Philadelphia Fire

by John Edgar Wideman

  The moral, Cudjoe says to himself, is everybody’s afraid of something. Or everybody, sooner or later, meets their match. Or any port in a storm. Or if he hadn’t been thinking of pussy a few minutes before, he wouldn’t have glanced over at the young women perched on the wall around the play area and he’d have missed the whole show. And the moral of that was . . .

  Circling the park, he passes benches set in concrete just off the main path. Built to last forever, they weren’t going to make it. Somebody had expended enormous energy attacking them. Not casual violence but premeditated murder. You’d need heavy-duty weapons to inflict this damage. Sledgehammers. Crowbars. Why kill these benches whose sole purpose was offering people a place to rest their asses and enjoy the park? Why would anybody need to go declare war on a bench? Whose life was that fucked up? One or two benches survived, hacked, splintered. When would they get theirs? At night or in broad daylight? When all the benches were gone, what part of the park would be wasted next? Cudjoe hears the hobnailed boot tramp of soldier ants, the metallic grinding of their jaws as the column chews its way through a sleeping city.

  He checks his watch. No guarantee she’d show up. Why should she trust him? He’d been surprised when she agreed to talk into the tape machine. Surprised when she said she’d meet him in the park. Clark Park between Baltimore and Woodland, around Forty-third. Yes, he knew the place. Yes, he’d be there. Would she?

  Three blocks away the basketball court, the hollow. Nothing shaking as far as he can tell. A few people that from this distance, at this hour of the morning are silhouettes, dull shadows until they step beyond the border of trees and then their edges catch fire, bristle in the shimmer of sunshine bathing the far end of the park. One of those figures, wiggling in its nimbus of light, could be hers. Difficult from where he stands to be sure. No chance he’ll miss her if she wants him to find her.

  He crosses Chester Avenue, takes the lower dip of the path toward the court. Benches here, above the hollow, spray-painted and carved but intact. Cyclone fencing encloses three sides of the basketball court. All those new courts erected in the sixties had four high metal sides. People said they were part of the final solution. Lots more had sprung up in the ghetto since he’d been away. It ain’t over yet, Cudjoe reminds himself.

  This rusty fence seems higher, the court smaller. He can’t remember the asphalt rectangle ever looking as forlorn, abandoned. In the old days when he’d arrive early to shoot around, the court might be deserted, but he’d never felt alone. Only a matter of time before other players would bop in. He wishes he’d brought a ball today so he could pat it, make it boom in the stillness. Glory hanging on every shot. He surveys the backboards, the crooked, netless rims. No clue anybody will play here today, tomorrow, ever. Was the court dead or just sleeping?

  Best action migrated all over the city. Years ago Cudjoe knew where they’d be playing any night of the week, they being the bad dudes, the cookers, superstars. If your stuff wasn’t ready better not bring it out there. They’d put a hurt on you. Send you home with your feelings hurt. Don’t care what college you play for. On the neighborhood courts no coaches, no referees, no scholarships, nothing but you and what you can do and a whole lot of bad brothers who could play some ball. Some Sunday afternoons the action came to Clark. Court up at Sixty-ninth and Haverford packed and people cruise by Clark, get it on here instead of lining up for winners at Sixty-ninth. Knuckleheads tore down one rim at Forty-seventh and Kingsessing, couldn’t run full court there, so Clark be it. The Big Time. Joint rocking. They all be out here.

  Nothing like it. Cudjoe can’t help smiling as he thinks of himself in the thick of the action. Pushing past the point of breaking but you don’t break, a sweet second wind gets you over and it’s easy then, past breaking or not breaking. Doing your thing and nothing can touch you. Past turning back. You’re out there. Doing it. Legs and heart and mind and breath working hard together. You forget everything you know and play. The wall you can’t move, that stops you and makes you cry when you beat your head against it, is suddenly full of holes. A velvet-stepped ladder tames the air. You can rise over the wall or glide through it. Do both at once. Unveil moves you didn’t know you owned. You don’t remember the wall till you’re past it, over on the other side and a guy runs up to you and sticks out his palm and you slap skin low, high, higher, and the winos, junkies, bullshitters and signifiers jamming the sidelines holler amen like they just seen Black Jesus.

