8 a.m.

EST 

I chose this jet and put the Atlas logo on the tail when it was green, fresh off the assembly line. I had this engraved glass partition installed, to separate my office from the rest of the passenger seats. I need my own zone to work and think, even on short hops. Hell, come to think of it, I dreamed up this classic Grecian cabin. All the overpriced designer had to do was pick out the materials and supervise the construction. When you travel in this plane, you're flying in a piece of my mind.

Good, take off is right on time. It'll be a quick flight to Indianapolis, the press conference to unveil the new shoe, some meetings with the Midwest reps, and the game tonight. A no-sweat day.

I created this company when sneakers were little more than canvas and rubber moccasins. Who put the terry cloth footy inside the shoe? I did!

Morning, Bev. No, I didn't call for you. Just mumbling again. But since you're here, I'll have a mineral water.

I ripped the rubber out of a bulletproof vest and molded it into the sneakers' inner soles. Damn, that prototype felt good. Moves like that put the flying "A" on the world's feet, and stamped it in their minds. If you're in with Atlas, you must be flying.

Thank you, Hey.

They're nothing but a pack of social scientists, marketers, and mountebanks who don't even look at the game but analyze the arena for logo penetration and recognition. How in the hell did her PR department get so powerful? Ten years ago I used to put her and her people in the worst seat in our skybox. Now she has her own skybox, where she entertains board members with twelve-year-old scotch, served by twenty-year-old interns. A potent and deadly solvent that unglued the name of our best line. If I don't play this game carefully, I'll be ejected from my own plane...

Bey, what's the current altitude? Thanks.

... at 35,000 feet above the earth with a golden parachute.

Got to convince Fort to play one more year. He owes me. I helped to make him into a national icon. Icon, I-can, I-con. So we're putting the B-17 into mothballs, huh? This is my game plan. I'll listen to Fort. If he thinks that the shoe'll fly, then we'll launch it full-throttle. But if Wayne has one sore heel, blister, or reservation, then we'll stop production immediately, sell the remainders as limited editions, and go back to the Flying Fortress. Call them classics, like the soda people did when they almost blew it with their new product line.

Can't see them clearly behind this chiseled glass, but if I peek between Atlas's biceps and forearm there's a triangle of clear glass. What's she think she's doing, holding court with her lackeys in my plane? Swiveling around 5000 gracefully in my calfskin leather seat.

So what if her market research staff reported that the target demographics didn't relate to the World War II symbol anymore. What's not to relate to? The B-17 Flying Fortress helped to win the biggest war in history, and Wayne Fort is the best basketball player on the planet. It's a winning combination that's worked for over a decade. Target that, Miss--swivel those long legs. Miss--"latest research validates that the new logo medallion of Wayne in action creates a more spontaneous purchase reaction." Bullshit. It'll never fly with that ridiculous name Fort Fadeaways. In a month the street slang will go back to calling them the Flying Fortress. Then we'll see who misses the target by a mile. It was a smart move on my part to insist that the new logo medallion be put on the sole. When we revert back to the plane, all we have to do is make a cosmetic change: manwith-a-ball to plane-with-a-bomb. The "FF" on the back can stay the same. If Wayne stays in the game, that fadeaway shot of him in the medallion will ma ke as much sense as a... as a bucket shot. After this line crashes, I'll just cut back on a few of her young assistants: a Harvard MBA here, a Wharton grad there. She'll see that I am Atlas Athletics, and Atlas will fly through this mess. I should have made her department fly to Indianapolis on a B17, or coach, which is about the same thing.

You know, I really like how this cabin looks. It's real tasteful, with the marble bar and silk carpets. And they call me a nouveau riche marathon runner with a chemistry degree. I've been rich for so long I can barely remember what it was like to postdate a check to a supplier. Thick clouds. Used to call them marshmallows, but now they look more like mountains of white rubber bubbling in blue vats. Liquid money.

Can't leave the office yet. The moment I walk into the rest of the cabin, the statheads can double-team me about press agents, promotions, publicity, advertising, marketing, target audiences, surveys, content analysis, concentric effect, perception, image analysis, merchandising, public-fucking-affairs. I can avoid talking to the bastards as long as I keep my eyes down in this magazine: "The Aviator Express IV. Coast to coast without refueling. Large oval windows, swivel leather chairs, wet bar, galley, bigscreen DVD movie system, full electronic office..."

