Ghost (11 page)

At the court, as usual, all the older guys were there running fives for cash. I knew some of them just because they were always there playing. Like Pop, who
was probably in his twenties or something like that. I don't even think he was anybody's dad, but everybody called him Pop anyway. He was a short dude, with crazy handles, and a mean jumper. He was one of those guys who could do all the tricks and stuff. Shake you right out your socks like it was nothing. And Sicko was there too, but luckily for me, he didn't have his crazy dog with him. Sicko wasn't really that good at basketball, but he was super rough. He probably should've been a football player. Or a wrestler. Big James was there too. He was like the best player ever to me. He looked like he really played pro ball. Six feet something, all muscle. People always said Big James played college ball but never went pro. I never knew what he did for a living. All I knew was that he was always at the court, dominating the game, taking everybody's money. So I guess basketball was what he did for a living after all.

Besides the hoopers, there were a whole bunch of other people at the court, just hanging out. Girls. Some were the girlfriends of the guys playing, and others wanted to be the girlfriends of the guys playing. And junkies. They'd just be zombied out, roaming around the outside of the court. They knew better than to mess up the game. They'd just walk along the out-of-bounds line like it was a tightrope, waiting for Goose. Goose
was the dope man, who also happened to be a pretty good ballplayer. Super flashy, but an all-around nice guy. Well, except for selling drugs. The court was where he served, in more ways than one.

I chilled there for a while, watching Sicko push everybody around until what always happens happened. A fight. As usual. Stupid Sicko pushed the wrong guy. A guy I didn't know. And that guy pushed Sicko back. And then Pop got into it. And then Big James. Then Big James's girl. And then some other girl. And then a junkie started howling like a wolf. And then I was out.

By the time I made it home, I only had a little bit of time to kill before Coach picked me up. Just enough time to wash up, or as my mom says, splash some water on my hot spots, throw on some clean clothes, and give myself two spritzes of perfume. It was Ma's, and it smelled like flowers, but hey, so what.

When Coach showed up, he hit the horn a few times. And when I didn't come right out, he hit it a few more times.

“I'm coming, I'm coming,” I said, locking the door. Coach had his window down and was talking to Mr. Jefferson, the neighborhood sweeper. At least that's what we called him. He basically swept up the street
every single day, but it didn't seem to ever really get clean. There was always glass, or paper, or, I don't know . . . a dirty couch.

“Wassup, y'all,” I said to Patty, who sat up front, and Lu who was in the back with me. I wondered where Coach put all the junk that was usually in his cab. Probably in the trunk, which was a place I never, ever, ever wanted to see.

“Wassup, man,” Lu said.

“I been around here before,” Patty said, skipping the hello. “I can't remember when. But I know I been around here.”

“Me too,” Lu said. “Not really these parts, but my pops plays ball sometimes at the court down the street.”

“Oh yeah? I play at that court,” I lied. Man. I was getting smooth with the lies. “Just came from over there.”

Coach shook Mr. Jefferson's hand, then turned around to me. “Took you long enough,” he tossed over his shoulder. Then he sniffed, and sniffed, and sniffed. “That's you smelling like flowers?” Coach asked Patty.

“Nope, that's pretty boy back there,” she said.

“Who, Lu?” Coach adjusted his mirror.

“No, the other one,” Patty said, talking about me. I couldn't even believe she called me pretty boy.
I squeezed my cheeks to crush my smile. And before Coach or Lu could say something slick, Patty added, “I like it. Smells good.”

One more stop before the Chinese food. We left Glass Manor and went to the other side of town. Like, the other, other side. Where the houses have yards in the front
and
the back. Where there are two or three floors and each kid has their own room. Even if there are like five kids, each one gets their own four walls. And everybody has a car. Or two. And there are driveways to park those cars in. And there are also basketball courts in those driveways, the kind you can move around and adjust to make it low enough to dunk on. No wig shops, no fish markets, no Mr. Charles, which had to suck. And as we pulled up in front of Sunny's house, a big brick castle with an old rusty car in the driveway, I wondered why Sunny didn't act like the other people I'd met who lived in this neighborhood. He was . . . cool. A little weird, but cool.

