A Smudge of Gray (6 page)

Chapter 11

A basketball banked off glass and
swished into a net. The gymnasium erupted with cheers. A group of youngsters
four feet tall looked at the shooter—a skinny kid with a blue jersey. His
teammates gave him a pat on the back, and then spread out on the court.

At the side of the court was a bench lined
with blue and red teams on opposite ends. Behind the teams, a crowd of mainly
parents and siblings filled the bleachers. The place was moderately sized and
the bleachers were surprisingly dense, like a bingo parlor on the second
Wednesday of the month.

A boy in red with curly hair dribbled
the ball between two blue defenders, but then he lost control and watched the
ball bounce out of bounds. The crowd collectively sighed.

“Come on, Anthony!” a boisterous
curly-haired man yelled.

On the sideline in front of the blue
team, an older man with white hair and wearing sweat pants paced. He had the
appearance of an NBA cutthroat coach, but at further inspection, he had the
face of Santa Claus after gastric bypass surgery. He was Coach Wilson, a man
with a love for sports that stemmed from his own son’s basketball days as a
youth. Even though his son had just turned thirty and had replaced the
basketball with a briefcase, Coach Wilson never stopped coaching.

He watched a burly kid on the red team chuck
the ball from the three-point line. It bounced off the top of the glass and
somehow went in. Laughs spewed from the crowd followed by some claps. Coach Wilson
looked at his team waiting like a line of cadets preparing for a drill
sergeant’s orders at six a.m.

“Jonathan, you’re up. Go get ’em,” the
coach prompted.

Jonathan Boise sprang up and adjusted
his shorts. He looked around as if he had no idea what to do. He glanced at his
coach, who gestured toward the boy with the untied shoelaces.

“Go in for Bobby,” Coach Wilson said.

Jonathan scurried on the court as the
boy at the end of the coach’s gesture clumped toward the bench.

In the crowd, Anne Marie extended her
neck as she watched her son enter the game. Her sister, Helen, sat next to her
with the same enthusiasm. Helen was an older version of Anne Marie with the
same cherry brown hair and complexion. Where she differed from her sister was
in style, as Helen chose to flaunt her feminine assets, a way to recruit a
sailor.

“Yeah, Jonathan! You can do it!” Anne
Marie shouted.

Jonathan inbounded the ball. The
referee handed him the hot potato, and then blew the whistle as the kids
shuffled on the floor. Jonathan hesitated, debating which of his teammates was
most available. As the ref counted to four, Jonathan saw the best option, the
new kid on the team—Kevin Malloy.

Kevin received the pass. A section in
the crowd cheered. It was his family—his mother Laura, his sister Katie, and
his father Trevor, who was wearing a plaid golf shirt and khakis.

“Yea, Kevin, go get ’em honey!” Laura
yelled.

Kevin dribbled the ball toward his
basket. He reached the three-point line before a swarm of red invaded his space.
Kevin picked up his dribble, and then bounced the ball to his teammate,
Jonathan. The younger Boise jumped and shot the ball in one fluid motion. It
arced high in the air, and then swished.

Trevor, Laura, and Katie shouted with
zest as Anne Marie and Helen followed their lead seven rows away.

“Brian is missing another great game,”
Anne Marie said to her sister.

“Where is Brian, anyway?” Helen asked as
she saw a muscular father walking her way.

“Working. Where else?”

“Are you sure he’s
working
? Men
are sleazeballs. They cheat, steal, lie,” Helen replied as she locked eyes with
the father and shared a smile.

“He’s a cop. That’s a demanding job.”

“He’s not a cop.”

“What do you mean? Are you saying that
he’s been lying these past ten years?” Anne Marie said.

“I’m saying that he’s just pretending to
be a cop after his—”

“After his father died, Brian changed. He
changed so much that he became a cop himself. But losing a father is something
that I dread one day. Don’t you?”

Helen got quiet. “Isn’t the ten year
anniversary of his father’s death coming up?”

