved the ball and tossed it back to J-ball. “Just take your foul and play the game,” he said.
“Damn white boy better stay the fuck off me!” J-ball continued, dribbling the ball low, below his knees out in front of him. He tossed the ball off to Waxy in the corner and Waxy fired up a 20 footer that hit the front of the rim, then the back of the rim, then the backboard, and then ricocheted off.
Some players if they want to get noticed as a big time player, find it necessary to bring attention to an aspect of their game which would otherwise go unnoticed. At five foot ten, not many people would think of me as a formidable rebounder. So sometimes, especially after I’d gone awhile without a rebound, I would crash the boards like the Tasmanian devil and let out a primal scream from the pit of my stomach as I jumped and bumped underneath the basket and fought my way for a rebound, letting everyone on the court know that I wanted the ball more than they did. And if there was someone else who wanted it more than me, then that was too fucking bad, because I was the one who had it. So after Waxy’s shot bounced around the rim, I boxed everyone else out and was there to grab the rebound.
“AAAHHHRR!!!” I screamed and cradled the ball in my arms like it’s my first born.
J-ball laughed, “Crazy honky. Now he thinks he’s a rebounder.”
I saw Mundeez releasing down court so I hit him with a side arm bounce pass which he grabbed in stride and silently laid into the hoop, just before getting tangled up with the small Hispanic boy with the baggy t-shirt who was trying to sneak in a quick shot while the ball was at the other end of the court. J-ball, chasing after the play, got tangled up with the little boy as well.
“Hey! Get the Fuck off the court!” he yelled at the kid.
"Take it easy, that’s my cousin,” Martin yelled from the other end of the court.
The little kid with the bag shirt grabbed his ball and ran off the court while Waxy was slow about taking the ball out of bounds; J-ball noticed this and called for the ball. “Niggah, give me the pill!”
Waxy tossed it to up to J-ball at half court and J-ball turned around to shoot another jumper. I came charging at him, just like on the last play, and J-ball flinched. But this time instead of following through I put on the breaks and avoided touching him. J-ball’s shot missed completely.
From that moment on everything became subconscious—the way it’s supposed to be. An adrenaline high mixed with a confidence-high, causing my endorphins, dopamines and what not to swell up and intertwine. Energy, mass and dark matter spread throughout my veins and seeped from my pores.
By the time the sun sunk completely below the row of houses across the street, our team had rallied ahead to take a 14 to 12 lead. One more bucket and we would win. J-ball’s team had the ball though, until I snuck up behind Waxy and poked it away from him as he tried to slash down the lane. The ball squirted away cleanly and ended up in Martin’s possession. Martin held the ball with both hands and exhaled deeply. He and everyone else on the court was dog-assed tired. He dribbled the ball at his side as both teams fell back in transition to the other end of the court.
At mid-court I called for the ball. Martin tossed it to me and I looked for Amelio and Mundeez who were both out on the wings, too exhausted to shake their defenders. The leather hide basketball felt like it was melting in my hand, so smooth and becoming even smoother every second. Waxy was sluggish coming up to defend me. So, “Screw it!” said to myself. “I’m going for it.” I didn’t have time to catch my breath. I juked then jived down the lane, splitting the defenders—Green Jeans and the giant Ukrainian—then hesitated with a quick cross-over, and then in one fluid motion I drove the lane, losing Waxy as he stumbled over the bump on the pavement, the bump that I knew so well. I left my feet and rose toward the basket with the ball in my right hand, switching it to my left as I saw J-ball leaving his man to come over and defend me. He rushed at me to slap the ball, but he couldn’t touch me. “Not today bro,” I said just above my breath and before anyone could even think about it I served the ball to the hoop and gently laid it in like a polite waiter serving a bowl of cream of broccoli soup. And with the dainty “swish” that followed, the game was over. Final score 15 to 12.
“Game!”
A round of cat calls spread around the sidelines.
“I wanna rematch,” J-ball balked. “20 bucks a man.”
But I didn’t stick around the court. I was thirsty. “I’m outta here,” I said to no one in particular and walked off the playground.
