Ball Don't Lie

by Matt De La Peña

  Sticky peers over his shoulder again, down the dark alley: nobody. He closes his eyes for a second and tries to swallow. He wipes his nose on his shirt and realizes his entire body is shaking uncontrollably. His teeth are chattering. He can’t control any part of himself. Then he notices the steak knife in his hand. He chucks it down the alley and feels a wave of nausea wash over him.

  He pulls the wad of money out of his pocket with trembling fingers and slips it out of the money clip. He peeks over his shoulder: nobody. He goes to one knee and quickly counts the twenties in his hands:

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-a hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-two hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-three hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-four hundred.

  Four hundred bucks, man. Four hundred. It’s the most money he’s ever seen at once. And it’s in his hands. His hands. He peeks over his shoulder: nobody. He picks up the four stacks of twenties and counts the money out again:

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-a hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-two hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-three hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-four hundred.

  He wipes the sweat out of his eyes. The sweat off of his forehead. His shirt is completely soaked through, and his heart is still racing. He peers down the dark alley both ways: nobody. He closes his eyes to try and calm down and pulls in his first deep breath. He tries to think about what he’s just done. What it means. Whether or not he’s crossed some invisible line he told himself he’d never cross. He doesn’t know what to think so he stops thinking and pulls in another deep breath. But his body is still trembling. His heart is still racing. He picks up the four stacks of twenties and counts the money out again:

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-a hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-two hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-three hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-four hundred.

  All this money. In his hands. Four hundred. He could take Anh-thu anywhere she wants to go. Let her order anything she wants to order. He could walk her into Macy’s and buy her whatever bracelet she wants. He thinks of Dante. Wonders what he’ll say when he hears about this. You gotta do what you gotta do, is what he’ll say. But then when he runs through it again in his head, the tackle and the knife to the throat and the blow to the back of the head, the panic comes back. The nausea. The uncontrollable feeling of falling. He swallows hard and looks down the dark alley both ways: nobody. Get out of here! he tells himself. Come on! Go! He looks down the alley again: nobody. Picks up the four stacks of twenties and counts the money out again:

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-a hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-two hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-three hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-four hundred.

  Four hundred bucks. In his hands. Get out of here, man! Go find Annie! He picks up the four stacks of twenties and counts the money out again:

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-a hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-two hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-three hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-four hundred.

  That’s it! he tells himself. But as he stands up to leave, he freezes. He can’t move. He hasn’t counted right. He hasn’t stacked the bills right. He hasn’t done anything the way it needs to be done, and his body won’t let him move on to the next step. The next stage. And as he stands there cursing himself, fighting with his body, his mind, all these images come crashing down on him at once: stepping in and out of the shower, tucking and retucking his shirt, tying and re-tying the laces of his shoes, brushing and rebrushing his teeth, washing and rewashing his hands, snapping and resnapping his warm-ups, zipping and rezipping his bag, tossing and retossing change into the bowl with Baby hovering over him, spitting and respitting into the bed of the truck with Baby yelling for him in the background. The cash doesn’t feel right in his hands. It’s off. He’s off. He’s leaning to one side, like after you spin around and around on a merry-go-round and then get off and try to walk. Like that.

  He’s counted wrong and now he’s off. And he can’t move. Can’t do anything. He peeks over his shoulder: nobody. He gives in to his body and goes to one knee, starts counting the twenties in his hands again:

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-a hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-two hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-three hundred . . .

  twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-four hundred.

  And again:

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-a hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-two hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-three hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-four hundred.

  And again:

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-a hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-two hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-three hundred . . .

  Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty-four hundred.

  And before Sticky can pick up the four stacks of twenties and count them out yet again, a dark shadow slinks in from the side and sticks something to the back of his head.

  You messed up, buddy, a voice says. Sticky goes to turn around but two taps to the back of the head make him stop short. The voice says: Just keep on lookin at that wall, buddy. This will be over soon.

  The end of the alley is only twenty yards away and Sticky can hear the sound of a car rushing past on California. He can smell the ocean in the air. But all he can feel is the breath of this man on the back of his neck.

  Pick up the money, buddy, and hand it up to me slow. Nice and easy. Sticky reaches for the cash and slowly brings it up over his head.

  That’s it.

  When the guy takes the handoff, Sticky spins around and knocks the object out of the guy’s hand. The gun. It tumbles to the ground. The guy staggers back and loses hold of his money. He catches his balance against the trash receptacle and he and Sticky both stare at the gun lying on the ground between them. Sticky jumps at the guy, tries to smack him with a closed fist, but the guy slips it. He shoves Sticky against the wall and reaches down for his gun, cracks Sticky in the mouth. Sticky puts a hand to his bleeding lip. When he looks up the gun is pointed right at his face. He instinctively lunges to the side and sticks his right hand in front of the barrel.

  The gun goes off.

  The bullet explodes into Sticky’s right hand.

