Tompkins Square Park in the East Village had several basketball courts. Full-court games were played next to the handball courts closest to Avenue B. Half-court was located against the fences of the asphalt baseball field on Avenue A. Players were split between neighborhood and hoopsters from the rest of the city. The quality of the competition was not up to the standards of West 4th Street or 125th Street, but a total stranger could walk onto the court and claim ‘next’ without a beef.
My apartment was on East 10th Street. Several pairs of my dead sneakers hung on the streetlights at the intersection of 10th and A. I played half-court almost every day. My tenacious defense earned 50% the nickname ‘Brick’. My atrocious shooting lay claim to the other half of my on-court persona.
“Stop the big guy, Brick.” My teammates pointed to tall opposing players. “Don’t let Big Man live in the paint.”
“Gotcha.” I knew my role on the court. Defense, rebounds, and more defense.
A deft touch on my opponent’s hip deflected artistic drives to the basket. My squat body stymied attempted dunks. Players cursed how my wide body blocked the path to the rim. No one had more fouls than the Brick.
Not Kurt Rambis.
Not Bill Laimbeer.
My apologies were a lesson in sincerity. This was street ball. No one was getting paid and no one got hurt. Words rarely escalated to fists, for the East Village had a reputation as a bad neighborhood and bad neighborhoods attract bad people.
My corner on 10th and 1st had been a long-time spot for ‘sinse’ and smack had dominated 4th Street between B and C, but the epidemic of crack cocaine hit New York with the force of a million sledge hammers. Coke heads brazenly piped Cloud 9 on the steps of burnt-out tenements with their bag brides. Desperate chicken-scratchers searched the sidewalks and gutters for lost crumbs. Around the corner from Tomplins Square Park a barricaded tenement called the ‘Rock’ slung ‘glo’ 24 hours a day. Teenage Puerto Ricans worked the corners steering trade to the slingers of the Rock. Guns hung under their jerseys. Business was better than good and other dealers wanted a piece of the action.
Fist fights were common on that block. Occasionally I’ lie in bed and hear pops. 38s, 45s, and 9mms barking in the night like mad dogs. The police skipped patrols on that block. 11th Street belonged to the Rock.
Two of my teammates lived in that five-story drug den. Carmelo was my point-guard. 5-6 with a sweet 3-pointer behind my screens. He lived on the 2nd floor. Duke ruled the 3rd floor. His name was feared from Houston to 14th Street. Black and mean Duke swept by my picks to the basket. At 6-2 he really didn’t need my help.
Slinging rock was their business. I wasn't into crack. It was too strong for my tastes. The two of them were the same. They smoked ‘blunts’ for fun. Crack was their cash crop and business was better than good.
Carmelo had money in his pocket and a smile on his face. Duke wasn't as lucky. The pressure stole away his happy. He had two girlfriends. Both had kids. The cops were after him, but the more dangerous threat were the other dealers in Lausida. They wanted him dead and their gunmen patrolled the East Village for a chance to kill him.
These were hard times. The incidence of shootings had doubled since the advent of crack. Some people said that CIA had dropped crack on the ghetto to finance the Contras. Others accused the GOP of targeting blacks and Latinos with the drug. Duke didn't cared either way. He was trapped no matter what.
His only vacation was a visit to the basketball courts on Avenue A. He was a better full-court player, but those courts were too far from his roost. The Rock was less than a 15-second from the hoop, although Duke wasn’t a runner and Tompkins Square Park was a truce zone for the crack gangs.
No guns. No knives. No fights.
Only basketball.
Duke, Carmelo, and I were a good 3-on-3 team. Our Ws were a tribute to our teamwork. Shooting, muscle, and hustle. Our Ls resulted from my blown lay-ups or airballs from 10 feet. Duke and Carmelo laughed at my dribbling and threatened to call me ‘One-Hand.”
When we balled on that court, nothing else mattered. The Rock was replaced by the joy of a stolen pass, money problems evaporated after a triumphant come-back, and women troubles were forgotten during a winning streak, but the East Village was the East Village and one afternoon in August 1991, Duke, Carmelo, and I had the run of the court.
