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:::::::::: Perkins bulls his way in got it dismayed ::::::::::STATIC:::::::::: beaten! ::::::::::STATIC:::::::::: Jojo rolls over ::::::::::STATIC:::::::::: striped shirt referee’s over him blowing his whistle swinging his arms in a scissor fashion to halt play ::::::::::STATIC:::::::::: calls a foul on Perkins. Jojo will shoot two.
STATIC:::::::::: dies down…He’d won…He’d gotten inside the big fuck’s head and provoked him into a blatant foul…He wanted some way to a
As he approached the free-throw line, a girl’s voice shrieked, “Go go, Jojo!” A swell of cheers from all the cliffsides…Jojo tried to pick her out…The cry came from…over there…near the floor…but no luck, even though he could pick out individual faces now—
He’d never been calmer at the free-throw line in his life. He’d already won—if only everybody could know the truth of it. The others were lining up on either side of the lane. Treyshawn was giving him a big, goofy grin from down near the basket…In a falsetto voice: “Go go, Jojo!” Falsetto…Treyshawn knew how he’d won…Jojo could feel this confirmation by Treyshawn The Man…feel it, even though he wouldn’t have dared explain it out loud to a living soul.
He sank the first shot just like that, without thinking about it. The noise of the crowd swelled…André walked up the lane toward him…Jojo met him, and they touched fists in the congratulatory way—
“Twenty-four! Twenty-four!” A girl’s voice, again from courtside. A couple of beats before Jojo realized that was his number…He stared at the first courtside section of seats…You couldn’t miss her…standing, beaming, red faced, miles of blond hair…Some sort of white thing…cardboard?…began to rise up in front of her until it covered her face…a poster with amateurish, inelegant, big, thick, unmistakable hand lettering: 24! I’LL BE YOUR WHORE! Great whoops from the other side of the arena, from those who could see it. The poster began to descend, and when it reached the floor of the stands—poof!—the girl was gone. More whoops, laughter, and mock but lusty cheers. A ribald buzz rose in the Buster Bowl, and heads were craning this way and that. 24! I’LL BE YOUR WHORE!
That warrior, Number 24, returned to the free-throw line, and the referee tossed the ten-inch orange core of the world to him. Jojo had never felt looser at the free-throw line than he did right now. The buzz had scarcely abated. The Buster Bowl moaned from the girl’s salacious proffer. Jojo bounced the ball four times, held it in a crouch, then rose to almost his full height before releasing it. The Buster Bowl went dead silent as the ball reached the apogee of its arc toward the basket…Whisk…It snapped the strings of the net, so clean was the trajectory and so steep the descent.
A roar—immediately rose to STATIC:::::::::::: of stupendous intensity. It hummed in Jojo’s very hide as he ran down to the Cinci
Over his shoulder he could see Perkins, whom he’d be guarding, coming up behind him…Not a good idea…asking for it…but he couldn’t resist. As Jojo turned about to take up a defensive posture and play his man, he gave Perkins a sneer and a single dismissive wave of his hand. Perkins just stared at him with his lips slightly parted. No expression…Oh, Jojo had gotten inside the dumb fuck’s head, all right, deep inside…Jay-maulllll, him and his “white ass” and “Token” and “bitch”…Jojo had invaded the dumb fuck’s head and caused him to lose it, commit a foul so flagrant no referee in the world could have missed it.
Perkins played inside, the same way Jojo did, and Jojo took up his position between Perkins and the basket while the Cinci
Jojo started in immediately. “Yo, Jay maullll…What happened, Jaymaullll? You jes’ plain-long fucking lost it’s what happened…Nome sayin’, Bluhhhhhd?…The white man gitchoo all choked, Bluhhhhhhd?”—and on in that vein.
Perkins said nothing—nothing. He, Jojo, had crowbarred his way inside the giant’s head, and the bullshit had hemorrhaged out of his fucking brain. Now Perkins was leaning back into him very hard, and Jojo began pushing back with both hands. The referees would allow that much as the big men went sumo to sumo inside. Winston passed to Cinci
How could it have happened? As Jojo ran back down the court, defeat registered with a pain real enough to be tactile :::::::::STATIC:::::::::: STATIC::::::::::STATIC:::::::::: didn’t want to so much as glance at Coach as he passed the bench, but his peripheral vision betrayed him. Buster Roth had his hands cupped around his mouth like a megaphone. He was leaning forward, a contorted figure emerging from the atomic fog of the ::::::::::STATIC:::::::::::::
When Jojo got down near the basket to take up his position, Perkins was waiting for him, staring…but not saying a word. Instead, he had his tongue stuck in the big pocket of flesh between his gums and his lower lip. It created a bulge above his chin and a wholly mechanical smile in which his eyes weren’t involved at all. Perkins had a pair of mean-looking eyes. He nodded up and down ever so slightly, as if to say, “Yes, white boy, that’s how it’s going to be. Get used to it.”
Jojo felt fear. He wondered if Perkins could smell it. Jamal Perkins was not only big, he was quick and a plyometric marvel on top of that ::::::::::STATIC
::::::::::STATIC::::::::::
Perkins didn’t say anything. This Jojo took as a bad sign. It was abnormal. Jojo backed into him, and Perkins shoved back, always with the heels of both hands over Jojo’s kidneys. Not that it hurt particularly, but there was something…sinister…about it, something calculating…Out on the three-point line’s semicircle, Dashorn and Curtis and André were shuttling the ball back and forth and trying picks that didn’t work and getting generally frustrated by the Cinci