by Randy Ribay
Wallace isn’t feeling it, even though he was the one who wanted to come here. He got all grumpy soon as St. S took the lead about thirty seconds into the first quarter, groaning and cursing every time Bunny hit a shot.
“Am I supposed to be impressed?” he asks. “Just beat a bunch of weak-ass rich kids. We’ll see how he does against the public schools this week.”
He’s in a bad enough mood that I don’t mention the fact that the non-public champion’s taken the Tournament of Champions eight out of the last ten years. Instead, I think about how this wasn’t even one team versus another. It was Bunny running a skills clinic. Any fool could see there was a world of difference between him and everyone else on the court tonight. I mean, even in the way he does something as simple as dribble or pass. Hard. Fast. Controlled.
That was it: control.
Bunny controlled the ball, and he controlled the game. He was like an expert surgeon taking the scalpel with a steady hand and slicing with laser precision. No wasted movements. No emotion. No mistakes. Just control. No doubt in my mind that if they hadn’t changed the rules, he could head straight to the NBA out of high school.
As if echoing my thoughts, I hear some balding white guy in front of us tell the already bald man next to him, “Damn, that kid can play.”
“I’ll give you that,” Baldy says. “But he doesn’t belong here.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still upset about Clay?” Balding asks.
Baldy scoffs. “It’s my boy’s senior year, for Christ’s sake, and Coach Baum has him riding the pine.”
I turn to Wallace to see if he’s hearing any of this, but he’s scanning the crowd as if he’s looking for someone.
“But we’re winning,” Balding says. “Can’t argue with that. Barbara told me that alumni donations for this quarter are quadruple what they were for all of last year. You think that’s a coincidence? Imagine what happens if he takes us all the way. Plus, we have him for two more years.”
Have him? That’s some foul word choice right there.
Baldy shakes his head. “The school’s not what it used to be, that’s all I’m saying.”
Even though Bunny and I got into it last night, I’m feeling mighty protective of him right now. When the crowd inches forward, I step on the heel of Baldy’s loafers, which probably cost a couple hundred dollars.
“Hey!” he says, pulling his foot away and casting a condescending gaze at me.
“Oops,” I say, hands up but a smirk on my face. “My bad.”
He makes a sound of disgust and then turns around and says to Baldy in a low voice, “See what I mean?”
I’m about to step on the back of the dude’s shoe again when Wallace says, “Yo, I’ve got some business to attend to. Wait for me.”
Before I can protest, he slips away. I glance around, spot Bunny’s mom and dad holding hands with the twins as they chat up some other parent. I know Bunny must be happy about his dad being here, since he’s usually working. I’m not trying to have another awkward-ass conversation with the entire Thompson family like I did the other night, though, so I move to rejoin the exodus to wait for Wallace outside.
But a girl’s voice behind me calls my name a couple times. I turn to spot Keyona standing outside the flow of humanity. Soon as our eyes meet, I know she wants to talk, so I make my way over like I’m swimming to shore.
“Are you sticking around to say hi to Bunny?” she asks when I reach her.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” I answer.
“Oh. How are you getting home?”
“Wallace,” I say, glancing in his direction. He’s chatting with some group of white kids over by the bleachers.
Right then, the door to the home locker room on the other side of the gym bursts open and players start coming out in their street clothes. Bunny’s, like, the sixth or seventh guy out, and you can feel the energy in the place shift soon as people notice. A fair number start to make their way over to him. A few pull out their phones to snap pictures. There’s even a couple kids holding permanent markers and that issue of ESPN magazine that he was in. It’s a blond cheerleader that reaches him first, though, and she practically jumps into his arms. I peek over at Keyona to spot a flash of dismay on her face before she regains her composure. After the cheerleader withdraws her tentacles from his body, he’s swallowed by a crowd of admirers slapping him on the back and congratulating him on the win.
Bunny makes eye contact with us and shrugs like he’s some benevolent king obligated to fulfill unpleasant duties. I’m hoping to dip before he comes over here, but when I look over to Wallace, he’s still deep in conversation with those random kids.
“So,” Keyona says. “Heard you went to Bunny’s yesterday.”
I nod. Figured he’d tell her all about that.
“And your mom made you?”
“She made me go to the game,” I say. “Not his house.”
“So why’d you go to his house?”
I shrug.
A reporter and her cameraman cut through the crowd. They train the camera on Bunny, and then kick on a small spotlight on his face, washing out his dark skin. The reporter then slides in next to him and holds up a mic.
“Well, I’m glad you did,” Keyona says. “Even if you guys got into it.” She gestures with her chin at the crowd. “All of this is getting a little crazy for him, and it’s only going to get crazier come June fifteenth.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“He needs a friend again. A real friend, Nas.”
“Looks to me like he’s got plenty.”
“It’s not the same,” she says.
Bunny says something into the mic that I can’t hear. Everyone around him laughs, especially the blond cheerleader that had given him that big hug. But Bunny himself isn’t smiling.
“He’s got you,” I say. It hurts my heart to acknowledge that out loud, but letting this crush go feels kind of nice. Like releasing a balloon and watching it float up into the atmosphere.
