First Round Lottery Pick (6 page)

“I'm getting married. I'm taking Tori with me, and we're getting married.”

Katrina smacked me across the face. “Married?”

I grabbed her hand. “You better watch yourself.”

“What the hell you talking about getting married, Langston? I mean, you treating me like a ho or something.”

“What's your problem?”

“My problem is that you just wanna run in and out of me like you own me or something then throw me away like yesterday's garbage.”

“Look, I don't know what you want. All we been doing is hanging out and having sex. Katrina, you have never been my girl, so I don't know what your beef is.”

She said, “You know what?”

“What?”

“That stuff Toy said about you in there is true. You don't care about nobody but yourself.”

“Yeah, right. Nobody tells me how to run my life, or who I can or can't be with.”

“I don't know why you wanna be with that bitch Tori for anyway? Everybody know you ain't getting none.”

I got out the car then looked back in the seat at her. “Maybe that's the reason why.”

Things started to move hella fast and I had no choice other than to take everything in stride or just freak out under all the pressure everybody was starting to put on me. I had a few interviews with major sports writers back to back to back. After that, a rep from a sports agency called and asked if I would keep them in mind after giving me his two-hour spiel. One hundred and twenty minutes was a long time, but I respected this guy and his agency because they weren't like Toy, pushy and stressing me to sign for all the wrong reasons. I was sure I was going to get picked up overseas, but I passed on the agency because I wanted to keep the last option of going to college in the bag.

I went to work out at three, and when I finished, I went over Tori's to let her mother know I was serious about marrying her. Of course my mother was all for it when I told her, and she made me promise I would treat Tori right and remember what she had gone through alone while raising me.

Then there was the party.

“What you mean, you don't wanna go,
L
?” Jalen's eyes were extended, his head moving from side to side.

“I don't know, man, I just don't.”

“Look,
B
, this is your farewell party, your I'm-going-to-the-league bash.” He lowered his voice and rose it as he spoke. “Our graduation party, boy!”

“I know all that, man, but this pressure is getting on me.”

“You need to drop all of that. Just dump it in the trash. Do you know how many people would like your problems?”

I guess I did. He didn't have to remind me I was just looking at everything I needed to do and things I would need to get done before it was time to go. I knew it was pretty much a done deal that I was going to get taken by Barcelona, but I wanted to know the type of contract they were offering and make sure they knew I wanted to play no more than two years before I went to the NBA.

Jalen was on his job though. He had already been looking on the Internet for places to stay once we went overseas. Added to that, he called his cousin, a tailor who had a store down on Mt. Vernon Avenue, and gave him our sizes to make suits for graduation and when we finally met with Barcelona.

 

 

I woke up around nine. I wanted my mom to go to the party with me, but she wasn't having it. Said she wasn't trying to listen to any music about pumping and grinding with a bunch of young bucks who didn't know the difference between a cassette deck and an album cover.

I have to give props, the party was off the chain. Jalen did his thing, and everybody up in that piece was feeling the party. I don't know how Jalen did it, but he set the party up on the courts in The Vil, straight-up gansta-like. He had a banner with my picture on it, along with his name and Tori's, along with my mom's with
C
ONGRATSANDGOODLUCK
writteninboldletters.

All the love I was getting was genuine, and it felt good. It was like, with each handshake and hug, I was being given strength from others, like a ray of hope to fulfill dreams that other people had wished they would one day live. At first it was cool. But it started to mess with my head, because so many people were telling me how blessed I was and how I better make them all proud. I definitely didn't want to let anyone down, including myself, so I started to think about everything I needed to do again while looking out at everyone enjoying the party.

I did notice Tori change a bit though. Most of the time when females came up to me to talk, she would either turn her head in the opposite direction, or just talk to one of her girls, like the situation didn't faze her.

I have to admit, what made me want to kick it with Tori was, she wasn't jealous or worried about any other female around because she knew she had the total package and I wasn't going anywhere. Tori would always tell me how she and a few of her girls always tripped off on the females at school who wanted to play like they were married then get upset when they found out that their men were messing around. Tori was truthful with hers and knew it was virtually impossible for a high school guy to be faithful to another girl, and if he was, she thought he was being very naïve.

But that night she had changed her game up and didn't care who knew about it because we were going to get married. Every single female who came up to talk to me, she made sure she either spoke to them or they recognized she was there holding my hand. It was funny, because most of them never knew Tori to act like that; she acted like she didn't care. The days of her turning her head away while other females flirted with me were over. My girl was checking any and everybody who stepped to me and disrespected her.

Katrina had walked up from behind the car, and Jalen, sitting around with three females on the trunk of the car, saw her peep game first. He called my name out to draw my attention to the situation. “
L
,
L
,” he sang.

When I looked back, I noticed her strutting over with the walk she knew she had perfected. Katrina was a hood rat and didn't give a damn who knew it. She just smiled as some of the guys mentioned how her body was banging. Katrina was speaking loud and hadn't even opened her mouth yet.

She poked me in the stomach then said, “Hey,
L
.”

“Hey, what's up?” I kind of figured she was 'bout to start some drama because of what I'd told her the night before.

Tori was sitting next to me on my other side. “Hey, Katrina,” she said. Then she looked at her to see what she wanted.

“So, what's up,
L
? We goin' to kick it tonight when this slow down or what?”

I looked down at Katrina, trying to tell her with my eyes not to start because I really didn't want to flow with her on that negative vibe 'cause we was having a good time.

Tori snapped right in. “No, I don't think so. He's goin' to be with me tonight and every night after we get
married
.”

Katrina paused for a moment and scanned Tori up and down. “Yeah . . . I heard,” she sang out.

