I am almost ready to launch the novel. It will most likely be available on Amazon, iBooks and here. I can’t thank Gary and Rob enough for their help with this final edit. I hope you enjoy the teaser below!

Cut Throat was the norm at the basketball courts, and if it was your court, you just stepped in; you didn’t have to wait for the next game. If you could steal a game that was almost over you were a badass. But there were pros and cons to being a badass. Probably way more cons; I wasn’t sure. Everyone preyed on losers, but everyone wanted a shot at a winner.

James could take or leave the Howard Jones. Some little girls screamed and made way too much noise while roller-skating on the tennis courts. Kids volleyed tennis balls off of the bricks. The nearby woods were dark and overgrown. The backstops at the baseball diamonds needed repairs. The fields needed plenty of grooming. The young dudes playing basketball were cocky shit-talkers, but they weren’t very good. Actually, they kind of sucked. They hacked a bit, but not too much. They laughed and panted a lot. They were in bad shape. They didn’t take it seriously, that is not until I began to school them. When I took the lead, the environment changed.

I collected a rebound under the basket and laid it back up, went to the line and sank the free throws. Drove left, pulled up and hit a mid-range jump shot. Nailed the free throws. For the most part, I was nothing but rusted chain-linked net. My game hardly changed, if I didn’t think about it. It was like pool at El Oasis. Nigel and I often ran the table, and I held my own, even though I never practiced, as long as I had just the right amount of beer, and didn’t hop on the expressway of racing thoughts in my head.

Predictably, the game got chippy.

The shaggy dude said, “Check this motherfucker out,” to no one in particular.

James was in good shape, but he couldn’t make a bucket.

The next time I touched the ball, I was fouled hard.

“Foul!” I shouted.

“He’s a pussy.”

“Yeah.”

I was careful not to roll my eyes.

I backed off and clanged a long jumper off the back of the rim. I threw up a couple of bricks. I played a layup too hard off the backboard. I let the young guys get back in the game. They grew more excited and animated as they closed the gap.

I made a bucket here and there, but intentionally missed my free throws. When I dribbled the ball off of my foot, it skittered out of bounds. The young guys tore after it. Closing in on it, they jostled and shoved each other. They locked up and grappled like wrestlers. A long gleaming string of slobber hung from the shaggy guy’s mouth. The taller dude stepped back for air. “Gross, motherfucker! Sick! Get that shit away from me!” The shaggy guy paused to wipe his chin which gave the other guy a chance to put him in a headlock. The shaggy guy spazzed and eventually wriggled out of the headlock when the bigger dude relented. Straightening up, he whipped a switchblade out of his back pocket. “I’ll show you Cut Throat, motherfucker!” They zig-zagged around the court as if they were connected at the waist by a rope. They were laughing. The knife-wielder kept shouting, “I’ll show you Cut Throat!”

“C’mon, man.” James was already in motion. Everything was in motion and standing still at the same time. The sky was losing its pink glow. We sat in the car and opened beers and listened to the Howard Jones cassette. It seemed to me that nobody had really noticed what had just happened. The guys had tired and walked away. The roller skaters were tripping and screaming on the tennis courts; the tennis balls were still being slapped against the bricks in the failing light.

“Wow,” I said.

“Fucking East Side.”

“No doubt.”

I was glad for once we weren’t too drunk. As we drove away, I wondered if this would end up being the last time we ever stopped by to shoot hoops at our neighborhood basketball court which, before I had gone away to school, we had basically owned.