The Portable Promised Land Read online

  He held his breath. The thunder came down the stairs, barreled past the door, and continued on down the hall. He relaxed, then tensed again. Where am I? What’s next? He found himself alone in a strange little room. It was supposed to be a kitchen — there was a refrigerator that looked at least forty years old, a stove, a small sink — but the room had become a makeshift library. There were stacks of books everywhere, hardcovers and soft, laying sideways on every inch of wall and countertop, reaching to the ceiling, funky little towers, mini-Frank Gehry-esque skyscrapers. The hallway was also filled with miniskyscrapers, each side lined with so many that two people couldn’t pass at once. A little voice came from down the hall. “Helll-lo?” It was an older man’s voice, acid and raspy. Bougie called “hello” back in a voice he hoped might charm his sudden host.

  “That you, Leon?” The nasty little voice cut through the air. “Come on in the back. You know I can’t hear so good.” Bougie squeezed down the hall toward the voice, careful of the books. The bathroom door was open. He couldn’t help himself — without stopping his feet Bougie craned his neck to see inside and yes, the bathroom too was all miniskyscrapers: they even sprouted up from inside the bathtub.

  He pictured the room at the end of the hall filled with books, turned the corner, and found his imagination trumped. The skyscrapers were everywhere, ending high above Bougie’s head, partitioning the room, creating a maze. Bougie snaked this way and that through thin walls of books til he reached the end of the trail, where there was a little man in a wooden rocking chair with a back twice his height. He was so wire-thin it appeared as though a slight squeeze would turn his arms to ash. He had honey-brown skin and meticulously combed gray hair. He wore a tailored navy blazer and matching slacks with no shoes or socks. His skin was wrinkled, his clothes were not at all. “You’re not Leon,” he said with mock puzzlement, as if to say, You can’t pull a fast one on me! “But ya sure is ugly!”

  Bougie was insulted, but the old man’s quick, sly smile made him unsure if he should be.

  “Do ya even know why you’re here?” the old man barked. He was the fragile and grumpy type, the sort to snarl at you if he liked you.

  “Well,” Bougie said, struggling to find his balance.

  “Of course you don’t know yet, stupid,” he said. “You’re here for a reason, but who knows why until history has come around and sorted it out?” His back was straight and his slender legs were crossed at the knee. Both legs pointed straight down.

  After a while Poppa Suge explained that he was doing a study, a lifelong study he affectionately called “The Histry of Ayething.” The study consisted largely of constant reading, but occasionally he went out into the world, wandering, asking questions, listening to stories. “That’s what history really is, you know,” Poppa Suge said. “The stories of certain people, stories that explain how we all got here.” His study extended back eight-and-a-half decades. He’d learned just about everything there was to know. Of course, he knew the story of Falcon Malone. Bougie sat on the floor and crossed his legs Indian-style, as he’d done as a child during storytime.

  “Boy was born on a Sunday,” Poppa Suge said. “You know what they say bout Sunday babies? They lazy. And he was. The laziest of his momma’s five boys. His brothers spent all their time running sprints in the hallway, dribbling up and down the stairs, shooting all day long, and doing pull-ups all night. They got to be pretty good ballplayers. Luther would just wait by the side of the court, hoping to get in the game, but the only time he got to play was when the sun went down and the big boys left. Then he’d shoot baskets in the dark by himself.

  “Once his grandmomma came to visit from New Orleans. She was a high priestess in a secret sect that had only seven followers. Luther was sixteen then, and as the baby of the family, he could do no wrong. She pulled him aside and asked what he wanted most in the world. He said, “To play basketball with the big boys.” And though he was the least deserving of all the grandsons, she said she’d make it happen. She sent him out to get a new pair of Jordans, a live chicken, some candles, a live crab, some fresh green peppers, crushed red pepper, shrimp, okra, sausage, and a heaping handful of dirt that he’d walked on. With the food she made gumbo for everyone. After they ate, she went in the bathroom with his shoes, the candles, the dirt, and some John the Conqueror root she carried at all times. She stayed for hours, chanting the soul of Big John the Conqueror into those shoes. John was the personification of Black unstoppability, a man who’d survived slavery, beat down the Devil, and never ever died. With just a piece of John’s spirit in the shoes, whoever wore them would be superior to any foe, from humanity to gravity. When she was done she called him in. ‘Inside these shoes,’ she said, ‘you’ll play with the biggest boys and be more alive than you can dream of. Take them off and you’ll be nearly dead.’

