Ball Don't Lie

by Matt De La Peña

  And for the first time, Sticky thinks maybe all that magic in his right-hand fingertips might be gone. Stolen away when he put his shooting hand up to the gun. And if that’s the case, maybe his whole life is gone too. Who the hell is he without basketball? He’s nobody. Without basketball maybe his life is completely meaningless.

  Sticky’s head is dancing from the morphine the nurses have running into his veins. It’s tough to focus. The room is fuzzy and dark, aside from the dull shine of the overhead lightbulb. And there’s a relentless warm hum inside his head.

  For a second he forgets where he is. He’s lying on a patch of grass outside Sanwa Bank, and the light above him is the moon. He’s dreaming about the guys in the gym and the letter in his bag. He’s lying on his back in the park under the sun. He can smell the fruit shampoo in Annie’s hair as they drift in and out of sleep. He’s walking home late at night and a woman in heels is asking him if he knows how to kiss a woman’s hand. He’s walking home from the gym after playing ball and it’s raining. But it feels nice, like a hundred fingertips touching soft as lips. And he’s happy because he played so well. Old-man Perkins told him it was like he was operating at a different speed than everybody else. But he said he was graceful, too, like a dancer. He’s parked in Dante’s car outside Georgia’s house saying his goodbyes and just as he’s about to get out Dante reaches for his wrist and tells him: The only reason I come down on you so hard, Stick, is because I care. I care about you like I do my own sons. My own flesh and blood. And Sticky’s nodding and slapping Dante’s hand and walking away, but all the while something’s growing inside his chest. Something meaningful, important. This strange sense of belonging that he’s spent his entire life without. He’s walking toward the house thinking about what that means: Dante caring about him. He doesn’t have to. And this makes him feel bigger. Much bigger. He’s holding himself completely upright and he feels as big as the biggest big man to ever post somebody up on a Lincoln Rec low block. But then he’s curled up along the three-point line on a piece of cardboard, starving. And there’s a throbbing pain in his hand. And the humming in his head is the sound of all the other homeless waking up beside him. They’re all mumbling street mumbles and he realizes he’s mumbling too. He’s one of them. And when he looks down at his shooting hand all of his fingers are missing. In fact, his entire hand’s been amputated. . . .

  He wakes up suddenly and finds his hand in the sling. He remembers where he is. Who he is. He’s in a hospital bed cause he messed up. And he’s been hurt. And when he remembers everything that has happened his stomach drops and he has to swallow down hard on the lump growing in his throat. He has to squeeze his eyes tight to keep everything inside him locked behind closed doors.

  It’s five in the morning and Sticky looks down at Anh-thu. Her eyes closed, lips barely apart. Breaths long and drawn out. Heavy. A few strands of her long black hair are in her face. He reaches out with his left hand and moves the hair away. She looks so pretty when she’s sleeping, he thinks. He studies her face and notices the contrast—her dark skin against his milky white skin.

  When he feels a sharp spasm of pain rip through his right hand, he looks at the gauze and wishes he could take it all back. What he’s done. He’s made a mistake. He wishes he could go back and erase it. Do it over. He would leave the steak knife in the drawer. He would leave everybody alone. Buy Annie the bear and take her to the pier. That’s all she wanted. But when he feels the tears coming he does his best to stop thinking altogether. He swallows down hard on his hurt. Because he can’t go back. He swallows it like poison, like he always does, and he stares at the bare wall in front of him.

  He has to get away from it.

  But this is when all the fragile walls finally come crumbling down around Sticky. He’s lying in a hospital bed, his throbbing hand in a sling, and everything splits open. Cracks in two. Tears apart. He can no longer pretend he’s someone else. He has to give that up, shed his cool. He lets ten years’ worth of pretending he doesn’t exist come pouring out of his eyes. Streams of heavy tears rush down his face and he refuses to wipe them away. He’s been shot in the hand and he’s scared he’ll never play ball again.

  And right then Annie raises her sleepy head. The second she opens her eyes, though, Sticky closes his. He pretends to be asleep. And she kisses his cheek and shifts around in her chair. When she lays her head back on the bed and falls asleep again, Sticky cries even harder. Everything he’s had stored up in his chest comes rushing out through his swollen eyes. Annie is still right here with him. He hasn’t said a word to her all night, he won’t even look at her, but she refuses to give up on him.

  And then Sticky goes back to the moment his whole life changed. When he was in the window spitting into the bed of the truck and his mom was in the bathroom screaming his name. Sticky! Something in the way he’s crying so hard triggers the images to come flooding back.

  He finally pulls himself away from the window. He walks toward the bathroom. He steps through the door and there’s his mom. She’s slumped over in the tub. Cloudy red water spilling onto the floor and still running. He cups his hands over his ears and stares. His face scrunches up and then goes normal again. It feels like he’s choking. He’s so small. He’s just a boy. He picks Baby’s head up, tries to balance it straight on her neck, only to have it slump back forward or to the side. He looks at her wrists. He turns the water off, pulls the plug and watches the red start slowly sucking down the drain. He gets up. Zips around the bathroom: to the sink, the toilet, opens the medicine cabinet and brushes all the prescription bottles off the shelves. Bangs his head against the wall. Races back to the tub and puts a hand on Baby’s shoulder. Shakes her. Nothing. Shakes her. Nothing. Shakes her. Nothing. Then he falls to a sitting position in the middle of the broken-up tile next to the tub and rocks himself. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. He covers his ears with his hands and rocks himself. Back and forth and back and forth.

