Gerald laughed at the phone.
Eleanora looked over from the stove. The shrimp was going in the pan, the grease popping against the side, and she had the spatula in her hand and the dish towel over her shoulder and she didn’t stop what she was doing.
“What Vance done did now?"
"Nah," Gerald shook his head, "It’s your nephew."
He turned the phone around so she could see the screen from across the kitchen. She couldn’t read it from that far but she could see the photo. Keshawn standing in front of a white tent, the Chase Forward logo behind him.
Eleanora turned back to the stove.
“Still can’t get used to it,” Gerald said. He set the phone down on the table and picked up his coffee. “I remember watching him at UCLA. I thought he’d be good, I didn’t think he’d be that good. I think he had like nine points against Ryder. Now, he’s the MVP of the whole league."
Eleanora laughed.
“He’s still just little Ke to me,” she said. “That’s all he’s ever going to be.”
She moved to the pot, stirring the grits.
“I still remember the look on his face when he moved here,” she said. "That boy was terrified."
Gerald nodded.
“Not even ten years later,” she said. She cracked an egg into the pan and the white spread out across the surface. “And don’t nobody get more love in The Jungle than him."
"You raised him right," Gerald nodded.
"I had him for all of two years," Eleanora scoffed, "He come from good stock. Lord knows me and Rainey don’t always see eye-to-eye on a lot of things but she raised her children right. Both of them."
“You get credit for those two years,” Gerald said.
Eleanora turned the egg. The yolk stayed intact, the white setting around the edges.
“I’ll take it,” she said. “I’m already batting five hundred between Vic and Trey. Might as well take the credit where I can get it.”
Gerald set his coffee down. His hand stayed on the mug for a second.
“You did the best you could with two boys who had every reason to go wrong,” he said. "You know that."
Eleanora slid the egg onto a plate and set it on the counter. The pan was still hot. She turned the burner off and let it sit.
“They were both so angry after Malcolm died,” she said. “Vic wouldn’t talk to nobody. Trey wouldn’t stop talking."
She wiped her hands on the dish towel.
“Vic took it inside him,” she said. “Sat with it. That’s probably where he got his drive from. He was just obsessed with basketball after that. Wanted to spend every waking minute he could on that court."
She picked up the spatula and set it in the sink. The water ran over it and she turned it off.
"I think Trey just took that rage and threw it back at the world,” she said. “Told it was its problem now. You deal with it."
Gerald nodded. He picked his coffee back up.
“He’s home now,” he said. “He’ll figure it out.”
Eleanora looked at him.
“I’m not so sure about that,” she said.
She turned and opened the cabinet above the stove. Pulled down two plates. Set them on the counter.
“I was at Charlene’s the other day,” she said. “Trey isn’t home much. Charlene never said it but I can tell. You can see it.”
She set the grits on the plates. The eggs went next to it. Then the shrimp went on top of the grits. She pulled two forks from the drawer and set them on the counter.
The kitchen was quiet around her. The clock above the stove ticked. Gerald’s coffee sat in front of him, the steam still rising off it.
“I don’t think that boy ever got right with himself,” she said. “Got right with the world.”
…
The note sat on the center console, an address scribbled across it. Trey kept his eyes on the street and his hand on the wheel and his foot light on the gas.
He knew the area, or at least he used to, the blocks having changed in the last ten years. New buildings where there used to be vacant lots. A gas station where a liquor store used to sit. He drove past a corner and didn’t recognize it until he was already past it, the memory catching up a half-second too late.
He made a left onto Vernon. The traffic moved slow, a bus in front of him, a line of cars behind. He checked the note again without picking it up.
Central came up on the right. He took it. The street narrowed, the parked cars eating into the lane, and he had to slow down to let a delivery truck coming the other way squeeze past. The truck’s side mirror missed his by maybe two inches. He didn’t flinch.
The apartment complex sat at the end of the block. Three stories, brown stucco, the balconies stacked on top of each other like teeth. He could see the parking lot from here, half-full, a couple of cars near the entrance, a dumpster against the far fence.
The sound hit him before he saw anything. Two quick bursts.
Trey looked in the rearview.
The black-and-white sat two cars back, the light bar going red and blue across the windshield of the car behind it. The siren ran again, longer this time, the cop laying on it.
He looked ahead. The bus was still there. The traffic in front of him hadn’t moved. The street was too narrow to pull around anything. The parking lot entrance was maybe fifty feet ahead but the cop was already closing the gap, the siren filling the car, filling his head.
His eyes dropped to the door pocket. The handle sat there, black, the grip visible.
They’d have ran his plate already.
The siren hit again, closer now, the cop car pulling into the oncoming lane to get around the car behind him. The light bar swept across his rear window, red and blue and red and blue.
“Fuck.”
He pulled to the right. The curb came up fast and he eased off, letting the tire kiss it, the car rolling to a stop along the parked cars. He put it in park. The engine idled. The siren kept going behind him, the light still moving across the glass.
He kept his hands on the wheel.
The siren cut off. The light kept going.
He could hear the car door open behind him. The sound of boots on asphalt. One set. Then the radio, muffled, the dispatcher’s voice coming through in pieces he couldn’t make out.
The footsteps got closer.
Trey’s eyes stayed forward. The apartment complex sat at the end of the block, the parking lot entrance still visible, still fifty feet away.
The cop reached the window. Trey could see him in the side mirror now, the uniform, the belt, the hand resting on the holster.
The knock came. Two taps on the glass.
Trey rolled the window down.
