Love on the Streetball Court

Chapter 1

With my worn-out basketball tucked under an arm, I strolled to the courts down the street from the apartment complex.

In my white tank top with a red sports bra underneath, and black ball shorts that stopped at my knees, I always got confused for a boy until I let my hair down.

My chest was flat, and I kept my hair braided, and most of the time, I wore a durag.

I didn’t want to look like a female. I saw how the old men looked at the young girls around the way with lust in their eyes.

It was as if they were already choosing, and it was disgusting.

The court was already full when I arrived, boys from the block, trash-talking loud enough for the whole project to hear. The chain-link fence rattled with every bounce of the ball. I slid through the gate, nodding at a few familiar faces.

“Yo, Slim! Hurry up and get in the game. Put that ball down!” Vani called out. Vani was seventeen, tall and skinny, and always had a blunt tucked behind his ear. That was my best friend, though.

I dropped my ball on the grass, hoping nobody would take off with it.

My two-year-old sneakers that were on their last leg squeaked against the cracked blacktop as I joined the game.

Vani let me know who was on the same team I was on.

I leaned over with my hands on my knees, ready for the game to start.

There was one nigga I wasn’t familiar with. Everyone else I knew or knew of.

He was the color of pecan with tight eyes, like he was Black but mixed with something else.

His hair was short and in tight coils with the sides faded.

The nigga couldn’t be from the projects because he was dripped out in a Nike fit, and not one you find in Ross or Burlington.

His shoes weren’t even broken in yet. They did not have one scuff on them. Where the hell did they find him?

The game started, and everything else around me blurred. This is what I do. I thought about basketball all day and every day. I play ball for the high school, and my name rang bells through Love Heights. Basketball was going to get me out of the projects.

Vani passed me the ball, and the unknown guy was on me.

I moved left, and he did too. When I attempted to go left again, he was there.

It was like he knew what I was going to do.

I pivoted quickly, trying to fake him out, but this nigga didn’t bite.

His stance was tight with his knees bent and arms stretched out.

His dark brown globes dug into me. I could hear the guys on the sideline hollering, hyping us up.

“Cook him, Slim!” someone yelled.

I tried to shake him again, crossing between my legs, but again, this nigga was right there. My best bet right now was to pass the ball. Good thing in streetball, there weren’t shot clock violations. The way he blocked me and stayed on my ass, you could tell this sport meant the world to him too.

“You quick,” he said with a rasp and a smirk, “but you’re predictable.”

He reached out at the same time as I attempted an underpass to another teammate. He took off the other way, and I was on him, but before I knew it, he shook the niggas on my team, launched off one foot and slammed the ball down hard in the rim. The crowd went wild. I nibbled on my bottom lip.

Vani held his hands up and let them fall, hitting his legs. “What the fuck happened, Slim? You too busy flirting wit’ that nigga?”

My face balled up. “Shut up, Vani.”

The game went on like that with the new nigga scoring most of the points, and Vani got four in. Vani sauntered over to me, shaking his head.

“Who is that nigga?” I asked him, using my thumb to point. “Where he come from?”

“He some nigga from the rich side, that’s all I know. He asked to hoop.” Vani squinted his light brown eyes at me while removing the blunt from behind his ear. “I ain’t never seen you play that horribly, Slim. What’s up wit’ that?”

I smacked my lips, adjusting my durag. “You’re making something out of nothing, Vani. I don’t even know that nigga.”

That same nigga was walking over.

“Good game,” he acknowledged with a dip of his head before holding his hand out. “Kane.”

For a moment, I just stared at his hand. “Slim,” I told him. He dropped his hand.

“Yeah, I’ve been hearing your name all game. You real good.”

“She’s better than good,” Vani snorted as he lit his blunt. I moved away from him. Vani knew I didn’t smoke and wasn’t going home smelling like it either, only to hear my Mama fuss at me. “Slim gon’ go all the way to the WNBA.”

Kane grinned. “I believe it. If you ever need some pointers…”

“Pointers?” I scoffed with my nose turned up.

Kane chuckled and licked his lips. “My bad, I didn’t mean any harm…Slim.”

I squinted. “Where you from?”

Vani wandered off, probably seeing a female he wanted to holler at, leaving me alone with Kane.

“On the other side of town. Heart Heights,” he answered.

“What you doin’ this way? This ain’t your type of scenery. You’re like a Carlton Banks.”

Instead of being offended, Kane cackled. “I may be that, but I’d rather be on this side of town instead of around stuck-up folks all the time.”

