The morning light dawned on the worn basketball in the middle of the abandoned parking lot. A gang emerged from surrounding buildings. Their loose clothes wavered in the steamy, sticky heat of the morning. A scared Doberman Pincher wandered casually across the battlefield. The jackets dropped as the players entered the perimeter of the undefined basketball court. The rotted gray wood of the table amazingly held the scratched, sun-faded cooler.The man's huge torn Converse Allstars left the ground as he dropped the defenseless basketball into the unnetted rusted oval backboardless hoop. While plummeting, the man's eyes came in sight of a steaming manhole that smelled of mold and sludge surrounded by pavement. The only audience he had was his own smoking bookie.

The men weaved their way around each other with amazing speed and grace. Their muscles showed ripples next to their colossal bodies. A jet rumbled in the background carrying the Celtics to Philadelphia. The names of these players may not be Larry Bird or Kevin McHale who were just seen moments before by fans and the team who watched it on a beaten up black and white TV with a flickering screen, but they are sportsmen. A radio in the background claimed the Celtics to be playing in Philadelphia. A gun rang in the distance. No one flinched. n