The Twelfth Card

freewheeling version of signifying and toasting: the traditional art of telling the tales of mythical characters in black culture, like the criminal Stackolee or the stoker on the Titanic who survived the ice disaster by swimming to safety.
    Jax now found the closest park to Langston Hughes with basketball courts. Despite the chill autumn air and low sun, they were plenty crowded. He eased up to the nearest one and took off his combat jacket, which the cops had probably tipped to, turned it inside out and slung it over his arm. He leaned against the chain link, smoking and looking like a big version of Pharaoh Ralph. He pulled offthe do-rag and brushed his ’fro up with his fingers.
    Just as well he changed his look. He saw a squad car drive past, slow, along the street across from the playground. Jax stayed right where he was. Nothing draws cops faster than walking away (he’d been stopped dozens of times for the criminal offense of WWB—walking while black). At the court in front of him a handful of high school boys moved magically over the scuffed gray asphalt of a half court, while another dozen watched. Jax saw the dusty brown ball smack into the ground, then heard the delayed crack. He watched hands grapple, watched bodies collide, watched the ball sailing toward the board.
    The squad car vanished and Jax pushed away from the fence and approached the boys standing on the edge of the court. The ex-con looked them over. Not a posse, no Glock-toting gangstas. Just a bunch of boys—some with tats, some without, some draped with chain, some with a single cross, some with bad intentions, some with good. Preening for the girls, lording over the little kids. Talking, smoking. Being young.
    Watching them, Jax slipped into melancholy. He’d always wanted a big family but, like so many other things, that dream hadn’t worked out. He’d lost one child to the foster system and another to his girlfriend’s fateful visit to the clinic on 125th Street. One January years ago, to Jax’s delight, she’d announced she was pregnant. In March she’d had some pains and they’d gone to a free clinic, which was their only health care option. They’d spent hours in the filthy, overcrowded waiting room. By the time she’d finally gotten to see a doctor she’d miscarried.
    Jax had grabbed the man and come close to beating him bloody. “Not my fault,” said the tiny Indian,cowering beside a gurney. “They cut our budget. The city did, I’m saying.” Jax was plunged into rage and depression. He had to get even with somebody, to make sure this didn’t happen again—to her or to anyone else. It was no consolation when the doctor explained that at least they’d saved his girlfriend’s life—which probably wouldn’t’ve happened if other planned budget cutbacks for healthcare to the poor had gone through.
    How could a fucking government do that to people? Wasn’t the whole point of city hall and the state capital to be there for the welfare of citizens? How could they let a little baby die?
    Neither the doctor, nor the police who led him out of the hospital that night in handcuffs, had been inclined to answer those questions.
    The sorrow and blistering anger at that memory made him all the more determined to get over with what he was about now.
    Grim-faced, Jax looked over the boys on the courts and nodded to the one that he’d pegged as a leader of some kind. Wearing baggy shorts, high-top sneakers and a sports jersey. His hair was a gumby—thin on one side, rounded high on the other. The boy looked him over. “S’up, grandpa?”
    Some guffaws from the others.
    Grandpa.
    In the old Harlem—well, maybe the old everywhere—being an adult carried respect. Now it got you dissed. A playa would’ve taken the piece out of his sock and make this little claimer hop to. But Jax had been seasoned by his years on the street and years inside prison and knew that wasn’t the way to go, not here. He laughed it off. Then whispered, “Tall paper?”
    “You want some?”
    “I wanta give you some. If you’re interested, asshole.” Jax tapped his pocket, where his wad of benjamins resided, curled up fat.
    “I ain’t selling nothing.”
    “And I ain’t buying what you think. Come on. Let’s stroll.”
    The kid nodded and they walked away from the court. As they did, Jax felt the boy looking him over, noticing the man’s limp. Yeah, it was an I-got-shot limp but it could’ve been a playa-gangsta limp just as easy. And