Team Seven (6 page)

Tony, Claude, Sticks, and D-roc were a couple steps behind him.

I clutched my basketball, watching White Honda Guy sprinting right in my direction, getting closer and closer, eyes wide open, arms pumping, beating his feet.

“Get that motherfucker,” Reggie roared as he stood up.

White Honda Guy was closing in on me, I tossed my leg up in the air and slowly leaned back like a pitcher on the mound and launched my basketball at his face. I didn’t even think, and before I could stop myself the basketball was gone, sailing over our fence. The ball connected perfectly with his nose, it sounded like a bug splatting on a windshield. Stunned out of his run, he grabbed his head and staggered a few steps to the left. Tony charged in with a running fist that spun his body to the side as Claude and Sticks tackled him to the ground.

They swarmed him, boxing each other out to try to get a kick or a punch in as the brawling reignited for round two. Reggie jogged past me standing in the gate as he caught up with the pack. We made eye contact for a quick second and he tugged at his waistband. My heart hiccupped a few times as I saw the silver gleam of Reggie’s shank as he snatched it open and started running faster. His cousin Tony yelled, “Nigga, chill, we got ’em. You don’t need another case.”

It felt like my body floated up onto the porch. I locked our front door, too scared to see what was about to go down.

I sat at the kitchen table winded, thinking, What if White Honda Guy remembers my face? I didn’t even think to go get
my basketball and I really didn’t want to go back out there, but I had to. It was my only good basketball. I heard a lot of yelling, an engine rev and tires squeal, but no sirens. I sat for a whole fifteen minutes and then opened the front door and peeked my head outside.

They were all gone. The block was quiet like it was before.

My basketball was sitting on our doormat.

That afternoon, when school started back up after winter break, I walked the Black Cakes halfway down the side alley running alongside Reggie and Tony’s crib leading over to Verndale Road. Them Squad Six boys post up there when it’s too cold to be outside for too long. Sometimes I watch them go in and out from the bathroom window in our shower, but it gets boring after a while. Anyway, I stopped in front of the little wooden door, I could feel the bass through the door knocker. I knocked and the music paused.

“Who?” I heard Reggie call.

“It’s Andre, from next door.”

I heard his feet creak up the stairs. The door swung open and a gust of smoke rushed out the door. Reggie stepped through the cloud smiling, smelling like a bomb of Pop’s vitals. He had a pair of red biker goggles around his forehead, a white T-shirt on under his blue and white Avirex leather coat with Chief Joseph on the back, Adidas basketball shorts, and some gray Timberlands. I held the Black Cakes in my hands ready to drop them and run. He grinned at me.

“Good aim the other day, lil’ nig. Whatcha got there?”

“My mother wanted me to bring over two of Nana Tanks’s Black Cakes. One for you and Tony, one for Miss Gladys.” I handed him the cakes.

Reggie took them and started digging around in his pocket.

“Check it, good lookin’ out for the cakes but niggas still need some cookies, chips, soda, and shit. If I give you some dollars you’ll run to the store for me?”

It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Other than that ten-dollar bill I found on the walk to school a few months back and hid under my bed, I never have any money of my own. Even when I’d get a big bill inside my birthday cards, I had to give the money to Ma for her to “put away” for me and I’d never see it again. They sent me to the store to get four Arizona Sweet Teas, a two-liter of Sprite, six honey buns, a big bag of ketchup chips and cheddar fries, plus three king-sized bags of Skittles and Starbursts. The whole walk home the idea was unreal to me, all I had to do was walk down to Tedeschi’s and they’d pay me for it. I started wondering how much Reggie was going to give me, not that it really mattered, I was more excited just to have some money all my own.

I got back and knocked on the basement door, ready to give Reggie the snacks, take the cash, and leave. He opened the door and this time he had on a dark pair of sunglasses. Reggie took the bags and reached into his coat and took out a wad of cash, peeled off a few bills, and stuffed them in my hand. I glanced down at my hand quick and saw he’d given me two twenties. My whole body broke out with goose bumps. I didn’t even know what to do with that much money. I looked up at Reggie, trying not to smile too hard, said thanks, and turned to walk back home, but he tapped my shoulder.

“I’m saying, what you ’bout to get into? I put a lil’ something extra in there for you. Niggas got a good laugh outta that shit you did, ’preciate it, for real. You should come through and say what’s up to niggas. We just kickin’ it.”

