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  I answered, “You mean, this day, this moment? Yeah, I’m going to miss this. Ain’t nothing like hood love, you know.”

  “Yeah, the hood is rough, man, but the love is always genuine, you know.”

  “That’s why, when I get my first check, I want to do something nice for The Vil.”

  “Like what? You already ’bout to throw the big party. I got it all set up. We going to have enough food to feed the entire Vil. The music going to be bumpin’, but we drinking Kool-Aid though. You know you can’t even buy enough liquor for these fools, so I’m not even going to try.”

  “Naah, man, not just a party. Something worth doing.”

  “Oh, don’t get it twisted. They like to eat,” Jalen said. “Yo’ cousins and them will remember food and good music a long time, L.”

  “Are you high already, Jalen?”

  Jalen puffed on his blunt. “Naah, not as high as I’m going to get.”

  “Man, I’m talking about something with some strength. Maybe build that rec center that was promised to the hood when we were young bucks by ol’ boy who won the heavyweight championship.”

  “Oh yeah! I forgot all about that.”

  “A lot of people have. We’re used to broken promises out here. We hear them all the time from everybody. You know how nice that would have been? You know how many people might have changed their life behind that promise?”

  “What you mean, L?”

  “I’m just saying, people see you do something and give back like that, and it more than likely will put on the brain that someone else can make it too.”

  “So that’s what you want to do then?”

  “Yeah, man, I do. Make sure you write that down as one of the first things we going to do when I get paid, even if I can only build a few courts around this piece to start showing I love the hood. I wanna do something.”

  We stood that night in our regular spot for hours chatting and thinking about our future. By the time I looked at my watch, it was close to one in the morning. I had just finished sending Tori a text message, and when I looked up Maddox and Granger were standing near the car, trying to bum the last two beers.

  “Now you lames know you don’t have a bit of sense,” Jalen told them. “How you going to ask for the last two beers? What you think, L? Should I give it to them?”

  I walked over and greeted the fools. We all used to hang like brothers, but things had changed. Granger and Maddox knew the streets was their calling, and they wasted no time getting out there and getting their hustle on.

  I looked them both over because, to tell the truth, they looked a little nervous. “So what’s up? What y’all been up to?”

  “Aww, man, just chilling,” Maddox said, a slight grin on his face.

  “You know how we do, L, just making that money,” Granger added.

  “We ain’t got to be worried about getting shot at tonight, do we?” Jalen wanted to know. “You pimps always in beef,” he joked.

  “Son, you in The Vil. What you think?” Maddox said. “Always be on the lookout, ya know.”

  Jalen gave them the beers and sat on the hood of his car right next to me.

  “I hear you goin’ pro overseas, L,” Granger said, proud.

  “Yeah, man, I gotta make that jump.”

  “Do that, do that!” Maddox punched like a rapper. Maddox could ball too. Matter of fact, I would have rated him in the top five who lived in The Vil as far as players went, right below Jalen. The only reason he didn’t play ball for the school was because he didn’t like Coach Pierce. Plus, he’d stopped going to school when we were sophomores to concentrate on being a dope runner.

  Maddox looked me over. “So you tired of this poverty, L? Is that why you clearing out?”

  “Yeah, man, it’s time to get outta here.”

  “I don’t blame you. I wish I would have kept playing some ball. Maybe I would be getting out this hole too.” Maddox took his first taste of his beer. “Whew! This is ice-cold, baby.”

  “You know how we do it. Look, you like that, wait until tomorrow night. L having a party, and y’all better be there,” Jalen told them. “Look for me in the car. I’ma have some more on ice for the good people.”

  “Going to have some freaks?” Granger yelled out.

  “L goin’ pro, man, so you know they all going to be here trying to get a piece.”

  Granger said, “Damn, L! How you going to handle all that lovin’ from the ladies you going to be gettin’?”

  “Man, I ain’t going to have no time for that.”

  “No time for the ladies?” Maddox asked.

  “Naah, man. I’m taking Tori with me, and we going to get married. She’ll keep my mind off all that, so I can concentrate on the game.”

  “Man, you must be crazy,” Maddox said. “No way I would tie myself down, with all that potential loving just ready to get tapped.”

  “Shut up!” Granger told him. “Look, you doin’ the right thing, L. You got business to handle when you get up in there. Groupies don’t do nothing but distract you anyway.”

  Except for the street soldiers slinging on the street, The Vil had become quiet. We weren’t ready to go crash, and Maddox knew about a house party that didn’t even start until one in the morning, so we went to check it out.

  When we knocked on the door, a girl named Leo who had been trying to peep game answered, and her eyes were wide when she saw me standing there with my boys. Leo was thick, borderline fat, but she was still cute inside and out.

  She was smiling and had her hand on her hip. “Y’all trying to get up in here, Langston?”

  “Girl, what the heck you think?” Granger blasted while he was standing behind me. “Wit’ your big ass.”

  I turned around and pushed him. “Don’t worry about him. Yeah, we trying to party with y’all tonight.”

  “You going to dance with me?”

