by Ginger Scott
I grab my drawstring bag and push my basketball in as I stumble around the messy, clothes-strewn floor of my bedroom to find my Jordans. If we’re going to get two grand to Dub by Friday night, then we can’t waste any time. We’ve gotta live at the courts until the lights go out. When I finally spot my shoes under the clothes I wore yesterday, I pull my Vans off with the front of each foot on the heels and glance up to meet my friend’s excited eyes.
Yes, Joker. Daddy is taking you to the circus, but we’re not going your way.
“I’m not skipping class,” I say, and his smile loses some of its brightness. “That’s the only way I’m helping, and you know you’re the one who’s on the hook for this. You made the promise, and you know how that works with him.”
Joker nods, his lips hung open, wanting to beg me to skip one more time, but he knows better. And he knows he can’t do any of this without me.
I hold out my fist for him to pound because as pissed as I am, I still love him like a brother. His knuckles hit mine as I wriggle my left foot into my untied basketball shoe.
“I’ll meet you there,” I nod at him as he backs out of my room. He does the same in return then takes off on foot for his house to change out of his jeans and meet me for ball.
Sometimes I wonder if Joker wants out of this—if he regrets making friends with me in third grade. The Fifty-Seven probably would have had him anyway. He’s got two things they recruit—he lives here in Miller County, and his last name is Contreras. The Fifty-Seven doesn’t openly discriminate—other than requiring members to be male—but if someone’s Latino, they’ve got a better shot at moving up and being a force in our neighborhood if they’re part of the gang. It’s mostly respect for my dad, Dominic Lopez, who was sent here from Honduras as a kid to escape the gangs that were forming. He grew up and made his own. Joke’s on my grandparents who thought they were setting him free.
Dub’s mom was white and born and raised in Miller, like mine, and his dad was from Chicago’s Southside, where he ran one of Cook County’s most notorious Black gangs by the time he was fifteen. His dad was shot and killed during a robbery gone bad, so his mom ran back to Miller, thinking a suburb in the Midwest wouldn’t hold much trouble. It was pretty quiet here until the factory shut down and home values plummeted. The Fifty-Seven was destined to happen: ripe conditions and two bored and angry teenaged boys was all it took.
The drug dealing didn’t start until they’d been operating on the streets for about a year. The goal was never being rich—it was about power. Those of us who live on streets like ours, where the city doesn’t bother to fix gaping holes forming down the center, it’s hard not to look for power somewhere else. Even now, Dub has us bring in enough to pay the bills and keep him—and us—out on the streets and to keep others away from what’s ours. I try not to let myself think about it because when I do, I realize how meaningless it all is.
Somewhere, outside these invisible walls, is a great, big world where people invent cures for disease at the same time others threaten to wage wars with bombs that can wipe out continents. We play with knives and put bullets into cars and walls. What’s the point?
My ball feels like home in my hands. Our school team sucks—not that I could ever try out for a sport. Sometimes, when I let myself really go there, I realize how much I’m already in prison, living like this. There are so many things I can’t do. It took everything I had not to burst out in laughter when the school counselor told me I could go to college.
Like hell I can. My college is here, under Professor Lewis and his hunting knife and automatic rifle and shallow graves out in the woods where bodies rot, somehow still not found by authorities searching for them.
“You’re leaving again? You just got home.” My mom punctuates her words with the clanking pans she’s pulling from the bottom cabinet.
“I’ve been home, Ma. Paul was here, so we sat outside.” I wish I had something to busy myself with so I didn’t have to meet her stare right now—the one that sees right through me.
“You should have asked him to stay for dinner,” she says in a raspy voice, her eyes drawn in just enough to show the worry.
“He’ll eat at home. Ma, I gotta go. We’re meeting at the courts in five.” I reach forward and grab an apple from the bowl she keeps on the counter, but before my hand retracts, she grips my wrist.
“What?” I hate the way I sound; like a moody teenager caught in a lie. That’s exactly what I am, though. It’s all so fake—she knows why I go to the courts at night, and I know why she wants me to invite Paul inside. She will never stop trying to save us.
It’s a Bible study night. Within the hour, our crappy living room—yellowed by mismatched lamps and burnt-orange tinged carpet—will be filled with moms from the neighborhood all brimming with hope that they can pray the sins of their husbands and sons away. I don’t make fun of her faith. I envy the good in it. It’s saved her life for sure. I just can’t be in this house to witness it. It’s like pouring holy water on the Devil.
“You should let me make you a sandwich,” she says, recoiling her hand. I read all of the things she didn’t say in her eyes, and that pinch in my gut strikes a familiar pain. I let her down every time I leave this house.
“I’ll be fine. Besides, I love apples.” My teeth crunch through the skin and juice sprays on my chin. I wipe it away with my forearm, then lean toward my mom to kiss her cheek. It trembles, and I’m never sure if I imagine that or if it’s real when I feel it. I think maybe it’s both of our nerves manifesting.
