Chapter 62

During the renovation of the new house, Sally had suggested restoring the basketball court that I had practiced on growing up. I had played endless games of one-on-one with Mac on that old broken concrete slab and it held many fond memories. It felt good to have Janey and Simone using it now. They had chipped in their own money to get a fancy backboard and a new hoop and net. They got a book of rules that had the specifications for the lines for the key and the baseline and had painted the lines with professional accuracy. Together with the new concrete slab, it looked great when they were done.

Janey's friends from her old school were just a little too far away to come over after school, but they made up for it on Saturday and Sunday. We could count on a serious depletion of our stock of soft drinks and snacks by Monday morning. I never knew how she did it, but Sally always had enough of what everyone wanted on hand, no matter how many hungry kids showed up to play or just hang out. She had a gift for that kind of thing, the perfect hostess. Either that or she had a huge cache of soda and snacks that I never found. I don't know which.

Simone took a different tact. She knew most of the kids from Janey's school, but since she was spending a lot more of her time these days with Gertie and the other scientists at the Agency and the rest of her time at home reading, she decided she wanted her own set of friends. Without telling us, she had started attending the local public school, the same one I had attended, on her off time. She never registered as a student, she just showed up for classes. She discovered that as long as she didn't turn in a paper with her name on it, no one cared that she wasn't on the class roster.

When we found out where she was going on those days when she disappeared from the house, - we flat out asked her - Nicole and I discussed it and decided to let her do it on her own for as long as possible. I also did a little checking just to be sure she would be safe, then kept an eye on her. A close eye.

My high school had changed a lot since I had gone there, reflecting the changes in the neighborhood. It had been a pretty decent school before forced bussing policies had delivered some other out of district white kids to it. When they started the bussing, the school had gone to Hell in a hurry, which was the height of irony. The reason my school had been selected to be desegregated in the first place was because it was felt that sending white kids to a 'good' black school wouldn't harm them as much academically as sending them to a 'poor' black school.

Fucking educators. No fucking brains. Give some asshole a Ph.D. and all you get is a smart-ass. They have never understood the community pride that goes into making an empty building into a good school.

You can't bus across community lines. You can't force it, it has to happen naturally. There is too much emotion involved. Parents send their children to schools, children they love, children they care about. They send them with their neighbor's kids, kids they know and have seen growing up. They want those schools to be in the neighborhoods where they have chosen to live. They like to know their children are not going to be influenced or challenged by outside forces. Not just yet, anyway. Let the kids mature, grow up first.

When Simone started attending the school, it was more like I remembered it at the beginning. With the end of the bussing, there were only local kids attending. Of course, there was a little more of a racial mix in the student population than when I had attended, so Simone didn't stick out quite like Marion and I had. We had been the only two white kids in the whole school. Talk about sticking out!

Part of the area surrounding our property had been renovated and rebuilt. Some of the worst abandoned apartment buildings and most of the uninhabitable places had been torn down and new condominiums and apartments built in their place. The dilapidated warehouses along the riverfront in both directions from our property had been gradually demolished and large luxury homes now lined the banks of the river.

Thorny had been one of the first to follow my father to this dubious area and had built on a much smaller piece of riverfront adjacent to ours. The common wall between our properties had the only other opening through the wall surrounding us, other than the main gate. We had never locked that gate to Thorny's house.

There were still a lot of rent-controlled apartments around, however. The city officials in this town had either been too lazy or too stupid to intervene with the natural selection taking place and the strange mix that evolved seemed to work. The people living here took obvious pride in their homes and stores. Lawns were mowed in the summer, rusting wrecks were not strewn about the streets, at least for very long. Block parties were common in the summer and the local community social hall maintained a regular schedule of well publicized events to bring people together. Sure, there was the occasional confrontation but in general the people knew and liked their neighbors. The ones who made the effort necessary to meet them, anyway.

This was the neighborhood where Simone found the players for her pickup games on our basketball court during the week. Janey was usually home too late to play, so this was Simone's time. Janey would enter in if she was there but found herself in the unusual situation of being the outsider.

Simone made it known that our court was open to anyone who wanted to play, male or female. It seemed that being out from under the shadow of Janey allowed her to develop into her own person. I found I liked that person very much. Many others were attracted to her, as well and the games quickly came to be well attended. I noticed, after watching for a couple of days, that one boy in particular seemed to show up almost every time. Over time, I noticed that when he picked players, he would always pick Simone and I thought I could see her eyes shine a just bit brighter.

On the days when rain drove the kids off the court, the game room, as it was now called, became the center of the after school activity. I swore the kids would all be deaf in a matter of months, as the only volume settings they used seemed to be 'Off" and 'Max.' Fortunately, Sally had had the foresight to insulate that room with extra heavy sound proofing. I often wondered how she knew how to prepare for these things but, like most men, I didn't have a snowball's chance of figuring it out. She just knew. Sally had soundproofed the room so well we only heard the occasional tsunami of sound crashing down the hallway as the door opened and closed. As rare as that was, it was still deafening.

One afternoon I heard a strangely familiar laugh mixed into the roar of the video games. Not believing my ears, I walked down the hallway and looked in through the glass French doors. There, sitting surrounded by a scraggly group of neighborhood ruffians was my darling sister, Marion, the US Federal Judge. Her face flushed with excitement, she was engrossed in one of the less violent of the video games, intent on kicking the stuffing out of her opponent. She was getting in some good punches, too, which caused even more hoots and hollers from the crowd.

