Slowly, solemnly, one or two at a time, usually, sleep still tugging at their eyelids. With headphones secured over their ears and with cigarettes dangling from their lips. In cars with stereos that spit thunder. With shoeboxes tucked under their arms and with cell phones pinned to their cheeks.

And although many of them played long into the darkness the night before, stopping not much more than a few hours ago, they have returned, so transfixed are they with the magic of a leather ball, a slab of concrete and two orange rings.

Bartlett Park. Saturday morning. Just past nine. Two courts, flanked by wooden picnic tables and sprawling green grass and patches of sand. The backboards have rusted a bit, sure, and there are cracks beginning to form in the court's concrete.

Still, the courts persevere.

And still, the kings of Bartlett Park come.

They are gathering now, in fact, about 16 of them in all, tossing bags and car keys onto the side of the court, exchanging greetings, talking amongst themselves, pulling T-shirts from torsos and tossing them to the side. Yawning. Moving slowly, lazily in the morning heat.

Until one young man, a well-built 24-year-old named Eric Gainer, saunters over to the far side of the main court, takes two dribbles, rises and dunks the ball with considerable ease. And in this instant, a lonely court, located in a bruised pocket of St. Petersburg, is no longer a court. It is a palace. Their palace.

Suddenly, the group is whittled to 10 men, five on each side, and the ball is bouncing with meaning, boom...boom...boom! Sneakers of all varieties - but mostly those made by And 1 and Nike - begin to glide back and forth over the green concrete with startling swiftness, the ball whipping through the air, from player to player and from player to basket. Game time.

To the outside observer, this all might seem chaos, a mess of elbows and knees, of sweat-soaked T-shirts and no T-shirts, of baggy shorts creeping lower and lower down waists. Of "F--- you!"s and "Pick right!"s and "My bad!"s. Of backdoor screens and powerful post-moves and cross-over dribbles. But to those involved, it is something much different. It is a dance or an art or any number of things.

Occasionally, in the heat of battle, someone will get a cut on the head or a finger in the eye, and he will hustle to the sideline to douse it with water. But rarely does the show stop.

Going on 40 years and the show hasn't stopped.

In between games they gather, under the massive tree, just to the side of the court, and they tell you about Bartlett Park. About the day a few years ago when a group of renegade players strolled up, pulled out $500 in cash, and said they were looking for some high-stakes hoops. About the grandiose tournaments that were once held at the park, complete with dunk contests and three-point shoot-outs. And about the day a woman, for one reason or another, reached into her purse and pulled a gun on her boyfriend, and everyone on the court skedaddled so quickly you'd have sworn they were world-class sprinters.

But the stories can only go on for so long, you see, because a basketball court unused is like a blank canvas, and so quickly they are back running and gunning, shoes squeaking, bodies maneuvering.

Elwood Smith, a large man of 40 years, fresh out of a career in the military, gobbling up a rebound. Pump faking once. Twice. Then lifting his massive frame into the atmosphere, flicking the ball off the backboard, through the net.

Eric Gainer and his twin Deric, who look nothing alike, trading jump shots and the menacing glares that form when brothers enter the ring of sibling competition.

Elroy Reynolds, 30 years old and a head shorter than most everyone on the court, not as quick as he used to be, but quick enough, still, to lean left and drive right, past the tattooed limbs that attempt to corral him, and to shimmy-shake his way into the lane, into the air, gracefully, and lay a round ball into a round hole.

Sometimes, in the rare moments between the chaos, the players' eyes will land on the park's other court, where the youngsters play, where every last one of them was once relegated, and where a young boy of 6 now thrusts jump shots at a too-high basket. And maybe their eyes will land, too, on the other side of the court, where the ghosts of games past now play, a small group of them, with gray in their hair and meat on their gut, and where one day they, too, will most likely end up, once the well of youth runs dry and Bartlett Park's next generation rises to power.

But that is a matter for another day.

Now it's only 11 a.m., of course there's time for another game.

So it begins again: battle. Lowering their shoulders, bursting into the lane for layups, reverse layups, short jumpers, long jumpers, floaters, baby hooks, sky hooks. Passes that whiz by outstretched arms so precisely that it's as if they're on a string. And when a pass or shot is especially noteworthy, it will be met with a slew of "oohhhhh"s and "aahhhhh"s from the watching crowd. Sometimes from the players themselves, even. In which case, the responsible party will smile sheepishly as he makes his way back down the court to play defense, pleased, at least for the moment, with his ability to give a show.

Soon, however, the game is in its twilight, the near end marked by the strong scent of urgency that hangs in the air like cheap cologne. The sweetness of victory has touched their minds, and no one is prepared to let it go. Which makes each play devastatingly important. Each possession vital.

Like now, as a ball bounces toward the sideline and a young man in an Orlando Magic jersey bats it to a teammate just before - or was it just after? - it lands out of bounds, and this sets off a lively feud, half of the game's participants quite sure the ball was out of play, half quite sure that it was not. Until finally, grudgingly, the scrum is settled and the dance resumes.

Then, in a blink, a pass is intercepted. Two dribbles. Three maybe. And then a pass, sent floating high into the morning, from one side of the court to the other, in the direction of the basket. Antwan Austin holds it, having picked it from the air in mid-leap, and he's rising ... rising ... rising, until gravity will let him soar no higher, and he stuffs the ball, violently, through the rusted rim. And for an instant he is suspended there, backdropped by the blue of the sky and the white of the clouds. And it is good. To be sure, it is good.

But only for an instant. Because soon, he falls back to earth, and someone yells "Game!" and five men smile and five men frown, and the sun beats down, and sweat drips quickly, and they file, each of them, toward a single water fountain that sits just off the court, where they breathe deep, drunk off the competition.

"I'm done," someone calls out, and the others nod in agreement and the crowd begins to disperse, swiftly, moving away from the court, the air so damp you can almost feel it wrapping around you, like a warm blanket.

This, the kings have decided, will be all for today.

They grab their belongings, exit the court hurriedly. In the parking lot, car doors slam. The thunder begins again, booming at first, but growing softer as the cars pull onto 22nd Avenue South, and grow smaller and smaller in the distance.

Until finally, there is nothing.

And the kingdom is reduced to this: A grainy court. A smattering of empty drink bottles. And two orange rings, rusted with time.