I put my hand in my pocket and felt the bills, almost afraid
they wouldn’t still be there. I looked down past Reggie into the dark shadowy basement and I couldn’t resist, I said, “Cool,” and followed him down the creaky steps into the basement. The second Reggie opened the door from the hallway to the main room the blunt smoke drop-kicked me in the chest. I coughed a few times but held it in as best I could. Reggie pointed at me and said, “This here’s lil’ Andre, wit’ the good aim.” They all sort of chuckled.

D-roc and Buggy were over in the corner near the big-screen TV, sitting on a weight bench watching ESPN, lifting cement buckets full of water like they were dumbbells, both of them tossed me the peace sign. Sticks was on the other end of the basement with boxing gloves on, punching a dirty old heavy bag. He pumped a fist at me and nodded his head. I followed Reggie over to the big card table in the middle of the basement, where Claude and Tony were sitting. The Lox’s new album,
Money, Power & Respect
, was banging from the two subwoofers on both sides of the table. I coughed a few more times as I pulled up a chair and sat down.

Tony looked at me and said, “Well, if this ain’t the most dribblingest, throwingest nigga I ever done seen. Wat’s good, lil’ homie?”

He threw me a dap and I reached across the table and it felt like I’d stuck my finger in a socket. He gripped my hand so hard that he shook my whole body, nearly pulling me out of the chair.

“That was good shit, son,” he wiggled his eyebrows.

Claude nodded and tossed me dap. Then he too strong-armed me like he wanted to dislocate my shoulder.

“Yeah, goo’ shee-t,” he said.

I didn’t really know what to say so I just nodded back and said, “Yeah,” under my breath.

There was a bunch of dried-out grape-sized flower buds on the table everywhere, some loose, some still on the branches. I knew it was weed from the smell, it reeked sort of like mothballs and fresh-cut grass. Tony and Reggie were smoking small blunts while they snapped the buds apart, stuffing them into mini baggies. Claude grabbed a cigar from a brownish-colored pouch whose label read “Backwoods” in red letters. He slobbered all over it and then slowly unraveled its skin and tossed out the tobacco. Then he sprinkled some of the crushed buds inside and started rerolling it.

He finished rolling the first one and Reggie and Tony stopped what they were doing and Tony said, “Session; two-minute warning,” and all the guys slowly started making their way to the table. I looked around at them as they settled in, they all looked so tired, with bloodshot eyes and moving slow. Claude lit the cigar and started smoking it. He blew a thick stream of smoke across the table at me and passed the blunt to Reggie. Reggie took a couple puffs and they kept this rhythm up until D-roc let the blunt linger in his hand and Buggy punched him in the arm and said, “Pass the blunt, nigga,” and snatched it from him. I grinned but no one else started laughing so I held it in. Claude took out another Backwood and started rolling another. The music pulsed through my whole body as I sat, feeling like I’d been inside a steam room too long. The air was foggy and thick, and my head felt loopy and light. I looked around at all the guys, they were laughing and smoking, but I didn’t know what they were laughing at. I saw their smiling faces and felt like maybe they were laughing at me and I started feeling awkward. I couldn’t really hear their voices, all I could hear were my thoughts and the idea of Ma smelling weed on me made me feel sick to my stomach. I looked over at the cable box and it was four thirty.
Ma got off work at five thirty, so I jumped to my feet and said, “Thanks, y’all, but I gotta go,” and headed for the door.

Reggie looked me in the face as I made my way across the basement. Then he grabbed my shoulder and laughed. “Aww, this lil’ nigga got his first lil’ contact high. Shake it off, nigga, you good, son.”

“Yeah, I’m good,” I said as I rustled away.

“Well, come back tomorrow if you wanna put some money in your pocket, ya hear?”

I said okay and he gave me a strong dap, and as I started heading for the door he yelled, “And don’t go telling your mama what you seen down here neither, she just starting to come around.”

I said, “Okay,” and let myself out.

From that day forward, once school let out at three, I power walked home, dropped off my stuff, hit the side alley, and grabbed the order and the cash. I got back from the munchies run around three fifteen and as long as I kept my mouth shut and stayed out of the way they’d let me hang out for a little bit. If the air wasn’t too strong, I could cut out no later than four thirty, giving me a good hour for the contact to go away. When I got home I’d put my hoodie and coat on the back porch to air out from the smell in Reggie’s basement. By the time it started getting warm out I almost felt like an honorary member of the crew, but they were all older than me and they spoke in a code they made up all on their own and I couldn’t crack it. I laughed when they laughed but half the time I didn’t know what they were talking about.

