Night Hoops (15 page)

Scott's eyes bugged out. "You're going to shoot hoops with Trent while Michael's lying in the hospital? You've got to be kidding."

Just then Mom entered the room. Immediately she spotted the basketball on the sofa. "What's the ball for?"

"That's what I asked him," Scott said. "Wait until you hear his answer."

She looked at me.

"I'm not going to the hospital, Mom. I'm going to shoot hoops with Trent."

She put her hands on her hips. "No, you're not, young man. You're going to the hospital to visit Michael, just as you said you would, and as you should have done the very first day. And you're going to have absolutely nothing to do with Trent Dawson."

I forced myself to stay calm. "Everybody seems to be forgetting something. Trent didn't go with Zack that night. He stayed with me. Do you understand? He stayed with me."

She stepped back a little. There was a long pause. "And I'm glad he did, Nick. I'm very glad he did. But just because you helped him once doesn't mean you have to do it all the time. And it certainly doesn't mean you have to go over there now, with Michael still in the hospital."

I took a deep breath. "There will be a bunch of people with Michael. Trent's got nobody."

Scott groaned. "Katya was right about you. She had you—"

"Scott, be still!" Mom commanded. Our eyes met. I could feel her thinking. Ten seconds ticked by. Then ten more. "Go," she said at last.

"Are you crazy?" Scott raged. "What's Dad going to say?"

Quickly, before she could change her mind, I opened the front door and stepped into the night.

I gave Trent's front door a good firm rap. For a long time there was no response. Then a light went on, and I heard footsteps on the stairs. The door opened. He didn't say anything; he just looked. I held the basketball in front of me. "You want to shoot some?"

His head tilted suspiciously. "What's this all about?"

"It's not about anything," I replied. "Just hoops."

He looked at me for what seemed like forever, then shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

We played late into the night, one-on-one basketball, hard to the hoop, no harm—no foul. We didn't stop until Mr. Shubert, who lives in the house behind us, opened his sliding porch door and yelled: "Guys, it's late. Give it a rest."

Trent came inside with me and sat at the kitchen table. I got a liter of Pepsi from the refrigerator and two glasses from the cupboard. "We had a pretty good practice today," I said, slipping into the chair across from him. "You going to be there tomorrow?"

He laughed. "What do you think? You think they want me back at school, back at practice?"

I poured the Pepsi into the glasses. "Since when did Trent Dawson ever care what other people want or think?"

He shot me a look. "I don't care."

I ate a handful of peanuts from a bowl on the kitchen table. "So surprise everybody. Go to school tomorrow. Go to practice. Later on you could come here if you want. We could knock off our homework, then shoot around just the way we did over Christmas."

A mocking smile came to his lips. "You know, I've talked to a few counselors over the years. More than a few, in fact. I know this little game you're playing. I know it inside and out."

"There's no game," I insisted. "You can't just sit in your house waiting for Zack to call. It could be months, right? You'll die of boredom. So why not play basketball until he does?"

He sat back in his chair and looked at me, trying to make me look away. But I didn't. I kept my eyes right on his. At last he picked up his Pepsi and drank until it was gone.
"Okay," he said, standing. "Until I hear from Zack, I'll go to your school and I'll play on your basketball team and I'll shoot around with you at night. But I'm doing this for me—not for you or anybody else—and I'm doing it for as long as I want, and not a second longer. You got it?"

I swallowed. "Yeah, I got it."

He nodded, and then he was out the door.

The next morning Trent was sitting at the bottom of his porch steps, his backpack by his side. I didn't know if he was waiting for me or for something else, or if he was just sitting there. Then his eye caught mine, and he stood, picking his backpack up as he did. I crossed the street. "How's it going?" I asked.

"Not bad."

I looked down the sidewalk, dotted with kids headed to Bothell High. "You want to get moving?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Until that day, I'd always felt at home on that walk. But that morning—with Trent at my side—kids who normally would have crossed the street and walked in with me, totally ignored me. In the hallways at school it was more of the same. Faces would light up, then they'd spot Trent, and suddenly I was invisible. They'd wanted him to go away; they'd thought he was gone; and I'd brought him back.