  The bullet goes straight through the skin between the thumb and forefinger of his shooting hand, ricochets off the church wall and disappears down the alley.

  The guy looks both ways, shoves the gun back in his pants. He reaches down to collect the money and grabs the handle of his briefcase. Then he quickly steps over Sticky and takes off running the other way.

  Sticky lays his face down flat against the filthy asphalt. Sweat is streaming down his neck. He rolls over clutching his hand. Rolls back the other way. He opens his mouth wide enough to yell but there’s no sound. He opens his eyes, cheek mashed against asphalt, and from this strange angle watches the guy running away. Watches the boots of this man lifting and falling in silence. He rolls over and looks the other way, sees two older dudes looking at him from the edge of the alley. One of them is pointing. Sticky closes his eyes and opens them. He closes and opens them again and settles his stare on one of the filthy trash receptacle wheels. He stares at the wheel and keeps his face completely straight and then he passes out from the pain.

  Before Anh-thu leaves Millers, Sergio checks her bag. Like he always does. OK, birthday girl, he says, zipping it open, looking in for less than a second and then zipping it back up. Do your best to forget about this crazy place and go have some fun.

  Bye, Annie, Laura and Dori say in a girl-like harmony. Laura winks. Anh-thu smiles, waves to everybody and then walks out int
o the quiet mall, alone.

  All around her, store doors are being shut and locked for the night. Neon signs are being flipped off. Trash bags are being taken out and tossed. Vendors are breaking down their stands and wheeling them away. Security guards, manning the mall exits, fumble with their keys and nod to all the familiar faces of mall employees who head for the parking garage and the freedom of their cars. Anh-thu smiles at one particular guard, Manny, the old Mexican man she always passes on her way out the Colorado exit.

  Outside she looks around for Sticky, but there’s no sign of him. She leans against the wall and checks her watch: 9:10. He’s late, she thinks. But he’s always late. It’s possible he’s never once been on time in his life. And besides, she thinks, how appropriate that he be late today, after she has just discovered that late is all that she is. Ten days late. Nothing more. There will be no big talk tonight. No discussion about the future. No weighty decision to make. Everything is still the same, and she’s relieved. She and Sticky are just two high school kids going together.

  All of the nervousness Anh-thu has felt for the past couple days has left her exhausted. She hopes Sticky doesn’t want to do anything major. Something that might require her having more energy than she has. Mellow sounds better right about now. Some fish tacos at the park or a hot chocolate on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Something like that, she thinks. Maybe a slice of pizza on the Santa Monica Pier, where they can sit and watch the tourists spinning around on the Ferris wheel. She’d sit and hear about Sticky’s day. About the crazy guys at the gym. Dallas, Dreadlock Man, Old-man Perkins, Dante, New York, Crazy Ray. Sticky always comes back to her with some sort of story involving one of those guys, and she likes listening.

  A rattling sound coming from behind Anh-thu makes her turn around quick, but it’s only Manny shutting and locking the glass doors to the mall. He waves, and she waves back.

  A group of high school guys in a red Mustang stare at Anh-thu while they wait for the light to turn green. One of them points and the rest of them laugh. It’s late and Anhthu’s starting to feel a little anxious. It’s not the guys, though. Guys like that are everywhere. It’s more the dress. For the most part, Anh-thu’s a jeans-and-sweatshirt kind of girl. But she decided to wear a dress tonight. For Sticky. She peeks down at her watch again: 9:25. Still no sign of him.

  There’s a cool breeze blowing in from the ocean, and the seaweed smell makes Anh-thu feel calm. She’s always loved the smell of the ocean. The breeze kicks up a little and blows her hair into her face. She grabs a rubber band from inside her bag.

  Anh-thu looks down at her watch: 9:30. Still no sign of Sticky.

  After the Good

  Samaritans leave, the two who found Sticky and fired off the 9-1-1 call on a cell phone, followed the ambulance to Emergency in a dinged-up Chevy Cavalier; after the cop leaves, taking his twenty-two unanswered questions with him, his breath like the bottom of a coffee mug; after the tall Indian doctor is out the door, the man who came in holding an X-ray and offering heavily accented words of encouragement, who proceeded to stick needles and tweezer out metal shards and tug and blot and stitch, who disclosed in the breathy voice of a woman that the situation would remarkably be devoid of any long-term complications because of where the bullet entered the hand (this diagnosis meaning absolutely nothing to Sticky); after Georgia hands off the necessary paperwork and runs out the door, having spent her entire fifteen-minute visit listing all the reasons she couldn’t stay, never once looking down at her foster boy laid up in a hospital bed; after three different nurses, two ladies and a dude, walk out the door, promising to check back within the hour; after everybody has fled the scene, gone on to other parts of their lives having fulfilled their role in the room, it’s just Sticky and Anh-thu left, the two of them sitting under a suffocating silence that has spread through the room like a gas.

