The Basketball Diaries: The Classic About Growing Up Hip On New York’s Mean Streets

On the way home from a Knicks game, Jim’s cousin Kevin accidentally exposes himself to a bus full of people. A few days later, Jim’s pants rip open during a basketball game and his rear is exposed. Kevin handles his embarrassment by meekly hanging his head for the rest of the ride; Jim handles his by intentionally mooning the crowd when he walks out to change his pants. Jim spends time with friends Brian and John Browning at their “Headquarters” (80). He sometimes takes refuge there when his parents kick him out, or just to hang out and get high. He experiments with liquid codeine and his usual marijuana. On one occasion, Jim and his friends take a combination of uppers and downers before a basketball game. The boys wind up being barred from the rest of the match. Ironically, one of Jim’s friends remarks “I wish I was stoned, man, to forget about the whole shit” (89) even though he already is.

It is in this part that Jim first mentions his feelings about World War II. He describes a scene that often comes to him when he is sitting on the toilet, in which he pretends to be under attack by Germans and imagines what he could use as a weapon against them.