Chameleon (17 page)

“I don’t know and I don’t care. Let’s get out of here,” I said.

Lorenzo poked his head out over the crowd and got drawn into the storm. He stepped past an old man perched on a cane and a woman in a bright pink housedress, then stopped and got on his tiptoes.

“Awww, that’s just Crazy Ray. He must be dusted again,” Lorenzo said.

“Dusted?” I asked.

“Yeah, you know . . . on angel dust . . . PCP. That stuff make him crazy all the time. That’s why they call him Crazy Ray,” Lorenzo said.

“If it make him crazy, then why he keep doing it?” Andre asked.

“Why do you keep playing ball? Because you can. Same as him. He likes to sprinkle a little dust into his weed . . . puff-puff and that’s it,” Lorenzo said, his feet flat and now staring at us. His heels rose again and his head with it as he said, “Somebody must’ve said something to set him off though.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Shoot . . . when you dusted, it could be anything,” ’Zo said, making his way to the center of the storm.

“Lorenzo . . . don’t you think it’s a bad idea to approach somebody on dust swinging a bat?” I asked.

It seemed like a logical question, but he waved me off and walked closer. Andre and Trent trailed close behind. Feeling like an idiot on the driveway alone, I joined them in the street. The crowd grew by the second. Andre clutched the ball at his side, but Trent bumped him and the ball dropped.

“Dang, Trent . . . I dropped the ball. Y’all see it?”

I saw it. I reached down to grab it, but the crowd shifted and a female foot kicked it away. Shoot.

“It’s over there . . . rolling,” Lorenzo said cool and calm, before shouting with excitement, “Oooooh, shoot . . .”

The ball rolled through the crowd, headed for Crazy Ray. His thick, wooden bat sliced the air as he shouted at the top of his lungs: “It’s game time, bay-bay! Who wants to play?! Who want some of what I got, HUH?”

The crowd egged him on:

“Go ’head, Ray!”

“Grand slam, baby! Grand slam, Ray!”

“Knock it out the park!”

Ray didn’t notice the ball rolling his way, but our eight eyes did.

“Shoot, man, it’s right there. What we gonna do?” Trent asked, hopping with anxiety.

The crowd focused on the bat and the big crazy brutha swinging it, not the basketball rolling his way. One of his friends kept shouting, “Cool out and swig this forty, Ray,” but he wouldn’t.

“We gotta get the ball and get outta here,” I added.

Ray’s friends gave up and watched the show like everybody else. The crowd wisely gave him space. The ball rolled to a stop behind him, resting alongside the wheel of a beat-up brown truck on the driver’s front side. The bed of the trunk was filled with a bunch of lawn stuff, and Ray swung his way backward into what looked like a lawn mower. The top of the mower poked him in the back, making Ray swing around.

He spun and screamed at the mower, “Whatchu want? HUH? Whatchu want? You ain’t taking me out! It’s game time, podna! Game time! YOU WANT SOME OF THIS . . . HUH!?”

He marched to the front of the truck.

“You ain’t taking me out! It’s my time . . . GAME TIME!” he shouted, fire blazing in his eyes, as he raised his bat to the sky to swing on the front windshield.

He brought his arms back and with his right foot took a step backward — right onto our ball. Everything sped up like a scene from
The Flash
: The ball rolled forward — he fell backward — the bat flew in the air — the ball rolled from the front wheel to the back — Lorenzo and Andre sprinted for the ball — me and Trent did the same — the bat crashed to the ground, just missing me and Trent’s heads as we ducked — two guys in black went for the bat — two more in black went after me and Trent, fists raised, arms cocked, ready to swing.

“They cool — they cool — they cool!” Lorenzo shouted.

He stood just a few feet away, but the two formed a wall of black and blocked us. The left side said, “They witchu, ’Zo?”

“Yeah . . . we just wanted our ball.” He held up the ball like a rescued flag. “See?”

The wall separated and they left to check on Ray.

“Let’s get out of here, man!” Andre said.

