Blue Star Rapture (5 page)

He escaped to the footbridge where he could be alone. Every muscle in his body was stiff from so many basketball games. He let his feet swing over the edge. He smoked a cigarette while he watched the sun go down, and then he lit up another one. It was so quiet he could hear the singing and shouting from the bluff on the far side. He had heard there was a Holy Roller camp over there, but he didn't know much about it.

When it was dusk, he could barely make out the gorge below, but he could sure make out the smell; there wasn't enough water in the creek bed to flush it with movement. T.J. wondered briefly if he was brave enough to stay here until after dark before making his way back to the dorm. Most of the players at the Full Court camp, because of their prevailing urban origins, were afraid to be out alone after dark amid the timber that covered the bluffs. The
forest dark
was what Ishmael called it. Tyron referred to it as the
darkest dark
.

It made T.J. uneasy too. If he had a higher level of courage than his fellow campers, it was probably owing to the reconnaissance he'd conducted when they first arrived. He knew the lay of the land a little better than most of the others. This fact, along with the faint but functional pole lights that were positioned occasionally along the walking trails, provided him with enough orientation for nighttime confidence.

He was in the process of reconstructing the conversations he'd had about Tyron's new pair of Nike Magic Carpets when a girl approached. She came from his left. If she had been sitting nearby, he hadn't noticed. “Can you take out splinters?” she asked.

T.J. was startled; he asked her to say it again.

“Do you know anything about taking out splinters? I think I've got one in my arm here where I can't see it.” She seemed very unselfconscious as she sat down beside him. She was wearing a short, midriff T-shirt without sleeves and a pair of cutoff blue jeans. She lifted her right arm to show him the back side of her bicep. “See?”

When T.J. looked, he could see that the splinter was easily an inch and a half long; three fourths of it was under the skin. “This is big. How did you get this?”

“Is it big? I was laying my arms over the railing.”

“You can't do that, though. The wood is too rough.” T.J. took her right elbow and lifted it so the upper arm was horizontal. With the fingers of his left hand, he yanked out the splinter. The quicker the better, he figured.

Instead of complaining about any pain, she giggled. “Thank you,” she said.

Even in the trailing light, he could see that her short hair was sort of a burgundy color, but it looked sloppy. “It was good for me,” he said. “Was it good for you too?”

She laughed. “I'm sure the Lord will bless you for it.”

He wouldn't try and figure that remark out, but it did tell him the girl was one of the ones from the Holy Roller camp. A small silver cross hung from the ring that pierced her belly button. He wondered briefly why a girl with metal through her navel would care about a wood sliver in her arm. He said to her, “Now that I've saved your life, maybe I ought to find out what your name is.”

She paused before she answered. “LuAnn,” she told him. “What's yours?”

“T.J. Nucci.”

She asked him if he was in the basketball camp. It seemed to T.J. like she never stopped smiling.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Sometimes I can see across. There's a high place just outside our meeting shelter where you can see a long way. I can't see every court and every player, but some of it. Whenever I see the players, I think how hot it must be.”

“Hotter 'n hell,” T.J. agreed.

LuAnn giggled again. “I doubt that. I'm sure the fires of Hell are much hotter than anything we could ever imagine. You must be a real good player if you're in the Full Court camp.”

“You know about basketball?”

“I used to be a cheerleader. Besides, everybody knows about Full Court.”

“I wouldn't say
everybody.
”

“You're probably right. Just people with an interest in basketball. You must be real good if you're in it, though.”

“Not really.” Briefly, and without going into too much detail, T.J. explained his relationship to Tyron. How he was here basically to keep Tyron motivated so he might get a college scholarship if the opportunity ever presented itself.

LuAnn listened with wide eyes. “I'm sure the Lord will bless you for it.”

“Do you have to keep saying that? And how come you smile all the time?”

“I smile because I'm happy. I smile because I'm saved.”

T.J. groaned in his mind,
Oh God
. The enthusiasm he'd been cultivating for her tits and legs fizzled like a doused charcoal briquette.
I suppose she's going to try to convert me
.

