“I hear any reports that you playing favorites, you letting some of these Mexican scum beat up on her, you answer to me, just remember that.”

April was turning red with embarrassment, so I just smiled and said I’d keep it in mind. “Next time, come early enough to watch her scrimmage. You’ll be impressed.”

He nodded at me, as if to reinforce my acknowledgment of his power, then switched on another smile for Marcena. “Would if I could: it’s my hours. I got off early today and thought I’d take my little girl out for a pizza—how about it, sweetheart?”

April, who’d retreated to the background with Josie Dorrado, looked up with the kind of scowl that teenagers use to conceal eagerness.

“And this English lady who’s writing about your team and the South Side, she’d like to join us. Met me in the parking lot when I was pulling up in the rig. What do you say? We’ll go to Zambrano’s, show her the real neighborhood.”

April hunched a shoulder. “I guess. If Josie can come, too. And Laetisha.”

Romeo agreed with an expansive clap on his daughter’s shoulder and told her to hustle; he had to do some driving after pizza.

Zambrano’s was just about the only place on the South Side that I remembered from my own youth. Most of the other little joints have been boarded over. Even Sonny’s, where you could get a shot and a beer for a dollar—all under the life-sized portrait of the original Richard Daley—isn’t open anymore.

I sent the girls off to shower, in a locker room whose dank, moldy smell usually kept me in my own sweaty clothes until I got to Morrell’s. Marcena followed the team, saying she wanted the whole picture of their experience, and, anyway, she needed to pee. The girls gave gasps of excited shock at hearing her use the word in front of a man, and they clustered around her with renewed eagerness.

I looked up to the stands to see whether Sancia’s kids had anyone with them while she showered. Sancia’s sister had come in at the end of practice—she and Sancia’s mother seemed to alternate in helping out with the babies. Sancia’s boyfriend was lounging in the hallway with a couple of other guys who had girlfriends or sisters on the team, waiting for them to finish. After my first practice, when the guys had tested my authority with too much bumping and ball playing, I’d forced them to wait outside the gym until the girls were changed.

Romeo picked up one of the balls and began banging it off the backboard. He was wearing work boots, but I decided we’d had enough friction without me chewing him out for not wearing soft soles on the scarred court.