“You ain’t got to tell me twice,” Lorenzo agreed.

The crowd moved in on Crazy Ray, so we headed out. Fast.

“Where’d that ball come from?” popped out of the commotion and put more pep in our step.

We hot-stepped to the end of the block, looked back, and saw the crowd still there. We were glad we weren’t.

“Man who
was
that?” Trent asked.

More like
what
was that?

“I told you — Crazy Ray,” Lorenzo said matter-of-factly. “My oldest brother said he went to Marshall when he was there, but he never finished. That’s ’cause Ray loved him some weed. He got thrown out of school when his baseball coach caught him passed out in the dugout with an empty forty bottle dangling from his hand and a bag of weed under his head. Ever since then, anything related to baseball seems to put him over the edge — especially if he’s dusted.”

“He must be already on the edge if that’s
all
it takes,” I said.

“Yeah, but see, when you dusted, you ain’t you — you somebody else. My brother said Ray got bored with straight weed, so one of his boys hooked him up with some dust and that was it. When he hit that stuff, he got all pumped up . . . like he was a superhero.”

Our sneakers were on autopilot headed for MLK. We paused at an intersection, waiting to cross. Andre bounced a rhythm that Trent followed with each button push. I looked toward the intersection but kept looking back, expecting to turn around and find Crazy Ray slicing the air with his bat.

“You think this was something? Shoot . . . one time he was down at this market over on Wilmington, right, and he just started eating stuff right off the shelf: boxes of cereal, cookies, candy, chips . . . you name it. So the manager comes out and says he’s gonna call the cops. But by this time Ray is in the fruit section, grabbing oranges and squeezing the juice out of each one like it ain’t nothing into his wide-open mouth. Juice is everywhere — dripping all over his hand, his mouth, down his white T-shirt and stuff, but he didn’t stop there. Then he grabs some big ole cantaloupes and starts crushing them one at a time with his bare hands.”

“Talk about orange crush.” Trent laughed.

“Then what happened?” I asked.

“Then an ambulance rolls up with a couple of cops following. Four guys jump out and wrestle him onto one of them things with wheels to take him away. His body kept jumping around, so they had to strap him down, and they strapped him down, all right — arms, legs. They even had to shove a mouthpiece in his mouth so they could strap his head down. By the time they were done, he couldn’t move nothing!”

Green light. We crossed. Andre led the way, with me and Trent on either side of ’Zo.

“Then what happened?”

“Dang, Shawn . . . what am I . . . the news? After that, I don’t know. I’m sure it couldn’t have been too good if he got taken away by an ambulance and some cops, with his whole body strapped down.”

MLK was up ahead, but the image of fire-filled eyes and a bat kept popping into my head.

“How many times you think that happens?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Stuff like that only seems to happen on county day. Today
must
be county day. Shawn. . . . Didn’t we walk past a bunch of long lines today?”

“I don’t remember. Probably.”

“Your watch can tell what date it is, right?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Betchu it’s the fifteenth!”

I glanced down at my Timex runner’s watch. A quick press of a button proved Lorenzo right.

“Yup — the fifteenth.”

“I knew it. Crazy stuff like that always happens on county day. Most people get they checks and pay bills or buy food or clothes or whatever . . . but some people get they checks and lose they mind. I’m telling y’all,” he said, shaking his head, “anything can happen on county day.”

WE’D BEEN TO MLK plenty of times since our run-in with the Pirus, but every time I stepped from the sidewalk to the grass, the taste of dust coated my tongue and my back tensed up.

I scanned the park. The court was hopping with a game — mostly older guys, possibly high schoolers. A group of girls double-Dutched near the courts chanting:

With each letter in “hot,” the rope whipped the air and concrete harder, in between swings, barrettes bouncing in intricate braids. Voices from the rec room floated out toward us between skips.

“Looks like M-L-K is the place to be to-day,” Lorenzo sang out, headed for the courts. Andre bounced with him while me and Trent hung back, checking out the sights and sounds MLK had to offer on this hot, sunny day.

