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90 Degrees To The Street
Five years ago he sank a three-pointer at the buzzer that gave his high school team a one point win that would have advanced them to the state semi-final game. The team had an illegal backup player and the losing squad as a secret weapon brought this to light after the disappointing loss. A brief investigation led to the disqualification of the winning team and put a nix on their chance for back to back state basketball championships. For five years after the team could not even win their district even as former players rose to impressive levels in the college and pro ranks. This year they made it back to the championship game in Lafayette and lost by one point. The former player who sank the three-pointer went on to college on a football scholarship, was red-shirted as a freshman and will finish his course studies this year. Back on Dumaine, his "cousin," an affable, high-spirited, dreadlocked youngster, who did not earn one of the very few available urban exit visas, was shot dead late Monday night in the 28 hundred block.
These past ten years in New Orleans are bookended by national recognition as the country's number one murder capitol. In the 26 hundred block there are fifteen children weaving and bobbing amongst each other and between passing cars. They are clustered by the portable basketball goal near the corner by the store. The rim is loose on the backboard and has a single strand of net hanging down at an angle that should be 90 degrees to the street but is not. The children are from adjacent neighborhoods and may be the children of children. They are the ages of the boys who lived around here ten years ago. Some of those boys from back then are graduating high school this year, some are not. Some are attending community college. Some are self-employed and highly visible. There is not ten years later the same degree of lawlessness on 26 hundred but the difference might not be discernible to an untrained eye.
Also two blocks away from the hanging piece of a net a murder did occur last week at St. Ann and Rocheblave. For the most part the kids are not literally dodging bullets.
A shiny brown Chevy with chrome rims and illegally tinted windows stops across the street and three white undercover cops get out and cluster around J who is leaning against a broke down car. They make him lift up his t-shirt. They are either admiring the scars of past bullet wounds or checking for the weapon that is not there. Time is money and less than a minute passes before they are back in the car, cruising slowly through the throng of juvenile basketball players.