Coach hit the horn. Sunny came right out, tall and awkward. He waved to us, that funny wave he always did.

“Yo, Patty, you should get back here so Sunny can actually get his legs in the car,” Lu suggested. I agreed. It didn't make sense for Sunny to be cramped up in the
back with us. Plus, Sunny had already opened the back door on my side, and I just wasn't into sitting in the middle.

“Yeah, Patty,” I said. “That makes the most sense.”

“I don't care what y'all do, just do it quick so we can go,” Coach barked.

Patty turned around and looked us up and down. “Ain't nobody sitting back there with y'all goons. I might get goon juice on me, and don't nobody want goon juice on them. What if I can't get it off me? Then what?”

“Patty!” Lu yelped. Patty turned back around, ignoring him.

“Patty, come on,” I begged.

“Seriously?” Lu whined.

At this point, Sunny had already started stepping in, forcing me to scoot over to the middle. The middle sucks. It's where babies sit, and I ain't no baby. Sunny crunched and scrunched his body until he got it all in there. It reminded me of this dude Yogi Laser I read about who holds the record for having the fastest time to cram into a box. Crazy. Sunny's knees were smashed against Patty's seat, and he had no place to put his arm, so he had to put it around me. It was all just ridiculous. Once Sunny closed the door, which took three tries,
Patty and Coach turned around to look at us.

“Awww, look at y'all. Bonding like brothers,” Coach jabbed.

“Or like clowns!” Patty followed with a hook.

“Just drive, please,” I groaned, seeing Sunny smiling away, like nothing was wrong, out of the corner of my eye.

THANKFULLY, IT DIDN'T
take too long to get to the Chinese restaurant. After we finished staring at the big orange-and-white fish swimming around in a giant tank in the waiting area, we found out Coach had our seats prearranged. He and Sunny sat on one side of the booth, and me, Lu and Patty sat on the other side. The weird red vinyl seats oinked as we all shuffled in.

“Okay, so you guys, pick anything you want on the menu,” Coach unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. “Anything at all. We're here to celebrate the newbies.”

I didn't know how anybody else felt about picking anything on the menu, but I almost flipped out, I was so excited. I mean, I had been eating hospital food
almost every day during the week for, I don't even know how long. I guess, since my dad had been gone. So this was going to be heaven.

We all checked out our menus. Way more than what I usually see when me, Mom, King, and Aunt Sophie order in on the weekends. Me and Mom always get shrimp fried rice, Aunt Sophie gets crab sticks, which I always thought was a weird choice, and King nine times out of ten orders a cheeseburger with two egg rolls. And when the food comes, me and King always throw the fortune cookies at each other and try to whack them to pieces with the chopsticks.

“Is everyone ready to order?” A waitress had come over, pad in hand, to scribble whatever we said.

“I am,” Coach said.

“Me too,” Patty said, closing her menu.

I was ready too. Lu looked like he was still thinking about it, but we figured he'd be ready by the time the waitress got to him.

“I'll have the shrimp lo mein,” Coach said. “With a Sprite.”

“Sesame chicken,” from Patty. “And to drink, do you have Cherry Coke?”

“Cherry Coke?” Lu bawked. “Who drinks Cherry Coke?”

“I do,” Patty said, holding her hand in front of his face to shut him up.

“Ummm.” The waitress thought about it. “I can put some cherry juice in a regular Coke. How about that?”

“Perfect,” Patty said, smiling.

Lu moved her hand away. “And for you?” The waitress was talking to him now.

“Oh, I'm not ready,” he said, picking up his menu again. “Go 'head, Ghost.”

“I'm gonna have the Peking duck, please. And a lemonade.”

“Peekin' duck?” Lu, again.

“Not peeking,” Sunny said. “Pe-king. I'll have that too, please.”

“And to drink?”

“Sparkling water, please.”

“Y'all are the fanciest newbies I ever met,” Coach said. He moved his silverware and chopsticks off his napkin, then put the napkin in his lap.

“Are you ready now?” the waitress asked Lu. Again.

“Yeah, you ready?” Patty repeated, way harder than the super soft-spoken waitress.

“There's just so many options, but I think I'm just going to have shrimp fried rice,” Lu said.