“Next week. I can’t believe it’s been
ten years. Brian hasn’t brought it up, but I know it’s been tormenting him.”

“I get shivers whenever I think about
what happened to his father, and even more so when I think that Brian saw it
happen right in front of him. I would go mad.”

“It seems that Brian has been getting
busier and busier with his job, maybe just to block it all out, but I know he’s
doing it for us…at least, I hope he is.”

“He should be a banker. What cop has a
math degree? You should have dumped him back when you met him,” Helen said.

“Well, you introduced him to me.”

Seven rows away, the Malloy family
watched their son steal the ball from a red player, but then he lost control
sending it out of bounds.

“Good hustle, Kevin!” Coach Wilson’s
voice echoed through the gym.

“I’m so glad we decided to enroll him in
youth basketball. He looks like he’s having so much fun,” Laura remarked to
Trevor.

As the game engrossed the crowd, a
mysterious signal, invisible to those around it, lurked through the air above
the action. It traveled secretly, and while the humans in the gym did not see
it, smell it, or even sense it, the signal snaked around them. But suddenly, it
revealed itself not to the masses, but to one man sitting amongst his family—Trevor
Malloy. His cell phone vibrated, possessed by the strange stream of binary
digits. Trevor felt the pulsations rattle his waist. He peeked at the screen and
saw the pixels identify the unidentifiable signal, “Unknown.”

Trevor removed the device from his belt.
His mind left the gymnasium and entered darkness. He knew who it was even if
the device didn’t. Trevor answered the phone as he stared straight at the
painted concrete across from him. Swiftly, one of the kids on the red team
tossed the ball from one side of the court to the other. The crowd collectively
chased it. And there was Trevor with an evil glare, listening, the only one in
the bleachers looking forward. Then as the spectators spectated, Trevor killed
his phone and returned it to his belt.

“Work?” Laura asked as she looked up at
her husband’s stone face.

“Yeah, another contract with a client.
You’ll be okay with Katie.” Trevor looked at his carefree daughter. “You take
care of Mom while I run an errand for work, okay?”

“Okay, Dad. See you later,” Katie
replied, without taking her eyes off Kevin, who was trying to block the ball.

Trevor kissed his wife on the lips, just
as he always did before he departed her. Laura felt indifferent, expecting work
to take her husband away at any moment.

Trevor stood up and petted his
daughter’s hair softly as he slid from his wedge. He stepped between some eager
parents who looked around his movement.

Helen watched the blue team steal the
ball as Anne Marie clapped next to her, but then she felt a breeze brush her
neck, a subtle sensation that prompted her to turn her head. She glanced at the
step. Tan Burberry loafers filled her gaze. She followed them up, but a group
of parents blocked the view of the man’s face.

A half hour later, the game continued
with the scoreboard showing the red team with 19 points and the blue team with
18. Only eleven seconds remained on the clock—a flash for a NASCAR race, but an
eternity for a basketball game. A chubby boy in blue stood out of bounds near
half court next to the referee. Jonathan and Kevin hovered near their
three-point line. They shared a look of eagerness, a look that bonded them
together. The referee blew his whistle, and then handed the beefy boy the ball.
He wavered as the ref counted with only one hand. Then, the chubby boy tossed
the ball to a kid wearing glasses. He dribbled right, but saw red. He tried
left, but red still invaded. Finally, he picked up his dribble and hunched over
like a mother in the desert protecting her baby from vultures.

The crowd shouted the clock. “Eight…Seven…Six.”

The boy with glasses looked around as
two red defenders blocked him. Then, he saw Jonathan run his way. “Here! I’m
open!”

The youth wearing glasses hurled
the ball to Jonathan. As the spectators huffed, Jonathan dribbled toward the
side, but more defenders picked him up. Two red players trapped him, arms
raised, bodies out. The crowd puffed as Jonathan tried to stay calm and to use
his experience to guide him.

“Four…Three.”