Tori smiled then looked out at the crowd when the DJ ripped her song “on the ones and twos.”

I thought it was squashed, until Katrina opened her mouth again.

“Yeah, he told me right after we were together.”

Jalen knew what kind of drama Katrina always liked to get started, so he had moved over close by. “Ohh, see, c'mon now. Don't start, Katrina, a'ight,” he pleaded.

“I ain't worried about her, Jalen,” Tori said. “I ain't never tried to stop
L
from going up inside her. The only thing I always asked of him was to wear protection, and he already told me he never did anything with you anyway without wearing a jimmy, sometimes two to be extra, extra safe, 'cause you neva know.”

Jalen snickered a bit, and Katrina didn't like it.

“So what you sayin', Tori?”

“I'm saying he was going through the motions, 'cause, in my book, it ain't real like that.”

Katrina put her hand up then back down like she was playing imaginary ping-pong. “How do you know what's real from what isn't? It's not like you have ever been with anybody anyway.”

Tori smiled at her. “Sure haven't. But I tell you this—When I do, he's goin' in without the hat.”

I looked at Tori, and she kissed me on my cheek.

Jalen was in the background, instigating and agitating like he does best. “I heard that,” he mumbled.

Katrina yelled, “Look, you don't know a damn thing about me, so you need to just shut the hell up!”

“Oh, I know this about you, Katrina. I know for the longest I've been letting you play number two 'cause I just don't believe in giving up the goodies before marriage. Put it like this—
L
already done worn you out. He had permission. I'm goin' to be wifey, okay, and handling all his needs from now on, but good looking out, and I hope he saved some for the next one who run up in you.”

I don't know why, but Katrina looked at me.

“So, is that how it is,
L
?”

I felt Jalen looking at me. Then Tori.

“Yeah, that's exactly how it is. I already told you.”

“Oh, all right. Forget both of y'all!” Katrina said then stormed away.

Jalen pointed to the girls he was sitting next to. “See, that should be a lesson to all of you. Stop running around here boning everybody who you think like you. Keep those legs shut, you hear me? It will pay off. Just ask my girl Tori.”

 

 

Tori ran off with her girl Kelly to get some grub at a Waffle House about an hour before I jumped in the car with Jalen to go meet up with them. We hadn't even been in the car five minutes before my phone rang. It was Kelly, and she was crying.

“Kelly, what's up?”

“Tori.”

“What about her?”

Kelly was crying so much, I could barely understand her. I turned the music in Jalen's car all the way down.

“I'm at the hospital,” she wailed, “and my head hurts so bad.”

“The hospital? Tell me what happened. Kelly, where is Tori?”

Kelly was hysterical by now. “Langston, I don't know where she is. We were stopped at a light on Livingston and Nelson, and they jumped in our car and snatched her.”

“What? Who snatched her? Kelly, what're you talking about?”

“I don't know who. When I woke up, I was coming into the hospital. I don't know where Tori is.”

We were on the freeway next to the exit that put us where Kelly said she was. When I pointed to the exit, Jalen slammed on the gas from the far left lane, maneuvered through traffic, and zoomed down the hill to the exit without flinching. I don't know how he made it without getting us killed or causing a major pileup. We couldn't get all the way down the ramp to Livingston, so we jumped out the car and ran all the way down to see what was going on.

Police cars were everywhere, and we stood looking at Kelly's car, which was smoking and looked as though it was in some sort of movie scene.

“Damn!
L
, who shot up Kelly's car like that?”

“I don't know.” My heart was pumping faster than it ever had for a basketball game.

You could hear in Jalen's voice how worried he was. “You see Tori anywhere?”

I didn't. I pulled up the yellow tape over my head and walked over with Jalen closer to the car.

“Hey, you guys have to get back,” some thick-neck police officer told us.

“Look, I need to find out what happened to the other girl who was riding in this car.”

“No. What you need to be doing is what I tell you,” he said. “Now get your asses behind that tape.”

Another officer walked up toward us. He looked familiar, but nothing was clicking in my mind but Tori and where she was. “Aren't you, Holiday? Langston Holiday? The ballplayer from East going pro?”

“Yeah, that's me.” I was looking around at all the commotion, listening to him, but not really listening.

“Yeah, I remember you. I coached the team you played against every Saturday at the YMCA, PAL, when you were a young'un,” he said.

“Sir, look, my girl was riding in this car. I need to find out what happened to her.” I couldn't believe all the bulletholes in the car.

“Well, that's what we're trying to find out, son. Maybe you should go with me to the car and try to straighten this out.”

Jalen went with me to the officer's car, and we answered questions about what we knew about what was going on. Which was, not a damn thing. I started to get mad when the officer started asking me and Jalen where we were when the shooting went down, and if I or Jalen were having any beef with the girls. Jalen told the man he wasn't answering any more questions like that, and I agreed.

When Officer Cummings saw that there was nothing he could get from us, that's when he started to help. He took us to get Jalen's car, and we followed him to the hospital to see Kelly to find out what she knew.

By the time we got there, Tori's people had already been there and gone out to the streets to search for her, since no one seemed to know what happened to her.

Kelly couldn't tell us anything. The only thing she told the police that she remembered was that they stopped at a light and out of nowhere her door was ripped opened and she saw a balled-up fist headed straight for her face, which knocked her out.

Officer Cummings told her that whoever shot up her car didn't want to kill her because if they did, they could have easily done it.

I walked out the hospital with Jalen without a clue to what was going on. As always, Jalen became quiet when he was upset. I knew he was hurting like I was because he and Tori had always been like brother and sister.