  Cudjoe watches bodies flash past. A sound track explodes with crowd noise. The court’s full, then just as abruptly empty again. Seconds pass quietly as the camera pans splitting wooden backboards. Droopy rims. Asphalt cracked with dry riverbeds and tributaries. A view of the empty court shot through interlocking squares of chain-link fencing to suggest how things might look from the steel-meshed window of a prison cell. Inside looking out or outside looking in. Then the court’s full again. Music blasting. Players grunting, panting, squeak of sneakers, cheers from the sidelines, thud of strong bodies every shade of black and brown and ivory colliding, tangling, flying. Cudjoe inserts himself into his film, a solitary figure, narrow shoulders framed by the emptiness of the court that is quiet again. A man caught up in reverie, shuttling at warp speed between times and places, a then and a now. Cudjoe is an actor embarrassed by the cliché shot, a director who can’t resist filming it this way. Camera whirs behind his back, inside his skull. Court full, then empty. Sooty clouds, right on time, roll in from the west.

  He senses Margaret Jones behind him, moving closer. Coming the long way round, under the canopy of trees, then into a band of light where her body blurs, disintegrates, her steps slower as warmth drops on her shoulders. Her eyes are fixed on his back, sure now it’s him. Measuring, assessing the pose he’s held too long now, but won’t alter because he wants her to find him this way, wants her to shorten the distance between them, do some of the work to bring them together. He hopes she’s wondering what he’s thinking, that she’ll realize she doesn’t know everything about him. She reaches the trail worn through the grass alongside the far wing of the three-sided fence. He must not turn around too soon. He’ll break the spell, she’ll disappear. She’s wearing an intricately wrapped turban, a robe with swirls of bold color. A few more paces will free her image from the disciplined strands of wire. He pivots abruptly and finds no one there. His timing’s off. He’s scared her away. Would she have been there if he’d held out just an instant longer? Too late now, charm’s broken. Back across Chester Avenue a woman sitting apart from the others smokes a cigarette on the stone wall enclosing monkey bars and slides.

  Nkisa used to bring Simba here. I brought my kids, Billy and Karen, when they were little ones. Wasn’t nothing so great about the park. This dinky playground stuff been here forever and half of it been busted forever but I liked the walk down from Fifty-ninth and liked getting out the house. Somebody different to talk to. Other women stuck at home like me with little babies. So once in a while I’d truck all the way down here to Clark with one in the stroller and one holding my hand.

  Ten years or so ago.

  About that.

  Well, I might have seen you then. I lived on Osage. Spent half my life in the park. Played a lot of ball here.

  They still play. Or call themselves playing. More drinking and snorting and smoking reefer than ball playing. A rowdy bunch now.

  Used to be good hoop.

  I wouldn’t know anything about that, but I’d skin Billy or Karen alive if I caught them hanging around here. Pimpmobiles and dopemobiles. Sell you anything you big enough to ask for. And if I know what they’re doing, the cops got to know. You think the police do anything about it? Hell no. Not till one these little white chicks slinking around here ODs and turns up dead, then they’ll come down on that corner like gangbusters.

  So the park’s not what it used to be.

  What is? Tell me if you know what is.

  You might have run into my wife and boys here.

  You have ch
ildren?

  Yes. Two boys. Probably about the age of your lads. They live with their mother now.

  She stares at him as if none of this is news.

  Thanks for meeting me this morning.

  We been through all that once, ain’t we? Started off with that polite, nicey-nice do. Don’t need to go back to that again. I’m here. You’re here. Got my reasons. I’m sure you have yours. You might want to take back some of that thank-you when you hear what I have to say. The boy’s gone.

  Gone? Gone where?

  Nobody knows. Just disappeared.

  Are you sure?

  Sure as I’m sitting here.

  Gone.