I tuck my ball against my hip, drape my earbuds over my neck, and shove my house keys in my right pocket along with my wallet and phone. The front door slams to a close behind me, and I push the security gate in until I hear it click. My mouth covers half of the apple as I round our house, and I chew down a large bite as I kneel into a squatting position behind the air conditioner. This thing rattles to the point that it’s worked half of the screws loose on the panels. I should probably find a new hiding place for my gun before my mom has a repair guy out. I wrap my hand around the metal and make a mental note to stash this somewhere else when I get home tonight. For now, though, it’s safely tucked against my lower back in the band of my shorts.
Four more bites of apple and I’ve reached the core, so I toss it into an open trash bin at the end of the street. I pull my earbuds loose from my T-shirt collar and poke the ends in my ears. My fingers glide into position on the ball out of habit, and without pausing, I begin to dribble between my steps, music pounding on the off-beats, my fears perfectly captured by the rap lyrics spilling out.
Empty streets make me nervous, and it’s still and quiet out today. Garages roll down as I walk by, like a post-zombie-apocalypse world. The sun is almost down so time to go into lockdown mode, people!
My shadow is long. Sometimes I wonder if it’s trying to run away from me.
I’m lost in the rhythm of my steps, the slap of my fingertips moving the ball down toward the sidewalk. I don’t see her coming. That’s probably what saved her from me. Also, I need to snap out of this, because I can’t not see people coming. That’s dangerous.
My mouth hangs open as the fire burns up my belly with that knee-jerk rage that’s been bred inside of me. Thankfully, my gaze glides up her body first, to my ball now gripped between her palms, held against her chest where a well-worn T-shirt drapes over one shoulder and thick brown hair falls over the other. Her lips are moving. She’s speaking, and her eyes—fuck, those are blue like water—they’re waiting for mine to react.
You gotta shoot the rats that tell, or you’ll be next, motherfu…
I yank my earbuds loose before the lyrics go on. Those words don’t match this face in front of me.
All I can do is stare at her.
“I. Need. Your. Help.” She probably spoke to me a few times when I was in my trance and blasting sound in my ears. The way she mocks me, though, speaking slowly…it’s ballsy and…well, it’s cute.
I glanc
e down at my ball then back up to her eyes.
“Uh, can I have that?” I leave my hands down at my sides while I ask because I want her to give it to me. Maybe a part of me is a little annoyed by the way she asked for help.
She rolls the ball along her fingertips, the weight moving from hand to hand a few times while her tongue presses inside her cheek. Eventually, she pushes the ball into my chest and holds it there until I grab it. I don’t know who this girl is, but she’s going to get herself in trouble if she treats other people in this neighborhood like that.
“Help? Now?” Her eyebrows lift and her feet shuffle a step or two backward.
I continue to stare, a bit amused, but I also take in the shape of her as she creates more distance between us. Black jeans hug long, toned legs and her gray shirt rides high against her ribs exposing sun-kissed skin and a silver belly-button ring.
“I like your shoes,” she says, nodding toward my unlaced Jordans before she turns around, knowing I’ll follow.
Thanks doesn’t leave my lips, but I think it—and I follow her toward an old pickup truck weighed down with boxes. Half of the truck is a green primer and the other half is gray, either a work in progress or a piece of shit bought at the auction. My mom’s car is one of those. Actually, it’s both of those: a nineteen-year-old Ford that was supposed to be something I worked on with my uncle. We changed the oil once.
“I promised my dad I’d have most of this unpacked by the time he got home, but the bench is in the way and it’s heavier than I thought it would be.” She grunts in the middle of her speech as she steps up onto the open tailgate. It’s impressive, her stretch. I tuck my ball between two of the boxes on the ground and take a short running start to jump up next to her. Her mouth twists, unimpressed, and she turns her attention toward a stack of weights and a bench press tucked along the right side of the truck bed.
“I can get back here if you can just help me wedge that part out.” I wait for her to maneuver her way to the back of the bed then grip one of the bench supports.
“It’s heavier than you think, so don’t feel like you have to…” I jump down before she finishes and lift my end of the bench in front of my chest. She’s right—it’s a lot heavier than I thought it would be, but I will never admit that out loud.
She shrugs, I think maybe a little impressed. I walk backward lifting most of weight until she’s run out of space in the truck. She rests it on the edge of the bed as she leaps down, then we both lower it to the ground a few feet away.
She’s panting a little. My forearms are burning. We both walk in small circles to catch our breath, a truck still filled with heavy things looming nearby. It gives me a reason to stay, and I pull my phone from my pocket to check the time. I hate that I have somewhere to be—that there’s a time limit right now because my friend wanted to impress a guy that could give two shits about him. Dub won’t remember the fact that we got him a few hundred bucks fast. He’ll forget it by Tuesday when he needs us to do something else.
“You just move in?” I squint a little, my head cocked to the side trying to look at her against the dipping sun.
Her lips pucker at my question, and I breathe out a light laugh.
“Yeah, I mean obviously,” I say, shaking my head.
She climbs back into the truck and lifts a bench press plate in each hand, carrying it toward me. Twenty-five pounders. I can’t leave her with all of this on her own, so I take them in my hands and walk toward the center of her oil-stained driveway.
“These going in the garage?” I ask.
“Yeah. Just stack them wherever,” she says, two more already propped up at the edge of the truck for me when I’m done with these.
