Ball Don't Lie

by Matt De La Peña

  I’m out, Sticky said, and gave the group a head nod.

  All the residents got up and circled around him, took turns saying their goodbyes. Long-haired Tommy shook Sticky’s hand. Angie and Lisa, fourteen-year-old twins from the valley, stuck out their bottom lips all sad-like and gave tight hugs. We’ll miss you, Sticky, they both said at the exact same time.

  Be cool, Jerome said in a Barry White voice. He slapped Sticky five and pulled him in for a quick dude-to-dude-style embrace.

  Six-year-old Pedro, who was new to the house and spoke only Spanish, didn’t say anything. He wrapped his skinny arms around Sticky’s legs and clung tight. Wouldn’t let go. Two tears fell down his brown cheeks as Sticky patted him on the top of the head. After a couple minutes, Counselor Julius had to peel Pedro away.

  Everybody loved Sticky because he was OG. The seasoned veteran of the house. The resident who knew the system inside and out and could go into detail to some new kid with questions.

  What was strange about the whole goodbye scene, though, was that it didn’t include Maria. She was Sticky’s closest companion. His first lady of the foster world. But when everybody else got up to see him off, she stayed with the video. And this was something Sticky didn’t understand. He leaned his head forward, tried to make eye contact and told her: Hey, Maria, I’m takin off.

  Oh, bye, Maria said, pretending to be distracted by the video. She put her hand up no-look style and then let it fall back into her lap.

  Sticky shrugged and turned to take off, but Maria spoke up: They’re just gonna bring you back here in a couple months, Sticky. You know that by now. They always bring us back.

  Sticky shook his head and walked away.

  Julius was waiting in the hall with his arms folded. He pulled Sticky into the counselor’s office. I wanna give you something, he said, and he walked around the desk and reached into the closet. Pulled out an Old Navy bag and set it up on the desk. It’s not that big of a deal, but I thought you might want it.

  Sticky pulled open the bag and found the old beat-up house basketball. The one he’d learned to play the game with.

  Julius pulled the ball out and looked it over. This thing’s seen better days, man. He spun the ball on his finger and looked at Sticky. Listen, the supervisors are always trippin about house equipment, so don’t go tellin everybody.

  You could really just give it to me? Sticky said.

  I can’t, Julius said. But I just did. He faked a pass and Sticky flinched.

  That’s real cool, Julius. Thanks.

  Julius reached out and shook Sticky’s hand. I’m not gonna lie, dude, you turned out to be a pretty good baller. Now hurry up and get out of here. That fat broad is sittin out there waitin for you.

  Sticky cruised out of the house with the Old Navy bag over his shoulder and a small bag of clothes in his left hand. As he went to pull open the passenger door of Georgia’s minivan, the old Mexican director came speeding around the corner in his little Honda Civic. He pulled up along the curb and cut off the engine. Jumped out. I barely caught you, he said, shutting his door. He walked over to Sticky’s side of the van and waved through the window to Georgia. She waved back.

  Julius did all the paperwork, Sticky said.

  I’m not worried about the paperwork, the director said. He looked Sticky in the eye and gave him a firm handshake. You and I have known each other a long time.

  Yeah, Sticky said.

  I’d like to think we’ve become friends.

  Yeah, Sticky said.

  Well, I wanted to tell you this, Sticky, as a friend: Over the past eight years I’ve seen a few families pick you up only to turn around and bring you right back. And that’s confusing. It’s real confusing. But you need to realize that it’s not your fault. That it has nothing to do with you. In fact I consider myself the lucky one. I’ve had the pleasure of watching Sticky-the-boy become Sticky-the-young-man. And what’s special about you, son, is not the way you play foosball or basketball or any other game—it’s who you are. He pointed to Sticky’s chest. You’re a good person, Sticky. A good human being.

  Sticky didn’t know what he was supposed to say to that so he didn’t say anything. Instead he nodded his head and stared at the pavement.

  The director smiled and drummed his fingers on the roof of the van, said: I hope you never lose sight of that. You mean a lot to me. As Sticky climbed into the passenger’s seat, the director exchanged waves with Georgia again. Then he shut the door and motioned her back onto the road.

