The Moves Make the Man (11 page)

I agree, I said. I've been bored stiff for ten minutes.

That ain't what I mean, Sambo. What I mean is, we got to place a little sporting em-pha-sis on this match. He pulled his head back and looked down the length of the car. We got any sporting enthusiasts in here? he yelled with a grin.

Several white men laughed and waved their hands. The dude nodded and made a sign like he would deal with them in a minute.

We got to place some risk and stakes, he said. For the par-ti-ci-pants as well as for the observers. Like, what do you have you want to play for?

Well, of course I had only my ball. So I thought a minute and then said, I have this leather basketball, but I doubt it would be much use to you, seeing as it will not laugh at your very funny lines or respond in any way unless you actually do some work with it.

It was the leather ball Coach Newk lent me. I would not lose it for the world.

The uniform dude snickered. A ball. Country nigger got nothing but a ball to his name. Ain't you got anything else?

I left my hoe back in the watermelon patch, I said. A few white faces laughed, probably because they thought I meant it.

All right, said the big sporting enthusiast, Bobo here will stand you for your ball. He nodded and Bobo and he made to come out.

Hold on, I said. They stopped. I said, What are YOU going to put up?

Bobo shrugged at the big dude like HE sure had nothing, being just a streetwise junkie alcoholic robber who traveled light and needed only his atmosphere. The uniform dude snapped something at him and Bobo shook his head. They argued a little bit. A couple of the white men made comments like Come on, put something up, or Get on with it we got bets to place and such. A few had money bills in their hands.

What about it? I said.

Okay, okay, said the ticket dude. He looked like he was making a tough decision. He frowned and looked at me, up and down, sizing me up, then looked at Bobo. He decided Bobo's eight inches height advantage or so must be good enough, and so he pulled out this shiny complicated looking thing and said, We'll put up this. Then he and Bobo came on out.

When they got out I saw Bobo was bigger than I thought, both taller and fatter. I bounced him the ball to let him warm up. The other dude snatched it away from him and stuck his face close to it with a frown and studied it, like he expected it to be a cardboard cutout of a ball and not a sphere at all. Or to see if it was genuine leather. He even sniffed it.

Okay, I said, let me see your thing.

He said, oh no, no touchee. But he held it up, and I saw that it was a lantern, a beautiful one at that, official railroad issue with a brass plate on it with the name of the railroad and all kinds of tricky looking features, very classy. I said, Okay. He put the lantern down very carefully and bounced the ball to Bobo.

Listen child, he said, pointing into Bobo's face. You best be winning or you won't see Florida out of your swole-up eyes. Then he went back inside the car and while Bobo went ahead and warmed I watched the big dude shuffle up and down the aisle of the car, grinning and acting all jive and shucksy, taking money and making bets with the white folks. I could see that he was taking all bets, which the crackers were betting on me. This surprised me at first, but then I realized they probably did not care about throwing their money away. They were stalled on their way to throw it away in Florida, so why not get in a little practice here?

I watched Bobo a little. He was typical hip city coon, real street meat. City kids think they can learn all they need by watching pro games on television and then acting like they are those guys. They hear all the words to say, know whether to call the ball The Pill this year or The Egg, whether it's cooler to kick yourself in the rear with your feet as you heave your jumpshot or to let your legs hang limp and spread out, very casual. Style, baby. They are so busy watching them
selves on TV you can drive right past them while they fool with the fine tuning, and I am afraid that is what happened to old Bobo the blazing Blue Devil. We played make-it-take-it to ten buckets and he did not get his hands on the ball until I had scored seven straight lay-ups. I spun through him, I slipped by him, once I bounced the ball between his legs and dashed around to catch it on the other side of him and took it in for a finger roll while he still had his back to the basket thinking Now where has The Pill got to? He got a rebound once, dribbled out to thirty feet and let fly, kicking himself nicely in the rear but the shot was two feet short and that was it for his offense, as I closed out the game ten-zip. We extended it to twenty buckets and made it alternating possession, but Bobes still could not cut it. He hollered Hey! when I shot and swore horribly when he shot, he hand checked me, he yelled Get glass! when shooting a shot off the boards but none of them went in, perhaps because the backboard was not glass but iron. I slowed down a little, feeling sorry for him and knowing he would catch it from his uncle or whoever the dude was. But then I heard the engine start to stoke and steam, and as I did not want to give that sucker any excuse to short me I went ahead and hit four in a row to win the twenty. During the last few baskets the dude had come right up to courtside, screaming at Bobo to keep a hand in my face or use the bod or back me in or post me low and all this crap, and while Bobo was listening I was flying. I finished him off with one from the top of the key, PISH, just as the train blew its whistle.