…
The ceiling fan moved in its slow circle above them. Angela laid on her back, the sheet pulled up to her waist, her chest still rising and falling in a rhythm that hadn’t quite settled.
"I’m never complaining again about your events," Ronnie said from beside her. He had one arm behind his head, the other draped across his stomach. "That shit is lowkey an aphrodisiac for your ass."
She hit him on the shoulder.
“Shut up.”
They laid there. The room was warm and the air was still except for the fan and the sound of their breathing, hers slowing, his already slow.
"Keshawn sent me the job offer. Well, his people did."
Ronnie turned his head on the pillow. She could feel him looking at her without turning to meet it.
"For the foundation?"
“Yup. Executive Director and Co-Founder. 250."
Ronnie sat up right away, "I’m sorry. 250 what?"
"Yup," Angela said plainly.
Ronnie was quiet for a beat. The fan turned.
“So why haven’t you taken it?” he said. “You hate your job.”
“I don’t hate my job.”
“You hate your job.”
She let out a breath through her nose. The ceiling fan turned. The chain clicked.
“It’s not that simple,” she said.
“I don’t see how it’s not."
She turned onto her side to face him. The sheet shifted with her.
"I like doing this," she said, "I feel like I’m making an impact. I feel like I’m giving back. That’s important to me. That’s the most important thing to do. The second I start doing it for a paycheck, it becomes a job. And then I’m going to hate it the same way I hate—”
She stopped herself. “The same way I feel about the other thing.”
Ronnie didn’t say anything. He let her keep going.
“And two-fifty is almost gross,” she said. “Like, I’m out here talking about dismantling systems and then I’m going to take a salary like that? That’s a whole other level of hypocrisy.”
Ronnie’s mouth pulled up at the corner. She saw it before he could hide it.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
“Say it. You’re thinking it anyway.”
He turned his head back toward the ceiling. The fan turned above him.
“You already take a salary from a corporation,” he said. “And God knows where they get their money from."
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
He laughed. She tilted her head at him and the laugh got bigger and she couldn’t help it.
“So you’re taking it?” he said.
…
The porch sat at the back of the house.
Tom Dundon sat in the chair across from him, the whiskey glass cradled in his palm. The yard stretched out behind the house, the trees at the far end dark against the evening, the sky still holding onto the last of the light.
“I’m going to be honest with you, Keshawn,” Dundon said. “I was surprised when you didn’t accept the extension last year."
Keshawn took a drink of water. The glass was cold against his lip.
“Even more surprised when I got the news from your people that you’d be taking visits this summer,” Dundon said. “I sat with it for a minute. And I thought, okay. I get it. You want to see what’s out there. That’s your right. But I also thought, man, we’ve done right by this kid.”
Keshawn nodded. He set the glass on the arm of the chair.
“You have."
“Then what’s giving you pause?”
The question sat between them for a second, Dundon taking a drink of his whiskey.
Keshawn looked out at the yard. The trees were still. No wind tonight.
“The way the season ended,” he said. “That’s part of it.”
Dundon nodded.
“Nick’s a great coach,” Keshawn said. “This isn’t me asking for a change there. I just didn’t like some of the decisions he made down the stretch. I felt like we were doing well with the small lineup but down the stretch, he kept going big and that’s when San Antonio would come back."
"I think Nick understands and will understand," Dundon began, "What sort of role you’re going to have going forward. It’ll be more of a co-op."
“And then there’s the roster,” Keshawn said. "I just feel like certain guys didn’t show up in the playoffs. I get it from the young guys but some of the veterans, we needed more from them. So when I’m looking at teams like Dallas or San Antonio, I see the firepower they have. Those are the teams we’re going to need to beat and I’m asking myself, do we have enough firepower? Can we actually compete with that?”
He picked the water glass back up.
“And then there’s the other side of it,” he said. “Can we attract the pieces? I like it here but it’s still Portland. It’s not LA. It’s not New York. It’s not Miami. Guys aren’t lining up to come here. So if we can’t sign the right free agents, if we can’t pull off the right trades, then what are we doing? We’re just running it back with the same group and hoping it clicks next year. And I don’t know if that’s enough.”
Dundon thumb moved along the rim of the whiskey glass, slow, back and forth.
"I do like it here," Keshawn looked out at the yard again. The last of the light was going now, the trees turning from green to gray. "I love the city. The fans. The way people treat me when I’m out. I can walk into a restaurant and nobody bothers me."
He set the glass down.
“I can see myself raising a family here,” he said. “Being that guy. The guy who stayed. The guy who brought a championship to this city that loves basketball. I think about that. I think about it a lot. Being a cult hero in a place like this. That means something to me.”
Dundon nodded. He set the whiskey glass on the small table between them and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped.
“Let me tell you something,” he said. “And I want you to hear me on this.”
Keshawn looked at him.
“I was born in New York,” Dundon said. “Raised in Jersey. My parents moved us to Texas when I was fifteen. Spent some time in Houston then Plano. Went to school in Dallas. Made my money in Dallas."
He picked the glass back up and took a drink.
“New York is where I was born,” he said. “Jersey is where I was raised. It’s not home. Home is where you rest your head. Home is where you make your money. Where you build your life. Where you find your stability.”
He set the glass down again.
“Portland can offer you the most money. You know that. The max deal is sitting right there. But it’s more than that. It’s the stability. The security. The organization that’s already built around you. You know what you’re getting here. You don’t know what you’re getting anywhere else.”
He leaned back in the chair.
“And you can win here,” he said. “I know you can. You know you can. We’re going to make the moves. We’re going to get you the pieces. You have my word on that.”