Carmelo’s shooting was unstoppable, I gathered all the rebounds, and Duke tapped the ball into the hoop from the paint. We beat a squad from Harlem. 15-6. I had one point.
“Who’s next.” Duke spun with a smile on his face. We were invincible.
“We got it.” The speaker was a muscular 6-1. A scar ran down his cheek. Biz lived across the street from the ‘Rock’. Two years ago his gang had lost the block in a war with Duke’s posse.
“This just b-ball, right?” Carmelo dribbled the ball glaring at Biz’s two other players. His boys were strangers to a smile. My man was Gordo. We had played maybe 20 times. The 25 year-old fat boy had a slippery move to the left like he might have been Charles Barkeley’s illegitimate son. I dealt with it by slapping his hands.
Hard.
“Just basketball.” Biz hadn’t taken his eyes off Duke.
“Our out.” I waved for the ball at the top of the key.
Soon as it touched my hands I bounced the ball to Duke under the basket.
“One nothing.” To Duke this was more than a game. The players waiting for next games circled out half-court. The history between Duke and Biz was legend in Lausida.
“That’s the way we’re gonna play.” Biz and his team settled into defense. Flacco braced Carmelo. The 19 year-old skinny Dominican had long arms. Carmelo pushed off his hand with a slap. We had learned a lot from each other.
“That’s the way.” Duke tossed the ball out to me. “Check.”
Every basket from that point on was a battle. My opponent outweighed me by 20 pounds and had a few inches height advantage. If he had just shot the ball, we would have been losing fast, but he wanted to stuff the ball in the hole.
“No one stuffs on my boy.” Duke declared from the baseline.
“I’m gonna.” My opponent knocked me off my feet and started for the rim.
I grabbed his jersey and declared, “Foul.”
“You can’t call fouls for me.” He was in my face.
“Sorry.” I backed away. “Your ball.”
Biz and Duke were sumo-wrestling for position. Biz backed up, dribbling the ball. Duke chicken-armed him out of position and scored a lay-up.
2-0.
Carmelo hit three easy bankers in a row and I scored on an old school hook. We crowed like rooster on a hen holiday.
5-0
I took the ball at the top of the key. Gordo stood with both hands outstretched, leaving an opening between his legs. I passed the ball to a driving Carmelo and we were up 6-0. Duke high-5ed me. You Bill Bucknered the Fat Boy.”
“Don’t say that.” I’m a Red Sox fan and any mention of 1986 error by the Bosox was bad luck.
Flacco stole the next pass and on each position stepped back beyond the arc to drain threes. Our lead gave way to a rally by Biz. He outmuscled Duke under the basket. I tried to help twice and he burned us with on-the-money passes to Gordo.
8-6.
“And we got more coming.” Biz shouldered Duke out of the way. He had to be stopped and I grabbed his arm. He didn’t call a foul and swung his elbow at my head, catching my jaw. I fell backward into the fence and the thirty-plus players watching the game groaned, as metal seeped out of my fillings.
“My ball.”
“How’s it your ball.”
“Flagrant foul.” I spit blood into the bushes.
“And what about your foul.”
“You didn’t call it.”
We thumped chests and Flacco said, “Shoot for it.”
“Sure, Brick couldn’t hit shit.” He handed me the ball and I stepped to the line. No one bet on the shot, because my missing was almost a sure thing. I lined up and sunk the shot. Biz’s attempt rattled in and out the bent rim. It was my ball and I backed into Gordo, the two of us banging like Sumo wrestlers, until I was three feet from the basket. I faked once and went up for a clear shot. Flacco stuffed my shot to Biz, who hit from 12 feet.
9-6
They scored two easy baskets. I was winded by the battle with Gordo.
11-6.
We needed a stop and I gambled at a steal when Biz turned his back on Duke. I grabbed the ball from his ball and caught Carmelo cutting to the hoop.