Oh God, she caught me peeking at her through Atlas's arms. Now she'll think it's time to chat up the boss at 35,000 feet. I'll play her off by talking to her about getting some press coverage on the cabin interior for this Biz Jet magazine. Here she comes. Guess she's got to show her people that she can break through the CEO's barriers: glass or otherwise. Damn, she's still attractive--kept her body up. Probably still running in all the comp shoes they play with in her department.

No, not at all. Have a seat. Just thinking about the joy of flying.

CST 

We move in all those suspended moments when everything slows down. It's not when we hold the ball for the set-up--everyone in the arena has peeped the next move by then. No, it's the ball rebounding into the future, and your boy's already read it during the fast break, catches the pass, fakes a shot, and bounce-passes back, during takeoff for the finger roll, lay-up. It's something coaches try to teach, but the good ones realize that the connection between those on the court is faster and stronger than any sideline signals. We call it outlaw time: instant replay before the play; slo-mo and fast motion, palmed in the gravity of the ball.

I could do without this early-morning practice session, but I have to make it to the press conferences this afternoon. First game of the season and I've got to deal with all this silliness behind these new sneakers. What's in a name? Flying Fortress or Fort Fadeaways? Used to call them tennis shoes or tenners when I was kid down home. Should have practiced in these shoes all week. Now I've got to play the opener in them tonight. Damn press conference.

My fault, wasn't thinking. Could we set up that last play again?

I remember when a good pair of sneaks cost $25. Now just the accessories of special insoles and thick laces cost that much. How can the kids afford that? I should do something with the shoe money. Something special. Set up another foundation, maybe?

Can't keep this up for another season. The fans expect miracles every game, like I'm some kind of superhero. The Atlas CEO doesn't want me to retire; promised me a spot on the board if I hang in there beyond this season. I think I want to leave while I can still walk on air. Float out as gracefully as I entered.

We spin around, and the other players become a wet blur. We try to pull the rookie in for the feed before we cross the line. But he doesn't feel the web from the eyes to the ball to the play that was growing around him. He looks like a nervous fan asking for an autograph. Later for him. Tap the ball into the right hand, dribble, check the alley--it's blocked, but Banks is open. Pass it to my man, Money-in-theBanks. Swish. An easy deuce. And to the rookie, nine pairs of eyes scream, "You made it here; now you've got to hook up and react faster than even this thought!"

Banks looks winded.

Time.

Time was when we could play double overtime and party after the game. Now, everyone goes home to the wife and kids, except rookies.

Come on, Banks. You gettin' old?

We know when to bad mouth and when not to. Anything we say makes other players break their normal rhythm and play a tighter game, putting the words to the test. Got to be careful with wasted words on the floor.

The odds from here are even up. But if I move to this hole it's 2-1. Funny how a few feet could mean so much money to so many people. They're running even odds for us making it to the playoffs this year. Say I'm getting old. Yeah, it's time. One more championship will square it away for me. Time to lay the bomb on them. The Flying Fortress has a mission tonight. Swish--three points.

Didn't like siding with the PR woman against the CEO, but she was right. The Flying Fortress was old when it was new. Those commercials of me flying the bomber through enemy territory and dropping the ball through the hoop used to work. After ten years of missions, with minor changes in the style and color of shoes every year, it's time to change up.

Go, Z. Yeah, that's it, a tight zone defense.

This shoe feels good: tight, dry, and no sideslip. But they all feel like that when they're new. How will it feel in ten games? That's the test.

Better hold off on that foundation until I see my golf courses up and running. Never knew moving earth around could cost so much money.

Pain-in-the-paint. Pain-in-the-paint. They just don't know how hard it is down here. Looks good on TV, but when 500 pounds of muscle are double-teaming you, it's no fun; it's work.

Come on, step in, and leave that doublethink off the floor. Yeah, it's a different rhythm here than school.

Every night is like a conference final. Dribble, pass, fake, steal for the... Seen. You've been studying our moves, but who hasn't? What are you bringing to the show? And when we're gone, you better have some fresh stuff, cause the fans get bored in their fifty-dollar seats or at home with their hundred-channel remotes. Walk on air or be buried by a million minstrels, tap dancing on giant banjos. What a thought. Should have been a poet.

So we school the rookie quietly, during the break, drinking the jive-colored water that we endorse.

Fast break don't mean a thing if you can't steal that extra second from gravity to put the ball in the basket. It was a nice move, but you do what you know best tonight.

