Double Team (3 page)

M
y mouth was pretty dry after the game. There was a drinking fountain over by the sign-in table, and I headed straight toward it. I wanted to check if the second-round matchups were ready yet anyway. They weren't, but I drank about a gallon of cold water from the fountain.

I looked up and wiped my mouth with the back of my arm. There was a guy standing there. It was hard to tell how old he was because he was one of those old guys who was still in really good shape. He even looked kind of familiar, but I couldn't think where I'd seen him before.

“Here you go,” I said, stepping aside so he could use the fountain.

“Thanks, son,” he said, “but I'm fully hydrated.”

Hydrated
, that was a good word. I made a mental note to use it when I got back to the bleachers, like: “It's cool, I'm fully hydrated now.”

“Your name's Amar'e, right?” the guy asked. He even pronounced it right.

“Yeah,” I said, but he obviously knew that already. It's not like Amar'e is the first name you would guess. Anyway, he kept asking me questions.

“How old are you?”

“'Leven.”

“Where you from?”

“Lake Wales.”

“How tall are you?”

“Not sure. Keeps changing.”

He took a step back and eyeballed me. I guess he was estimating my height. That's when it occurred to me, you know:
Why is this random dude asking me all these questions? And why am I answering?

“Uh, who are you?” I said.

“Name's Omar,” he said. He smiled and extended his hand.

He still looked kind of familiar. I didn't want to be rude, in case he was an old friend of Dad's or something. I shook his hand.

“Amar'e,” I said, “but I guess we already covered that.”

“Good luck next round,” he said.

“Yeah, all right. Thanks.”

I headed back to the bleachers. Mike and Deuce had their heads on a swivel, keeping an eye on two different games at once.

“Fully hydrated,” I said, plunking down next to them.

“Fully what-what-ed?” said Mike.

“That's good,” said Deuce. “Some of these other teams are tough.”

“Yeah,” said Mike. “I think they're fully hybraited, too.”

“Hy
dra
ted, man,” said Deuce with a chuckle.

By the time we explained what that meant to Mike, they'd started announcing the second-round matchups. They announced ours for Court 2.

“They good?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” said Deuce.

“Most def,” said Mike.

We got up and headed down to Court 2 to find out just how good. We checked in with the ref once we got there, and the other team arrived about thirty seconds later. The first thing I noticed was that two of them were twins. They looked identical, and were wearing the same outfits, right down to their sneakers.

“This is gonna be confusing,” said Mike.

Their third player didn't have a twin. Or if he did, he'd eaten him. Dude was enormous. Put it this way: The ball he was dribbling wasn't much rounder than he was.

“Is it still called ‘boxing out' if the guy's round?” I whispered to Deuce.

He laughed, but it was kind of a nervous laugh. And he was right, too, because this game was tough from the start.

“You got him?” I called to Deuce as we got bounced around in traffic under the hoop.

“Got him!” called Deuce. But he covered the wrong twin. That left the other one wide open for a little bunny-hop layup.

“No,
him
!” I said as the ball went through the hoop.

“Oh, then no,” said Deuce.

Mike didn't have to deal with mistaken identity. It was impossible to confuse the enormous kid he was covering with anything other than maybe a baby elephant. As big as he was, he never moved too far from the basket. From the start, the twins dumped the ball in to him on almost every play.

Sometimes he'd pass it back out, and sometimes he'd take it himself. Not only could I see it when he bodied up on Mike, I could hear it.

“OOOOOOF!” grunted Mike as the kid backed into him.

Before Mike could recover his position — or his breath — we were down 2–0. By the time I noticed that the twins had different color laces (in their identical sneakers), it was already 4–0.

“Red laces!” I called to Deuce. “See 'em?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Blue laces over here.”

And that's how we identified them. At first, we called them “Red Laces,” “Blue Laces,” and “Big Man,” but pretty soon we simplified things.

“Stay on Big!” Deuce called.

“I got Red,” I shouted.

We got on the board after that with, well, with a little luck. I heaved up an off-balance jumper from long range and somehow it rattled in: 4–1. As we got ready for our next possession, I looked around at the matchups.

Big Man had a size advantage on Mike — he would've had a size advantage on a car! Mike was faster, but getting around Big Man was like Magellan trying to sail around the world. Deuce was a little faster than either twin, but a little smaller, too. And even if he got around his guy, Big Man would be right there, clogging up the lane.

I was the one with the best matchup. I was a little bigger than either twin, and at least as fast. We were already down by three. If we were going to win, I was going to have to carry the load.