11-7
“Rolling dice numbers.” Duke clapped for the ball and he took Biz to the hole after a switch-over dribble. 5 baskets in a row. We regained the lead and could taste victory. I sunk a three-pointer.
13-7
Two more baskets and I passed the ball to Duke. He backed up against Biz, shimmying his body like the Bullets’ Elvin Hayes grinding it out against Sonics’ Spencer Haywood. Duke scored on Biz and nodded with the first smile I had seen on his face.
“Point game.”
“Man, you like butting into me so much, why don’t we make a date?”
It sounded like a joke, but it wasn’t a joke. Duke dropped the ball to take a swing. Biz blocked it with his left forearm, but Duke countered with a straight left into Biz’s face. He went down and Duke grabbed a bottle from the trash, smashing the dazed player on the head. The broken bottle was a deadly weapon now.
Biz’s boys were standing with hands at their side.
This wasn’t their fight.
I grabbed Duke’s arm. Carmelo grabbed the other.
“Don’t ever stop me.” Duke shook us off.
“I’m getting my gun, Biz.” He had a reputation to uphold. “I’ll be right back.”
Duke stormed off the court. Biz disappeared into the park. It was a DMZ zone, but the rest of the neighborhood was a battle-zone. For a week gun shots echoed from the block. Ambulances took the wounded to Bellevue. The basketball games in the park were called off for safety's sake and everyone avoided 11th Street between A and B.
Fire bombs burned out two shooting galleries on 4th Street. Biz operated them for the Mafia on 1st Avenue. The police were ordered to stop the violence. Riot squads stormed the Rock, arresting steerers, dealers, and users. Both Carmelo and Duke had been swept up in the raid. The crack dens were boarded up and a police guard placed on the steps. The era of the Rock was over.
Several days later Carmelo made bail and wandered over the basketball courts. An unwritten truce was in force between the warring gangs, although Duke had a contract on his head. I pulled Carmelo to the side and asked him with my hand over my mouth. "Where's Duke?"
"We need to draft a new power forward." Saying nothing was the best thing to say.
It was better that way, because Biz had inherited a big crew from his older brother. He came to the park with Gordo and Flacco. Carmelo and I teamed up with a kick-boxer from Barbados. No one messed with Roberto. We whipped Biz's 3-on-3 team 15-9. None of us mentioned Duke's name. He was gone for good.
The crack epidemic ran its course and by the late-90s the murder rate in New York dropped to normal levels. Crack had wiped out a generation of bad men. The prisons were packed to the rafters and the abortions of the 70s had decimated their replacements. The East Village became a popular destination for the Wall Street junior execs. They rented apartments without asking about the price. The old neighborhood was changing fast.
A few years later I was in the Bronx with Jim Rockford. We were on the job checking out KFCs for the parent company. On Jerome Avenue I spotted Duke with a young girl walking across the street and called out his name.
He checked the sidewalks with his heels lifted to run, until he saw my face.
“What you doing up here?” He asked with a little girl in tow.
“Working KFC.” I handed him five of the chicken bags from the back of our late-model sedan. “I’m a chicken inspector.”
“For a second I thought you were the cops.” He pointed to my ride. It was a Crown Victoria.
"It's a little square."
"Not for white boys. You still balling?"
"Any chance I get."
"Your shooting improve?"
"A little, but not enough to lose the nickname 'Brick'."
"Glad to hear some things don't change. Anyone ask about me?"
"No." Carmelo held his sand and I knew that it was best to not wake up sleeping dogs.
“Good, because my ghosts have brothers.” He tousled his girl’s hair. “I was a little crazy back then. Probably a little crazy now. But I got me a real job now too. You see Carmelo. You tell ‘em that. But don’t tell no one else.”
“No, I won’t.”
He stepped away and vanished into the crowd of early evening shoppers.
Two days later I walked onto the basketball court to practice my shot. Carmelo showed up after a half-hour. He was glad to hear he was alive without asking where I saw him. The less he knew the better and the same went for me. I heaved a ball from the 3-point line and it bounced off the rim for a long rebound. Duke had been right. Some things don't change.
Ever.
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