“Sister Simone teaches us that we can serve Him in all things, no matter how great or small.”

“Who's Sister Simone?” asked T.J. Not that he really wanted to know.

“She's our counselor. She teaches us that all our problems, even the ones that seem most serious, can really be opportunities to glorify the Lord. But we have to seek His will and put our trust in Him.”

And does she ever tell you to use your own brain for thinking?
T.J. wondered. For the briefest moment, maybe no longer than a split second, when she spoke of Sister Simone he was reminded of Bee Edwards.
Why, though?
The thing he was sure about was that he didn't want to listen to a sermon about how he ought to turn his life over to the Lord. Wasn't he sitting on this bridge specifically to avoid Digger Phelps' sermonizing?

He couldn't tell for certain why he didn't leave at that point. It would be the easiest way. Instead, he took out a cigarette and lit it. When he offered her one, she said, “No, thank you.”

“I don't suppose that would work with Sister Simone, would it?”

LuAnn was smiling. “It wouldn't work with me. It wouldn't work with who I am. It would only work with the old me.”

“The old you?”

“Before I was saved. Before I turned my life over to the Lord. I used to smoke those things.”

“You used to smoke and you used to be a cheerleader.”

Her face was propped on her forearms, which were propped on the lower railing of the bridge. He liked her face at this three-quarter angle. She said, “I used to be a lot of things. Mostly, I was willful.”

T.J. took a drag before he asked, “What's that supposed to mean,
willful?
”

“It means I wanted my own way. I had to be a cheerleader with a spiral perm. I smoked cigarettes and drank beer. I did some marijuana at parties. I skipped a lot of school, so my grades were low.”

“What school do you go to?”

“Peoria Roosevelt. I'll be a senior next year.”

“Yeah, me too. At Burton. So what happened to the cheerleading?”

“I was kicked off the squad.”

“That's too bad,” said T.J.

“Not really,” LuAnn explained. “I think it's what I wanted. I wanted my parents to suffer. I thought all the bad things I was doing would punish them. It was so stupid how I was willing to mess up my own life just to pay them back for something I couldn't even name. That's what I mean by willful.”

T.J., who was habitually guarded with the private aspects of his own life, wondered why LuAnn would be so open with all this negative personal history. “Do you always just blurt out the personal stuff?” he asked.

“I do now.”

“Why?”

“Because telling other people I'm a sinner reminds me of the fact.”

“You want to be reminded you're a sinner, is that it?” T.J. had no idea why he was even extending this conversation. He threw the spent Marlboro down the gorge.

“If you know you're a sinner,” declared LuAnn, “it reminds you that you can be redeemed.”

“So if you're bad, that's good.”

She lifted her head to say, “If you acknowledge your sins and confess them, then God's grace can save you. If you don't understand your own sinful nature, then you can't understand the path to redemption.”

“So you can't be saved if you don't admit you need it.”

“Exactly.” LuAnn smiled wider.

“Have you ever read
1984?
” T.J. asked her.

“I'm not sure,” she replied. “Why?”

“Oh, you know, war is peace. Freedom is slavery.”

“That sounds weird, for sure. Is it a good book?”

Now she sounded a little bit like Tyron, but it didn't matter. Looking straight into her face, he wondered what he ought to say next. About all he could want from this girl was a good lay, but what he'd most likely get would be a session of scripture reading.

“I asked you, is it a good book?”

“Yeah,” answered T.J., with no thought about books. “Lots of people think so.”

“Are you a Christian, T.J.?” was her next question.

“No, no, nothin' like that,” was his quick reply.

“Because our meetings are open. I'm sure Sister Simone would be glad to have you, or any of your friends.”

“Do you think I need to be converted, is that it?”

“Who said anything about that? I just want you to know you're invited.”

“Yeah, well, thanks but no thanks.”

On Wednesday morning, Tyron told T.J. he was considering Notre Dame.