That's it, I said.

The white men inside the car had busted into cheers and were stomping up and down and crowing to beat the train whistle. The dude looked back at them over his shoulder
and frowned most dismal. I could see one of his pockets was full of money the white men had placed with him. He must have planned on dropping that wad in Miami but now he would have to match it I guess. His hands were clenching and shaking.

Good game, Bobes, I said.

Bobes said nothing once again but started to slink back to the train. The uniform dude gave him a nasty clip on the top of the head with the back of his hand as he walked past and snarled something and Bobo ran onto the train near about crying.

Well, I said to the dude, you have got me about tired now, in case you want to try your own luck double or naught.

He glared like he was one quiver away from shooting me dead if only he had not left his mighty gun back in DC. But then the train tooted and he looked at it and it started to roll the tiniest bit. When he looked back at me his eyes were crafty and thin again and he smiled this tight little smile and said, See you later, jigaboo. Have a good life here in Uncle Tom's Cabinville. Then he picked up the lantern and ran back toward the train, which was beginning to pick up speed.

Hey! I yelled. That lantern is mine! I can use it!

Kiss off, Buckwheats, he said. You be too dumb to get what's yours.

I ran after him but he had a start on me and by now he was pulling even with the door platform and I could see him setting up to jump on from the run, and I would never see him or my lantern again. Bobo was inside the door reaching out to take the lantern or help his jive uncle on board even though he had just got smacked on the head with his back turned, which shows how bright poor Bobes is.

But then Bobo disappeared, jerked back out of the door,
and two white men stepped onto the platform and blocked the way. The uniform dude was by now sprinting full speed and so was I, but he was getting tired, and keeping alongside the train going that fast and faster was getting dangerous.

Hey, he said.

Give the kid the pretty flashlight, said one of the men. They were both bald and overweight, wearing white belts and red pants and these shoes that were woven out of straw or something, but they looked like they meant business and were also having fun, which made them look even tougher.

The big-time bookie was panting by now and sweating bad, running almost full speed and barely keeping up with the train. I was gaining a little on him, but not on the train, which began to pull away.

Hey, he screamed. Come on. Let me on.

The kid won the lantern fair and square, one of the white men said. Cough it up.

I work here, the dude said. The men just smiled. You could see they would let him run clear to Florida and love it.

Give it to him, they said.

It's railroad property, he screamed, stumbling a little toward the train and hollering like a girl in fright as he went near the wheels. I ran smoother on the grass beside the gravel track bed.

Not anymore it isn't, the shorter man said. The other one looked at his watch and shrugged like as to say, Amazing you've made it this long, but soon we'll be leaving you behind.

Help! screamed the poor nigger.

Toot toot! said one man. Chugga choo choo! said the other.

The sucker was almost exhausted. His hat suddenly whipped back off his head and flew under the wheels and got mashed but quick, and he turned his ankle and gasped and sweated, and nothing was going quite right anymore was it?

If you're still here when we come back through next week, said one man, we'll bring you an orange.

Choo choo, said the other, making a motion like pulling a whistle, and the whistle actually tooted. The both of them laughed at this, while the sucker was losing ground faster now and me too.

All right! he screamed but his voice cracked and it sounded silly. He looked back at me quick but hateful and in full stride tried to throw the lantern to the ground but he put too much loft on it on account of the motion and I was able to run right under it and catch it without hurting a thing. I looked up as I slowed down, and saw the men helping him aboard plenty fast now and none too gentle. After all, he had all their money and they would rather he did not stay behind, which he was too nasty to recall or perhaps could have driven a harder bargain. Maybe not, though—I think those white men would have made him come across with the lantern no matter what.

I slowed down and finally stopped, hugging the lantern to keep from jostling or dropping it. Then I went back to the court to get my ball, and sat down on it to rest for a minute and look at my new prize.

The lantern was heavy and rich-looking and beautiful. It was enameled, very hard and thick, looking like the finish on Sting Shields's Thunderbird car that he polishes all day Saturday and Sunday and tells how much he paid to have it lacquered up in Raleigh. The glass was thick and had a few bubbles in it but this only made it look like good real glass
instead of cheap stuff.

There was a gold plate on it, or maybe brass I suppose. It said CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE and then a little lower there was a date, 1911. Man, this thing was fifty years old!