“I can’t be everything to him,” she says.
I know she’s right. And it’s not like I don’t want to squash this beef between Bunny and me. Not only because my patience with my moody cousin is wearing thin, but because I want my friend back. Only there’s something in me that can’t admit that out loud. Something that feels like he hurt me so I need to make him hurt back. Never mind that I know that logic doesn’t lead to a good place.
A few moments later, Bunny manages to escape from his fan club and starts walking toward us. I move to go, but Keyona puts her hand on my forearm. “Stay,” she says.
I sigh and do as she says. Bunny reaches us a few moments later. He gives me dap that turns out real awkward again—this time because he goes in with the closed fist and I go in with the open hand—and then he wraps his arms around Keyona.
“Great game,” she says, kissing him on the lips, like, two feet away from my face.
I nod toward the departing reporter. “Can’t wait to catch the highlights on ESPN.”
Bunny looks down. “Just local news, man.”
“So Washington High on Tuesday. You ready? You know the public schools go harder than those cushy private schools on your side of the bracket.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“They have that guard headed to Georgetown, right? With that nice shot?”
Bunny nods. “Miles Beasley. I played summer ball with him.”
“You have a plan for stopping him?” I ask.
“Of course he does, Nas,” Keyona says. “But if he told you, he’d have to kill you.”
It’s a corny joke, but we all laugh, because we’re looking for an excuse to. Except something happens and our laughter turns real, and for a moment, things start feeling right.
But before it feels too right, someone grips my arm again. This time it’s Wallace. “Time to roll, cuz,” he says. “We’ve got to get back to Whitman—this place is making my skin lighter by the second.”
“You’r
e already light-skinned,” I remind him.
“Exactly.”
Bunny laughs, and Wallace’s eyes dart to him like he just noticed Bunny’s standing there.
“What’s good, Wallace?” Bunny says, and holds out his fist for a bump.
Wallace looks at it for a moment and then turns to me. “I’ll be in Nisha.” Then he walks away.
“What’s up with him?” Keyona asks after he’s out of earshot.
“He’s going through some personal stuff.”
“You said that yesterday,” Bunny says. “Anything we can do?”
I shake my head because I don’t even know what I can do. Then I stand there for a moment, considering whether I should go after Wallace or ask Bunny and Keyona if I can catch a ride back to Whitman with them. In the end, my pity for my cousin wins out. I say a quick goodbye to Bunny and Keyona and then hustle through the crowd and out of the school because I wouldn’t put it past him to abandon me here. Thankfully, his car’s still sitting in the lot. I pull open the door and slide into the passenger seat.
“About time,” he says, and turns the key in the ignition.
It clicks and clicks, but it doesn’t start.
“Shit,” Wallace says. He tries again a few times to the same effect. “Like I need this fucking shit right now.”
He pulls the lever to pop the hood and then steps out of the car, leaving his door open. “Throw me the tire iron,” he says. “It’s probably the starter.”
I look around my feet. “Where?”
“Glove box, I think,” he says, then pulls the hood up all the way, propping it open with the little rod that swings out.
I open the glove compartment and immediately spot a bit of metal peeking out from underneath some papers. I push them aside and then—
I freeze.
My heart skips a beat, because it’s not a tire iron.
It’s a gun.
Part of me wants to pull it out to see if it’s real. Could be one of those airsoft guns. But are those made of metal? Even though my dad was in the military, my parents never let me have any type of toy gun—yet even I know this isn’t a toy.
I don’t touch it. I’m not about to put my prints on a weapon. I cover it back up with the papers I had moved aside and then click the glove compartment closed. Forget the tire iron.
“It’s not in there,” I say, my voice as shaky as my hands. I sit on them.
“Sure?”
“Yeah.”
He goes around the rear of the car and pops the trunk. “Fuck. You’re right. Here it is.” He walks back to the front and starts hitting some part of the car’s engine or something over and over again with the tire iron. The clanging of metal striking metal rings out across the parking lot. After some time, the tapping stops. Wallace tosses the tire iron into the back seat and slides back in behind the wheel. He turns the key, and this time the engine turns.
“Guess Nisha just needed some sense knocked into her.”
“Not cool,” I say.
“I was joking, man. Chill.”
I consider pressing him on this, but right now there’s something else we need to talk about. “What’s going on, Wallace?”
“What do you mean, what’s going on?” He looks me up and down. “Why are you sitting on your hands? You that desperate for some action?”
“I’m not playing, man.”
He glances at the glove compartment and then back to me. I see him work it out, and then he smirks. He throws the car in gear and pulls out into the street. “You found my piece, huh?”
I’m quiet for a moment, trying to work out the right way to handle this. I decide to be direct: “Why do you have a gun, Wallace?”
“Why’s anybody ever got a gun? For protection, Nas.”
“Why do you need protection?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he opens the center console with one hand while steering with the other and digs out a pack of smokes. He taps the bottom of the pack against the steering wheel four times, pulls a cigarette out, and sticks it in his mouth. He doesn’t light it yet. “You really want to know?”
I’m not sure I do, but I nod.
