Mitchell Jackson - The Residue Years

So, new wheels, but the same old on-CP clock, I say.

It wasn’t me this time, it was them, she says. Caseworker popped up right when I was about to leave. Oh my gosh, these folks and their rules, she says. I’ll be overjoyed, you hear me? Overjoyed when this is done. Mom’s new ’do still looks proper, but her nails could use new paint. This is how I’d describe her to strangers: Perfect minus a touch or two. She unzips herself, snakes out her coat (it’s thinner than I thought, with rips in the lining), and asks what she’s missed.

Not much, I say. Coupla points, an assist, a bonehead play.

Good or bad? she says.

Try average, I say.

Next thing I know, Mom’s screaming KJ’s name when I swear the boy ain’t done shit but toss the ball inbounds. KJ gazes up at us with game-time eyes as fierce, no, fiercer, than mine ever were.

That’s my boy, she says. My baby.

When I was my brother’s age, with not a care I’d admit to beyond my box score, I lived for playing games in front of my family, ached for the times when a cousin or an aunt or unc would attend, but especially Mom, who missed many more than she made.

How’s the electric-blue chariot? I say. You still in love?

Yes, in love, she says.

All to the good, I say. So everything’s working? No troubles.

None that I know of, she says.

Great, I say. So you good on funds for gas? Your pockets straight otherwise?

Son, you’ve done enough, she says. More than enough, she says. Let’s enjoy the game.

Next time downcourt KJ dribbles hard left and banks a layup over a boy that’s hit his growth spurt hella-early. It’s a nice play, but you’d think my bro rescued a newborn from bullets, with the racket Mom makes: thunderclaps and stomping and high-pitched rah-rahing.

Mom, I say. It’s two points. One. Two. That’s all. Which means it’s our two points.

No. It’s your brother’s two points, she says. You could show more support.

Support, I say. Me? Wow, Mom. Like really, wow, forreal.

KJ’s game is one of those back-and-forth contests where each mistake is mega, the extended remix of an original blunder — BKA nerves for the players, fever for us. You know what I’m saying, an atmosphere to birth a hoop hero — or lay a hyped prospect’s name to early rest.

Midquarter of next quarter, KJ shakes by his man, spins out of control, and slings a pass that smacks his teammate dead in the face: BLAM! His teammate drops to a knee and then falls on his back. He covers his mug and moans. The coach flurries off the bench with a towel in hand. Bench-warmers fly on the court and make a half-moon around the boy. Can’t tell you how long the youngster mewls, how long the coach presses a towel against a gang of blood and tears.

Oh my gosh, Mom says.

He’ll be cool, I say. Bloody nose or a headache. No worse.

Well, I hope so, she says. But I meant your brother.

KJ is gaping at the harm from steps back, his face my face from years ago, high school, maybe further: a boy with something precious knocked clean the fuck right out of him.

Second half, no fist-pumping pom-pom plays for Team KJ — not a one till minutes in, when he reaches for a steal, lets his man slip past, and, trying to recover, hazards a hero-block that damn near decapitates a boy. The refs’ whistles trill in sync. The opposite bench screams flagrant foul. The boy lays out for counts, gets up woozy, heads to the line. KJ’s coach calls time-out and hastens to meet his players, but KJ drops his head and drags tacit past the huddle. He grabs the farthest seat, a chair a motherfuckin city block from anyone else, and makes himself an avalanche. With attitude like this, he seems headed down the same implacable road I was, seems a trial or two from blowing the faith of the ones who believe and don’t have to. This is what I’ll tell him later, when we’re away from the lick of this flame.

Better for him is what I want for him if better for him exist.

The coach sends the team out minus KJ. He stomps to my brother’s distant seat and screams. KJ drops his eyes. Do you hear? Coach says. I know you hear. He grabs a clutch of KJ’s jersey and yanks him to his feet. He pulls him so close it’s lash to lash. Get out of here! he says. Get out of here now, he says. Go!

KJ snatches away. He turns and kicks an empty seat legs-up. He marches into game play and stands at center court. He tears off his jersey, slings it across the floor towards his bench, balls his fists, and seethes — at his coach, his teammates, the boys sprawled by the baseline, the adults who’ve peeked in from concessions; he seethes with his muscled gut swelling and the veins standing out in his neck.

Mom springs to her feet, but I catch her wrist and hold her still, feel her pulse as a song in my palm.

Don’t, I say.

She stills a beat, a beat and shakes free. She scrambles down the bleachers, leaving her coat back, as if she isn’t as old and harmed as she is.

Me chasing her.

She chasing him.

KJ a hurricane now whirling outside.

We keep it alive.

It was Big Ken and his brothers (my pimpish uncs), it was Uncle Sip, who made me dream and kept that hope buoyed as best they could. It was them who bought me mini-balls and mini-hoops for birthdays, who drove me to Biddy Ball camps, who would take me to the park for one-on-ones and practice. It was them who talked of the neighborhood legends, the city’s rare semi-pros, the small few who got a chance to see the lights. It was those men who preached to me, Make them all know your name. But it ain’t them and me no more. Or it is me. But me and my bros. Me prodding KJ, prodding Canaan. Doping them with this dream. But tell me this, will you, is it so wrong? Is it? What kind of solipsistic black-hearted robot would I be to wish against my brothers succeeding in ways that I failed?

FIRST ZION BAPTIST CHURCH

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