  I turned around and looked at everybody when they starting laughing.

  “Well, is you?”

  “Yeah, yeah, Leo, I’ll dance with your fine ass.”

  “When?”

  “After I get in, you know, after a while.”

  Leo grabbed me by my hand. “Forget that. I been trying to get all this up on you for the longest. You dance now. The rest of y’all punks wait until I get back.”

  I could hear Jalen and them calling her my pimp and laughing. I’m not going to lie. Right at the moment, I felt like she was. Leo not only took me downstairs in the red lights where everybody was partying, she got me on the dance floor and was humping me like a dog for three straight songs. Then she whispered to me that she wasn’t wearing panties.

  I finally talked her into letting my boys in, but she made me promise to slow-dance with her as soon as the DJ slowed it down.

  I went to let my boys in the party then told them to stand around me. “Look, y’all keep Leo the hell away from me the rest of the night.”

  “Man, if I see her, I’m goin’ to bust her in the mouth for making me stand outside so long,” Granger said. We knew he was joking. At least, we hoped he was.

  I finally had a chance to kick back and see who was in the party. I noticed mostly a bunch of ol’ heads up in there, but it was cool, because the get-together had a mixture of ages, and enough food, drink, and smoke for whoever wanted to get down. Jalen made sure I stayed away from the weed and drink but made sure I went to work on the food, while Granger and Maddox did their thing.

  I felt a hand tug at the back pocket of my Sean John jeans.

  “What’s up, big baller? Why didn’t you tell me you was coming out this way?” Katrina was wearing black shorts that showed off all her curves.

  I let her know that we were just bouncing around, and the party was where we ended up.

  Katrina was high and wasn’t even trying to hide it. She went and got me a beer, and after Jalen took it from me while I sat on a stool, she backed up against me like some kind of experienced stripper in the club.

  After a while I co
uldn’t take anymore and decided I wanted to break her off for the very last time, because of Tori. I grabbed her by the hand, and we were moving out toward Jalen’s car, where we had done some things before.

  But the music stopped, and I heard someone calling me out.

  “I hear the number one high school basketball player and future pro ballplayer is up in here! I said, I heard the number one player in the nation is here!”

  Katrina stopped and looked up at me as I looked back and saw Toy standing in the middle of the party holding a drink.

  “I want y’all to know something, and it’s good that Langston is up in here, so he can’t say I’m going behind his back talking trash about him. I want y’all to know, so you can make sure this bit of news travels as quick as the news, that the young’un is going to play ball overseas then on to the NBA.”

  The lights in the basement had been turned on, and it became extra quiet. Jalen moved away from the girl he had his arm around and in no time was standing next to me, just in case something was about to jump off.

  Toy was buzzing off something, but nobody in the party cared because most of them were high too.

  “Now ask him if I’m lying. I offered my services to the young buck, to be his agent and help him take on all this celebrity he’s about to endure, but the truth of the matter is, L don’t want nobody from the hood making deals for him and getting him as much money as he could possibly get.”

  It felt like more eyes were on me than at the state championship when I hit the winning basket at the buzzer.

  “So when you out and about and his name come up like I know it will, ’cause we ain’t had a player so good around since I came out of school, just run and tell that for me. Run and tell.”

  There was no way I was going to let Toy loud-talk me. That was something I didn’t let happen anywhere.

  “Look, man, if this how you get down, Toy, I’m cool with it. It still don’t change things. I ain’t messing with you, man, a’ight.”

  Then Jalen stepped in. “’Cause, you foul player. Why would L wanna put his business in jeopardy to mess with you anyway? Tell me that. We might as well get back to this party.”

  Toy looked around and smiled. He must have counted the numbers. I had way too many people up in there who would have stomped his drunk butt if he started beef. He stumbled to his seat with some girl he was with. I then whispered in Jalen’s ear to come out to the car in about and hour, so we could get out of there and go home.

  It took us longer than usual to have sex. Katrina, for some reason, wanted to have unprotected sex. I wasn’t feeling that and told her I was going to put on a condom, if we were having sex at all. She was upset with my decision, which was strange, because condoms had always been the rule with her.

  When we were finished and sitting in the backseat, waiting for Jalen to come out, Katrina said in the darkness, “Did you like that, L?”

  “Yeah, it was cool.” I was paying extra attention in the darkness to see if Jalen was on the way out while she put on her clothes.

  “So when am I gonna see you again?”

  “I don’t know. I have a lot of things I need to do before I leave.”

  “Well, you goin’ to send for me to come see you, right?”

  A gang of peeps came out the house, and I tried to focus through the darkness to see if Jalen was one of them.

  “I don’t know. I mean, I doubt it, Katrina. This right here might be the last time we get the chance to hang out.”

  Putting on her shirt, Katrina said, “What you mean by that? Last chance?”

  “I’m saying, it’s just time I move on with my life.”

  “And what? You’re not going to see me anymore?”

  “How can I do that when I won’t even be here? Plus” I stopped telling her what was on my mind because I didn’t like the look on her face.

  “Plus what?” She hit me on the arm. “Plus what?”