Back to practice and the coach is studying him hard. Wondering if he's worth all that money. He is. We'll talk to the rookie about avoiding tech fouls, on and off the court. It's our last year. It's not in our contract. But it's our job to talk him into the team.

Practice should be over by ten. More than enough time to shower, dress, and go downtown to the press conference. I'll wear a blue suit for the cameras. Hope they don't ask me to put on the sneaks. No time to talk about insteps and polymerized rubber soles. Play up the shoe, the game, and fade away. The Flying Fortress got a mission today. More poetry.

Don't watch the clock, feel the seconds pulsing through your feet when you're on the paint. What will be the last shot? From where on the court? Who'll be there, trying to block it? This is it--the beginning of the last season--the little death.

I could take some of the endorsement bank from the jive-colored water and pass it on to a couple school systems, starting some kind of reading programs. No more athletic programs. Need more scholars and fewer players. I sound like a politician. After retirement I could run for Congress.

These are some expensive, ugly shoes. They look like soft submarines. No, white coffins with red "A's" on the sides.

Show them, boy, where you from, where you going, but save the fist-in-the-air gesture for the playoffs. He's confident now. Yeah, we see that the rookie has picked up on the lesson: Putting the ball in the basket is an afterthought--a forgone conclusion. It's the joy, freedom, and clarity of keeping that line--feeling, thought, muscle--flowing, like it did on the concrete courts. He sees the pattern of the game beyond the horizon of the hoop. If only we played all games with as much rhythm and grace. A prayer.

But now, we make a clean steal. The rookie reads the moment perfectly, flying into outlaw time. And we pass the brown ball on. Swish. Poetry in motion.

MST 

Swish. She closes her eyes, holds her breath, leans in and catches the feeble jet of cool, rubbery air coming from the exhaust hole. Glancing at the clock while lifting the pressure arm, she takes out the medallion and calculates four more hours of these stingy breezes before the air conditioner switches on at midday.

She ran away at seventeen, from the rural poverty of the southern mountains, traveling north into the urban poverty of Netza, a squatter settlement outside of Mexico City. Unlike her village, there was no pattern to the cruelty of being poor and Indio. One month she worked as a domestic; the next she was hungry and considering prostitution. She was glad to leave the smell of Netza's raw sewage and her cramped, foul-smelling tin shack. Now, she thinks of home and the cool, clean mountain air.

Luck and timing brought her to a factory town, a maquiadoras, on the American border, just as a company began to set up a special program to include Indios on the assembly line. When she was interviewed, she felt terrible and knew everyone could smell her hunger for the job, clean water, and a decent meal. She knew that she looked wild, dark, and as thin as death sucking on a lemon. But then she noticed that the American manager, interviewing her in his broken Spanish, stared at her while he nervously squeezed a rubber ball. The manager told her that she got the job because she had excellent eyesight, and some nonsense about inspiring beauty made it all worthwhile. She guessed that some words were lost in the translation. The last thing he told her was that the job was temporary, dependent on shoe sales in the States.

Temporary hunger. Hours until lunch break, and the succulent memory of her mother's Sunday dinner seeps into her thoughts. She listens above the machine's cold metallic beats and hears her boyfriend's warm laughter. Daydreaming. But it's not Sunday, it's Wednesday, so she takes another rubber sheet from the bin and hears the soft whine of the surveillance camera motor. She knows that she is being watched.

Pulling the lever up, she glances at her long, tapered hands. Unusual and unattractive in her village, but considered pretty here. Too smooth, no veins; her mother would say that there was no history written in her hands. She notices that a lot of women polish their nails, and that some, like the women in final assembly, even have painted toe-nails. The final-assembly women flaunt their wealth in open-toe sandals, laughing at the other workers wearing their discounted company sneakers. She ignores them, because after Netza, she knows that she lives much better than most, with this job in the airless Atlas shoe factory.

She shares a room with two other young women in a vecinidad. They are all bilingual, speaking Mexican and Spanish, desperately trying to master English.

11 1/2 USA, 46 Europe, 300 Asia. Good morning. This many medallions? I need more rubber sheets. Yes, I can work more hours. Fort Fadeaways.

Even after last night, she still feels the manager's eyes, inside of the cameras, scanning her body. She ignores him and places the rectangular rubber into the mold.

