Game Six of the Thunder and Spurs: Zeus Goes One on One with Cronos

In any driveway or gym, the human eye is a keen observer. Youth bears witness to technique and instinct without even knowing: dribbling, shooting, pump faking, jabstepping, slashing. The slashing is key. And with every successful drive to the basket, a young athlete learns that not only can he do what his father does but he can do it quicker--precision be damned--gashing his way through an invisible veil, making the realization of the moment feel as effortless as a bulldozer burning through spiderweb. Driveways are full of big gaping holes between the past and the present.

Kevin Durant & Russell Westbrook Are Pretty Good

All of sports, not just basketball, likes to put things in dire terms of good versus evil. It's not true, but it makes things more entertaining, more heated, more dynamic.

"Rooftops": Lakers Take Game 5 against the Thunder

Seeing as how the Lakers rolled over the Thunder in Game 5 and Durant went 5 of 14 from the field, it feels like a good time to continue with the Detective Durant narrative, as inspired by some of Edward Hopper's painting "Rooftops."

Detective Westbrook uses the tip of a ball point pen to scrape dried dog shit from off his shoe's sole.  He goes about the process with a deliberate patience, much like a dentist or an archaeologist, as if the rubber he's unearthing might be valuable.  He props his left leg over his right in a manner that suggests he's used to waiting in places that cause most people to tighten like rubber bands stretched around too much paper.  After a time, Westbrook notices that his scraping motion is in sync with the waiting room clock's second hand.  This mechanical choreography makes Westbrook uncomfortable.  He stops, puts the pen in his coat pocket, and uncrosses his legs.  At first, he appears to not know where his hands should be placed, so he stands and walks past the elevator to the water fountain.  He leans down and takes a sip.  The water tastes of metal.  He wonders about its lead content and then pivots back toward the green chair he recently abandoned.

As Detective Westbrook reaches the elevator, it opens and a nurse steps out to clear the hallway.  As the other nurses and one doctor push the gurney out the elevator, the back wheel catches on the edge of the door, halting its momentum, prompting the doctor to growl, "Damn it, Nurse Kirilenko, watch where you're going!  This man has slim line to walk without us banging him into doorways."  As they pass, Westbrook notices the name "Mehmet Okur" on the doctor's clipboard.  He looks down at Mehmet's face, with its eyes open and still like saucers.  Mehmet's pupils are faint drops of coffee, barely discernible, almost as if they are staring inward and not out.  The sight of them makes Westbrook ponder his partner's eyes as they looked up at him from a pile of loose bricks.  Were Kevin's pupils that faint?  No, Kevin's pupils were dark and dilated, not squinting to see some inner light.  No, Kevin was in much better shape than this Mehmet character.  Westbrook returns to his chair, crosses his arms, and uncrosses them, watching the clock contemplating the finiteness of coffee cups and heart beats.

Detective Durant went  into the brownstone alone.  He told Westbrook to circle around back and watch for anyone coming or going, and Westbrook did just that.  Westbrook waited outside the row of houses, that leaned and stumbled into each other like drunken lovers on a brisk ferry ride, watching the dark windows and door, wanting to light a cigarette but knowing that to do so might get Kevin killed.  This case had taken up five months of their lives, almost half a year, and not once had they been this close to apprehending their suspect, a man that the rest of the department referred to as a shadow, an obscurity no one notices until it's all around you, like the blackness of night.  Most of their suspect's victims were found with their throats slit and a profound smile on their faces, as if in death their white teeth were a sliver of moon.

The thought of the last body they'd found, a huge man with a huge smile, named Dwight Howard, crept into Westbrook's mind and a chill came over him.   If this shadow could slay a behemoth like Howard, then what chance did his matchstick partner have?  Westbrook drew his gun and headed for the back door.  He fumbled with the doorknob, which was locked, and was about to kick the door  open, his leg already raised, when he heard a window open from above and a gun shot.

Westbrook backpedaled, almost tripping over the curb.  Above him, a body slithered onto the rooftop, hoisting itself up using the brownstone's chimney.  A brick came loose just as the body stood up on the roof and fell three stories, landing about ten feet or so in front of Westbrook.  Westbrook searched the line of the rooftop for the shadowy snake, but saw nothing except for the outline of the chimney.

"Russell, you still out there, man?"

"Yeah, Kevin, he's on the roof!"

"You gotta line on him?"

"If he moves at all from behind that chimney, he's a dead man."

"You hear that, Black Mamba?  There ain't no where to go."  Silence.

Westbrook wasn't sure what the best move from here might be.  The Black Mamba could not come out from behind that chimney to run from one rooftop to another without risking getting shot, and, if he jumped off the front, there were two patrol cars blocking off the road.  He had nowhere to go.  The only question was how long the man could wait up on the roof.  Westbrook envisioned the next day, around noon, and how hot the sun would be.  This was it.  The line was drawn.