I went to work. I had the ball and Red Laces was on me tight.

I gave him a quick crossover dribble and a little fake, then took off. I turned the corner on him and rocketed toward the basket. Big Man saw me coming, but he had
to stay close to Mike under the basket. That left me plenty of space for a short, pull-up jumper. It was 4–2, and we just sort of chipped away at it after that.

With the score tied at 6–6, Deuce dumped the ball down to me. Blue wasn't on him that close, and he clapped his hands for a return pass. But I had good position and a few inches on Red. I went up with a hook shot and scored over the top of him. It gave us our first lead of the day, but Deuce wasn't happy.

“Come on, man, I was wide open,” he said.

Deuce kept the ball on our next possession. He charged straight down the lane and crashed right into Big Man. With their size difference, it looked like a little kid running into the side of a bouncy castle. The ref whistled Deuce for an offensive foul, and the other team scored two straight to put us behind again.

We finally got the ball back. Blue was all over Deuce, and he finally passed me the ball. I had to work hard, but I got by Red again. I swooped in from the side, and Big Man left Mike to pick me up. Mike was open now, but he was really deep under the basket, just inches from the baseline. It didn't seem worth the risk, especially
since I'd been knocking down these short jumpers all day.

I stopped, popped, and scored. It was 9–9, but now both of my teammates were mad at me.

“I'm working hard down there,” said Mike. “Wouldn't kill you to get me the ball when I'm open.”

“You were all the way under the basket,” I said.

“That's a good thing!” he said.

“I'm just trying to win the game for us,” I said.

“Oh, what, we're not?” said Deuce.

“No, I know,” I said. “Of course you are.”

What else could I say? How do you tell your best friends you don't think they can beat their defenders? Well, I guess I told them that by scoring the next two points. The first one was a put-back on a heave by Deuce, so they couldn't really blame me for that. But I scored game point on a long jumper from the corner. I just had a good feeling about it, so I took it.

Mike should've been happy it went in. I mean, (A) we won, and (B) Big Man had to stop leaning on him now. But when I went to high-five him, I thought he was
going to leave me hanging. He finally raised his hand up and gave mine a weak slap.

“Supposed to be three-on-three,” he said as he headed off the court.

I looked around for Deuce, but he was already gone. The only ones left were the guys on the other team. I shook their hands and we all agreed it was a good, tough game. They told me their real names, but they'll probably always be Red Laces, Blue Laces, and Big Man to me.

As I walked off the court to go find my teammates, I saw Omar still standing by the fence. He gave me a nod. I nodded back, but I still couldn't figure out why he looked so familiar.

I
picked up my pace to catch Mike and Deuce. “Two down, two to go,” I said as I pulled even with them.

We'd made it through the first two rounds, so the next game would be the semifinal. If we won that one, we'd get to play in the championship game. So it was all good, but Mike and Deuce didn't even respond. Maybe they didn't hear me. More people had showed up as the morning went on, and it was kind of loud.

“Two to go,” I repeated.

“We heard you,” said Mike.

That was it: Three words and then they went back to the silent treatment. They were still mad.

“Come on,” I said as we found a spot in the bleachers. “I had the best matchup. I had to push the action.”

“Push the action?” said Deuce. “You mean hog the ball?”

“You guys both had the ball early,” I said. “They were killing us.”

“Oh, so you thought you'd just take things into your own hands?” said Mike.

I looked over at him. I didn't really know what to say. Because the answer was yes. That's exactly what I thought, and it's the only reason we ended up winning. We just looked at each other for a long second. Then I remembered something my dad said once:
If you don't know what to say, just say what you know.
“You couldn't get around that guy,” I said.

Mike rolled his eyes. “Please,” he said. “It just took me a little time to figure him out, is all.”

“Yeah, okay,” I said.

There was one of those weird pauses where both of us were waiting for the other one to say something more. We both thought we were right. I could
either make things worse, or I could apologize. I manned up.

“My bad,” I said.

Mike shook his head and looked away. But he didn't say anything else. So of course that's when Deuce decided to speak up.

“What about me?” he said.

I decided to do the same thing: Tell the truth and then apologize.

“You couldn't get any separation from your guy,” I said. “But my bad anyway,” I said.

“That's right,” said Deuce.

It didn't make any sense. The two statements completely contradicted each other, but Deuce was agreeing to both. I think he just wanted to save some face. I think they both did. They didn't look as mad. Their jaws weren't clenched up like they were trying to crack a walnut anymore.