The last thing I studied was the best. It was a sort of folding shield that slipped over the glass globe, either over half or all of it, which I guessed meant you could cover it up and let half the light out or none if you wanted to sneak. That knocked me out.

On the way home I carried my ball in one hand on my hip and in the other the lantern, swinging. It was heavy but not when you held it right, being so balanced that it swung in your hand just as you stepped and you never really felt it at all.

When I got home I showed it to Henri and Maurice and Momma, telling them all the story. Momma said what I was afraid of, that I ought to take it back to the railroad depot and give it up, as I won it without that man having the right to let me have it.

But then Maurice cleared his throat and looked very serious and said he disagreed with Momma. He said that I had competed in moral correctness and good faith not impeached by improper wagers on the part of my opponent's agent, and to deprive me on the basis of another man's deception of his trust would possibly serve to tip my perspective on material versus moral values. Then Mo cleared his throat again and we all sat for a second trying to figure what he said and I blurted out that for once I agreed with him.

He is right, Momma, I said.

You have no idea what he said, she said.

He said I won it fair and square and will get all wrong
headed if you take it away.

She looked at Mo and he tried to look fifty years old and she looked at Henri and he was trying not to laugh, as Mo's big numbers always kill him. Then she looked at me. What do you want with a lantern? she said.

Light, I said. What else?

All right, she said. Heaven help us for receiving stolen property.

I clapped my hands and slapped Maurice five though I had to pull his hand out flat to do it. Henri cleared his throat and congratulated Momma on a Crisis Averted in my childhood.

Now let me get some sleep, said Momma. And Jerome, I do not want to see that light coming out from under your door at night.

Only place anybody's going to see this light is on a little basketball court in the woods, I said. Good night all.

The next night I was all set. Now I could do my homework after dinner and not have to save two hours for it and so have only one for hoops, being able to knock it down in just over one hour and then cut out for the rest of the night until bedtime. Now I could play in the dark, and also had time to get to my main old court.

Before I left, Momma made me come in and show her I could work the lantern all safe and sound. It was a snap, which it should be with a machine that has class. This baby burned even and clean, did not smell hardly at all, and gave off a grand white-yellow light I could not wait to see in the dark.

I slipped through town without lighting it, not wanting to attract any attention especially somebody like Poke Peters or the Panthers, a gang which hangs around the back side of Left Alley sometimes and are not mean though acting it, but just kind of bored and have a way of wrecking your plans if they snag you. I felt like a secret as I stepped through the town, because now the dark was my choice—I had light if I wanted it, but used the shade like some slinky superdude in a comic.

When I got through town and all the way out to the edge
of the marsh fields, I stopped beside a rock and bent all down and lit the sucker up with matches from my sweat shirt pouch. Baboom! Man! The light was fine! It burned upwards yellow and clear, and threw my shadow up so you could not see it in the black sky. There was no shadow on the ground, the lantern being low, and this would be good for hoops.

While I carried it across the marsh I thought how weird it must look to the birds and things watching from the woods, one speck of yellow light bopping over at them like mystery. At first I liked this idea. But when I got really closer to the woods I started to not like it so much.

The reason was, the woods felt different that night. I had never been in them this late, when it was really dark. The dark was quiet and deep-looking but complicated, not just black. The path was curvy and always a bush or tree trunk would be in the way of the light and keep it from penetrating. Also, there were things watching me. I did not think if they were animals or birds or creatures of whatever sort, just watchers, and that was enough to know. I was not afraid of them but it made me feel rude, blazing in on them with my big-time flash. So I snapped down the shield over the lantern glass, and phwoom, there I was in the dark with the rest of the things and it was better. I knew my way through the woods by heart so it did not matter.

I clipped along pretty silent in the darkness. I was starting to get excited about hitting the first jumper of my new nighttime season, my fingers aching to arch that baby up at the hoop lit so beautifully from underneath. I was grinning and juking a little, a head fake here and there, when I suddenly heard a sound stopped me cold and still on the spot.

But as soon as I stopped the sound stopped too. I waited to hear it again but did not, so I crept forward again but
very careful to be quiet.

It came again. I froze, and caught the end of it before it stopped, so getting to hear it for what it was clear enough.

It was the sound of a basketball bouncing three times.

A basketball! But there was no light coming from the court. I was at a place I knew, the last bend in the path before the clearing, where these three sassafras bushes sit. I knew if there was a light I would be able to see it through the last trees, but no, there was nothing.