  Georgia merged onto the 10 heading west. She pulled open a big bag of chips, set it in her lap and reached inside. You’re my fifth foster kid, she said, shoving a couple chips into her mouth. This makes two whites, a Oriental, a black and a little Mexican girl. She reached back into the bag. I tell friends: It’s like the flippin United Nations at my house.

  Sticky pulled the house basketball out of the Old Navy bag and set it in his lap. He examined the tiny rips in the synthetic leather.

  Now, I run a pretty laid-back house, Georgia went on. You kids do your chores and don’t give me any headaches, everything’s fine. It really boils down to this: You make life easy for me, I make life easy for you. I like to think of it as a kind of business arrangement.

  Sticky ran his fingers along the grooves of the ball. He spun it around and stared at the thick black initials of his foster care pad: 7 FLOW. Stuck his fingers in the groove, thumb between the 7 and F, and imagined lofting up a soft twenty-footer over the outstretched hands of some over-matched defender.

  My husband’s gone all day. He works like sixty-hour weeks so you’ll hardly see him. Of course, I work just as hard as he does. We got in a big fight about that just last night. He thinks all I do is sit around the house watching TV. I told him: Uh, no, honey, I don’t think so. I told him: I got a full-time job just the same as you do—I take care of other people’s kids.

  Georgia kept on talking, but Sticky wasn’t listening. He had his daydream channel set on more important things. Like, where was he gonna play ball in Venice? He’d seen some famous court by the beach in a movie. And Julius told him about some gym called Lincoln Rec. He started thinking about other things too. Like, what was the old Mexican director trying to tell him when he was leaving? That he was a good person? And how strange was that? He’d never had anybody talk about him like that. It didn’t make any sense. But maybe that was just part of his job. Something he was supposed to say.

  Georgia’s voice turned into background sound. Like the wind rushing in through the rolled-down windows. Like the sound of the traffic report coming in over the AM radio. Sticky traced the letters on the ball and did some other kinds of thinking too. He thought about what Maria said. How he’d probably get dropped back off in a couple months. How if that came true he just wished the director hadn’t said what he said. It seemed like the kind of thing someone says to someone when they know they’ll never see that person again. And he figured if it was true, that this chip-eating lady would one day bring him back too, like the rest of them, then he should at least know in advance. That way he could think up something good to say to the director. Something that might make him feel right about what he said. About Sticky being a good person. Something that might make him feel like it wasn’t a mistake.

  Sticky stared out the window and tried to remember all the billboards they passed: Chevron Gas, Gateway Computers, In-N-Out Burger, Staples, The Sports Club/LA. That way he could know what’s up if they ever passed them again, going back the other way.

  Pop Songs Echo

  through the tiny staff bathroom in Millers. Britney Spears drops bubblegum beats that bounce off the stall walls and into Anh-thu’s throbbing head. When her tune fades, Justin Timberlake takes over. OutKast. Matchbox Twenty. Jennifer Lopez. Their melodies filling the blue-tiled box of a bathroom with cotton candy.

  Anh-thu leans on her elbows over the toilet bowl. One hand gripping white porcelain, the other holding back her long black hair. She spits and stares int
o the water: a rippling reflection of her puffy brown face. She heaves again and coughs. Flushes. Everything is pushing at the back of her watery eyes.

  She spits again and stares.

  The summer music mix bumps into an old-school Rob Base jam: “It Takes Two.” It’s the third time Anh-thu’s heard this song today and her ears anticipate every shift in melody. She pictures the way customers always react, busting a couple quick dance steps near a mirror or keeping time with a subtle head bop.

  She wipes away forehead sweat with the back of her hand.

  Shift leader Dori creeps up to the locked bathroom door and leans in with an ear, taps her knuckles. Everything OK, Annie? She fingers the end of her long blond ponytail.

  Anh-thu spins around, says through the door in her best smiling voice: Everything’s fine.

  All right, Dori says. Just checking. She listens at the door a few seconds longer and then heads back out onto the floor.