  “One night a few weeks after she left, I finished a book and went out to get some breakfast. It was that hour just before dawn that’s neither late nor early and neither the sun nor the moon was out and no one was around and I was walking through the park when, blam, I saw that boy, leaping in the air, getting as high as the top of a tree. He was up touching the top branch of a huge Maple that had to be over forty feet tall, coming down, pushing off, and leaping back up there like there were giant springs in his feet. Incredible. With a minimum of effort he could bounce to the top of the tallest branch! I think he could’ve touched Heaven if he tried.

  “Next thing you know, the only thing the kids in the projects could talk about was Luther and some move he’d made. He blocked a shot with his foot. He dunked after two full turns in the air — 720 degrees! One day when he dunked he put his entire arm through the hoop and finished with his armpit on the rim and one of them Ya-better-axe-somebody smirks smeared across his face. Every day he amazed em. Before long every time he stepped on the court he drew a crowd. People from all over the city waited hours to challenge him, watch him, worship him. The best players, the biggest fans, everyone migrated to Fort Greene to see this kid. He became a star at Brooklyn Tech, but he really shined on the little court in the park. One day he was running down the side of the court on a fast break. Point guard saw him on the wing and tossed the ball up toward the basket for an alley-oop. Luther launched himself into the air and hung up there for four full seconds before he caught that ball, and the thing was, when he caught the ball it was losing altitude while he was still gaining, so he caught it below his waist — like a bird of prey, claws outstretched, snatching up a hapless songbird — pulled it up to his chest, and rammed it through with a fury, grabbing onto the rim with both hands to break his momentum. That day they named him Falcon.

  “He soon found himself playing in ballgames of a cerebrality and complexity he’d never known and yet he could still dominate. The shoes allowed him to make mental mistakes and still score by outleaping everyone. Even when he was wrong he was right. The intensity of the competition and his exalted place within it led him to lose himself on the court, lose himself the way people do in church. Ungoverned by gravity, unchained from Earth, he was, he felt, beyond the grasp of God. One night, he was walking through the project courtyard with his friends when bullets flew. Two platoons were shooting at each other and Luther and them were in the middle of it. They heard pop-poppop and hit the ground, then ducked into a corner. His man Lil’ Louie Neptune went to the hospital that night, but not Luther. Bullets went through each leg of his baggy shorts and never touched him. Them slugs missed his legs by millimeters. Then he felt invulnerable. Superhuman. On the court he turned completely reckless, attempting stuff he wouldn’t have before. He got frighteningly good. But, inside, he was deeply conflicted.

  The source of his talent, the source of his life spirit at that point, was completely external, so beside the voice inside that said to him, You are The Man!, was another voice that answered, Are you? He had to prove himself to himself every day. The colleges came courting, all the big-name coaches, but insecurity led Falcon to a place where he
would get all the credit, little Negritude University. He pulled in three national scoring titles, two NCAA championships, one player-of-the-year award, five golden rings (from a wealthy booster), four passing grades, three French girlfriends, two Sports Illustrated covers, and his name in a famous rap song.