Even though I’m cool with them, they’re just friendly to me.
My real homeboys are Chucky Taft and Beezy, and our moms are all friends.

Chucky’s mother, Mrs. Vernice Taft, is like the mayor of Lothrop Ave. Her and Chucky were the first people who rang our doorbell to introduce themselves when we moved to Milton. As Ma tells it, the doorbell rang and when she answered the door there was a jug of sweet tea sitting beside the doormat and in our walkway was this white lady Mrs. Vernice picking up a plastic-wrapped foil tray of fried chicken and waffles with Chucky slung around her hip. Ma said they sat at our kitchen table and ate, while me and Chucky played with pots and pans on the floor.

Ma was convinced from day one that there wasn’t any racism in Mrs. Vernice Taft, not to say she didn’t see it in some of the other white people that lived on our block. The Tafts live five houses down from us, just before the hill starts to rise. Beezy lives on the tip-top of the hill, we used to only really see him in the summertime because he went to private school, but this year he transferred to Tucker Elementary and he wound up in Mrs. Power’s class with me and Chucky.

Spring always used to be the loneliest season. Chucky’s never around, he plays for the all-star travel baseball team. After school he’s either doing homework or off doing baseball stuff with his father. With the warm weather, them Squad Six boys are outside, and I know better than to linger on the corner too long and risk being spotted by Vernice Taft, who’d tell Ma. But with Beezy around things were all good. Finally I had a homie my age to chill with. I started taking him with me on the store runs, but the way them Squad Six boys would come at Beezy snapping jokes was off the hook. I mean, sure my dude was fat but he was still my homeboy. We knew our
peoples didn’t bang with each other, but they all went about their business as if the others didn’t exist, like they weren’t hustling on different ends of the block.

One day them Squad Six boys weren’t around after school, so I dribbled my basketball in the street, crossing up the sewer caps. When they came back to the block they were all fired up and D-roc kept telling me, “Dre, don’t let me catch you rolling with that fuckin’ nigga Smoke’s little brother no more. We don’t fuck with them. Period.”

To stay loyal to the game, from that day forward me and Beezy were strictly school friends. It was weird having a best friend that only lived up the block yet we had to sneak around like criminals just to kick it. I was loyal for a little bit, but shit, Beezy was one of my best friends. Plus I couldn’t really be in on all the real Squad Six dirt anyway, like why I wasn’t supposed to be talking to Beezy in the first place.

“Andre. You only ’bout what? Ten or eleven? You got some shit going on for you, lil’ nig. Just play your position, keep your eyes peeled, go to school, and be a good kid, son-dun. Shit, you see us out here all day, these house-broads calling the cops on niggas, haters trying to run up and shit. Just enjoy now, because once you punch that clock the work don’t never stop, ya dig?”

This is the sermon Reggie used to give me every time I would try to get in on the good stuff, like riding out with the boys. Then came the day. Ma asked me why she hadn’t seen Beezy around lately, and when I told her that I wasn’t supposed to be chilling with him she told me, “Negro, this is the U-S of A. If you want to hang out with Miss Myra’s boy from up the street, then you do that. I like Reggie but the rest of them punks ain’t ’bout nothin’. Listen to Reggie. Not Claude,
not Buggy, not Sticks, not Tony, and especially not that fool D-roc, or any of the rest of them fools.”

With Ma’s good ammo winding up my back, one day me and Beezy snuck away after school and went to the basketball courts at Kelly Park to play some one-on-one. As I was working Beezy’s chunky butt out I heard some noise coming from behind us. It was the boom from the bass in D-roc’s car. I can tell his speakers from anywhere. You can hear them before you see him. When I heard the bass my heart dropped. I wanted to run and hide in a trash can. I knew it was him and the Squad Six boys, that’s how they roll. I also knew that when they got here they were not going to be feeling this little stunt. Really there wasn’t shit to do but just whoop Beezy’s ass in the game. Whoop him long and strong. That way at least I might get some props after the game. I had been working on my jump shot, like Reggie said to do.