  Anh-thu turns back to the bowl. She digs her fingers into her stomach again and starts to cry. She’s picturing Sticky’s face if she really is pregnant. She’s so nervous her stomach feels nauseous again. She heaves and coughs. She spits. Flushes.

  Ten minutes ago Anh-thu was folding clothes with the rest of the girls. Folding and talking about some guy that gave Laura his cell number. They were gathered around the fifty-percent-off table, listening to Laura and cleaning up the two-story mess left by thoughtless customers—people who pull every item off a sale stack, unfold and throw back. Laura was dropping serious insight about UCLA dudes, what a girl has to do to catch their eye. She was doing heavy analysis, but Anh-thu had stopped listening.

  Anh-thu was thinking about Sticky again. How her situation might mess everything up. It was her birthday, she was sixteen today, and Sticky would show up with a gift. He’d want to touch her and kiss her. But what if everything was different now?

  She tossed an unfolded shirt on a stack of sweaters and hustled for the staff bathroom holding her stomach.

  Somethin up with Annie, Laura said, watching Anh-thu hurry off.

  She’s not being normal, a girl named Julie said.

  Shift leader Dori finished folding a sweater and watched Anh-thu turn the corner into the break room. She figured she’d give her a couple minutes before she went over to investigate.

  Anh-thu picks herself up from the toilet and moves to the sink. She turns the water on full blast, cups her hands and splashes her face. She rinses out her mouth. She shuts the water off and pulls down a clean towel from the cupboard. As she dries her face, she stares at herself in the mirror. Her hair matted to her forehead. Her swollen eyes and puffy cheeks. This is the way her face looks after a long night of crying.

  But when she locks in on her own eyes for too long, starts thinking about her situation, her and Sticky’s situation, that nervous sick feeling comes spinning back into her stomach. She plants a hand against the sink and looks away.

  Eminem starts flowing through the speakers: “Lose Yourself.” The song Sticky made Anh-thu listen to over and over a few days back, on the tape deck of a borrowed car.

  He drove them up to a small empty lot between two giant houses with tall fences. Somewhere in the Pacific Palisades. There were dense trees and bushes so nobody could look in. Signs that warned in big black writing: KEEP OUT. There were construction postings and idle tractors, a streetlight dug out of the ground and lying on its side. Sticky maneuvered the car past all that stuff and up to the edge of the cliff, where he cranked the parking brake. He and Anh-thu looked out at the stars hovering above the big black ocean. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. Sticky bopped his head with the beat and pulled Anh-thu in close. They held hands and kissed.

  At one point, he motioned to the tape deck and told her: This dude got skills, Annie.

  Anh-thu agreed.

  He said: You know what? I wanna be the Eminem of hoops .

  Anh-thu laughed.

  When Eminem spilled his last line of lyrics and the beat trailed off, Sticky hit rewind and started the song all over again.

  Anh-thu feels like crying again but instead she stomps her foot to stop herself. Quit acting like a little girl, she says to her image in the mirror, and she grits her teeth. Just stop it already.

  She takes a few deep breaths and tries to pull herself together. She tosses the towel in a bin, runs a finger under each eye and straightens her clothes. She takes another deep breath and unwraps a stick of gum. As she pops the gum in her mouth she devises a plan. What’s done is done, she thinks. All she can do is deal. She’ll tell Sticky the situation tonight, and then go from there based on how he reacts. It might not go perfect at first, but they’ll figure out what to do.

  A Jewel song comes on, one she doesn’t really dig, but Anh-thu feels okay about her plan. She takes another deep breath and unlocks the door. Then she heads back out onto the floor.

  Two Old Cops

  climb into the bleachers next to Sticky and pull out notepads.

  The white cop has a salt-and-pepper crop of hair starting halfway up his head. A beer gut that lips over the buckle of his belt. He plops down on one side of Sticky and strains for breath.

  The black cop is a tall lanky dude, 6’ 5’’ at least. He has juicy Jheri Curls spiraling down the back of his neck. He sits on the other side and pulls a pen from behind his ear, says: Now the suspect, you say he’s a light-skinned brother?