  Like a turkey through the corn. My friends haven’t seen him for a week. Finally got him to where he’d play with other kids. Had him a few little buddies come by every day and seemed like he was getting better. Simba even talked some with the kids. Grown-ups thought he’d forgot how. Said they saw him smile for the first time too, when he was around other kids. My friends who were keeping him said they’d let Simba go off and play with his gang because he was improving. Being around other kids doing him a world of good. He learned to ride a bike. Buddies taught him and one day he rode off nobody ain’t seen him since.

  Have they tried to find him?

  What do you think, mister? They was taking care of the child. They nursed him, put up with his craziness. A little wild animal for weeks after the fire. They loved him back from craziness and now they scared to death somebody’s done something else to hurt him. Trying every way they know how to find him. But nobody knows nothing. Had a lawyer who lives in the neighborhood check downtown. If the cops know something, they’re not talking. Seems like that poor boy rode his bike right off the end of the earth.

  Jesus.

  That’s what I say. This whole ugly business keeps getting worse. People murdered and burnt up is bad enough, but it won’t stop there. Can’t stop it seems. Worked so hard to make Simba better and now he disappears. Don’t make sense. Something going on that’s deep-down bad. Something nasty and ugly that’s bound to get worse.

  Will your friends talk to me?

  Best for you to stay away from my friends. I sic you on them they won’t be my friends anymore. They’re upset. And got a right to be. Ain’t hardly a time for strangers to come around asking questions. Too many questions already. People want answers.

  If somebody doesn’t keep asking questions, how will the boy be found?

  Don’t you worry about that. Folks don’t need any interference right now in what they’re trying to do. What I’m saying is leave it be. Butt out. Whatever’s going on, people around here can handle it. They got to. No choice. This where they live. We’re not looking for help from you or nobody else. Help is what started this mess. Somebody called himself helping is the one lit the fire.

  * * *

  What starts the action, two young bloods shooting around. Gradually six or seven others saunter onto the court. If you’re listening for it, drumming of the ball on asphalt carries for blocks. The game’s one on one on one. Every man for himself. You keep the pill as long as you can score. Make a shot from the field with somebody guarding you then make three free ones from behind the key then you try and score from the field again, with somebody checking you and so on till you miss. Whoever rebounds the miss is next up. Anybody can guard the one with the ball, but the last one who missed has to check him. Keep track of your own points. Call out your score each time you hit a shot. When you close in on twenty-one the whole mob comes chasing you. No out of bounds, no fouls. Point is you got to get the ball. Show what you can do with it when you got it.

  A way of loosening up. A way of seeing who can play. No passing, no teamwork, no slowdown or fast break. Everybody up against it. One on one on one.

  Even after enough bodies to run full court, no game starts because older players begin to straggle in. Some sit on the sidelines. One or two join in the one-on-one game, wolfing, joshing, schooling the young guys. Clearly stronger, more experienced, able to dominate and talk trash and have it their way.

  A box is set up and begins blasting. Players synchronize their dribbling, head fakes, spins and stutter steps with the tunes. Music’s inside the game. If you can’t hear it, you can see it. Somebody always getting off, doing his step in the middle of the action. On time. Younger players drift off to a single basket behind the fence where they mess around during the whole court run. People shoot for teams. Everybody takes a turn on the foul line till ten make it or the first two choose squads. Somebody calls winners. Somebody shouts. Got next after you. First out’s decided by another shot from the top of the key, make-it-take-it, and the run’s on.

  That’s how it was supposed to start. And it did. They got that part right.

  Been awhile, Cudjoe is thinking, and that’s why he missed. On line but not enough arch. He’d returned to the park to find a game and now he was trying to guide the ball rather than shoot it. Shooting’s all in the mind. You must believe the ball’s going in. Confidence and the amen wrist flick of follow-through. You reach for the sky, launch the ball so it rotates off your fingertips and let it drop through the rim. When you hold on too long, when you don’t relax and extend your arm and let nature take its course, you shoot short. Because you don’t believe. Because you’re trying too hard to maintain control, you choke the ball and it comes up short.

  First go-round only six made it so a second chance for everybody who blew. This time Cudjoe’s too strong. Ball boomerangs off the back of the iron. He sits out the first run. Takes winners with two other guys who missed their free throws.

