“Hey, man.” I nudged him with the toe of my sneaker. “Get off the court!”

When he didn’t move, I thought he might be dead. I nudged him again.

“Your feet too big …” That’s what he said, only he kind of sung it instead of talking.

“Hey, man, get up!”

“I really hate you ’cause your feet too big …”

The cat is laying there singing some kind of weird song. I pushed him with my sneaker again, and he didn’t move. So I gave him a kick on the back of his leg and told him to move again. He rolled over and got up on his knees and hands like a boxer trying to beat the count. I thought he was getting right up, but he just stayed like that for a while. I reached down and grabbed him by the collar and started to drag him off the court, and then, all of a sudden, he’s up. Not only is he up, but he’s got this blade in my face!

I dropped the ball and backed off. This guy smells like somebody done peed in bad wine and washed his teeth in it, but he’s got this knife, and he’s bigger than me.

“Hey, why don’t you get off the court, man?” I said.

“I really hates you ’cause your feets too big …” He starts in with this singing again, and I just watched him. I didn’t want to get too close to him ’cause I still didn’t know where he got the knife from and he was quick.

He stops just before he gets off the court and turns back to me and just looks at me, and then he puts his knife away. Right away I feel like busting his jaw. I take a step toward him, and he just grins at me.

“Get off the court, old man, before I hit you!”

“Why don’t you put me off the court, youngblood?” he says, still grinning.

I look at him for a minute, and he don’t look like much. But I’m six three and he’s maybe six four, and he’s heavier. I wasn’t scared of the cat, but I figured it wasn’t worth my while. I could hit him and he’d have a heart attack and die and I’d be up for manslaughter or something.

I picked up the ball and shot it. He turned and walked off, still singing that stupid song about feet. I shot a few times, and then the ball came down on something—a broken bottle of wine. I started to push it off the court with my foot, but then I picked it up and threw it off as far as I could. I got the ball again and shot and shot until I was too tired to shoot anymore. Then I took the ball over to the track and ran laps until I could see the sky start turning gray between the buildings.

The next morning Harrison had me cleaning rooms with him and listening to a lot of guff about how hard he had it when he was my age. He’d heard that I was the first to cop from the truck the day before and asked me where I was keeping my stash.