  Sticky nods, eyes glued to the court. Sticky’s been a prisoner since the Fat Chuck thing happened a couple hours earlier. Sure, the games are rolling again, Dallas and Dante are back on against Rob’s squad, but right now Sticky is Stuck in the bleachers.

  Out on the court, Old-man Perkins sets a hard screen for Johnson, who dribbles toward the wing and dishes to Dreadlock Man in the corner. Dreadlock Man lofts up a prayer that somehow hits nothing but net. He yells out Peanut Butter! three times as he runs back on defense. And then, in case someone still isn’t sure who scored, he yells it out again: Peanut Butter! His raspy voice cutting through an otherwise silent game. The whole gym quiet and cuss-free due to the two busters with badges sitting up in the bleachers with Sticky.

  Off the court, every couple minutes a different guy will cruise by the bleachers and pat Sticky on the back. Tell him in his ear: We gonna find him, Stick. Don’t even trip about that. Then walk away.

  And he’s been in here before? the white cop says.

  Sticky nods.

  What about his clothing? the black cop says. What’s this brother wearin?

  Sticky shrugs his shoulders. He kicks at the bleacher in front of him and leans back. Kicks again, only softer this time, and puts on a mad-dog glare. He can’t believe this has happened. Can’t believe he’s stuck up here going over the play-by-play again with a couple of cops.

  Now don’t get all sassy, kid, the white cop says. That certainly won’t get us anywhere.

  Just play it cool and answer the questions, the black cop says. We’ll take care of the rest.

  Sticky leans forward with his elbows on his knees, rests his head in his hands.

  I can’t say I understand the attitude, the white cop says. He fingers the sweat off his forehead and wipes it on his cop pants. We’re here to help you. We’re on your side.

  Know what, Tom? the black cop says to his partner. This kid looks kinda familiar. He turns to Sticky, says: Why do I get the feelin I’ve slapped some cuffs on you before?

  Sticky stays with the game, but his mind floats back in time. He pictures leaning against the chain-link fence next to the Boys and Girls Club in Santa Monica, the black cop patting him down and calling him an asshole. He remembers the sound the metal cuffs made behind his back when they clinked together. The feel of the cold metal digging into his wrists as the cop pulled him to the car, shoved him in the backseat and slammed the door.

  I’ll be damned if he don’t look familiar, the black cop says.

  He who is the victim one minute, is the perpetrator the next, the white cops says to his pa
rtner. He laughs a little, says: You know how this city works, Sam.

  That’s poetic, man, the black cop says.

  The white cop turns back to Sticky, says: Now let’s try this again, kid. What type of clothing was the suspect wearing?

  Sweatpants, Sticky says, still staring at the game. Gray, I think.

  After Chuck sped out of the parking lot, Sticky had begged Jimmy to keep the cops out of it. He walked through the office door and explained that it wasn’t that big of a deal. Bringing cops in would be an overreaction. He claimed he and the guys in the gym could handle business on their own. It’s called street justice, he said. But Jimmy told Sticky he had to make the call, that it was part of his job. Something goes down on his watch and he makes the call. That’s the way he was trained to do it. Somebody finds out he didn’t follow protocol and then it would be his job on the line. After he said that, he nudged Sticky out of the way and pulled the office door closed. Picked up the phone.

  Through the window, Sticky watched Jimmy put the receiver to his ear and punch in the numbers. Watched his mouth lock and twist and twitch as he tried to form the words that would explain what Fat Chuck had tried to do to him in the public restroom.

  The two cops fire question after question at Sticky, they want to know everything: what did the suspect say? when did he try to touch? was there actual sexual contact? was there a scuffle? They take turns, one after the other like they’re singing a duet. And they barely allow time for an answer. When Sticky speaks up they scribble his words down on notepads. Sticky thinks back to his court appearance for throwing the concrete through the glass at that car dealership. He had to answer the same questions posed the same way. He wonders how this, being the innocent person, is any different from being guilty: where do you live? how long have you lived there? who needs to be contacted? how will you get home?

  At one point, the white cop leans in close and tells Sticky: You really think this is the type of place you should be hanging around, kid?