he had put in his place.
Nobody picked up on that, and so Jojo tried to amplify his point. âI mean, that kid Congers was all over my back out there. I felt like I was in a fucking sumo wrestling match for three hours.â
They looked at him the way you might look at a not particularly interesting statue.
Nevertheless, he doggedly pursued his mission and risked the direct approach. âAnybody know what happened to Congers? He okay?â
Charles cut a quick glance at André and then said to Jojo, âI assume so. He isnât hurt, he just had the breath knocked out of him.â
Assume so! Isnât hurt! Every time! Never failed! Every time the black players talked among themselves, theyâd go into an exaggerated homey argot, with all sorts of motherfuckers and he donâts and I ainâts and donât need no mores and you be gettings for you are gettings and whereâs it ats. The moment
Jojo arrived, theyâd drop it and start speaking conventional English. He didnât feel deferred to, he felt shut out. Charlesâs expression was unreadable. Charles, who had laughed about it in front of him and Mike after it happened! He wasnât even going to talk about it in front of André, Curtis, and Cantrell. The cool Charles Bousquet was treating him like some random fan heâd had the misfortune of running into.
A conversational vacuum ensued. It was too much for Jojo. âWell ⦠Iâm gonna take a shower.â He headed off toward his locker.
âHang in there,â said Charles.
And what was that supposed to mean? Even after two seasons Jojo never knew where he stood with the black players. What had just happened? Why had they suddenly treated him like a hoople? Was it because he had just walked up and assumed he could join in a conversation among the four of themâor wot ? Was it that none of them was going to talk to him about any friction he might have with a black player if another black player was present? Or was it because he had made a crack that was a play on âYou got game,â which was a black expression? It made your head hurt ⦠He tried to tell himself it wasnât him, it was the whole racial divide. He was one white boy who had competed with black basketball players all his life, and he could play their game. He prided himself on that. He was so proud, in fact, that he had opened his big mouth to Mike about it, hadnât he? Nevertheless, it was true, starting back when he was growing up in Trenton, New Jersey. His dad, who was six-six, had been the center and captain of the basketball team the year Hamilton East reached the state finals; he had a couple of feelers from recruiters, but no college wanted him badly enough to offer him a scholarship, which he would have needed. So he became a burglaralarm mechanic, like his father before him. Jojoâs mom, who was plenty bright enough to have been a doctor or something, was a technician in the radiology lab at St. Francis Hospital. Jojo adored his mother, but she centered her attentionâit seemed to him, anywayâon his brother, Eric, His Majesty the Brilliant Firstborn, who was three years older. Eric was a whiz in school, the best student in his class, and a lot of other things Jojo got tired of hearing about.
Jojo was an indifferent student who would show flashes of intelligence and ability one day and then inexplicably slump and drag his grades back down the next. Well, if he couldnât be the student Eric was, he would be Mr. Popularity, the cool dude Eric never had been. Jojo became the class clown
and class rebel, a pretty mild rebel, in point of fact, and then he became something else: very tall.
By the time he entered junior high school, he was already six-four, and so naturally he was steered toward the basketball team. He turned out to be not only tall but also a real athlete. He had his fatherâs coordination and drive. His mom worried about his size