She should have known last week, when the manager sent her a package of Atlas Apparel and a note written in schoolboy Spanish, asking her for a date. She knows now that she should have sent the package and note back to him. But she gave in to the pressure of her roommates and the obvious attention that the manager showed her at work. She agreed to the meet him at a border bar.

The evening of her date the roommates tried to dress her in the Atlas clothes. She waved off their help and gave the roommates the t-shirt with the flying red "A," the pink warm-up suit, matching visor, and socks. She said that she didn't like the way the clothes smelled--reminded her of work. She traded the sneaks with the red flashing lights in the heels for a pair of jeans, clear fingernail polish, and sandals. The roommates tried to give her a makeover, but when she saw how the pastels covered her dark skin, like a film of iridescent scum, she made them stop and wiped it off with the new Atlas bandana. The only thing she left on was the lapiz negro, the burnt, black-pencil eyeliner. In the end she wore the jeans, sandals, simple hoop earrings, and a homemade, off-the-shoulder blouse with tribal glyphs. She had not worn the blouse since she left her village in the mountains, but the homespun, rough finish somehow seemed perfect for the night. She hid the taxi money the manager gave her in her work shoes an d walked the nine kilometers to the bar.

Always dark, crowded, and noisy, with country music playing in the background, it was the only Anglo bar within sight of the border crossing on the main highway--a concrete, aboveground bunker where everyone was welcome as long as you understood the prices, currency, and culture were American. This blurred the social lines, but the regulars still played in their own zones. The long zinc bar was the pit stop for truckers, both incoming with the American parts and outgoing with the assembled products. The maintenance technicians, Texas A&M drop-outs who kept the machines running, sat at tables in clusters that broke across company lines but maintained specialties: electrical, mechanical, or plumbing--social unions without the dues or picket-line duties. Spread out against the back wall, where a window with a picturesque view of the desert should have been, were the American and Mexican supervisors, hugging the darkness with locals of the "tender gender."

She lowers the handle and applies pressure ...

She stood in the doorway blinking to adjust to the darkness and keep the sweat from her eyes. She recognized that the men at the bar in the tight t-shirts, with red left arms and prostitutes on their right arms, were truckers. She saw that the men in khaki shirts in the center were machinists. And as her eyes finally adjusted to the dim, smoke-hazed light, she could also see that the most obvious group, desperately trying to stay in the shadows, were supervisors, still dressed in polo shirts with the company emblems over their hearts. To her, at first glance, the supervisors still seemed to be at work, with the stiff laughter and rigid posture of men taking measure of each other off the clock.

She spotted her manager and plotted a course that skirted the edge of the bar. It was a longer route, but she thought that the women would keep a check on the truckers, while the machinists, lonely, pale-looking ascetics, were already eyeing her like she was the perfect machine--something to admire and fear.

She turns on the heater...

She gave the manager a wan smile and sat down. He was more nervous than usual, constantly stabbing his martini olives with a miniature plastic sword. She always had a hard time understanding his Spanish at work, but in this loud bar only a few quick phrases broke through, like "Why didn't you wear the clothes I sent? Aren't you proud to work for Atlas?" Before she could answer, an American waitress appeared at the table rolling her eyes at the manager. He ordered a Mexican beer for her in English. The other supervisors suddenly developed night vision and squinted through the darkness at her, like she was the missing picturesque view of the desert dressed in her quaint blouse, exposing bare, muscled shoulders; the loose jeans rolled up past her thin ankles; the raven black hair, framing the sweating copper skin over imposing high cheekbones and deep-set eyes. All of this attention because of a coincidence of hunger and heritage.

When the beer arrived, she ignored the frosted mug and took a long, thirsty swig from the bottle. More of her exotic charm soaked in by those looking on the sly. The manager, embarrassed by her shoddy clothes and behavior but proud of the attraction she pulled from all three zones, rambled on. "Do you know about the ball game that the Aztecs played called Ollamaliztli? They killed the captain of the team that lost." She answered him the same way she did during the interview--short answers, quick nods, an occasional smile. Then he asked her if she was full-blooded Indio? But all she heard was "bloody God?" Shocked, she said in English...

Never.

The bar quieted down a taste, so the manager bent over close to her and spoke real slow, about a permanent job on the final assembly line. Hearing him clearly for the first time and understanding every nuance of his erratic Spanish, she took a deep breath, taking in the scent of the bar. She smelled the dried beer, tequila, vomit, disinfectant, the impotent deodorant after 500 miles of southwestern driving, and, faintly under all of this, the cheap perfume of close-contact, working women. She traced the sickly sweet, air-conditioned path of survival and said again in English, but louder this time.

