Free Jordan in the Time of Cold War by Seth Harwood

 
     
    This was before I got straightened out, back when I was running ragged on the Lower East Side, doing whatever I could to get by. I was betting heavy on NBA games, trying not to piss away what little I had.
    Mostly I did favors for a guy named Joe S. Whatever he needed. He started me out small, but before I knew it he had me doing dirty, busting guys up when they didn't have his money, things like that and sometimes worse.
    The first time I ever came down hard on one of Joe's deadbeats, I pictured someone else doing the same to me, almost like I could see it coming from not too far off. If things hadn't gone different, I would've wound up there. No doubt about it.
             But that's another story for a different time. What this is about is the one time I had to go out and leave this nice girl who claimed to love me to do something for Joe.
    Her name? We can call her Delilah, but if I said her real name it's not like she'd care. She's in a better place now, with lots more going on than listening to my shit. 
    Back then we were both using whatever we could get out hands on. This week it'd be weed; next week coke or e or whatever. Put it up our nose, smoke it, shoot it, stick it in a vein, we didn't care; we did whatever.
    This particular week she'd managed to score some opium, a black tar ball that smoked sweeter than weed. Like cooking incense. Nothing like hash. It didn't do anything particularly for me, but it felt cool to smoke, like I would wake up with amazing dreams. Delilah was real into the literature thing then; told me about these writers who'd smoked it back in the day and written crazy shit, guys with three names, like Coleridge and Langhorne and Tennyson. 
    I might've been able to make something good with her, something that'd last, but back then I couldn't stop betting against the Bulls. Sure, Jordan did it all, but I kept picking his luck to run out. An injury, Pippen getting a migraine, or Horace Grant punking out. Something.
    Of course, that never came.
    Instead they kept rolling their way through games, playoff series, and titles. This was the decade when, if Jordan wasn't playing baseball, that's how it was. I was in the hole to Joe for enough that I didn't have an option to say no when he called. And I hadn't heard from Joe in a while. So I knew it was gonna be bad. 
    He called just after the first game of a Sunday triple-header. I think the third game was Celtics and Knicks, so I was glad when he said he didn't need me until after 10. 
    Even junked out, Delilah read the whole deal on my face as Joe talked into my ear.
    "He wants you tonight," she said when I hung up. She had on a tight black tank that came down to her thighs. Not like I gave a shit about sex right then with the games on and Joe's call, but she always had enough to make me stutter.
    "So what is it?" she asked. "What'd he ask you to do?"
    "He just asked?" I said.
    "What?"
    "You asked me like he didn't just say it. Like it's not something that's already happened."
    "Bullshit. You don't have to do this."
    Like that, I was already making it a bigger problem. Things changed on me like that too easily back then. Part of the reason I went straight, I guess. Someone called in the middle of a fine Sunday afternoon and it made everything crazy. Just fucked up my whole world.
    Stands to reason Delilah could've done better.
    "I guess you'd be better off not to know."
    "Not to know you."
    "What'd you say?"
    She rolled over on the couch to face the wall. I was in the chair next to the phone and sitting close to the TV. If I wanted, I could've just turned up the volume again and gone back to watching. Barkley and Phoenix were getting ready to play Malone, Stockton, and the Jazz. I watched the announcers sitting on little stools in the middle of the court with players running layup lines behind them. Barkley was on his back, getting stretched out by a trainer.
    "Fuck is wrong with doing a favor for Joe?"
    Delilah didn't say anything. I