“Shrimp fried rice?” from Coach.

“After all that, you order shrimp fried rice?” from Patty.

“Good choice,” from Sunny, nice-ing it up as usual.

The waitress disappeared with our menus. That's when Coach started his boring speech about how proud he was to have us on the team, and how great the season was going to be. He said we all showed promise. Well, that was something I had never heard before. That I was showing promise. Then he started dishing dirt about some of other teammates. Not really dirt. Just funny stuff they'd never tell us. Like how Krystal Speed used to be Krystal “No Speed.” He said she used to run like her feet were made of cement. Now she's better. He also said Mikey has always been kinda tough. Comes from a military family. Coach said his father makes him salute and everything. Aaron is the oldest of a whole bunch of brothers and sisters. So he's always annoyed at everybody on the track team but can't help but take care of everyone, which is why he's the captain. Right when he was telling us about how Curron Outlaw was the king of the false start last year, our waitress returned to the table with our food. Yes! It was go time. And I was so ready. I had even made up in my mind that no matter how good the food was, I
would save some for Ma. I mean, it wasn't every day we ate duck. Matter fact, we never ate duck. So, yeah. I was definitely going to save her some.

We all put our napkins in our laps like Coach did. And as the lady set the plates in front of us, piled up with Chinese goodness, Coach quickly gathered all our forks and knives. He even snatched our chopsticks.

“Okay, newbies. Here's the deal,” he said, clenching the utensils. “In order for you to get your silverware back so that you can enjoy this amazing food, you have to tell everybody one thing about yourself that most people don't know. Something good.”

“Wait. What?” Patty said, looking longingly at her sesame chicken.

I stared at my duck, the smell of it doing all kinds of cartwheels and backflips in my nostrils. Oh, man.

“It's tradition,” Coach explained. “So, who's first?”

“Me!” Lu offered, staring at his fried rice like it wasn't . . . fried rice. “I'm starving, so I'll go first.”

Coach shifted one fork, one spoon, one knife, and one set of chopsticks in his right hand. The rest were in his left. He held Lu's utensils up and smiled. “Let's hear it.”

Lu looked off, as if his secret was on the other side of the restaurant. Or in the big fish tank.

“Well,” he started, giving us his attention again. “I'm albino.”

“Duh!” Patty groaned, slapping her hand on her forehead. “He said a
secret
, fool!”

I wanted to chime in and say that if he had told me that a few days earlier, it actually would've been a secret to me. But then I would've had to admit that I thought he might've been an alien, and that wasn't exactly the secret I was wanting to share.

“Yeah, I already knew that,” Sunny said softly.

“So did I,” Coach said, putting the silverware in his right hand back in his left.

“Wait,” Lu said, clearly fearing that his meal would be held up. That fried rice must've been calling his name. “Okay, okay. For real this time.” He took a deep breath. “I always wanted a brother. But my mom can't have no more kids. And the reason why I wish I had one is because then I could've seen what I would've looked like if I wasn't . . . albino.”

Me, Patty, Sunny, and even Coach went dead quiet. Nobody said nothing. Like, whoa! Plus, I could relate to wanting a brother too. It would be nice to have somebody to hang with during the week. I had King on the weekends, but on the weekdays it was just me and Ma, so mainly just me, because she's Ma,
and Ma ain't bro. Plus, I probably would've had less altercations because my brother could've talked me out of some of them. He probably would've talked me out of cutting my shoes up and stealing the silver bullets from the sports store too. So I was totally with Lu on this one.

Coach handed Lu his utensils and even slid the soy sauce over.

“Don't wait for us, son,” Coach told him. “Dig in. You earned it.”

Lu went for it. As he shoveled rice into his trap, Sunny spoke up.

“So, I don't have a mom,” Sunny said. “I mean, I do, but she's gone. She passed away giving birth to me.”

Patty's eyes instantly began to shine. I could feel mine wetting up too, but I didn't want to cry. Not at our special newbie dinner. But I felt for Sunny. My mother isn't always the happiest lady on earth, but that's just because times have been tough. But I'd rather have tough times with her than no times at all. Sunny ain't never even met his mom. Never even had her cooking, and all moms can cook (when they're not too tired).