He drops the pack back into the console and pulls out a lighter. He cracks the window, which lets in a rush of cold air, and then lights the cigarette. “I’ve made a few bad bets.”
“On the Sixers?”
He shakes his head.
I think for a moment, and it hits me. “High school ball?”
He nods.
Then I remember the other day when he wanted to go to Bunny’s game. The rear door in Justin’s bodega that he disappeared through. That dude clocking him in the backyard at that party. “You’ve been betting against St. S, haven’t you? With a bunch of different people. Not just a few.”
“Man, with all the hype he’s got around him, the odds are unbelievable. All it would take is for Bunny to have one bad night—only one—and I’d walk away with enough to help G make rent for at least a few more months.”
I shake my head. “And then what?”
He turns left at the next light. “And then I’d figure out something else.”
“But Bunny hasn’t had a bad night,” I say. “So you’ve been losing all these bets?”
He takes another drag. “Yup.”
I clench my jaw. I don’t know what to say, because I’m so floored by Wallace’s stupidity. He and his grandma are about to get evicted, and here he is plunging himself deeper into debt. And I’m guessing if these guys the kind of gamblers betting on goddamn high school basketball games, they’re probably not the most forgiving types.
Wallace flicks his cigarette out the window even though he lit it not too long ago. “Look, a couple of weeks ago, when I first told you about me and G’s situation, you said you wanted to help. You remember that?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I do.”
He steers the car onto the highway and then shifts to a higher gear. As we speed up, the wind rushing through the cracked window gets loud enough that he finally rolls it up. Then it’s quiet in that way when there’s a lot of noise and then suddenly there isn’t.
“You really mean that?” he asks. “Or were you saying it to say it, like how everyone else always does?”
“Of course I really want to help, Wallace.”
“Then help me win one of these bets.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” I ask.
“Make it so Bunny’s not a factor.”
My eyes flick to the glove compartment, and my stomach drops.
Wallace glances at me and notices the look on my face. He bursts out in laughter. “Nah, man. I’m not talking about shooting him. What do you think I am?”
I exhale. “Damn, Wallace. Did you have to phrase it that way?”
“Sorry, cuz. I didn’t grow up in a bookstore. What I meant was, I want to catch him on some recruiting violation so he can’t play anymore.”
“What do you know about recruiting violations?”
“Man, I read the NJSIAA and the NCAA rulebooks online. With all those regulations, there’s no way St. S got him to up and transfer out of Whitman all of a sudden without doing something shady.”
I scratch the back of my head. “I don’t know. That could get real serious. Might get him banned from ever playing in the NCAA. Then what?”
“Nah,” he says. “We won’t get him on anything that deep. I promise. Just something that might end up with him sitting a game or two so I can turn things in my favor.” Wallace waits for an answer, and when I don’t give it, he goes on. “I found an article where something like this happened. School got caught paying off a credit card bill for their star player’s mom. Guess they found some text where the mom was bragging to her friend about how her kid was so good that his new school hooked them up like that.”
“Damn. What happened to him?” I ask, part of me wondering if Wallace is fabricating this story on the spot.
“Had to sit for the rest of the season. That’s
it. The state was mostly mad at the school for taking advantage of the kid.”
“So what’d they do to the school?”
“Nothing,” he says, laughing. “Just issued a strongly worded statement.”
I turn it over in my mind. The season’s almost over anyway, so if they punish Bunny, I guess it wouldn’t be that big a deal. Not like he’s a senior. “So what do you expect me to do?”
“Be my inside man,” he says. “Find something I can leak.”
“But we’re not tight like that anymore.”
“So get tight again.”
I shake my head in disbelief. I knew he was desperate, but I can’t believe this. Anger starts to rise up in me right alongside fear of what might happen to my cousin if he keeps making stupid bets and St. S goes all the way. I want to reach over and smack him. “This is a whole new level of dumb, Wallace.”
I expect him to throw some insult back at me, but instead he gets real quiet. The tires hum on the roadway. The wind rushes past the windows. Finally he says, “What the fuck am I supposed to do, Nas? Let them push G out of the place she’s lived in for the last twenty-seven years? Be happy about living in my car or sleeping on the streets?”
I almost let this slide, but Keyona’s voice is still in my head. “You could have gotten a job. I tried to help you find one.”
“Doing what—flipping burgers? That’s not about to pay any real bills, man, and you know that.”
“Stop making excuses, Wallace. Own this. Accept some responsibility for once.”
I look to him for a response, but he’s gazing at the road ahead.
“If it came down to it,” I say, “my parents would let you stay with us. I know they would.”
“That’s real nice you believe that, but I don’t. They hate me. Same as everyone else who knows me. I’m a straight fuckup, and they’re afraid I’m turning you into one, too. I see it in their eyes every time I’m at your place—tell me I’m wrong.”
I don’t say anything, because he’s not.
In fact, neither of us says anything for the next few miles. When we exit off the highway back into Whitman, I’m still roiling with anger that Wallace was dumb enough to get himself into this mess and because of what I’m about to say next—especially since Bunny and I were starting to smooth things over. At the end of the day, though, he’ll be all right. He’s got the world looking out for him. I’m the only one in Wallace’s corner.
