Rucker Park Setup

by Paul Volponi

  I couldn’t even explain what I’d done to my own mother without her looking at me like she’d raised some kind of street punk who didn’t care about anybody but himself. And her damn husband wouldn’t even talk to me after that.

  Greene got charged with J.R.’s murder.

  The cops arrested him while he was in the hospital with a concussion, and cuffed him to the bed. Then Greene bought the biggest lawyer he could, who’s making it sound like J.R. put the knife in Greene’s hand himself, and then ran into it. Greene’s even got a new rap out about how he’s being framed, called “Rucker Park Setup.”

  I’d run into Stove every couple of days—either on the stairs in our building, or while he was delivering the mail. It was always tense, and I can’t come close to looking him in the eye.

  College coaches who haven’t heard about what happened still write me with scholarship offers. I know every one of those letters passes through Stove’s hands. And maybe he still gets some for J.R., too.

  Since the tournament finished, Fat Anthony’s been almost invisible. I thought he might come around looking for his five hundred dollars back. But he probably got his money’s worth watching Stove kick the shit out of Greene.

  I didn’t ever want to touch that money again. So I dropped the balled-up pair of sweat socks where I’d kept it into the Salvation Army box, just to get another step clear.

  I saw J.R.’s picture through the window of Acorn’s barbershop. It’s hanging over the big mirror, right up front. But I wouldn’t go inside and take what dudes there would dish out for anything.

  “There’s Mackey,” said Acorn to me the one time I saw him on the street.

  His voice punched my name hard, like I wasn’t good enough to be blessed with one of his tags anymore, and be called “Hold the Mustard.”

  Mitchell pulled up in front of my building one night, popping open his trunk.

  “I don’t think you deserve shit. But the team voted five to four to give you one of these,” he said, pushing a trophy at me. “I usually wouldn’t waste my time on somebody that played his best friend and team like you did. But I never got suckered into coaching for a scum-bag like Greene before neither.”

  I felt ashamed to be holding it, with that perfect gold kid on top. So I pointed to the broken trophy in Mitchell’s trunk—the one that Greene slammed to the ground that night.

  “If it’s all the same, Coach, I’d rather take that one,” I said, and traded for it.

  Mitchell started up the stairs with J.R.’s trophy to give to Stove. I stayed on the first floor, listening to his footsteps climb every flight. Then I heard Mitchell knock on the door and the locks turn open.

  Later, Stove pulled up the shade and put the trophy in J.R.’s bedroom window for everybody in the neighborhood to see. I didn’t know where to keep my trophy, so I stood it up in the hallway next to J.R.’s good kicks. And after a few days, I got it into my head that it was already in the right place.

  But nothing feels right out here now—not with Stove grilling me like that.

  Then Stove crosses onto the court and starts feeding me the ball. The shots leave my fingertips for the rim, but not a single one connects.

  “I still don’t know if I hate you or what,” says Stove, nearly knocking me over with a pass. “It changes back and forth all the time.”

  That’s when I pull up all courage I can find and, with my voice shaking, I answer, “I don’t blame you one bit. I can’t figure it out about myself, either.”

  Stove

  Basketball season never ends. It’s just the calendar that runs out of pages. When the weather turns cold, the run across the city moves from schoolyards to gyms. If you can’t find a roof to play under, you cut the fingers out of an old pair of gloves and let the sweat pour off your head under a wool cap, till the hair that curls out from the back gets covered in icicles. The ball gets smooth like glass, and the frozen air inside keeps it from bouncing back up off the concrete.

  Like the kids say, “That’s old school.”

  That means it’s got heart, and has earned your respect.

  The run in the street opens up again when the wind can’t blow a jump shot off line anymore. Kids who nobody picked for their sides last time around have shot up like bean stalks. The NCAA tournament is all over the tube, and they call it “March Madness.” That’s when everybody falls in love with the game again.

  Soon, school lets out for summer, and it’s like a paradise. The courts are packed with players every day, till the sun goes down. Then some players move to the court closest to the streetlamp, or turn up the headlights on a car to see.

  Growing up, I’d listen to the balls bouncing outside my window at night, like a lullaby. Sometimes I still do.

  When the dog days roll around, you can fry an egg on the asphalt at half-court. So you take your sneakers off and run through the sprinklers to keep cool. That’s when they hold the big tournament at Rucker Park, and it’s like a block party for basketball junkies. The tournament’s more important to kids along Eighth Avenue than the NBA finals, because it’s all about their neighborhood. Players from all over the city come to prove themselves here.

  I’ve spent almost fifty years feeling my soul take root on this patch of ground. But I only mention the time for anyone who lives by the calendar. Like I said, there’s no off-season in basketball. The run in New York City never dries up, and won’t even get buried with the next Ice Age.

  That why dinosaurs like me will never go extinct.