The locker room was just like school. Nobody said anything outright. It was all: "Hey, Trent, how's it going? Hey,
Nick, what's up?" Coach O'Leary came in and gave Trent a smile and a handshake. But even in his eyes I could see the suspicion.

On the court O'Leary called us to him and gave the same talk he always gave before practice. Still I didn't relax. I felt as if I were sitting behind home plate at a Mariners game, but that my ticket was no good and I knew it, and that at any second I'd feel fingers digging into my shoulder and hear a voice telling me to get out.

Trent and I were both third stringers, so we didn't start the scrimmage. But once O'Leary stuck us in, we made sure he didn't yank us out. Inside the lines, going all out, I didn't have to think. My mind turned off and my body took over. On defense I was up in Fabroa's face, playing him so tight he didn't even want the ball. Trent patrolled the key, muscling guys out of the way, grabbing rebounds.

We ran the fast break every chance we got. Sometimes I'd take the ball all the way; sometimes I'd thread the needle with a bounce pass that Trent would take to the basket for two points. The other second-teamers were just filling up space. It was really the two of us against the entire first team, and we were like a fireball scorching everything in its path. Just before practice ended, I actually bounced a pass to Trent that went between Luke's legs. Trent laid the ball in for an easy score, and Luke's face reddened. After practice all the starters showered and left quickly, their shoulders slumped just as though they'd lost a real game.

Trent and I walked home together. "You played great," I told him. "You were tremendous."

He smiled then, almost in spite of himself. "I did okay."

"You did more than okay. You ate their lunch."

"You weren't so bad yourself."

I wanted to keep talking about practice, but I couldn't keep him going. By the time we reached our block we were walking in silence. "We're done with dinner around seven," I said then. "If you want, you can come over. We could do our math, then shoot around. That sound okay?"

I expected him to turn me down, but he shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Why not?"

Thursday night we took on the Franklin Earthquake in their gym. At the team meeting after school, Coach O'Leary had us sit on the bleachers while he gave out the standard information: game time, address of the school, maps for anybody who needed one.

Once the details were taken care of, he paced back and forth. You could hear him breathing through his nose like a mad bull about to charge. Finally, he lit into us. "We're two and five this year, a lousy record. But we're not a lousy team. Or at least I don't think we are. These Franklin kids think they're going to run over us. They think we're nothing." He stopped and surveyed us, catching each guy's eye in turn. Some looked away; some didn't. I didn't. "Tonight is gut-check time. Tonight we'll see what you've got."

Mom had agreed to give Trent a ride to the game. When Scott heard that at dinner, he got furious. "Why don't you have the guy move in with us? He studies in our kitchen, eats the food out of our refrigerator, shoots hoops in the yard. Now we taxi him around. The only thing left is to get him a bed."

"What are you getting riled up about?" I said. "It's just a ride."

"It's not just a ride and you know it. I live here too, you know. Katya won't come around if Trent's here all the time. And I'll tell you something else. He knows where Zack is—and his mom does too. I'll bet you anything they're sending him money, helping him. It's not right, and it's not right for us to do anything that helps them."

His speech over, he stood, threw his napkin down, and left the table. "Where are you going?" Mom asked.

"I'm going to phone Katya. I'll get a ride from her. I'm not getting in the car with Trent."

Mom and I finished dinner in silence. We could hear Scott make his phone call, hear his voice cheer as he got the answer he wanted. When he went upstairs, Mom asked if there was some other way Trent could get to the next game. I shook my head. "And the basketball in our yard every night? And the studying at the kitchen table? There's no other place he could, go?"

"I'm the only friend he's got."

She put her elbows on the table, rested her chin on her hands. "But you're not the only son I have."

"Come on, Mom," I pleaded. "Riding with Katya is hardly some ordeal for Scott."

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the other things. You don't really know how deeply involved Trent is in all of this, do you?"

"He's not a bad guy, Mom. I know that."

"That's not the question. The question is whether he's done bad things."

