A woman leaves Los Angeles on her way to New York to make it big
At the same time a woman leaves New York on her way to Los Angeles to make it big
They pass each other somewhere over Idaho
Where a 16 year-old boy, thirty thousand feet below shoots 400 free throws
In the back of his daddy's farmhouse
He hears the planes pass above
And he leaps off the ground, ball in hand
2 seconds on the buzzer
SLAM! "Sky's the limit!" he shouts
Just then a drug dealer drives to New Jersey to pick up his courier
The dealer's courier is a 16 year-old girl going on thirty
He picks her up in his shiny new car sittin' on dubs with blood money in the gas tank
She smiles at him in her too-short-skirt and gets in the car
They're headed to JFK Airport
"You know what you have to do?" Asked the dealer to the young girl from the halfway house in Newark
"I know what I have to do." Says the father of the boy with the hoop dreams playing basketball in the back of his
farmhouse

"I have to make it better for you all." He says to his wife
"I have to make it better for me." Says the woman on the plane to New York
She kisses her dead mother's locket
He kisses his wife, she is pregnant, he doesn't know
Then he leaves that night on a train to Florida
He is on his way to an Agriculture Convention
He wants to improve his bottom line
His boy will have only the best
The farmer's train leaves, he's on it
In Tennessee the farmer's train passes a blue minivan on the highway parallel to the tracks
Inside a couple rushes to the hospital
They're having a baby
A girl, maybe a boy
SWOOSH! The boy is still playing basketball in the back of his daddy's farmhouse
His father has been gone for hours
It's dark now
A floodlight illuminates the boy's makeshift basketball court made of red clay dirt
Dust stirs as he pivots and spins and...
"We are making our final decent over Los Angeles..."
Says the captain of the plane with the woman from New York going to Los Angeles to make it big
"That's gonna be a BIG baby!" Shouts an excited father to be to his pregnant girlfriend "Maybe a basketball player, or
a baseball player!"

SWISH!
The pregnant woman musters up a smile to calm her man, he's driving so fast, she says to him "Maybe she'll be a
doctor."

"That was FAST!" Says the woman from Los Angeles as she stands outside the terminal at JFK Airport in New York

She's scared...
...So is he
Scared he can't give his boy everything he didn't have
The reason he works so hard on his 32 acres of land
The reason he is on this train leaving behind his boy and beautiful wife
"I have to improve my bottom line."
"The BOTTOM LINE! Honey is you need a portfolio, you need a bio, you need an agent!"
Says a chubby receptionist with big orange hair at the model agency to the woman from New York there to make it
big
"But I have no money."
"I have no money." To get to the city says the woman from Los Angeles to herself in New York there to make it big

She sees a shiny car sittin' on dubs, a 16 year-old girl going on thirty gets out, she has one bag and a purse.  The
woman from Los Angeles loves the girl's too-short-skirt

"I wish I was her." Said the woman from Los Angeles in New York, there to make it big
"I wish that was me."
Said the woman from New York in Los Angeles looking up at a beautiful model on a larger-than-life billboard as
she leaves the model agency

The farmer is asleep on the train to Florida
Dreaming of improving his bottom line
The woman from New York walks the streets of Los Angeles until she is exhausted
She has no where to go
Hungry, broke
"...Broke? Sir, calm down." The nurse says to the father-to-be as his girlfriend grips his arm to keep her balance in a
hospital in Tennessee

"What time did her water break?"
The boy from Idaho takes his first water break after a day of playing basketball in the back of his daddy's farmhouse
He has hoop dreams
She has big dreams
She dreams of a better life
So does he, for his bottom line, for his son
For his son, or daughter
He dreams of being a good father
She dreams after she gives birth to a girl
She dreams of the day she no longer lives in the halfway house
He dreams of bigger shinier cars sittin' on dubs
She needs a lift to New York City to make it big
"Do you need a lift?" asked the dealer when the woman from Los Angeles walks pass his shiny car at JFK Airport
She says Yes.
He says No!
Somewhere in Chicago a rich man quits his corporate job
He says no to becoming vice-president of the firm he works at
He has everything
Money, luxurious condo, fancy car, stylish clothes
He's still not happy
He has just bought a small farm from a bank foreclosing on 32 acres of property in Idaho
He thinks to himself
"Things will change."
And they will
They will.
The girl from the half way house in Newark arrives in Florida with the package
A man picks her up
Her job is done
Her life in the halfway house has ended
She gets in the man's car, she is never seen again
Years later her remains will be found buried in a Colorado camping ground; she died 16 years old going on thirty in
her too-short-skirt

The farmer is in Florida now
His wife calls his hotel room hysterical
"They sold it!" She cries.
"No!" The father of the boy with the hoop dreams screams and hangs up
His wife, his son, and their unborn child never hear from him again
45 years later an old man who had hoop dreams as a boy moves to Tennessee
He still misses his daddy
His mother has died and his sister has disowned him
He is addicted to Crack
Crack transported from Columbia to Texas to Newark to Florida to Idaho
The old man who was a boy in Idaho has a heart attack
And a doctor raised by her parents who used to own a blue minivan saves his life
The doctor loves watching baseball with her old man
The doctor's mother is proud
Somewhere in Los Angeles, an old but beautiful woman who came to L.A. to make it big teaches her final second
grade class, she is retiring today

Her last message on the blackboard to her young students is "DREAM"
She is happy, she has raised a big family in Los Angeles and at times misses New York
But
She is happy
In New York an old and exhausted woman from Los Angels leaves Riker's Island Prison for Women
She has spent her life in a cell
She had planned to make it big
She has spent her life in New York in a cell
45 years ago she was in the shiny car sittin' on dubs when the authorities arrested her for merely sitting in the shiny car
sittin' on dubs with the gas tank filled with blood money

The woman picks up her personal affects
She finds her Los Angeles driver's license
She looks at the picture on the ID and remembers how young and beautiful she was
The Woman from Los Angeles who went to New York to make it big also finds
3 old dollar bills, 43 cents and her dead mother's locket
She sells the locket and buys a plane ticket
She gets on a plane back to Los Angeles
Happy to return home
Happy to be free
The woman from New York who went to Los Angeles to make it big buries her husband and kisses her big family
goodbye and gets on a plane back to New York

A plane that will take her home
She will live out her remaining days there
The two women pass each other somewhere over Idaho
Below the planes there is a wealthy old man sits on his porch looking at his 32 acres of property
He wonders to himself why he never took that rusty basketball hoop down in the back of the farmhouse.