Westbrook watched the framework of the chimney, like a cat waiting in the high grasses for its prey.  He imagined the Black Mamba on the other side of the chimney's brick walls staring back at him the way cobras stare through glass plates at the zoo, hissing at all the children who slap the window, smearing their dirty fingerprints all over it.
Durant reached his hand up from the window and slapped the gutter, gave it a tug, found it sturdy, and began pulling his body up onto the roof, pushing against the window sill with his legs.  Durant's decision to act, to poke the cobra inside its basket, was greeted with a grating sound.  Westbrook could see the bricks sliding like the slow quiver of a mirage.

"Kevin, man, those bricks are movin!'"

Durant's foot slipped on the sill; he was not hanging off the gutter by only his arms, no support.

"I'm not the Black Mamba!" screamed the chimney, "I'M RON ARTEST!"

A cascade of bricks emphasized this exclamatory statement, raining down like chunks of hail around Durant.  The gutter gave way from the onslaught, and Westbrook watched his partner fall three stories, landing on the ground underneath a pile of rubble.  Westbrook rushed to the pile and began heaving bricks off Durant's body, yelling a combination of pleas for help and threats at life: "Help!  Man down!  Help us!  You bastard!  You fuckin' bastard!  Help us!"  Westbrook yelled until his syllables became inaudible.

"We'll get him, Russ," whispered Durant.  "I ain't dead, just down."  The look in Durant's eyes was as infinite as the night.  If Westbrook was more religious, he would have thought that Durant must have seen something in his fall, that here was a man becoming the same thing he hunted, but Westbrook dismissed these ideas, closed his eyes, and fell silent as a stone.  Durant's eyes, however, were open wide.

This post originally appeared at The Faster Times on April 20, 2010, when the Lakers were ahead in the series 2-0.

Kevin Durant: Stairway at 48 rue de Lille

Seemed a good time to pull out the Ed Hopper lens. Don't know what I'm talking about...click here.

The step creaks with arthritis, and the railing itself gives like a knee. The shadow that follows the groans of a staircase's old age is nothing but a silhouette of skin and bones, falling back into the depths of the forgotten first floor. The shadow is a thin curtain, and appears frail enough to need a cane; but the body moves with a surprising spryness. Captured in Kevin Durant's ascent up the stairs is the worn out, tired idea of the hero, rejuvenated by a six foot ten inch Jacob's ladder of taut muscle and sinew.

Oklahoma City Thunder Preview: "New York Movie"

Josh Spilker is back to help us finish off these (now belated) Ed Hopper NBA previews. Feel free to add your thoughts on the 2010 Thunder in our comments section.It's dark, except for the screen. Its glow glints from bright to mauve to Oklahoma brown. In the audience darkness, a bounce, always bouncing, he can't stop it, can't control it, no, he doesn't have restless leg syndrome, or so he's been told from three different specialists. He is just energetic, excited, anxious even. He prefers anxious. Specifically, anxious tonight, the big screen in the big city. He prefers flat Oklahoma, the skies of Texas. Moving west from the Maryland hood was the best move he ever made. Sure, he could've followed Melo to a big time school, but he preferred to be overshadowed by other pursuits in Texas and Oklahoma. Gave him time for his craft. Time to develop. Time to shine on his terms. Everyone just thinks he's a tall dude. They have no idea what a Thunder is, anyway.

"Excuse me, excuse me, pardon me." He has to move out.

Always so polite, so his mom tells everyone who asks about Kevin. "Sweet Kev, sweet sweet Kev," she says, showing off the five diamond rings on her fingers. "Sweet Kev knows how to take care of his momma," she says. What she doesn't know, what he doesn't tell her, is how those are bribes to stay far, far away. He is a silent assassin. A cat burglar who knows all the back alleys and backways. He just gets nervous in the spotlight, such as here in New York.

"Yo, Kev, where you going man, the big show is just starting." It's James. Kevin loves James. The guy who has enough suave and panache to persuade Kevin, to move Kevin, both in silliness and in seriousness. James is older, but Kevin is richer. James is serious, but Kevin is more talented. James is funnier, but Kevin is goofier. They get along. Not like Russell always trying to fit in. Not like Green, burdened by the weight of falling short. James, Kevin feels, is like himself. Deeply underrated, out to prove the world different with sly grins and a whimsical personality that belies a deep desire to succeed. James too, Kevin reckons, is a silent assassin. Kevin is glad James is here.

"I know," Kevin says, "I know." Kevin is afraid to admit he's a little scared. He doesn't like to see himself as part of the big event, the big premiere. He saw the starring roles by Kobe, by LeBron, even Dwight last year. He doesn't know how they did it, how they put up with it. The movie posters, the trailers, the magazine covers, the early nods as an awards winner before the movie has even been shown. Kevin plays it cool, he laughs it off, he doesn't like being on the coastal towns, they know so much and are so smart with so many questions. He likes Oklahoma, where Kevin can be Kevin and no one knows he's a big-time star.

Out in the lobby, he can hear the first waves of sound. The feature film starring Kevin Durant has started. And all he wants to do is bite a nail. Just let him bite one glorious nail. He deserves that much, right? Just one bad habit?