Never.

The manager looked around and saw that the other supervisors, even the Mexican ones, seemed to be holding their hands over their hearts in an expression of shock or over their company emblems as a sign of shame. So the manager began to curse at her in a strange mix of English and Spanish. She got up to leave but noticed that the bar was blocked by hungry-looking truckers saying something about "rebounds." She glanced in the center and heard the machinists mumbling like fervent old men praying, "Have mercy, Jesus H. Christ. Please let her come my way, Lord." The only words she understood were "Jesus Christ," which scared her enough to squeeze through the truckers' zone. The last thing she heard at the door, in Spanish, was, "Whatever the polo shirt pencil neck was going to put out, I'll double."

Once outside in the warm desert air, walking home, she tried to remember if the manager called her a stinking shoe or a Zapatista. What did it matter? She had no job. So she was surprised when she punched in at eight this morning and no one stopped her. Now her machine's timer seems to have slowed down. She looks across at the other women pressing medallions. They all look like her, with the same fierce eyes tucked away under the lid of servitude. Excellent eyesight? She becomes entranced by their coordinated movements. The women press their cooling buttons at the same moment, close their eyes, lean in and receive the blessing of the frigid air from the machine. Fascinated by the other women's rhythm, she forgets to press her own cooling button. She ejects the burned, deformed medallion from the mold and thinks that it looks like the little man is holding the world in his hands instead of a ball. She hears the camera's motor drive, feels his eyes, and tosses the medallion into the good basket.

PST 

Flying the flake in L.A. isn't what it used to be. The blank eyes are everywhere with their butt-hole cameras, peeling prints from sticky candy wrappers. You're lucky you've never been tagged; your face still belongs to you and not the state.

Just in time--you got off the streets just in time, when your roll-dog was popped. He wasn't lucky enough to get killed. So now he sits in the steel wheels, with no heart to finish it, sadly sporting last year's Flying Fortresses. They still look new though.

In your set, the young-uns that served the drugs door-to-door were called stars, because they were up front; they dealt with the hungry public. The people who bought quantities of raw cocaine, stepped on it, cooked it, and packaged it were called directors. The importers, who were so secret and dangerous you couldn't even mumble their names in your sleep, were called producers.

Everyone thinks that you're still out there, starring somewhere else, cause you sport the $100 jeans and $30 t-shirts. But you know it's old stuff and that you make your cheese busting tables in a Bel Air restaurant serving real movie stars.

You look out the bus window and see the spacious lawns in front of the pastel homes--someone's lightly tinted dream, but not yours. You worked extra shifts all month to save the money, and the mall is in sight and the mission is on. So far, everything has been on time and you figure you can buy the sneaks, get back, and be the first dude in school with new Flying Fades, or whatever the hell they're called. You'll flash-fly for a whole day without any comp, because tomorrow every skinny-legged fake player in the school will be shuffling down the hallways with untied laces. Click, click, click. Check 'em out.

Inside, you notice that the mall is mostly pink-and-white marble with columns that stretch to the ceiling, at least four stories high. It looks like the pictures of Greece in your Lit book, only there are no altars with talking masks. You stand still a moment to take in all of the light, the cool air, the plants, water fountains, and wide walkways that aren't cluttered with vendor carts of incense and cheap jewelry. But then you feel the eyes--the eyes of the cameras sweeping around, taking aim, trying to tag you. You know that you've got to stick to the plan and keep moving. Moving like you're a hungry man on his way to work. Hungry for one of those sticky buns in the food court--the only joint open this time of the morning.

Moving thoughts: In your mind you can see Zacile and her friends scoping you out in the new sneaks. The fellas think you're mashing her, but all you've done so far is slight her in your roll-dog's bedroom. You could hear him outside the closed door, squeaking around in his chair, trying to listen and remember.

Moving words: A waitress at the Bel Air restaurant, a USC cultural anthropology major, hooked this up as a trade-off for your slang that she recorded into a microcassette. She said it was for a research paper, but she didn't tell you what the paper was all about, so you didn't tell her that most of the words were as tired and faded as last week's videos. Even your roll-dog doesn't talk like that anymore, and he's really out of the game.

