The Billiken's Bluff

Marvin, Asian American 2nd generation barely, but his first name all like baggy shorts, Cross Colours, 80s baby, Tribe Called Qwest and hanging out at the bus stop, it was Queens proper as if his parents had predicted where they would settle and what it would look like for junior high students a baker's dozen years paid forward when they left Qingdao or wherever. Marvin went to the corner store, veritably on a corner otherwise they would have called it something else entirely, and got them drinks, quarter waters red, green, blue bright like pixels on a tube TV. Called by their color not their flavor - blue, not berry. This is not unimportant. This is a litmus test of sort when applied to Gatorade. It's not where you're from it's where you're at. Lemon-Lime and Yellow. Are you from the city extended or Western Pennslyvania? Let's talk as pointedly, as specifically as possible, only talk in pixels - red, blue, green.



4 on 4 plus those who had next and those who where there to watch. Maybe $4 bucks in total when it was all said and done. He returned to the court, slanted on hill, hoop at the summit - all angles and bank shots. He distributed the cache and attempted to recoup that $4 - one coin at a time. Nobody's fool. Cheap yes, petty maybe, but he didn't want to be that guy tasked with buying and paying for things.










Basketball shorts without pockets, I got nothing yo. I got nothing dude. Argued as a matter of principal and logic. No pockets, no coin. They kept their money in your shoe, sweaty, crumpled bills.

I take quarter water sold it in bottles for 2 bucks,
Coca-Cola came and bought it;
for billions, what the fuck?




New and improved - it doesn't burn the back of your throat going down, maybe it's the vitamins or the additional volume. The colors are too nuanced to be called anything other that guava and pomegranate. Whitestone Queens, from your corner store to ours.



Marvin went to Stuyvesant, studied piano and Calculus AB or BC. M.I.T, beaver class ring the whole thing here we come. Unique, special, a minority, you know? He was in, fo' sure. He bought the Air Max 95s off me, despite their size being too big - this didn't see to be indicative of good decision making outside of the classroom, too eager. Marvin had a kid 2 months into Senior year of high school.

have a baby by me; baby
be a millionaire
i write the check before the baby comes,
who the fuck cares