“They are stuck up in Heart Heights. They don’t even play us in basketball; they’re so scary,” I told him.

Kane scratched at his waves and dragged his eyes over me. I shifted from one leg to the other, knowing he was about to ask me if I was a dike or something. They always asked me that shit.

“How old are you?” he asked, with a slight squint. Kane tucked his lips in, and one deep crater appeared in his right cheek.

“Sixteen, why?” I quizzed, looking past him. “Wait, where is my ball?” I shouted. “Who took my ball?” My head swiveled as I tried to lay eyes on what was mine.

“Damn, it was just right there,” Kane pointed to the grass where I’d placed the ball before jumping into the game.

Ignoring him, I brushed past him, my shoulders bumping into his.

My head was throbbing. That was my therapy…

my dream…my escape. Now it was gone. I scanned the park, eyes darting to the group of little boys posted up near the fence.

I heard the bouncing of a ball, and my legs carried me toward them in an angry stroll.

“Aye!” I barked, storming over. “That’s mine.”

The smallest one froze, his little fingers still palming the ball.

He had to be maybe eight, shirtless, and ribs poking through his chest. Dirt was caked on his bony knees.

He didn’t even try to hide the fact that he had my ball.

He tossed it at me and ran off with his boys, them laughing in high-pitched laughter.

Sighing, I brushed dirt off my ball and turned to start my walk back home. A pull on my elbow stopped me, and I was ready to punch whoever touched me.

“My bad!” Kane shouted, jumping back with his hands up.

“Use your words,” I snapped. “You don’t have to touch me.”

He nodded. “Noted.”

I exhaled through my nose. “What do you want?”

“You good?” he asked.

“Shit, you? I’m in my hood. You’re not,” I spat.

Kane rubbed his hands together. “Shit, I’m good wherever. I can hold my own.”

I snickered. “Yeah, okay. These niggas are a different breed out here. What do you want? I gotta get home.”

He popped one fist into the palm of his other hand. “To hang out some time, I guess.”

“You guess?” I asked, with a raised brow.

Kane smiled boyishly, showing straight, white teeth. “I mean, I want to hang with you.”

“Why? Your family is in a way higher tax bracket than mine is. We’re from opposite sides of Love Grove. What do we have in common, Kane?”

“Basketball, Slim. Our love for the game,” he answered, and that almost caused my lips to stretch.

“Do you play for your school?”

Kane bit down on his lip and nodded. “Yeah. Basketball is not the path my dad wants me to go down, but I’m not giving it up.

He doesn’t come to my games. He catches the highlights in the next day’s newspaper,” he calmly replied, offering way more information than I asked for, but I heard irritation in his tone. It clearly bothered him.

“That’s wild.” My left shoulder rose and dropped. “My mama doesn’t come to any of my games either. She’s either at one of her jobs or home asleep ‘cause those jobs wear her out,” I confided. “I get it.”

“How she feel about you playin’, though?” Kane questioned.

“If I like it, she loves it. Mama is just too busy to go to your game, Slim. Mama gotta pay these bills, Slim, I said, mocking her.

Kane snorted. “You need to be a lawyer or a doctor. Basketball is for thugs.”

I balled my nose up. “Thugs? Is your dad…”

“Black?” he asked, cutting me off. I nodded. “Yeah.”

“Oh,” I scoffed, taking a few steps back, “Your dad is one of them. One of those uppity niggas. One who thinks ‘cause he has money than most that he is above us?” I sucked my teeth and flickered my eyes up and down. “Imagine his son wanting to hang wit’ me.”

I took off running home, turning around briefly to make sure Kane wasn’t following me. He wasn’t. His feet in those expensive-ass shoes were still planted.

Good.

Mama was gone to work, leaving me alone to shower quickly before the hot water ran out, and then fix a bowl of noodles. I sat in front of the TV in the living room instead of at the table that sat two, where I was supposed to be. Since Mama wasn’t here, I sometimes bent the rules a little.

In the small bathroom, the sound of dripping water echoed through our thin-walled apartment.

I could hear the neighbors moving around in their apartment, their TV blasting a sports game.

I heard one neighbor’s kids fighting, and then one started crying.

They didn’t stop until the mama threatened to whoop them with a belt.

I wrapped my towel around me tighter and then hauled it to my bedroom to dry off and dress.

The bathroom was just too small to move around in.

After throwing on my oversized T-shirt and shorts, I plopped down on the beat-up couch with my bowl of beef noodles.

My stomach growled loudly at the scent of food.