Moving body: You pass the food court inhaling the overpriced aromas of pastry and coffee. The waitress told you this would be the trickiest part-- going to the next level. Now you assume the casual air of a stockroom boy, coming in early to help with inventory. Both escalators are off. You guess that the one with the bits of trash stuck in the metal teeth is the down escalator, so you walk slowly up the other one. For the cameras, you know?

You make it to the second level and slide behind one of the columns to get your bearings. You peep the store, but it looks like someone is standing behind the grate, with a ball clutched at his hip, staring at you. You move closer and see that it's just a life-sized cardboard cutout of Wayne Fort. You can't stop laughing, but you cut it short when you see the store manager appear from out of the shadows, between the shoe racks. The waitress warned you not to mention anything about TV or movies to the manager, but you couldn't help but stare. Somewhere, behind this metal grate and this beached, swollen alcoholic-- an exhausted fume from the Hollywood engine-is your first TV star: the one you wanted to be with, before mashing and stray nines on street corners. You look away, too late, because she sees the star recognition in your young eyes. She smiles and asks you for your shoe size.

Eleven and a half.

As you watch her slip back into the darkness a dozen scenes are projected in your mind where she swayed those hips, in just that way. You look at Wayne for inspiration, but he just stands there with that "I can fly" grin. She returns holding the box like a newborn baby, grandly sweeps off the lid--this is great acting--holds the shoe up for your inspection, turning it slowly to every angle--movie acting-- freezing on the new medallion at the center of the sole.

While she puts the shoe back in the box and the box in the bag, you take out the cash of seven dubs, $140, and pass it to her. She puts the bag on the floor and licks her finger with her pointed tongue, this last piece of business a little over the top. She finishes counting the bills and presses a button. A motor kicks in for a second and stops, leaving the smallest possible opening at the bottom. She kicks the bag to your side and lowers the grate.

Okay.

Thanks.

Your turn to leave and feel her staring at you, so you look back and see her holding onto the grate like a lifer, clocking out big time. And you hope that she's acting again. You walk down the same escalator you came up. You're happy and don't care about the cameras anymore, because you've got your package. A fast sticky bun and a quick bus ride to school are what you're thinking when you see the flashlight cop-mall security, an off-duty Bakersfield regular, probably on his second straight shift, eyeing you. The sticky bun is out, but the quick bus ride is definitely the play. You turn around and see another red-eyed rent-a-cop. They're playing the zone, a clumsy, loose zone, and expect you to panic, to run back upstairs. But you walk into the food court like the hungry working man that you are. Then, from your I'm-just-going-along-to-get-along lope, you accelerate into a fast break for the restaurants' back doors for incoming food and outgoing garbage. You weave through the L.A.-casual businessmen like they' re robots, screwed to a theme park's floor. As you pass them, holding their cappuccinos and newspapers, you can see in their eyes a slight shift from you to something over your shoulder. Their eyes are judging distance and speed, while their brains are calculating the time and place of the take down. These mid-management investors, real estate developers, and entry-level talent agents are witness to the primeval hunt, played, appropriately enough, on the food court.

Passing through waves of smells: cheeseburgers, french fries, fried rice, orange chicken, burritos, tacos, pizza with pepperoni, and gyros, your stomach begins to grumble and you find that funny.

You make a quick turn down a promising-looking hallway and see pay phones with full-length mirrors--public vanities for out-of-work actors. You take a mental snapshot in the mirror. That's you, the tall gangly dude with the incredible V-line body built for speed, and that's them, the beefy, muscled flatfoots built for endurance. You know that they're running on more than adrenaline and caffeine. It's always some kind of test with cops that'll drive them to run down a cheetah, like your roll-dog...used to be. Pictures of old diners and bathrooms with signs in English and Spanish streak by. This hallway isn't looking so promising after all. You need an opening, a break, a prayer.

This is the end, and you see a triangle of light. An older Chicana woman, with incredible golden skin and gray hair, is coming through the back door with a cleaning cart. She's fumbling with the keys to lock the door when she sees you. This is the moment and you've played it countless times before, but never with this teammate. You catch her eye and shoot the thought; she pauses for a fraction of a second longer than your roll-dog would have and opens the door. You nod your thanks and fly into outlaw time.

Raki Jones is an independent filmmaker and freelance TV producer who has won the Classic Telly, Videographer, and Communicator awards for his documentaries. His script The Colored Cyclone was nominated for an Emmy. Currently, Jones teaches film and TV production at the University of the District of Columbia and at Howard University.