So I was at 87 yesterday, right? Damn. This bacon, egg, and cheese is good. Anyway, some bum, I think his name was Erick, came to the park without a ball—like how are you a whole 17-year-old coming to a park wit middle schoolers and lil’ kids. Alone. Without a ball? Anyway, he pulls up asking if he could use my ball. Tsk. Ionno you! Nah. No way. So he calls me, a seventh grader, a bitch, talkin’ bout “I’ll fuck you up, you pussy bitch.” Blah, blah, blah. He looks me up and down and says “Your brother Patrick?” I nodded. Then he turns to a sixth grader sitting on the floor next to him and asks him if he could borrow his phone. Like really what a fuckin’ bum, borrowing a sixth grader’s phone to DM my brother and talk shit. So my brother—you know how he is: always angry, full of so much energy you’d think he’d burst like the bugling water balloons that those lil kids be filling at the water fountain—he comes to the park and when he gets there he’s looking around, tryna find Erick’s face. I begged him to leave, told him it wasn’t worth it. “I need your keys though. I forgot mine.” He said. I ran to get ‘em so he’d leave but when I turn around that bum’s got my brother in a headlock.

I ain’t wanna see him like that. Sometimes I hate this fuckin’ place.

Luckily, there were mad heads and they separated them. I couldnt say nothing. I just sat there wide-eyed, quiet as fuck. And shit that was a quiet walk home. That night I woke up and he was sobbing. I felt bad, but I put my headphones on and slept. What was I supposed to do? It’d be like consoling your father, your teacher, your mom. I seen him cry but never like that. All alone and shit. Damn.

Alone in this world. Alone in New York. Feel like we the only Filipinos here. Shit hurts, especially when I remember my cousins back home. When I speak they laugh, they ask “What happened to you?” Always repeating shit under their breath like “deadass” and “blow minds.” I hate that shit. Where am I supposed to feel at home? I don’t feel like talking no more. It’s like everyone is always turning their heads, like my voice is grinding against theirs—it just fucks everything up.

This park been feeling like home, but I’m starting to think this shit ain’t good for me. It’s different without my brother. I still practice on our old summer schedule. Nine to nine on weekdays and twelve to eight on weekends. Shit is lonely though. I spend those days dreaming of gym memberships where I could have mad friends, all hoopers, and we’d be going to tournaments and shit, practicing together so I don’t gotta spend every day alone in this deserted park. The other day, some kid pulled up talking mad shit, calling me ling ling and shit. He was a whole burger! I was cooking him the whole game so he gets tight and throws my ball over the fence. All I remember was that my arm was coiled around his neck. He was red and I wanted him to choke on his words. I wanted the bulging vessels to burst in his neck. Who the fuck is Ling Ling now? Say that shit again. Say it. I was choking him for so long his nails stopped digging into my arm. I let him go and his body rag dolls to the ground. Boom. Crumpled, just like that. He was breathing but the moufucka looked dead. I left him gasping on the ground. That shit scared me! This park scares me. I just be feeling mad lonely. I’m just like that dude. A lonely ass bum hurting dudes cause I got no one. A bum. Just a lonely bum.

Makes me think of my dad. I miss my dad, though. I never wanted to be here. I hate going back here after school every day, but where else am I supposed to go? No matter where there’ll always be someone tryna fuck with us. Talkin’ bout Jeremy Lin this, Jeremy Lin that, ching-chong, ching-chong, in my face and fuck am I supposed to do but chew on my tongue till it bleeds and play the fuckin’ game and try to cross ‘em up? But why that gotta happen? Why can’t I play in peace for one fuckin’ day? Sometimes I really want to tell them I’m not even Chinese, but they don’t know what a Filipino is. Sometimes I really, really want to leave. But as long as I got this bacon, egg and cheese, I’ll be good.