Jonathan looked between the two invaders
and saw a lone jersey underneath his basket—a jersey colored in blue. He passed
the ball to his teammate, Kevin Malloy, the new addition. Kevin grabbed the
ball with wide eyes.

Two…One.

Kevin jumped with all of his might,
soaring in the air, and hooking the ball like Julius Erving, minus the afro and
short shorts. The crowd gasped. The buzzer blared. The ball soared. It bounced
off the glass, hung a while, and…swished.

Laura and Katie led the cheers as the
blue bench poured onto the court. Kevin turned, stunned. Jonathan ran over and
slapped Kevin’s hand. The duo embraced the mob of blue as their supporters
filled the gymnasium with energy. Then, both teams lined up and tapped hands as
family members looked for their kids. Coach Wilson collected his team at the
base of their basket, the winning basket.

“Excellent game, guys,” he said with liveliness.
Then, he looked at Kevin. “Especially our new addition. You’re very talented,
Kevin. Keep it up!”

The curly-haired father joined his son.
“Great game, you two. Are you two brothers?” he asked Kevin and Jonathan.

Both shook their heads.

“Well, you sure look like brothers.”

The action simmered down as the defeated
red team moped away and the cheers calmed to chatter. Jonathan walked toward
the bench as his mother and his aunt met him with open arms.

“Great job, honey. You did so good,”
Anne Marie said as she massaged his back.

“Congratulations,” Helen offered,
rubbing his head.

Nearby, Laura and Katie scurried toward
the team’s hero, their hero.

“Excellent, baby. You scored the winning
basket!” his mother said.

Laura and Anne Marie naturally glanced
at each other, a glance facilitated by many chain events that had played out.
If the probability of a glance shared by two disjointed individuals, motivated
by different principles, members of dissimilar social classes, and products of
diverse upbringings, were random, then randomness had an eerie quality.

“Hi, I’m Laura Malloy, Kevin’s mother.”

“Anne Marie Boise,” Jonathan’s mother
said as she shook her new acquaintance’s hand. “This is my sister, Helen.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” Helen said,
waving her hand.

“It’s nice to have Kevin on our team,”
Anne Marie continued.

Kevin, Jonathan, and Katie ran on the
court like three kids in a toy store. Helen focused on the kids, and then ran
with them like an alcoholic in a liquor store. Laura and Anne Marie watched
like two old maids in a jewelry store.

“We wanted him to get involved in a team
sport, something where he could jump. He fell in love with a trampoline my
husband bought for the kids,” Laura revealed.

“Oh, you’re married?” Anne Marie said.

“Yeah, my husband, Trevor, was here,
but he had to run out for his consulting job. I hope he can come to all of
Kevin’s games when he’s in town. What about Jonathan’s dad?”

“My husband, Brian, is so busy with his
job. I’ve been pestering him to come to at least one game.”

“What does he do?” Laura asked.

“He’s a police detective.”

Laura’s pupils dilated. “Oh, very
respectable.”

“I want him to quit and push papers,”
Anne Marie chuckled.

Laura laughed. She saw Jonathan walk up
to his mom and give her a hug. Then, Laura felt four hands grab her waist. She
knew it was her own kids without even looking.

“You have a natural ability out there,”
Laura said as she smiled at Jonathan.

“I have every basketball game for the
new Nintendo,” Jonathan said shyly.

“Whatever works, keep it up,” Laura
offered.

“Well, it was very nice meeting you. I’m
sure I’ll see you at the next game. Hopefully, my husband will make it. I’m
sure he and Trevor would enjoy meeting,” Anne Marie said.

“Yes. I’m sure they’ll meet soon enough…
Bye,” Laura replied.

“Come on, kiddo,” Anne Marie said to her
son.

Then like that, the Boise family, minus
their keystone, skipped out of the gymnasium toward the front doors. The Malloy
family, lacking their breadwinner, shifted toward the back exit. As two
custodial members swept the gym over the murmur of the scattered crowd, a
breeze blew in, a cold breeze.