“Ay, Shawn, ain’t that Black Bruce over there?” Trent asked, nodding his head left.

I looked in the direction of his nod and found a tall brutha dwarfed by a tree. His long, lanky body moved in an all-black kung-fu suit with white tassels tied in front. The outfit looked like a Chinese waiter’s uniform. Each long leg thrust out to the side in a kick. First the right leg —
kick.
Then the left —
kick.
Again. And again. With each kick, his mouth moved, but no sound came out.

“That could be him . . .” I said, focusing in on the face. “It’s hard to tell ’cause he’s so far away.”

“Let’s go check him out,” Trent said, starting in that direction.

“Maybe we should just hang back. He’s obviously alone and over there for a reason.”

“You probably right.” He paused, then aimed his vision at the court. My eyes looked onto the court as well. Andre grabbed the ball from ’Zo and walked over to the game in action. He exchanged words with a shirtless baller.

“Does Andre know him?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s go see,” Trent said.

Our question was answered as we got closer to Andre and heard: “Wuzzup, little brother? Where you been?”

The game was over and Andre’s brother stood shirtless, slapping five with Andre and giving a “What’s up” to ’Zo. Me and Trent walked up, and Andre introduced us: “You remember Shawn and Trent?”

His brother nodded and gave us a soul clap. Then ’Dre asked, “You guys remember my brother, Randy, right?”

We nodded, even though we only saw his brother once in a blue moon. I think that’s the first time he ever told us his name.

“So, Randy . . . what you been up to since you got home?” Lorenzo asked, poking Andre in the side with an elbow and a wink.

Trent snickered. I sighed and looked to the court. A group of guys were playing 21, and one of them was shooting a free throw. He didn’t bend his knees and he didn’t flick his wrist, so I knew what was coming before he even shot the ball: a brick. And there it was, clanging off the rim and bouncing out of bounds in terrible form. Dad always told me: bend your knees and spring into your shot. Release with a flick of the wrist and follow through. This dude did none of that. I felt sorry for the backboard.

Randy laughed and said, “You know what I was doing.”

He eyeballed Lorenzo and Andre, then added, “And I know y’all was still there even when I told you to leave.”

His arms folded and he stared the four of us down. Was he pissed or just giving us a hard time?

The free-throw bricker tapped Randy on the shoulder and said, “Ay . . . y’all wanna run? We wuz about to run a three-man, but y’all got four so we can run a full.”

Randy raised his eyebrows at us as if to say, “Wanna play?”

We looked at each other, then at the other players. They were all big. Much bigger than us. Our hesitation made Randy say, “Come on, y’all. Don’t be scared — we just ballin.’”

But we were scared. And it showed as we stepped onto the court. Andre, usually talking smack to whoever guarded him, stood silent as the bricker stood next to him on D. Trent and ’Zo were on one team, and me and ’Dre were on the other team; ’Dre’s brother was with us. Me and Trent guarded each other, but ’Zo got stuck guarding this big brick-house of a brutha.

Randy tossed the ball into Andre. “Straight to fifteen,” he said as Andre brought the ball up.

Everybody on the other team stepped up to guard their man. Bodies flew around the court with each bounce of the ball. Sneakers shuffled left to right — right to left.

“I got li’l man right here,” popped out of Bricker’s mouth.

Andre was greeted on the other side of the half-court line by Bricker’s crouching spiderlike body and almost turned the ball over. Almost.

In the blink of an eye, ’Dre pulled out his between-the-leg spin move and spun right past him. Bam-bam, cross, spin right . . . gone — just like he had been doing all day. When ’Dre spun, I escaped Trent and ran to my favorite spot on the court, the right elbow of the free-throw line, where Andre was headed.

We’ve done this play on ’Zo and Trent so many times, I knew what was coming next. A body stepped up to help out on ’Dre. I got open and he hit me with a crisp chest pass. Bricker hustled past Trent to help guard me as I caught the ball. Uh-oh. I pump-faked him into the air and watched his body sail right past me.