We work like this through more than a dozen weights, and without even questioning it, we move on to boxes until those are all stacked in the garage too. She flips up the tailgate on the truck when we’re done and holds my ball against her hip.
“Whoo!” She wipes away the sweat from her brow and twists her body so our eyes meet again. I can tell her lips are curving up, but I’m so stuck on her eyes that I can only imagine what her smile looks like.
I chuckle again, because I’m nervous, and we’ve been quiet just a little too long while staring at each other.
“So you ball, yeah?” She’s the first to break away our gaze, and her hands nervously shift my ball back and forth again, like she did when we first met—not that I know her name or where she came from. I just know she arrived in this hell. She does not belong here.
“Yeah, but just on the courts two blocks over—right by the playground. I don’t play for a team or anything.” I shrug, and look from her hands to her face, just as her eyes flit up to mine. She freezes the ball between her palms at my look.
“So, you’re like just a rec player, or whatever then?” She starts spinning the ball now in her palm, and her eyes move back to her hands. Her mouth smirks, and I think it’s because she knows calling me a rec player is going to dig at that male instinct that lives in my chest. She’s right. It does, and I shift my feet and puff my lungs to look a little bigger.
“I guess…I mean we all are. My friends, I mean. We’re good, though. Not rec.” Despite my stammering, I feel my chest inflating like a fucking peacock, like I have something to prove. But the longer she moves my ball around in her palm with her lips pressed together tightly, hiding a bigger smile, the more I feel like an idiot.
“Yeah, I get it,” she says, finally letting me off the hook. Her eyes are still trained on her hands and my ball. She spins it again, this time on the tip of her middle finger, then tosses it up and lets it fall to the ground, bouncing twice before she pushes it toward me. She must play, too.
“Tristan,” I nod in introduction, finally. It takes her a few seconds—a few very long seconds—to reply, and that weird feeling takes hold of my chest. I push through it and hold her stare until she speaks again.
“Riley,” she says. “New girl.”
She adds this head waggle and looks up and off to the side after she speaks. I take a glance at her smile this time. Her lips are glossy, and her gum snaps when her tongue presses it into the roof of her mouth.
When her eyes settle on mine again, her cheeks redden—only a little. Before mine do too, my phone vibrates against my thigh. I hold up a finger and answer Joker’s call, dropping the fantasy right here in the driveway that there’s room in my world to even be friends with a girl like this.
“Yeah, I know. I’m on my way,” I say, hanging up before he has a chance to say a word.
A rollercoaster sensation tugs at my insides as I glance up again. Sometimes I just wish…
“I gotta go.” My right shoulder lifts. I shuffle my feet backward, finding it hard to turn around and just leave without…I don’t know…something.
“I’ll see ya around,” she says, making it easy.
I nod and feel regret creep up my throat the moment I turn my back to her and begin dribbling with my steps.
“Hey, Tristan!” I gnash my lips and wince, wishing I could just enjoy the sound of her calling out my name. She should know my name.
I keep moving, but I spin on my feet and walk backward.
I should have pretended I didn’t hear her.
“You play guys play up there every night?”
My steps continue. I’m far enough away that I don’t think she can sense the twitch of my eyes and lips, but there’s nothing I can do about the slight pause I make in my response. She wants to come watch, and the courts are not a place for her to be. They’re not a place for anyone, other than me and the regulars and the people who come there to take care of business. I’m supposed to deter her now, to say something that doesn’t make her feel welcome.
Instead, I don’t utter a word. I shrug and nod, my twisted brain somehow convincing my conscience in this brief second that because I didn’t speak, I didn’t just royally fuck up. But I did. I invited the prey to come play in the lion’s den.
And I did it with a
grin.
Chapter Two
Riley
* * *
The only chair we have that I can bring outside is the rolling one from my dad’s desk. I push it through the back door and sink the wheels deep in the loose dirt to steady it long enough for me to climb up and peek over the brick fence.
“And you’re always saying I’m the one with dumb ideas.” I laugh to myself and wave my hand behind me to my dad.
“I just got home from school. I’ve been dying to see what kind of dog it is that they have next door,” I say, pushing up on the tips of my toes to try and see the barking beast just on the other side of the bricks. It’s barked, pretty much nonstop, since our moving truck rolled in four days ago. “Come give me a boost.”
I kick away from the chair before my dad has a chance to talk me out of it and wriggle on my elbows until my weight is held by my shoulder muscles.
“Who’s the stubborn one,” he says as I feel his hands form a platform under my right foot.
“Thanks,” I grunt out, edging my way over the wall just enough to look down and see a fairly muddy poodle.
“Huh,” I say with a slight shake in my chest.
“Cujo?” my dad asks.
I twist my neck and nod for him to lower me back to the ground, and I push off from the wall with his hands at my sides to brace my landing.
“Hardly. I think that dog would like to go to a salon. It’s a poodle,” I say, brows raised high.
“Seriously?” My dad squints, puzzled, then grabs the back of his chair and shakes it loose from the dirt. He wheels it over the rocks and concrete patio, and I help him boost it over the footing of the door until it’s back in the kitchen, near his desk.