Mark Wisniewski - Watch Me Go

And in Bark, too, on that sidewalk in Brooklyn, there was no doubt. One glance between me and Bark then made me sure that, when it came to being Jasir’s father, he felt free and clear, and a quicker glance now confirms it. I mean, that’s how things have been between Bark and me since our second championship season. All he and I needed back then was eye contact to know if I should lob the ball down to him or fake away and come back with a bounce pass or pull up with a jumper he was set to rebound. We’d never say a word, never even nod. We were tight like that, and now we’re still tight, but I don’t like where our tightness has taken us.

James never had that unspoken vibe with us; in fact, he was always yakking at us and everyone on the court, refs included, even at the families in the stands. I used to think this was because he had the least talent of our starting five, but anyway since then he’s used talk as a weapon, keeping the threat of it to himself at times, letting the world have it when he’s backed into a corner. In a way it was good he talked so much when we played ball — it hid that eye contact Bark and I used — but now he just sits. And what makes me worry even more is that it’s Bark who finally speaks up, and, worse, what Bark says is: “I vote we go to Mississippi.”

“Mississippi,” I say.

“It’s far and we’d blend in.”

James says, “Bark, we don’t know a damned soul in Mississippi.”

“Exactly,” Bark says. “So we ditch the truck in Virginia or something, take a bus the rest of the way, start all over down there.”

“Hang on, man,” I say. “For one thing, if we don’t know anyone, where would we… live?”

“We’ll rent. Like we do now.”

“With a thousand dollars?”

“Deesh, it’s not like anything’s keeping us in New York,” he says. “None of us has a woman. None of us has a job other than to haul junk. Maybe this never crossed your mind, but you can haul junk for cash just about anywhere.”

None of us has a woman ? I think, and again I remember Madalynn, then realize that, when you count up all the years that passed before we saw her and Jasir last week, Bark’s right.

“But we’ll go through the thousand like that,” James says with a snap of his fingers. “We got gas to buy, bus tickets, food — and you don’t just walk into a new town and start living , in an apartment and all, without a good pile of cash.”

“True,” Bark says.

Maybe ten miles pass while the three of us sit like strangers on an A train. Then, just by Bark’s suddenly stiff posture, I know what he’s got in mind. He’s not just heading to the city; he’s heading to his favorite place to hang out, Belmont Park, to try to bet our thousand into more.

“Bark, tell me we’re not going to Belmont,” I say.

“Why not?” he says, and I expect James to start lecturing, but he doesn’t.

“Well, I’m not going,” I say.

“Where you gonna go?” Bark says. “Back to your nasty apartment to wait for the cops?”

“They ain’t gonna find me.”

“Well, they ain’t gonna find me ,” Bark says. “I’ll be in Mississippi. With a helluva lot more cash than I have now.”

“You saying I don’t get my share unless you win?” I ask.

“No,” Bark says. “You’ll get yours.”

But it hits me he’s already planning to take a chunk from my third for gas and wear and tear on his truck, which he does now and then — and which is fair, even though it seems unfair because he does it only when he wants cash to bet on horses. So now I’m looking at $300, maybe even only $275, and as many groceries as $275 might buy me, it feels like it’s already nothing no matter whose pocket it winds up in, or where. Plus if Bark does leave for Mississippi and I don’t go along, I’ll need to find a new job.

And what if he wins? I think. Bark usually doesn’t win, but, almost always, he comes close. His problem isn’t that he doesn’t know horses; fact is, in just about every race I’ve seen when I’ve gone to the track with him, he pretty much knows which horse will finish first. His problem is he lives for the big payoff, so he bets trifectas — which means he has to pick first, second and third in the exact order — and it’s usually third place, or sometimes only the exactness, that gets him.

“I’ll take you home, Deesh,” he says now. “But on the way there, just hear out my plan.”

He turns on the radio, turns it off.

“We don’t bet every race,” he says. “We bet one. And before we do, we study all the races to see which one’s best.”

I flick drying mud off the inside of one of my sneakers. “For the thousand,” I say.

“Right,” he says.

“We put it all on one race?” James says.

Bark nods. “You guys are the ones saying we need more cash to move. You got any ideas about how we can make a pile in a hurry? I mean, legally?”

Here’s where I most wish James would go off on another yakking streak — about all sorts of moneymaking ideas that never entered my mind. But again he keeps still. And all I can think about when it comes to big, fast money is what would have happened if I hadn’t messed up my knee in the semifinals the first year we won state. Yeah, we won state anyhow. Yeah, everyone on the team propped me over their heads as we left the court. And, yeah, the ligament healed in time for us to win state again our senior year. But everyone who scouted us that year saw my ugly-ass knee brace, saw how I’d lost half a second off my first step to the hoop, and even though I’d compensated by improving my jumper and passing game, everyone knew my burst of speed was why I’d gotten those thirty-four letters of interest from pro and college scouts. Knew that, for all the points and assists I’d racked up, my best bursts of speed were behind me.

So we sit like that, all three of us, I imagine, remembering those days, as Bark takes us farther down toward the city, then pulls left onto the Sprain Brook, then exits onto the Cross County Parkway. The green of the trees and bushes and fields around us is too soon replaced by faster traffic and concrete, reminding us we live in the Bronx. And it’s not Mississippi or the death in the drum or the hope of winning a pile of cash that changes my mind about whether I’ll go along with Bark’s plan. It’s this appearance of the Bronx that does it. That feeling of being squeezed in. That feeling of knowing you are one of thousands, if not millions, of brothers caged into a future in which you will finally do something no-holds-barred stupid. There’s that stretch of moments, after we pay the toll for the Throgs Neck Bridge and stay just under the limit while we rise, when you see the blue water and yachts and think the good life could happen to at least a few brothers. But then the water is behind us and a Mercedes cuts us off as we exit the bridge, and then there’s the construction and the slowdowns. And you sit, itching to move forward, knowing that Belmont is, after all, a park with burgers and picnic tables and tents that sell beer.

Quit worrying, you think. We’re almost there.

I FIRST SAW TUG CORCORANas he dove off the far end of the pier to swim to where the lake grew all shimmery. He’d taken that dive, I figured, to avoid having to meet me, but then I told myself that he and I were long past having excuses not to act like adults: Coincidence, I was sure, was why he was swimming right then. Tom Corcoran had gone straight to my mother and kissed her hello flush on the lips, Colleen showing no sign of jealousy, though already I could tell, by just watching her uninvested glance away from that kiss, that she and Tom weren’t getting along. There was this kind of coldness centered between them, and she hugged me then only because he did, it seemed, and he went off talking, in a hushed way that brought my mother in close, about how we should go easy on Tug because his horse farm wasn’t about to earn praise in the Daily Racing Form anytime soon. I took this as my cue to walk down to the lake, which had its own way of drawing me to it; on that day, in soft sunlight, the kind that makes you feel like you’re a child again, all that water out there reflected azure so peacefully you never would have thought it could’ve hurt a soul, let alone your own daddy if he were a champion jock.