  Game was rag ass. Too much like one on one. A neighborhood run. No surprises. Too much assumed and conceded. A few good players who weren’t half as good as they thought they were, sloppily doing more or less what they felt like doing. A few possessed one outstanding skill or talent and slipped it into the game when they could, often when they shouldn’t. Defense nonexistent. Everybody going for steals or blocks instead of hanging tight with their man. Chump city. More action cooking around the court than on it. Block long Eldorado drop top docked at the curb. Deals going down. Basketball game like a TV set playing in a crowded room and nobody watching.

  Who’s next?

  There’s a spot for you, O.T.

  My man wants to run, too.

  He’s five then. You, your man, that dude over there talking to Peewee, this brother and me.

  Solid.

  My name’s Cudjoe.

  This Mike. They call me O.T. What’s the score?

  Just started, man.

  Ain’t much out there.

  Early. This the first run.

  Cudjoe. My oldest brother used to play with a dude name Cudjoe.

  What’s your brother’s name?

  Darnell.

  Darnell Thompson?

  Yeah.

  And you’re Skeets?

  When I was little I was Skeets.

  How’s Darnell?

  He’s in the slam, man. Five years now.

  Damn.

  Dope, man. Into the dope shit, you know.

  Darnell?

  Yeah. Surprised everybody. My big brother always a together dude. Never in no trouble. He looked out for me. More like a daddy to me, you know. Then dope, man. He just couldn’t handle. Stealing and shit.

  Damn. I’m sorry. Ran with Darnell many a day. Right here. Darnell could bust the jumper.

  He was tough. Used to watch his every move and wanna be like him some day. I remember you now. Cudjoe. Kind of a different name, you know. Remember the name. Now I’m remembering seeing you play with my brother. You had a nice game. You still busting?

  Up next with you.

  Can you still do it?

  I’m in shape. I can run. But it’s been awhile since I’ve played. Not much ball where I was.

  Ain’t nothing out there on the court. We’ll win a few and you be cooking like the old days.

  Skeets grown up.

  Been
a long time since they call me Skeets.

  You in school?

  Was, man. I’m working now, you know, so I can go back.

  Did you play ball?

  First semester. Then the books. I fucked up. Lost my free ride. Had to drop out. I’m going back, though. Working now so I can pay my way. Coach say, you know, if I make the team, he’ll go to bat for me. See if he can, you know, get me some money.

  Good luck with it.

  Yeah. I’ma get myself together. Make something of myself, man. It’s been nice talking to you.

  Sorry about your brother.

  That’s the way it goes.

  Cudjoe watches O.T. move off. Darnell Thompson all over again. Big, black, graceful. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, short, bouncy, almost delicate steps. Darnell’s soft, easy manner. Eagerness in his voice as he leans into a conversation. Enjoying what he’s saying, what you have to say. Taller by inches than his brother. O.T. had grown a body to fit Darnell’s enormous hands. Ten years. Did anything get better instead of worse? Why couldn’t he believe Darnell’s brother? Why did he hear ice cracking as O.T. spoke of his plans? Why did he see Darnell’s rusty hard hand wrapped around his brother’s dragging him down?

  One guy on their squad a leaper. About Cudjoe’s height, six one or six two, only leaner, younger. Not much of a shot, but he’d go after everything that missed. Quick as a frog off his feet, a hustler, battler who loved running the court, banging underneath. Then a short dude, runty and arrogant, who pushed the pill downcourt helter-skelter, advantage or no, constantly jamming himself up. Favored behind-the-back, through-the-legs, over-the-backboard passes. Disappeared when the ball not in his hands. When it was in his hands, he forgot about the other four people playing with him, dribbled himself into trouble so he could dribble out again, feeling taller and slicker each time he escaped a trap he’d created for himself. O.T.’s friend Mike was solid, skilled, understood the game; he was dependable, fun to play with. O.T. a monster, operating a foot or so above everybody else. Took what he wanted. Changed gears when he wanted to. Let the other team stay close enough to believe they had a chance. Then blew them away—steals, slams, blocked shots.