“Why is that?”

“Ishmael says I should think about it.”

“Ishmael can go anywhere he wants,” said T.J. while toweling his sweat and drinking cups of Gatorade. “Any college in the country would want him.”

“Yeah, I know. He says I should think about it, though. That's why I'm considering Notre Dame.”

“You can
consider
any place you want, but it's North State that made you the scholarship offer. They're the one that's considering
you.
” Saying this, T.J. paused to speculate if there might be any connection between Notre Dame and Nike. He didn't know, though. He was beginning to wonder what was connected to what in order to form what networks.

“Ishmael thinks him 'n' me would make a great combination.”

“You probably would. Hell, you already do; why do you think we've won six games the last two days?”

Tyron's grin seemed to reach from the left ear to the right ear. “You see me dunk on that gold team yesterday?”

“I saw. Listen, Bumpy—”

“No Bumpy!”

“Okay, sorry. Listen, Tyron, you have to think about loyalty too. Who was it that made you the first offer, huh? It was North State. Who was it that told us about Public Law 504 so you can have the ACT read to you?”

“I know, I know. It was Coach Lindsey at North State.”

“Exactly. With all the bullshit that goes on, you have to think about loyalty.”

“I still have the right to think about Notre Dame if I want to.”

“Nobody says you don't.” T.J. was fishing his watch from his athletic bag. He had at least forty minutes before the next game. “Do me a favor, though?”

“What favor?”

“Just keep away from Bee Edwards and those other street agents. Be sure you spend your time with Buddy and the guys. No hustlers.”

“There's nothin' wrong with takin' shoes. Everybody gets shoes.”

“Nobody gets shoes for nothin', Tyron.”

“Nothin'. Not a cent, not even a nickel.”

“It may not have anything to do with money. It might be a different kind of payoff; just keep away from the street agents, okay?” Then T.J. left for the courts before he could hear what the answer might turn out to be.

The second game of the morning was another easy victory, but a disturbing clash developed between Tyron and Ishmael Greene. The other team was playing a box-and-one defense so as to free one man to shadow Greene wherever he might go. That wasn't a problem in itself, for no one person could cover Ishmael alone.

But the other players, none more so than Tyron, were enjoying their huge lead. They were basically standing around playing out the string, which left their defenders free to double- and even triple-team Ishmael. It was Ishmael alone who couldn't seem to find a way to put it on idle; it was a gear he didn't possess. He played with the same level of intense fury he might have needed in a tie game. With no warning at all, it seemed, he was all over Tyron for loafing. “How'm I s'posed to beat three guys?” he demanded to know.

“Huh?” said Tyron. He was grinning large and slapping high fives with his sated teammates.

“You need to house that motherfucker out the way; how'm I gonna drive the lane against my own man plus a three-man zone?” Ishmael was breathing hard, but he didn't appear tired.
It was almost like he couldn't
get
tired
, T.J. thought to himself. He also wondered why Ishmael chose to target Tyron, when the other players were on shutdown the same as he was.

“You don't need to get on Tyron's case,” he said to Ishmael. “The game's over, for Christ sake.”

“You see time left on that clock or not?” was Ishmael's response.

There was one minute and twelve seconds remaining on the small electric Scoreboard next to the scorer's table. “I see a minute,” T.J. replied. “I also see a thirty-point lead. Why don't you chill?”

“You see time on the clock, the game ain't over. You got that big ass of yours,” he said to Tyron, “so house him out the lane.
I
need the lane, you understand?”

Tyron didn't understand. “Fuck you,” he told Greene while gasping for breath. “I'm tired.”

Buddy Ingalls interrupted when he declared, “That's enough. You all shut up. You don't coach, Ishmael, you just play. Any player needs to be told what to do, that's my job.”

Ishmael flung down his towel without speaking and headed for the court. Before he sent him back into the game, Ingalls reminded Tyron, “Ishmael's right, though, Tyron. Coaches are everywhere you look; they don't want to think you've got quit in you.”