  Two cops bust through the front door, yelling.

  Sticky continues rocking himself.

  The cops tear around the house, yelling: Anybody here? Anybody here? A neighbor reported screaming!

  They find their way into the bathroom and swing open the door. Oh, no, one cop says under his breath. The other steps over Sticky and reaches for Baby’s arm. The water fully drained now. The bottom of the tub pink. They check her for a pulse. Check her neck. They take out special tools and check again.

  Other cops show up. One scribbles things down on a pad of paper. What’s your name, son? he wants to know. What’s your name?

  They pull Baby’s naked body out of the tub and lay her on a stretcher.

  What’s your name, son?

  There are five, ten, fifteen blue suits with badges staring down at Sticky. At Baby. They lay a blanket on top of her. They pull the blanket up over her face. They wheel her out of the bathroom. They wheel her away from him.

  Sticky holds his ears tight and rocks himself. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth.

  A cop lifts a steak knife out of the tub with two fingers and places it in a plastic bag.

  What’s your name, son?

  They take fingerprints from the sink, from the tub, from the broken cabinet. They say things to each other in low voices and then one of them makes a call on his radio.

  The cop with the pad reaches down and puts his hand on Sticky’s shoulder. What’s your name, son?

  Sticky continues rocking, but he brings up his scrunched-up face. He’s crying. He looks up at this cop, this blue suit, this face now burned into his mind and tells him through his tears:

  My name’s Sticky.

  The hospital room is dark. The old guy is snoring on his side of the curtain. The fan is humming. And Sticky’s crying. He’s crying for the first time since that night, and his entire body is shaking. Baby’s gone. But he’s starting to feel better too. He’s starting to feel like a real person. It actually
feels good to cry. It’s like he can actually feel himself settling into his own body. He feels the beating of his own heart. He no longer wants to hide, pretend he doesn’t exist. He is here. In this hospital bed. Breathing. This is who he is. Sticky Reichard.

  Travis Reichard.

  He stares through his tears at Anh-thu’s blurry fingers and he remembers something the old Mexican director said. That maybe it wasn’t his fault that people didn’t want to keep him. And he thinks about Baby. His mom. Maybe that wasn’t his fault either. Maybe she had to go to heaven to get better. And the director said what was special about him wasn’t the way he played basketball but that he was a good person. And he thinks that if a girl like Annie cares about him, if she’s willing to sit next to him all night even after he’s messed up so bad, then maybe the director was right. Maybe he really is a good person.

  Sticky reaches out and puts his hand on top of Annie’s. The tears are still coming and his entire body is trembling, but this feels good to Sticky. Reaching out. Letting go. This feels more than good, it feels like life.

  Dreadlock Man

  rolls right into Lincoln Rec on his ten-speed, dreads pulled back and wrapped in rope, and holds a hand out for the pass. He coasts onto the court, where Slim and Heavy are shooting free throws, says: Yo, man, lemme get a shot.

  Slim reluctantly delivers a bounce pass, which Dreadlock Man scoops up on the flyby. He circles around at half-court, heads back toward the bucket and tosses up an awkward one-handed fifteen-footer on the move.

  Peanut Butter!

  The ball bangs violently off the side of the rim, caroms off toward the homeless court and smacks Crazy Ray in the back of the head. A stunned Ray keeps perfectly still for a few seconds, refusing to turn around, and then cautiously lays his head back down on his piece of cardboard and pulls a blanket over his face.

  Dallas, stretching out near the far sideline, springs up off the hardwood and retrieves the loose ball. He tucks it under his arm, taps his dad on the shoulder to see if he’s okay. Failing to get any kind of response, he shrugs his shoulders. He races toward the basket on the dribble, slows slightly to time his jump, rises up off one foot and rattles home a questionable dunk. Still got it, he says to Slim and Heavy on his way back down to the ground.

  Come on, Dallas, Slim says. That wasn’t no dunk. That was a power layup.

  Dreadlock Man bikes back on the court holding his hand out again. Yo, Dallas, he says, let your boy get one more shot.

  Old-man Perkins, walking into the gym with Johnson, yells out, Yo, man, don’t give that cat nothin.

  He says, Dreadlock, you couldn’t score if you was the only man in the gym. What you think you gonna do on a bicycle.

  Johnson laughs, says, And Dallas, man, you couldn’t dunk if Jimmy hooked you up with a pogo stick.

  Trey rolls into the gym with New York. They both sling their bags into the bleachers, pull their hoop shoes out and start lacing up. Big Mac rumbles in sipping a Red Bull. Boo cruises in. Hawk. Rob. It’s another Saturday morning and Lincoln Rec is slowly filling up. Everybody’s stretching out along the sideline and shooting their mouths back and forth.

