Night Hoops (14 page)

The evening was cold and damp. The mist was so heavy you could see it against the streetlights. I'd shot around for ten minutes or so when I clanged a jumper off the back iron and the ball bounded off the court. As I moved to retrieve it I spotted something back in the deepest corner of our yard—a shape huddled under a little overhang that jutted out from the shed.

"Is somebody there?" I called, holding the ball against my hip. There was no answer, but I noticed the slightest movement. "Who's there?"

Trent stepped out of the darkness. "It's me."

His face was gray, his hair matted down by the rain. But it was his eyes that had changed most. They'd always been alive—sometimes crazy-alive, but always alive. Now they looked dead.

"What's up?" I said.

"I don't know, Nick," he answered. "You tell me."

I knew what he was after. "My mom was at the hospital. Michael is going to be okay. He's not going to die or anything."

I could see him breathing, long deep breaths of relief, the gray-white vapor showing against the darkness of the night. One deep breath and then another.

"Trent," I said, "what happened?"

Another long pause, and then his voice: "It's crazy. We've had the gun for years, hidden away in a closet. We always talked about going down to the trail some night and shooting into the water, or at a tree or something, but we never had any bullets. That's what Zack was showing me last night—that he'd gotten bullets. When I wouldn't go with him, he went down there alone. Michael was standing on the bridge, the way he does, and Zack just sort of waved the gun at him and pulled the trigger. That was the first time he'd ever fired it. The first time. He didn't think it worked. He didn't mean to hurt anybody. It was a fluke, an accident."

I made myself say the words. "He's got to turn himself in."

Trent's eyes narrowed. "No way! He's eighteen now. You understand what that means? They'll put him in prison. Not juvenile hall. Prison. With real criminals. He could get killed in there."

"They won't if he explains what happened."

"Are you kidding? Nobody would believe him. Our only chance is to get away, to get someplace far away where nobody knows us."

My body tensed. "What do you mean
us?
You're not going with him, are you?"

He looked away. "I've got to. He's my brother."

The wind had come up and a hard rain had started to fall. I shuddered from the cold. Trent had to be frozen to the bone, too. "Look," I said, "come inside with me. No one's home. You can sleep downstairs on the sofa, think things over tonight, then decide tomorrow."

He shook his head. "I can't. I've got to meet Zack, tell him Michael's going to be all right. He thinks he killed him."

"So tell him. Then come back here. Okay?"

He turned and headed back into the darkness.

"Okay?" I called again, but he didn't answer.

I returned inside. I remembered what Officer Tomlinson had said, what my dad had said, and my eyes were drawn to the telephone. But instead of phoning, I took a long shower. Then I dressed, went downstairs, and wandered around the house, looking out the windows, listening.

If I hadn't been listening, I wouldn't have heard it. That's how soft the knock was. But I did hear it, and when I opened the back door, Trent was there.

"You hungry?" I asked, once he'd come in.

He nodded. "Yeah, I guess."

I motioned to the kitchen table. "Sit down. I'll make you something."

After I'd gone into the front room and cranked up the thermostat, I made him a peanut butter sandwich. While he was eating, I boiled water in the microwave, dumped a couple of tablespoons of Nestles Quik into a cup, and poured the water into it. The heat duct was filling the kitchen with warm air as I handed the steaming drink to Trent. He held it in two hands, his shoulders hunched, and sipped greedily, drinking as if he'd been rescued from the ocean.

When he finished, I led him downstairs and gave him some blankets. "Nobody will bother you," I said. "I'll wake you early tomorrow morning, and then you can do whatever you want." He nodded, his eyes glazed with exhaustion.

Mom and Scott were certain to come home soon, and when they did, I had to make sure they didn't go downstairs. So I plunked myself down in the chair by the front door and waited. I found myself falling asleep and then jerking back awake.

Twelve-thirteen ... Twelve forty-seven ... One o'clock.

Finally, at one-thirty, the front door opened and my mother and Scott stepped inside. My mother was startled to see me. "What are you doing up?"