Simone, one of the group crowded around watching, glanced up as I watched through the door. I saw a flicker of concern pass across her face, then she slipped away and came out to me in the hall. I noticed one young man's attention diverted from the action on the wide-screen TV to watch her ass as she walked by him. Ah, youth!

"Papa? Is everything OK? We're not being too loud, are we?"

I gave her a quick hug. "No. Everything is fine. I just thought I heard Marion in there and thought I would check. I didn't know we could join in, too. It looks like fun."

I was teasing her a little, but only a little.

Simone got a look of horror on her face, then got herself under control.

"Uh, Papa, it's different with Marion. She, uh, well, she's lived here longer and, like, she knows most of these kids and uh, well, um, you know... ?"

I would have sworn she was uncomfortable with the thought of my being in that room. I got the distinct impression I wasn't welcome. Imagine!

"Well, as long as she isn't bothering you. Uh, I'm kind of busy today anyway. Tell you what. You let me know when you want me to play and we'll see if it will fit into my schedule, OK?"

Simone's relief was palpable and so overwhelming that she didn't realize I was teasing her. Then she got a guilty look on her face.

"It's OK, Simone. Really."

I gave her a light kiss on the forehead. She hated when I did that, but she felt so guilty, I got away with it. Ha!

I watched as she eased back into the room, part hostess and part participant. I was quickly forgotten as she approached that certain young man, her hips swinging with just a touch more sass than before. He and I both appreciated her efforts. She gave him a blinding smile as she spoke with him in passing. He gave her a punch in the arm. I could tell the kid needed help.

JT, as he was called, showed up at the backdoor one day when Simone was in Washington with Gertie. Nicole, who was working at home that day, showed him into my office. He kind of stood there for a couple of minutes, shuffling his feet nervously.

"What's up, JT?"

"Oh, uh, nothing, Mr. Sampson."

I waited. Nicole's smile as she walked away had been a little too smug for this discussion to be about 'nothing.'

"Uh, Mr. Sampson? Can I ask you a question?"

Damn, I had only had to wait a couple of minutes. This must be urgent!

"Sure. What's on your mind, JT?"

"Well, it's kind of personal. 'Bout basketball. And, uh, 'bout girls."

Oh, shit!

He jumped right in. "Why is it, when I pick Simone for my team, she plays hard to win, but when she picks the teams, she never picks me? Then, when she guards me, she's always, well, bumping and rubbing against me. Not hard, with her elbows and stuff like she does with the other guys, but, well, you know... ?"

I knew. You could say one thing for the kid, he got right to the point. None of this 'I know a friend... ' stuff, or 'there's this girl... '" Straight to the point, him and Simone. OK.

I got up and took him out to the basketball court. On the way by the kitchen I called Sally and Nicole out to join us. Not surprisingly, they seemed to be dressed and ready to play. These two were getting scary.

"Let's play some two-on-two. Why don't pick one of the women for your team, JT?"

He looked at me funny.

"Go ahead. Pick one for your team, JT." I felt like drawing a map, sometimes.

He looked at the two women. I could tell he favored Nicole. She looked a lot like Simone in her cut off T-shirt and short-shorts. She had fixed her hair different, too, so she looked more like her daughter. I got a little distracted by her new look and realized I could get used to that look in a hurry. She saw me staring and was pleased at my response. Such simple pleasures.

Nicole was also taller than Sally, but I think JT sort of took a shine to her for other reasons. I thought I saw Nicole 'help' him look her over, as I saw her nipples poking out through the thin material of her shirt, which seemed to get tighter across her chest as JT examined the two women. Sally was playing her part, too, I understood, for once quite and demure and standing to look shorter, if that were possible. That was not like her at all.

"Her," he said, indicating Nicole.

She smiled brightly at him and we played a quick basket. Sally held her own against him and I got a couple of sharp elbows from Nicole. Not enough to hurt, but enough that I knew she meant business. This kid was important to her because he was important to Simone. If I hadn't figured that out by then, which I had, I would have during that basket.

When the basket was over, I held the ball. "Now let's switch."

He looked puzzled, but kept quiet. I was going to like this kid, I could tell.

This basket took much longer. Much. I nearly molested Sally right there on the court. Hell, I did molest her, and she loved it. JT's eyes bugged out as he watched how closely I guarded the smaller blonde's body, especially at where I put my hands. Nicole, playing her part to perfection, nearly poked his eyes out with her tits while she guarded him. She even accidentally let her hands run over his crotch, several times, in fact. I thought the kid would die from embarrassment, but he kept trying to play and get the ball to Sally. Finally, the ball went through the hoop, and I held the ball again.

"Now, JT. I want you to think. Which way did you like better? Playing with Nicole, or against her?"

He thought a minute. "We won when she was on my team."

"Did you really? You may have scored the basket, but is that the real reason for this game?"

"Yeah, but,..." I could almost see him blush when the light went on. "You mean... ? Simone wants... ?"

I grinned at the dumbfounded — and severely embarrassed boy.

"Yeah, apparently she does." I shrugged. "Go figure! But I would suggest that you ease into it gently, and, speaking as her father, hardly at all. And JT? Never, ever do more than what she lets you, understand?"