I decided to get closer and check things out as long as I could stay invisible. So the next time the bouncing started I shot around the bend and up to the big cedar on the lip of the clearing about twenty feet from the court. I hung under the lowest branches and couldn't anybody see me even if they were a cat. My lantern was all dark under its shield.

I looked out at the court and squinted and waited for my eyes to get used to the dark. I hoped I might could pin some shape against the hemlocks on the other side of the clearing but no way. That place was black like the pocket of a coat tucked way back in an old closet.

So I listened, and what I heard was strange enough to keep me under the cedar for a while.

At first it seemed just all mixed up, unorganized, and I thought whoever it was must truly be a nut out there. There were a few bounces, then nothing, then all of a sudden a THWONG which must have been the ball hitting the board, which was steel like a gong. Then bounces again and steps light and quick and nothing for a while after that for a few seconds. Then came the weirdest part, giving me shivers down my neck.

A voice whispered, very faint, and what it whispered was numbers.

Twenty-eight. Forty. Fifty-one. Whispered like you do when you are all alone and just want to mention something to remember. You would never whisper if somebody was there, just remember inside.

I kept listening, getting less spooked as it went along. Finally, I decided what it was was somebody playing something out there and it was not hoops.

This was stranger than when I thought it was just a nut fooling around. Some weird game, making the whole thing more mysterious than I thought I would like. Right away I thought I might take off, slip back through the woods and try to hit the railroad court for half an hour. But that sounded miserable, and I got a little huffed at the idea of being scared off my own private basketball court by somebody not even using it to play the game itself. So I stuck there under the cedar and thought, and listened to the bounces and steps and thwongs and those whispers, sixty-two, sixty-nine, eighty, on and on and the longer I heard the less scary and just plain stupid the person out there seemed in the dark, so finally I decided to pull a little trick of my own.

What I would do was creep out a little further into the clearing, and then snap up the half of the lantern shield facing the court. This would throw light out there and nail whoever it was, while I hung behind the light and they could not see me at all. Once I saw what or who and could ask maybe a question or two I could decide whether to come out or take off. Maybe I would scare them away too, just by chucking some rays at them.

So I snuck out from under the cedar and crawled out into the wet grass. I heard a thwong and located the backboard by the sound. I set myself up at the left edge of the court just up from the corner, with the lantern down and ready.
I waited until the steps and bounces got going, and then I flipped up the shield.

ZAP! That thing struck some light, I tell you. For a second I was knocked out by how sharp and bright it was so suddenly, but I snapped back and stared hard at what I had caught in my yellow flash.

There was a boy holding a basketball up at his head so his face was hidden behind it, like the light hurt his eyes and it probably did, or like he did not want to be seen which maybe he did not too. I was going to see that sucker, however. I could wait all night.

He was not dressed for basketball. He had on some old floppy khaki pants and a turtleneck sweater raveling at the sleeves and desert boots. Desert boots on my court! I wondered what he thought he was doing there and also who the poor fool was.

I found out soon enough. He lowered the basketball and peeked out from behind it. Light hair, high forehead, light brown eyes, short nose, wide mouth…I dropped my eyes from feature to feature as they came into sight and then all of a sudden my insides twisted, for I pieced it together and saw it was Bix.

For a minute I had one of those feelings you can never expect or remember because you get them very few times, only when something truly surprises you, things you thought were separate hooking up behind your back. When you are a smart kid like me you get so you think nothing can sneak up on you. The things you know about you know everything. The people you know do not meet other people you know without you making it happen yourself. People stay put in the places you know them in. But here was Bix, Braxton Rivers the Third, on my place, holding a basketball, whis
pering secret numbers.

This was like a trick being played on me by big things. My reaction was, step back, tighten up, make sure of Jerome. Play basic defense until you see all the moves.

That is probably why I did not do what would have been most natural otherwise, jumping out all happy and saying Bix my mainest man! slapping him five and whooping it up and playing a little ball right off. Instead I felt far away from that place I knew so well and far away from him, like knowing I knew him but it was long ago, or I could not quite remember how we felt when we knew each other.

Bix did not seem especially surprised by the light nor curious either. He stood still, holding the ball down at his stomach, staring pretty relaxed into the light. That made me feel even weirder, him being so cool. Was this the dude I touched his blood and we were such brothers back a while?

He said nothing, I said nothing, so while I hung back of the lantern I got the itch to do a little jiving. This I do sometimes when nervous, testing things out with a touch of the goof.