  Jimmy steps out of his office, folds his arms and shakes his head, watching Dreadlock Man, who’s now riding laps around the perimeter of the gym. Jimmy puts two fingers in his mouth and lets go of a piercing whistle. When Dreadlock Man looks up, spots Jimmy, he quickly hops off his bike and walks it over to the bleachers, where he locks up.

  Old-man Perkins yells out: Let’s shoot em up! Get this thing goin!

  Yeah, Johnson says. Can’t be here all day. I got city business to attend to.

  But before anybody can make a move for the free-throw line, Sticky walks through the Lincoln Rec doors with Sin in tow. He has his duct-taped headphones around his neck and a UCLA cap pulled slightly crooked.

  It’s Sticky’s first day back at Lincoln Rec after a mini hiatus. He’s fresh off the all-star summer camp circuit—for the last three weeks he’s been up and down the West Coast with every other high school hotshot, playing in front of coaches and scouts from every big-time college in the country.

  Sticky gives daps to some of the guys, pushes his bag under the bleachers.

  Sin quietly follows Sticky’s lead.

  Dante comes strutting into the gym with his bag on his shoulder and goes right up to Sticky. He reaches for Sticky’s right hand and holds it up to get a good look. Sticky’s scar looks like a purple spider now, three months after the incident—there’s a thick blotch of shiny new tissue growing over his wound with several leg-looking scars underneath. Sticky watches Dante’s face as he studies his hand.

  Lookin a lot better, boy.

  Sticky nods.

  You let everybody know you the man at them camps?

  I held it down, Sticky says.

  That’s what I like to hear. Dante turns to the rest of the guys and says, Let’s go, y’all. Let the runs begin.

  A few of the guys head for the free-throw line and shoot for captains. Trey has one go in and out. Slim knocks his shot down. Dreadlock Man barely grazes iron, but Big Mac rattles home a line drive and he and Trey immediately start picking their squads. As usual, Dante is the first to go, but today Sticky is selected second. Secretly listening for his draft position, Sticky smiles inside. He’s moving on up the food chain.

  While the rest of the teams are picked, Dallas says, I see you brought your boy with you today, Stick.

  Sticky pulls his cap and headphones off, reaches under the bleachers for his bag. Yeah, this is my buddy Sin.

  Sin nods his head at the regulars.

  Sin? Johnson says.

  Yeah, Sin says. My pops nicknamed me that when—

  S-I-N? Dallas interrupts. He turns to Old-man Perkins, says, Yo, that shit’s kind of blasphemous, ain’t it?

  How a youngster expect to be right with the good Lord, Perkins says, when he walkin around callin himself Sin?

  New York, Hawk and Big Mac join the group now circling around a noticeably nervous Sin.

  Nah, first-timer, Old-man Perkins adds, that shit ain’t gonna fly around here.

  It’d be a sin on our part, Johnson points out, to call the boy Sin. Everybody nods their head with Johnson’s logic.

  Sin looks over at Sticky as the guys continue to light into him about his name. Sticky laughs under his breath. He thinks about how far he’s come since his first day. How much he’s learned. And the guys see him as one of their own now. Dallas said it best just before the end of school. They were all sitting up in the bleachers after a full day’s run and out of nowhere he turned to the rest of the guys and said: Yo, I don’t know about y’all, but when I look at Stick now, I don’t even see white. I see family. All the guys nodded their heads when Dallas said that.

  Sticky zips open his bag and stashes his headphones and cap inside. He spots the letter from UCLA he received in the mail yesterday and pulls it out. He has the urge to run it over to Dante, tell him: See, D? This is how much I was lettin them know at them camps. But he’ll mention it later. When they get a minute alone. Right now all he wants to do is get back on the court. His home court. He wants to run up and down and hear the familiar voices of the guys. Doesn’t matter how important all those camps were for his future, there’s still nothing that beats a Saturday at Lincoln Rec.

  Sticky slips the letter back into his bag and pushes his bag under the bleachers. He pulls the bag out and pushes it under. Does it three more times and then heads out onto the court, where everybody is matching up. Rob motions Dante over to Sticky, tells him, Yo, you got white boy, D. I ain’t feel like chasin his ass around all day.

  Dallas smacks the ball and says over everybody, Ball’s in! He checks the ball into New York. New York passes to Boo, who immediately swings it over to Sticky on the wing. Sticky holds the ball for a second and stares into Dante’s eyes. A hundred possibilities flash through his head. He sees everybody on the court and knows exactly how they’ll react to whatever he does. He knows th
ey’re watching. Waiting. He jab-steps a couple times. Smiles as Dante goes back on his heels.

  Then he makes his move.

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank the following people for helping make this novel possible: my patient professors, Harold Jaffe and Lydia Yuknavitch; my creative confidants, Spencer Figueroa, Rob Jones, and Brin Hill; my support system, Sean Kim, Melissa Marconi, Tracee Lee, Matt Van Buren, and Dan Hooker; my incredibly talented editor, Krista Marino; my heart, all the de la Peñas; and my best friend in the world, Kristin Foote.

  Published by Delacorte Press

  an imprint of Random House Children’s Books

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  New York

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-43316-9

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