  “When the NBA draft came everyone knew he would be chosen first and annointed the league’s new savior. On the afternoon before the day of the draft, Luther was back on his home court. It was a hot summer day and after he and his crew dusted a squad from Harlem, Luther was about ready to leave. Then this scrawny eighteen year-old half an inch shorter than him pushed his way through the throng. Nobody knew who he was, but there was just somethin about him. Nobody could take their eyes off him. Maybe it was his shoes, the latest Air Jordans, the Jordan XXVI, the ones almost no one had yet, the laceless ones with a computer chip in the sole that projected a foot-tall hologram of Jordan giving a short motivational speech that was different every time. Maybe it was that he somehow resembled Luther a curious bit, with the same long, sloped nose. Maybe it was just something in his presence, the force in his voice when he spoke. ‘Yo, Luther!’ he said. ‘You ain’t all that!’ Every bit of clatter just stopped then and it got so quiet you could hear a roach think. Everyone within a hundred yards of the court heard that boy say, ‘I’ll take you one-on-one right now!’ Entire squads of tall, well-trained men had trouble guarding Luther. What could a single kid do? Luther should never have paid him any mind. But even though he was hours away from the big time, insecurity ruled him. Challenged in front of a crowd he just couldn’t walk away. He tossed the ball hard into the boy’s stomach and told him, ‘Take the ball out first, little man.’ Then the boy added one more log to the blaze. ‘I don’t play for pride, nigga. We goin to eleven for sneakers!’ The crowd roared at the boy’s bravado. Now there was no turning back.

  “The boy scored first, dribbling to his left, then exploding over Luther’s shoulder for a dunk. Amazingly, the boy could jump with Luther: he could go up as high as him and stay in the air as long as him. Luther deflected a promising jump shot of the boy’s at the height of its arc, then saw a finger-roll of his own blocked. He’d never been blocked before. The crowd hushed, the way people do when someone has been truly, deeply, publicly embarrassed. He turned angry. And he began to play hard. But Luther still couldn’t make himself believe it was really possible for him to lose. The score went five to four in the boy’s favor, then seven to five, then nine to six. Even though the boy could jump to the sky and neutralize Luther’s air advantage, Luther continued to think he could turn on the fire at any time. He surprised himself by making a pair of medium-range jump shots, then found enough daylight to create a layup that evened the score at nine. The boy missed a shot and the ball bounced off the rim. Luther loafed toward the ball. The boy zipped to it, snatched it, and banked it home while Luther slept. ‘Point-game!’ the crowd shrieked, their collective jaw dropped low.

  “Perhaps if Luther had realized it was possible for him to lose he would’ve played a bit harder and you and I wouldn’t be sitting here today. But even one shot from losing, he remained over-confident. The shoes would save him. The boy took the ball at the top of the key and Luther stood a foot back, on his toes, ready for any drive, staring back in his eyes. The boy held the stare, as if whoever blinked first literally would blink first figuratively. Then, in one quick, smooth motion, without a single preemptive dribble or moving his eyes from Luther’s, the boy poised the ball above his head and shot. The ball was past Luther before he realized it was up. He watched the ball float on its perfect arc, a smooth parabola from the boy’s fingers toward the basket. Shooting was a realm Luther had never mastered, something one learned through painstaking repetition, something no amount of prestidigitation could aid. As the ball neared the basket he realized only a bizarrely strong wind could stop it. That gust never came. The ball swapped into the net and fell to the ground. Game over.

  “Who was this boy? Julius Jackson Johnson, Junior, known down in Shreveport as 4J. He and Luther were brothers. Their barnstorming bum father had never told them about each other, but they were blood. Their grandmomma the priestess hadn’t told either. And she’d become a bit careless in her old age. She restored the sight of a blind man, though he saw only in black and white, and found herself unable to kick-start a woman’s long-paralyzed right arm, but caused her to grow three helpful new fingers on her left hand, and forgot that she’d blessed one grandson with the gift of flying Air Jordans and gave that exact same gift to another. After a few weeks of touching the tops of Shreveport’s Weeping Willows and dunking on the greatest players in town, 4J grabbed a small sack, bought a bus ticket, and said, ‘Momma, ahm goin to New York to play one-on-one with that boy on the TV.’

