Benji smiled, revealing a space between each jagged tooth. He dug into his sock and pulled out a wad. His buddies reached into their own pockets, socks, bags, and put up their own cash, too. After counting out the three hundred bucks, they laid it all out on the court, placing one of the sneakers on top to keep the evening breeze from turning dollars into feathers.
Then everyone cleared out in front of the hoop to give Benji and Miles space. Benji dribbled the ball intensely, as if he were pounding a head against the pavement. Miles got the drift. He shot a glance at Ganke, who was now wearing Miles’s backpack on his front. Ganke smiled, followed by his usual shrug.
“Little man probably can’t even grab the net,” Benji said. He held the ball in both hands, took two steps and effortlessly jammed it through the rim. No warning. No warm-up. “Should be a piece of cake.”
“Or a piece of steak,” Ganke said from the sidelines. Miles swung around, ice-grilled him. Ganke mouthed, Sorry, sorry, as Miles called for the ball. But as soon as Benji threw it to him—zipping it as if he were shooting a fireball from his hands—Miles realized he knew very little about basketball.
He bounced the ball fumblingly, slapping at it with a stiff hand. Okay, no more dribbling. Dribbling wasn’t his thing. He gripped the ball, the tips of his fingers instantly becoming sticky. It felt like there were tiny cannons firing off inside him. A tingle in his elbows and fingertips. A surge of electricity shooting down the back of his legs, throbbing in the soft spot behind his knees. And then, as if it were nothing, he took two steps, jumped eye level with the orange ring, and easily dropped the ball in.
“Yo…” Mucus Man said, shaking his head. That’s all he said. No follow-up. The others didn’t say anything, but all their faces were saying the same thing: Yo…
“Aight, little man. I see you,” Benji said, taking the ball. “So let’s just get this over with, forreal this time.” He started from the three-point line, took off running, jumped, and turned his back toward the rim midair. Holding the ball with both hands, he brought it down between his legs, then flung it up over his head and behind him, hammering it into the net with a grunt.
“Ungh!” Shorty Puff-Chest repeated the grunt, again, like a good hype-man. He grabbed his chest and howled dramatically. “That was so hard you almost took me out!”
“Woo!” Mucus hooted.
“Don’t get no better than that, lil’ man,” Benji boasted, kicking the ball over to Miles.
“Oh, it does,” from Ganke.
“Yeah, whatever, Bruce Bruce. We’ll see.”
Miles went back to the three-point line. Again, no dribbling. He eyed the rim. But right before he was about to take a running start, Ganke, of course, waved him off.
“Hold on, hold on, hold on.” He skittered to the foul line, shoeless and double-backpacked. “Listen, fellas. This is fun and all, but the truth is, we don’t have all night. So, how about we just get it over with?”
“We will as soon as your man makes a fool of himself by trying to do what I just did.”
“Yeah…” Ganke held one finger up, then pointed it at Benji. “No. How about this: if he can do the dunk you did, without all that running, we win.”
“Wait,” Shorty Puff-Chest spoke up. “So you saying if he can do the back dunk that Benji did, on a vertical jump, y’all win.”
“Exactly. And if he can’t—”
“We win, and y’all get your corny asses outta here?”
“Yep,” Miles said. The whole thing had been a bad idea, but this was the only part of the bad idea that sounded like a good idea. They still had to get back to school. Miles still had to make a phone call to his parents. And even though he could say the train was messed up—because the train’s always messed up—he didn’t want to lie.
Benji looked surprised, but everyone backed off the court again as Miles stepped up to the rim. He looked up at it: the familiar webbing of the net, the rusty orange circle, the dirty glass backboard. He glanced at Ganke, then at the court goons—Shorty Puff-Chest, Mucus Man, Benji, and the Bear.
In all the movies Miles had watched, there was always some kind of pep talk or intense battle drum rhythm playing in the hero’s mind in these kinds of situations, but in Miles’s head, he heard silly music. Like, whistling, and the theme song to Super Mario Bros. Whatever. All the staring up at the rim “concentration” was just for show, anyway. After the tension in his body had built enough, Miles sprang up. He twisted in midair before spreading his legs into a full split, dropping the ball down, then drawing it up over his head and into the net with such force that veins of cracked glass traveled through the backboard.
No big deal. To Miles. Or Ganke.
But from the looks on the faces of the court goons, they might as well have just witnessed the second coming of Jordan. Or maybe the second coming of Earl “The Goat” Manigault—everyone in New York had heard the legend about how, at only 6?1?, Earl had snatched a dollar bill off the top of a backboard and left change. Benji and his boys were completely stunned.
Until Ganke reached for his shoes. And the money. Then the howls turned to barks. And the astonishment turned to anger.
“What you think you doin’?” Benji pressed up on Ganke as he slipped his feet back in the sneakers and picked up the cash.
“Y’all lost. I mean…nobody’s beating that,” Ganke bragged.
“Maybe I can’t beat that, but I can beat you. So I suggest you leave the cash.”
“Y’all hustled us,” Mucus Man cried. Streetballers always cry about being hustled, even though they hustle people nonstop. Nobody likes to lose.
“Oh, so it was okay for y’all to take advantage of kids, though?” Miles said. “You just couldn’t resist what you thought was an easy come-up on a fresh pair of sneakers. I mean, we got backpacks, man.” He didn’t necessarily care about the money—this was all just Ganke’s attempt to get him to take his mind off being Spider-Man and all the Super Hero mumbo-jumbo. But now it was about principle. About these clowns keeping their word.
“Don’t matter. Leave the money, and leave with your lives.”
Ganke looked at Miles, nodded. Miles shook his head. Ganke nodded again. And again, Miles shook his head.
“No.”
“What?” Ganke now was somewhere between a nod and shake.
“Yeah, what?” Benji repeated. The rest of the lumpheads gathered around.
“I said no,” Miles confirmed.
It’s amazing how quiet the basketball court gets when things are about to go south. There’s a stillness. A dead air. The streetlights had flickered on by now, and what was left of the sun was just about gone—only the faintest recognition of blue in a black sky.
“Guys, you don’t have to—”
“Shut up,” Benji shot back at Ganke, pointing at him. “Hold him!” Shorty Puff-Chest and Mucus Man instantly flanked Ganke, grabbing him by the arms.