  “I’m getting married. I’m taking Tori with me, and we’re getting married.”

  Katrina smacked me across the face. “Married?”

  I grabbed her hand. “You better watch yourself.”

  “What the hell you talking about getting married, Langston? I mean, you treating me like a ho or something.”

  “What’s your problem?”

  “My problem is that you just wanna run in and out of me like you own me or something then throw me away like yesterday’s garbage.”

  “Look, I don’t know what you want. All we been doing is hanging out and having sex. Katrina, you have never been my girl, so I don’t know what your beef is.”

  She said, “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “That stuff Toy said about you in there is true. You don’t care about nobody but yourself.”

  “Yeah, right. Nobody tells me how to run my life, or who I can or can’t be with.”

  “I don’t know why you wanna be with that bitch Tori for anyway? Everybody know you ain’t getting none.”

  I got out the car then looked back in the seat at her. “Maybe that’s the reason why.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Tears in the Ghetto

  Things started to move hella fast and I had no choice other than to take everything in stride or just freak out under all the pressure everybody was starting to put on me. I had a few interviews with major sports writers back to back to back. After that, a rep from a sports agency called and asked if I would keep them in mind after giving me his two-hour spiel. One hundred and twenty minutes was a long time, but I respected this guy and his agency because they weren’t like Toy, pushy and stressing me to sign for all the wrong reasons. I was sure I was going to get picked up overseas, but I passed on the agency because I wanted to keep the last option of going to college in the bag.

  I went to work out at three, and when I finished, I went over Tori’s to let her mother know I was serious about marrying her. Of course my mother was all for it when I told her, and she made me promise I would treat Tori right and remember what she had gone through alone while raising me.

  Then there was the party.

  “What you mean, you don’t wanna go, L?” Jalen’s eyes were extended, his head moving from side to side.

  “I don’t know, man, I just don’t.”

  “Look, B, this is your farewell party, your I’m-going-to-the-league bash.” He lowered his voice and rose it as he spoke. “Our graduation party, boy!”

  “I know all that, man, but this pressure is getting on me.”

  “You need to drop all of that. Just dump it in the trash. Do you know how many people would like your problems?”

  I guess I did. He didn’t have to remind me I was just looking at everything I needed to do and things I would need to get done before it was time to go. I knew it was pretty much a done deal that I was going to get taken by Barcelona, but I wanted to know the type of contract they were offering and make sure they knew I wanted to play no more than two years before I went to the NBA.

  Jalen was on his job though. He had already been looking on the Internet for places to stay once we went overseas. Added to that, he called his cousin, a tailor who had a store down on Mt. Vernon Avenue, and gave him our sizes to make suits for graduation and when we finally met with Barcelona.

  I woke up around nine. I wanted my mom to go to the party with me, but she wasn’t having it. Said she wasn’t trying to listen to any music about pumping and grinding with a bunch of young bucks who didn’t know the difference between a cassette deck and an album cover.

  I have to give props, the party was off the chain. Jalen did his thing, and everybody up in that piece was feeling the party. I don’t know how Jalen did it, but he set the party up on the courts in The Vil, straight-up gansta-like. He had a banner with my picture on it, along with his name and Tori’s, along with my mom’s withCONGRATSANDGOODLUCKwritteninboldletters.

  All the love I was getting was genuine, and it felt good. It was like, with each handshake and hug, I was bei
ng given strength from others, like a ray of hope to fulfill dreams that other people had wished they would one day live. At first it was cool. But it started to mess with my head, because so many people were telling me how blessed I was and how I better make them all proud. I definitely didn’t want to let anyone down, including myself, so I started to think about everything I needed to do again while looking out at everyone enjoying the party.

  I did notice Tori change a bit though. Most of the time when females came up to me to talk, she would either turn her head in the opposite direction, or just talk to one of her girls, like the situation didn’t faze her.

  I have to admit, what made me want to kick it with Tori was, she wasn’t jealous or worried about any other female around because she knew she had the total package and I wasn’t going anywhere. Tori would always tell me how she and a few of her girls always tripped off on the females at school who wanted to play like they were married then get upset when they found out that their men were messing around. Tori was truthful with hers and knew it was virtually impossible for a high school guy to be faithful to another girl, and if he was, she thought he was being very naïve.

  But that night she had changed her game up and didn’t care who knew about it because we were going to get married. Every single female who came up to talk to me, she made sure she either spoke to them or they recognized she was there holding my hand. It was funny, because most of them never knew Tori to act like that; she acted like she didn’t care. The days of her turning her head away while other females flirted with me were over. My girl was checking any and everybody who stepped to me and disrespected her.

  Katrina had walked up from behind the car, and Jalen, sitting around with three females on the trunk of the car, saw her peep game first. He called my name out to draw my attention to the situation. “L, L,” he sang.

  When I looked back, I noticed her strutting over with the walk she knew she had perfected. Katrina was a hood rat and didn’t give a damn who knew it. She just smiled as some of the guys mentioned how her body was banging. Katrina was speaking loud and hadn’t even opened her mouth yet.