  Anh-thu sits on the edge of a chair next to Sticky’s bed. She has tears in her eyes. Puffy cheeks. A cottony mouth. Every question she could think of to ask she has asked. But Sticky’s hand is still a mystery. He’s been shot. She knows that. But why? And how? And when? The problem is, Sticky isn’t talking. He hasn’t said a word since she’s arrived. Won’t even look anybody in the eye. His face is a blank, like the simple oval outline of a face in some kid’s coloring book, precrayons.

  Anh-thu is running her fingers through Sticky’s hair, but he isn’t there. He’s absent. He’s missing. He’s an empty vessel. This is his way of dealing with the hurt, she thinks. It’s not personal. This is a defense mechanism. This is shock. This is post-traumatic stress disorder. There’s a lump in her throat as she runs through terms learned in psych class, trying to make sense of it all. Today is her sixteenth birthday. It’s supposed to be a good day. A rite of passage. How did it end like this? She looks at Sticky again—sitting propped up in his hospital bed, hoop shoes still stuck to his feet, white wife-beater still wet with sweat, right hand wrapped in gauze and set in a sling above his chest—and it seems impossible to her how much she’s hurting right along with him.

  It’s two in the morning. A sterile black and white clock counts the seconds. A small fan spins a subtle breeze through the room from left to right and back again. There are a couple of laminated posters above the door that warn whoever’s paying attention about the harmful effects of secondhand smoke.

  Anh-thu takes Sticky’s good hand, the left one, and lays her head on his forearm. The image of Sticky being held up at gunpoint flashes through her head again, but she manages to push it away this time. No use speculating. He’ll explain it all soon enough. She wipes her eyes on Sticky’s forearm, picks her head back up and looks in his face, says: I’ll take care of you, Sticky. You know I will. The words coming out thin and hollow.

  When Sticky never showed up at the place they’d planned to meet, Anh-thu panicked and called everybody she could think of to call. She called Sticky’s house, her dad’s work, her brothers, the high school gym, Lincoln Rec, the police, and finally all the local hospitals. When the new UCLA hospital in Santa Monica confirmed that Sticky had indeed been brought into Emergency, she flagged a cab and told the driver to get her there as fast as he could. When they pulled up she paid the guy, rushed to the front desk, asked for Sticky’s room number, sprinted through the halls and up the stairs and around the first corner and pushed through the door, where she found Sticky lying in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling. She wrapped her arms around him and started crying and asked question after question and begged for somebody to tell her what had happened. And even after learning that he would be OK, that he was lucky, that he would make a full recovery, she still felt an overwhelming pain in her chest. She’d never seen Sticky that way. Hurt and helpless. Vulnerable. With a complete emptiness in his eyes. And she lay there on him for quite some time, squeezing his shoulders, trying to ignore the fact that he wasn’t talking.

  Anh-thu stares at Sticky and recalls the earlier exchange between nurses about the basketball they’d pulled out of his bag. The guy nurse asked what 7 FLOW stood for. And when Sticky didn’t answer, one of the lady nurses who had his file open cited the name of Sticky’s old foster care pad: Foster Living of the West. House number seven. She said it must be short for that, and the guy nurse nodded his head in agreement.

  Anh-thu’s ears perked up when she heard that information. Sticky had told her it was a gift from his mom. Something he found under the Christmas tree way back when he was just a kid. And sitting here now, she wonders how well she even knows Sticky.

  It’s three in the morning. The TV in the upper corner of the room is on without sound. Sticky’s right hand is a constant throbbing pain, one that crawls up his arm and into his shoulder, settles in the base of his neck. On the other side of the curtain, an old man’s snoring gets louder and louder until he almost chokes on his own breath and wakes up. The springs in his bed crunch and moan as he rolls over and starts the process again.

  A nurse walks into the room and glances at Anh-thu sleeping with
her head on Sticky’s bed, her hand on his thigh. She smiles at Sticky, tiptoes past his bed and around the other side of the curtain. She pulls the old man out of his snore by telling him something in a soft voice. He answers in a slur. In a few seconds she comes back around the curtain, smiles again and leaves the room.

  Sticky listens to Anh-thu’s breaths get slower and deeper. Feels her heavy hand slip off his leg.

  It’s four in the morning and Sticky is completely alone. The entire hospital is asleep. Anh-thu’s asleep. The old man on the other side of the curtain is asleep. The TV, having turned into bars of color, is asleep. Sticky finally looks down at his right hand. At this point he has to. Everybody else is out of the picture, and now he can try to figure things out.

  He reaches up with his left hand and pokes at the gauze. He traces the outline of his right hand and presses harder. A few sparks of sharp pain shoot up through his arm. It hurts. And he can’t even move a finger when he goes to clench a fist. There’s nothing.

  He looks back at the wall, his tired heart sagging in his chest, and lets his left hand drop back into his lap.