I was so tired I could hardly think. "I couldn't sleep," I managed. "I wanted to hear, you know..." My voice trailed off.

"Michael has developed a blood clot in his leg," Mom said.
"It happens sometimes, in cases like his. They're going to operate tomorrow. If all goes well, he'll be out of the hospital within a week."

Scott brushed by me, yawning. "I'm going to bed."

"You look tired too," I said to Mom. "You should go to bed."

Suspicion came to her eyes. "Nick, what's going on? Has something else happened?"

"No. I just couldn't sleep with you and Scott gone."

She stared at me. I forced myself to meet her eyes. "All right. We're home now. It's time for all of us to go to bed. This has been a long, long day."

It was a long night, too. I suppose I slept some of it, but I was awake more than I was asleep. At five in the morning I headed downstairs. At the bottom stair, I stopped. "Trent," I whispered into the darkness, "you awake?"

"Yeah," came the reply.

A few minutes later we were both in the kitchen. I stuck some English muffins in the toaster oven and found some vanilla yogurt in the refrigerator. He ate everything I put in front of him, then pulled his coat around him and stood.

"What now?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Home, I guess. Sleep some more, and then talk to the police, get that over with. After that, I wait."

"For what?"

"For Zack. He took off last night. Once he gets set up somewhere, he's going to send word."

"And you're going to go?"

"I told you. He's my brother."

That night Katya came over for dinner. It was a celebration of sorts. The operation to remove the blood clot had been a success. Michael was going to be fine. "He looks better already," Katya said. "His skin has color again, and he was talking the way he normally does."

After dinner the conversation turned to Zack. They were all sure he'd get caught. Scott said he should get ten years in jail, minimum. My mother thought sending him to jail would make him more of a criminal when he came out. "Then keep him in jail," Katya declared. "Keep him there his whole life."

"What do you think?" Scott said, turning to me.

"To tell you the truth," I stammered, "I've been thinking about Trent and what's going to happen with him."

"Why do you care?" Katya asked.

"I don't know," I said. "He's in my classes, on my..."

"Basketball team?" she said, finishing my sentence for me, her voice filled with scorn. "His brother almost kills Michael, and all you're worried about is your basketball team."

"That's not true," I said. "I care about Michael."

Her eyes flashed. "Then why haven't you been to see him? Tell me that? You haven't been to the hospital once. You haven't even called."

All three were staring at me now. I felt like a bug under a microscope. "I didn't want to be in the way," I managed.

Katya tossed her head back and laughed scornfully. "Oh, right. Michael has had
so
many visitors. His thousands of friends have just filled the hospital. They set up a number system, like—"

My mother interrupted. "That's enough, Katya."

Katya didn't stop. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Abbott, but he—"

"You've made your point, Katya."

"I'll visit Michael tomorrow," I said. "I promise."

"Don't bother," Katya snapped.

In the hallways before school on Monday, the conversations were all about the shooting. I didn't want to hear them, so I went straight to my first-period class. As I entered the room, I looked to the back row in the corner where Trent normally sat. The chair was empty.

I took my normal spot, opened a book, and pretended to read. The room slowly filled. When about half the class was there, Martha Judkins—a girl I wish I knew better—started railing against Zack. She sounded exactly like Katya, saying how she thought Zack should spend the rest of his life in jail.

I listened for as long as I could, then spoke up. "You don't really know what happened, Martha. Nobody does. Maybe the whole thing was an accident."

She looked at me as if I'd grown a second head. "Oh, sure, Nick. Zack Dawson just
happens
to shoot the guy who
happened
to turn him in for killing those geese or chickens or whatever they were. What's the chance of that?"

Kids around me snickered. I felt stupid, stupid and childish, and I was glad when class started.

Somehow I made it through the morning. When lunchtime rolled around, out of habit I started toward the cafeteria. But then I stopped myself. I wasn't that hungry, and I couldn't bear to sit at a table and listen to kids around me talk about Zack, or Michael, or Trent.

