Hold Love Strong by Matthew Aaron Goodman

I shared. They cluttered the dresser. They filled the shelf in the closet. He had sneaker boxes filled with medals and letters from college coaches begging him to consider playing for them. He had college brochures, and college paraphernalia, and college pens, pencils, and pennants. Sometimes, I took one of the college brochures or players’ guides the coaches senthim into the bathroom when I needed to use the toilet, and I’d sit there, my pants around my ankles, flipping through the pages, amazed at the contents of the glossy photos, the college students and their college lives. Coaches called nightly, and some called so often, I learned to recognize them by the sound of their voices just as they came to recognize me. Oh, hello, Abraham, they’d say. I bet you play basketball too. It seemed like every institution of higher education in America had a room, a jersey, a classroom, a professor, a tutor, and a plethora of salacious women just for my uncle. All he had to do was sit down, listen to what they had to say, and sign his name. Then he would be on TV, and win college championships, and be the MVP of tournaments and leagues. And then, with hard work, he would be a star in the NBA. He was a junior in high school. One day, everyone would wear Nice’s jersey. He was going to make millions. It was his destiny. And that destiny, he swore, would take us out of Ever. And we believed him. He could do no wrong. He was king. My grandma did everything for him. She cooked him extra meals when he got hungry. She woke him as many times as he needed to be woken before he got out of bed to go to school. She found a way to buy him new clothes and she made my Aunt Rhonda and my mother do the same. Nice was royalty, blameless.
    He picked up his newest trophy and showed it to Luscious. My grandma took the grocery bags into the kitchen.
    â€œForty-two points,” she called out. “He was taking them to school! My baby couldn’t be stopped! It was like Jesus come down from the sky and took control of Roosevelt’s soul!”
    There was a moment of silence. Then my grandma shouted: “Roosevelt, I don’t see no milk!”
    â€œDamn,” he sighed, shaking his head. “I knew I forgot something!”
    God gave Nice physical gifts, court vision, the body, dexterity, and the stamina of a perpetual dancer. Yet, when not on the basketball court, he blundered. He tripped over himself. He forgot things of greatimportance. He made impulsive decisions, jumped to conclusions, and was easy to lead astray. He was carefree and untouchable, but because he was also a dreamer, solely grounded in everything related to hope, he struggled to recognize the difference between real need and fleeting desire. Although I was a child I had no doubt Nice had remembered the milk up until the moment he thought about something he wanted and hoped to get, and then, puff, what he needed to get and do left his head. Hoping, wanting, and getting, that was my uncle. It made him a great basketball player. It caused him to be loved, to not have a single enemy in all of Queens. Occasionally, it made him steal things from corner stores, clothing stores, any establishment he deemed unworthy of patience or money. Sometimes Nice came home bragging about the slice of pizza he didn’t pay for, the Chinese food he took and ran with. Sometimes he came home with the stolen article of clothing, the hat, the shirt, the jacket he wore.
    Luscious reached up and touched the side of Nice’s face. “Baby, didn’t I ask you if your grandmother needed milk?”
    Although he made many, every mistake Nice made exhausted him. He deflated. He was a perfectionist. It was yet another reason why he was so gifted on a basketball court. He practiced and practiced until everything was just right. His eyes softened. He laid them upon Luscious. He blinked. There was something more than his forgetfulness. He shifted his eyes to my