Down on the court, the last game of the morning was wrapping up. As I turned to look, one of the players flew toward the rim and slammed one down. It was that kid Jammer.

“Wow,” I said.

Seeing him dunk when he was warming up was one thing. He had all the time — and steps — he needed for that. But doing it in a game was something else. He had to spot the opportunity and be ready for takeoff.

“Can't wait till I can do that,” said Mike.

“Me neither,” said Deuce.

Mike and I both looked at him. We smiled.

“Deuce, man,” said Mike. “You're, like, five foot nothin'. That's going to be a long time from now. A very long time.”

“No way,” said Deuce. “I'm going to do it tonight.”

At first he seemed serious. Then he broke out into a big smile, too: “As soon as I fall asleep and start dreaming!”

We all laughed. It felt good to laugh with my friends again. We settled in to watch the rest of the game. It was like sitting outside a chain-link fence at a construction zone and watching some heavy-duty demolition work. Jammer was the wrecking ball.

The other team just couldn't stop him. And he wasn't fighting for the ball either. His teammates were working
hard to get it to him. I was going to say something about it, but I didn't. We were all getting along again, and they were watching the same game I was. I'm sure they saw what was going on. And I had something else to say anyway.

“See that guy by the fence?” I said, pointing to Omar.

“Yeah,” said Deuce.

“Sure,” said Mike.

“You know who he is?” I said.

“No, who?” said Mike.

“Nah, I don't know,” I said. “I'm just asking. I think he was watching our game, too.”

“The whole time?” said Deuce.

“Yeah, I'm pretty sure.”

“Probably just a fan,” said Mike.

“He looks pretty serious for a fan,” I said. And it was true. He was watching the game like he was trying to memorize it, and he wasn't cheering or anything like that. He'd just nod every once in a while, like when Jammer made a really good play.

“Maybe he's an official or something,” said Deuce. “He looks kind of familiar, though.”

“Yeah, right?” I said. “That's what I was thinking.”

“Yeah, well, I'm thinking your brother just arrived,” said Mike, changing the subject.

“Junior's here?”

“Yeah,” said Mike, pointing toward the parking lot. “Just pulled in.”

I looked over. The first thing I saw was his familiar red car. Then I saw Junior unfolding his big frame from the driver's seat.

“Cool,” I said. “He must've taken the afternoon off from his job to come watch us play.” I leaned forward and started to stand up. It was game point down on the court, and Jammer was about to put the other team out of its misery. “You guys want to come say hi with me?”

The crowd cheered as Jammer's jumper went in. I smiled, pretending they were cheering because Junior had shown up. It was better than what that cheer really meant: Jammer's team had just advanced to the semifinals, too. We might have to play them.

“Nah,” said Mike. “I'm starving and need to, like, ‘hydrate' myself.”

“Me too,” said Deuce. “We'll probably run over to the store and grab some lunch.”

We all headed down the bleachers. “Grab me something, okay?” I said as I veered off toward the parking lot. Mike said something, but I didn't catch it through the other people heading down out of the bleachers. I figured he'd just said yeah. We always grabbed food for each other. It was, like, standard procedure.

“What's up, STAT?” called Junior when he saw me. “You guys still in this?”

“You know it!” I said. “We're in the semifinals.”

“Nice!” he said. “I was afraid I'd take the afternoon shift off and it would be all over by the time I got here.”

“Give me some credit!” I said. “We had a scare last game, though. Other team had identical twins.”

“No way!”

“Yeah, it was, like, double vision or something.”

“How'd you stop 'em?” he asked. So I showed him. I even hammed it up a little and did some “live instant replays” of what went down. I didn't mention the thing with Mike and Deuce because I didn't want to bum him out. Plus, I sort of thought that had blown over. Basically
we just hung out and joked until I saw Mike and Deuce heading back from across the street.

“Okay, gonna go eat and get ready,” I said.

“Cool, I'll grab some real estate in the bleachers,” he said. “Good luck, little bro.”

I appreciated the good wishes, but what I really needed was some food.

“Whatcha get me?” I said to Mike and Deuce, rubbing my hands together.

Their mouths were full with their own sandwiches, so I had to wait for the bad news.

“Nothing,” said Mike, crumpling up his bag and draining a two-footer right into a trash can.

“Yeah, it didn't work out,” said Deuce.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I guess we just had a better matchup with the sandwich guy,” said Deuce, balling up his empty bag and dunking it into the can.

“Now we're even,” they said, walking by me.

Yeah, great. If we were all even, how come I was the only one whose stomach was rumbling?