From a vending machine I bought peanut butter crackers, some cookies, and a Coke, then headed outside. There are some huge fir trees at one corner of the Bothell High campus. I hunched up under one of them, sheltered a little from the January cold and wind, and ate.

I didn't want to think about anything, but there was no escaping what had happened. The whole scene played itself out in my mind. Michael walking over the wooden footbridge at Bothell Landing, singing some stupid song probably; Zack on the wooded side of the bridge, half hidden in the trees that line the trail, watching Michael come toward him, seeing him silhouetted against the light.

That's when it got really hard.

Because Martha was right. How can someone accidentally raise a gun, accidentally point it at someone, and accidentally fire? How can someone hear the shot, feel the recoil of the gun, watch a person fall, and then run? Zack must have known he wasn't playing a game, not once the gun went off and Michael went down. He must have known that the whole thing had turned real, had always been real. How could he leave Michael lying on that bridge bleeding his life away?

I was actually glad when it was time to head back to class, though once I was in the building the day dragged again. When the final bell rang, I felt like going home, but I knew if I skipped practice O'Leary would suspend me, and maybe even boot me off the team.

In the locker room guys were mulling over the Victoria trip and how badly they'd played. Fabroa went on and on about some foul in the fourth quarter that he swore he hadn't committed. "You were robbed," McShane agreed, nodding. "Those were the worst refs ever."

As they droned on I grew angry. Trent was on the team. Didn't anybody notice that he wasn't there? Didn't any of them wonder what was happening to him? I thought O'Leary would say something, but he didn't. We went straight into our drills, all business.

I turned off my mind and let my body take over. At the other practices I'd been keeping a box score in my mind. How many points did I have? Assists? Turnovers? How many did Fabroa have? Chang? Did O'Leary see that good play? Did he miss that bad one?

That practice I didn't worry about Fabroa's game or Chang's. I didn't worry about scoring or making assists or what O'Leary saw or didn't see. I took my shot when I was open, passed when I wasn't, hustled back on defense, and watched for opportunities.

O'Leary blew his whistle. "That's it. Everybody over here!" I looked at the clock, stunned. I couldn't believe that two hours had passed.

I shuffled over to O'Leary, who gave us a pep talk about how our important league games were still coming up, how we could turn the season around if we dedicated ourselves to winning. "So let's do it!" he said, and the guys let out a cheer.

That day, for the first time in a long time, I walked home with Luke. For block after block he talked basketball, mostly about my game: how well I'd played in practice, how the team needed a leader on the court, how if I played like that all the time, we really could put together a winning streak. "You're the key to the whole season."

We'd reached the place where he split off to go to his home in the Highlands. "Don't you think it's weird Coach didn't say anything about Trent?" I asked. "You'd think he'd say
something,
wouldn't you?"

Luke looked off. "What's there to say? You had the guy pegged. He's trouble. We're better off without him."

"And that's it? End of story?"

"You think anybody would sweat it if I got myself in trouble?" Luke snapped. "Because I don't. They'd just say:
Oh yeah, those black guys. What do you expect?
Trent's had his chances. I'm not spending my life worrying about him."

Dinner was ready as soon as I walked in the door. Scott was going with the Ushakovs to University Hospital. It was going to be Michael's last night there. "You should go, too," Mom said to me.

"I will," I answered, and then I looked at Scott. "Unless you don't think Katya wants me."

"Of course she wants you. And Michael does, too."

The Ushakovs were late. As I sat with Scott in the front room waiting, I tried to feel good about going to see Michael, but instead I kept thinking about Trent. Me, Scott, Katya, Luke, Michael Ushakov—we all had someone holding onto us, someone watching out for us. Only Trent had nobody and nothing.

I hustled upstairs, grabbed the basketball out of my closet, then headed downstairs. I plopped down in the chair across from Scott and started to lace up my basketball shoes. I knew what I had to do.

"The Ushakovs will be here any minute," Scott said, perplexed.

"I'm not going to the hospital," I answered.

"What are you talking about? You just said you were."

"Well, I'm not."

"So where are you going?"

"I'm going to play basketball with Trent, if he'll play."