Court of last resort

By RAN HENRY

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 18, 2001

Got a fear of gang colors, gang signs, gang-bangers with guns? I do. Though you can see they're just kids, with basic needs. Like love. Family. And a basketball court.

I'm 43 and still need to prove myself by playing pickup ball against strangers who could be my sons. They call me "old as dirt" and worse, but sooner or later it's just me and them, the ball and the rim. I live with no one. Miss my children every hour. Some of us need a lifetime of second chances. When I hear about a chance for peace in a gang war, and a chance to shoot hoops, I'm out the door.

These gang guys don't live in my neighborhood. I head to South Miami. Way past South Beach. I pull up in the parking lot of a Taco Bell, across from the big tin Produce Center by Naranja Plaza. And there they are. Guys with Virgin of Guadelupe medals, black wool ski caps, slitted red eyes and their names tattooed across their backs, sudsing up cars, sponging at rims. For sure, not working with the enemy on the same car. But willing to stop shooting each other long enough to earn a place to play ball.

Basic needs can make you do things. These guys need a ball court without shards of broken whiskey bottles guarding the hoop, like the one they grew up on, back at the migrant camp. Then the trouble started. Half of them got to move to Centro Campesino. Supposedly, the kids who got nicer houses than their brothers got "uppity." Now they drive around looking for each other, in vans full of "hoochie mamas" and Uzis and Tech 9s.

A girl named Big Bird holding a sign out on the highway spits. "Help to Stop Gang Violence," her sign reads. "Get your car washed. Five Dollars donation." After enough cars get washed to buy a basketball goal, the gangs head into the Taco Bell, through separate entrances. The workers behind the counter look impressed.

A kid named J.J., one of the Centro Boys standing in line, tells me he and his friends just shot up the South Dade Boys' house. Because, J.J. says, "They come by and shoot up ours."

I wonder, do you feel a bullet ripping through your skin, organs, bones? Or does the muzzle flash and that's that? I ask J.J. what it's like to aim a gun at someone and pull the trigger.

"It's a quick rush," J.J. says. "And then it's all gone."

You wonder how peace is possible. That basketball court they cleaned all those cars to earn is in the concrete courtyard of the Centro Campesino Farmworker Center -- on the Centro Boys' turf.

If you hit jumbled piles of concrete, stacks of roof tiles, a construction trailer or new grass struggling up through the dust, you're out of bounds. The basketball hoop, on a raw metal pole, has been raised to an impossible height. That keeps the kids from hanging on the rim. Or maybe it teaches them the height of the hoops they'll have to jump through.

We're all hitting practice shots and acting like it's normal that I'm there when a Dalmatian trots up, all black spots and white fur and friendly tongue. He belongs to a nicer neighborhood up the street. The gang pelts him with rocks until he hightails it back where he came from. Then they congratulate each other with their pet slang word: "Way to do it, dog."

Their boom box blasts non-stop obscenities, especially the rhythmic mother of racial slurs, set to staccato booms and recordings of gunfire blasts. It's their daily aural diet.

I give 'em my fearless face, and my hook layup. They can tell right away if you're scared. But they lay off guarding me. It's all or nothing with them, either they shy away from fouling or they kill you. I can't talk them into playing regular. They like to get you playing their game. It's a game of shooting, and tipping in misses, called "Take You Out." The daredevil who misses a tough shot pays.

This kid named Leo keeps glaring at me. His three-letter name take up his whole back. And he's got the shot. His jumper nestles in the mile-high net. He was especially violent, I heard. The ex-gang member who organized the car wash likes to think Leo's "calmed down." He's enrolled in the Youth Build program, working on his GED. And he's got a steady shot.

I shoot, they shoot, we tip in misses. Dust clouds keep up with our sneakers. I am thinking I am blending in. Some old, slow Anglo dude. Ha. Am I a caring elder brother to them, or the seemingly rich white evil they're making evil against? Should I let them win? I keep hitting. That cocky swishing sound. Will my swishes earn their respect or their anger?

What, really, do we want from them?

The wind picks up. Sunset sears the sky. Displaced people roam the roads. It's the gathering hour, like everywhere. The game's come down to a duel between me and Leo. I can hurt him with this shot. I aim, way up, from the top of the key. As I cock my arm, an 11-year-old boy the car wash organizer claims "isn't gang-affiliated yet" tugs on me.

"When the South Dade boys come around, like, any minute, there are usually fights," the boy says.

That's horrible news. I'm ready to change it all, make a difference, right injustice, aren't I? Soon as I hit the game-winning shot and take Leo out. I mean, it's only fair. Those guys in that other gang washed cars to get this court, too.

They'll show up any second.

I hit the jumper, tip another ball in and make enough free throws to take out whomever I want -- and his troublemaking tattoo. "Who do you want to take out?" Leo scowls, his brown eyes getting redder. "Me," I say, and disappear into the twilight. Because, for the moment, I can.

Ran Henry is a writer living in Miami.

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