  “After 4J’s final shot dropped Luther heard silence for a long moment, saw in slow motion, and focused on images of his future — a zero-infested contract, a blue Porsche SUV, a mansion, a rap album, a championship ring, a movie-star girlfriend, an epic Nike commercial set on a basketball court in Heaven, where Wilt Chamberlain and Jesus play two-on-two against St. Peter and some guy in a crisp number one jersey that says FALCON on the back. A newcomer to Heaven says, Falcon Malone is in Heaven? A chuckling angel says, That ain’t Falcon Malone. That’s God. He just likes to pretend He’s Falcon Malone.

  “Then everything went into hyperspeed. The crowd rushed the court and engulfed them in a euphoric bedlam, wild at the surprise coronation. They danced, they chanted, they feted 4J, the boy king whose name they didn’t yet know, and waited for the moment no one could envision: Luther Falcon Malone handing over his sneakers. But Luther was not about to give up the keys to the universe he loved.

  “Luther yelled, ‘Fuck that! I ain’t givin up shit!’ And he started forcing his way through the crowd. Now in certain corners of the world there are certain codes of honor that are upheld at all cost, and in and around these projects the basketball court is a sacred place. Luther knew the code. It’d filled his closets with the sneakers of ballplayers from the Bronx, Queens, Harlem, Newark, Philly, and D.C. He’d demolished the biggest of reputations and cut legendary men down to mortal size. Never once had a man lost a bet in Fort Greene and escaped with his shoes. Luther didn’t care. He was above the code. He grabbed a girl in front of him and threw her to the side, then jerked a man out of his way, using his arms like scythes to chop down the human weeds in his way.

  “He couldn’t get far. Slash Jackson, a career thug with a thick scar running from his forehead over his nose and down his cheek like half of a capital X, razed Luther with a blindside tackle, lifting him off his feet and driving him into the ballcourt floor. Then Slash tattooed his face with Timberland boot stomps, shattering his nose as teeth flew from his mouth. The crowd began stomping Luther like he was a stubborn piece of fire. He laid on the asphalt he’d soared over, cringing below Reeboks and Adidas and Nikes — so many Nikes, the swoosh flashing by his face, slicing down onto his windpipe, looking, in the blur, like the blade of a guillotine. The pain engulfed him and he was lost in a sea of it. He sensed the stomping cease but couldn’t move. He felt his Jordans being tugged from his feet and wanted to stop them, but he knew it was over. He just smiled, only a bit because it hurt to smile, and said, ‘I lived....I lived... .’ over and over. ‘I lived.’” And with that, Poppa Suge sat back.

  “What — what happened to 4J?!”

  “That poor southern boy took them shoes, walked to a bodega, and stumbled into a police-interrupted holdup. Nervous guns all over the place. He took two steps into the store and caught six bullets with his face. His momma barely recognized him. Funny thing is, when she got to the body, there were no shoes anywhere.”

  They talked a little more, but it was late for Poppa, and in the middle of a sentence, he fell asleep. Bougie thought of going back to Falcon’s door, but he lacked the courage. He wasn’t even sure he could get out of the building in peace. He quietly said goodbye, showed himself out, and, looking every
where as if he were in a horror movie and the killer might leap out at any second, he darted into the hallway, down the stairs, and through the courtyard. He made it to the park and slowed his pace. It was night now and the street lamps cast a dim glow. The park was empty, a peaceful antidote to the roller coaster that had been his day. He paused a moment to breathe deeply. Perhaps, he thought, God had knocked Falcon from his little earthbound heaven on the lip of that modern sin, Superfame. But Falcon’s temporary paradise had been enough for a lifetime. A brief visit to hoop heaven had made him rich in memories. But what had happened to those shoes? Had someone else entered the Air Paradise? Were there men in the NBA reaping millions from the power of the shoes? And then in the middle of the park Bougie saw a girl, some thirty feet in the air, shooting up as if launched by a trampoline, arms out wide, Jordans on her feet, and all the way across her little brown face a smile. A wide-mouth, eyes-closed, ear-to-ear smile of boundless joy.