Earthman, I said, what game is this? I faked a deep voice.

His eyes got a little bigger but he did not jump or anything. Who are you? he said. Why do you call me Earthman?

My name is called Boo, I said. And I call you Earthman because this is Earth unless I took a wrong turn out at Mercury and got messed up.

No, he said, this is Earth all right. He said it like he might have been telling me this was Cherry Street.

Good, I said. I hate to make mistakes.

Where…are you from? he said, trying to sound polite. I could not tell yet if he was jiving me back. Most people would have laughed or said Come off it man, or yelled Get
the heck out here where I can see you, by now. But he was content just standing and chatting.

Saturn, I said.

Oh, he said. The place with the rings.

I could not believe this guy now. The place with the rings! Cool as could be, like saying Florida, oh yes the place with the beaches. I was half wanting to laugh, half getting cranky because he was not doing the right thing with my jiving. So I kept going, wondering how long he could keep up.

Right, I said. My spaceship is over there in the next clearing. We landed here to steal some Earthman games, because my people don't know how to play and so they get kind of crabby on weekends.

Oh, he said. Yes, I can see how that would be a problem.

He stumped me, this Bix. I could not decide if he was acting the dummy better than anybody ever could, or if he actually took it in stride I was just dropped in from outer space here in Wilmington NC. Either way, I kept going as long as I could but starting to want to howl already.

So, I said, this is the game they call basketball?

Yes, he said, well, no, I mean…the game…but this, this is a basketball. He held his ball out and down toward the level of the light like he thought it was my Saturnman eyeball so I could see it better.

This just about cracked me up and I could not hold it much longer. What game is this, then? I said.

Well, he said, it doesn't really…well…it's…I guess you could call it bounceball. Yes, bounceball. He nodded like making up his mind. Then he looked at the light very sincere and helpful and said, Maybe your people would like it.

Well that was the last I could take. I snorted out really
loud and my throat just opened up and before I could stop it I was howling. Just howling like a beagle. It was wild. I have never laughed that hard, it even was more than laughing, cackles and yowls and coughs and hoots, too hard really because all the while I knew somewhere it was not that funny and even weird enough to be sad, but I could not stop. I guess my nerves were peculiar that night too. I just lost control and whooped, falling down to my knees holding my stomach, for it hurt from the heave, and then rolled onto my back in the wet grass finding the cold dew very amusing also. I felt my face roll into the light and I looked backwards upside down at Bix and saw him peering down at me like not sure yet I was actually not a Saturnman. He stared for a second and then looked disappointed. I closed my eyes and moaned and laughed but it was starting to hurt too much and I was relieved as it slacked up.

Jerome, he said. You aren't from Saturn at all.

I yowled.

You lied to me. You told me lies.

Something in the way he said it, lies, froze me up quick and I coughed and rolled over onto my knees and looked at him, shutting up fast. But he was not upset yet, not like about the lies and cracker pie. He looked disgusted, but cooler, tougher.

No, Bix, I said, not really lies.

Yes, he said, Oh yes. You think it's a big joke, but it really is a lie, all it is. People think the easiest way to be funny is lying, and they expect you to laugh at everything that isn't true.

Oh come on, man, I said. I sat back in the grass and flipped up the other side of the lantern shield for the heat. Bix, man, I never expected anybody to believe that jive. That's the
difference. It's only a lie if you expect somebody to believe you.

He was shaking his head like a wise expert, very sure. No, Jerome. You got to always expect somebody to believe you. I believed you.

How could you? I mean…Saturn, man! I laughed, but not very deep.

So? he said, angry now, looking away and gesturing with the ball, starting to bounce it very spastic with the palm of his hand but he stopped when he saw me watching. So? What do you do? Only believe things you already know can be true? Oh, sure! He barked a little laugh, then straightened up and stuck his face out all noble. See, Jerome, the honest man does not care if what a person says sounds weird, he just goes ahead and believes him because, see, he has trust that nobody will lie because HE never does. He nodded once, like he had said a lesson right. But I could see he was behind it, or wanted to be.

So I suppose you tell no lies?

NO! he barked.

Never a one?

NO! NEVER! He stared hot and ready at me and I think if I laughed or showed I had a doubt he would have jumped on me and torn my head off right there. His face was red and he stuck it out and I saw his hands shaking a little. He saw me look and he looked down and broke his stance to bounce the ball again a little bit, turning away from me.