She wasn't happy about driving Trent, but she was true to her word. She even made small talk with him in the car, telling him how great it was that he'd raised his grades so that he could play: the school-is-more-important-than-sports routine. He barely answered. Instead he kept unzipping his bag, rooting around in there to make sure he had all his stuff, then zipping it closed.

We were the last to arrive. I had to drag myself up the long stairway to the gym, but Trent took the stairs two at a time. Inside the locker room I nodded to Luke, to Carver, to the other guys, and they nodded back. But there was a wall between Trent and me and the rest of the team.

O'Leary called us to a chalkboard by the door. He put the names of the starters up, and underneath he listed Brian Chang's name. Below them, in a group of four, were the other second-stringers. Neither Trent's name nor my name was on the board at all.

"Listen up," he said, clapping his hands for attention.

"This place is a snake pit. It's going to be crazy out there. Brian, you be ready. You're first off the bench. You four"—he tapped the second group of names with his chalk—"you'll rotate in toward the end of the first quarter. And if you don't see your name up here"—this was for Trent and me—"don't think that means you aren't playing. I'll use you anytime I need you, so keep your head in the game. Now let's go!"

As I took the court, it was as if I was carrying around a whole suitcase of stuff weighing me down. I was mad about the way the guys froze me out, froze Trent out, mad about being blamed for the early losses, mad about being benched by O'Leary, mad about being left behind when the team went to Victoria, mad about my dad not coming to the game. My name being left off the blackboard was one more thing to stuff in that suitcase.

I was sluggish all through warm-ups. I never looked for my mom, never even glanced at the Franklin guys. It wasn't until the horn sounded and we headed to the bench that I even noticed Trent.

He was trying to be stone-faced. His mouth was straight, his jaw tight, but his eyes—his eyes were glowing. You'd have thought he was starting the game, instead of being buried at the end of the bench.

I couldn't figure it. Then, as the band played the "Star Spangled Banner," I remembered the questions he'd asked about the uniform, the way he kept checking his bag in the car, and suddenly I understood. This was his first real game. He was somewhere he never thought he'd be, doing something he never thought he'd do.

O'Leary was right about Franklin—they didn't take us seriously. You could see it in the sloppy way they opened the game. Their guards were lightning quick, but instead of letting their natural ability have its way, they tried too much, forcing passes into tight spaces, looking to make the highlight reel.

But it wasn't just the guards. Their star, a tall muscular black kid named Robby Wilkes, was doing dipsy-doodle stuff instead of taking the ball strong to the hole. A couple of spinning jumpers actually went down for him, which encouraged him to try even more circus shots.

Because of Franklin's sloppy play, we hung close through the first quarter. When Fabroa needed a breather, Chang got the call. Those Franklin guys could have eaten him alive if they'd pressed. But they played soft, and when he's not pressured, Chang does okay. He actually nailed a three-pointer at the buzzer that put us up 12–11.

The Earthquake's coach must have given his team an earful during the break because they came out charged for the second quarter. On their first possession Wilkes powered straight to the hoop—nothing fancy—for a driving dunk. Immediately they slapped on a full-court, trapping press.

Their press had energy, but I could see how to beat it. Their guards were quick, but other than Robby Wilkes, the front-line players were plodders. All Fabroa had to do was wait for the trap to come, then make one good pass over the top to Markey or Carver or Luke, and we would have been off for the lay-in or the short jumper. But time after time Fabroa tried to make his pass before the double-team reached him, and those passes would get picked off. Then it was the Earthquakes racing to the basket, with us watching.

Quickly they pulled out to an eight-point lead. O'Leary called time-out. He looked at Chang and then at me. I'm faster, and what we needed was speed. But it was Chang who got the nod.

Fresh legs matter. For a couple of minutes he did better than Fabroa. But with three minutes left in the half, Franklin changed tactics. Instead of a trapping, zone press, they went man-to-man. They had their fastest guard hound Chang the length of the court, using the other guys to fill the passing lanes. Chang couldn't break the one-on-one pressure, couldn't make the pass. On four straight possessions he turned the ball over. Franklin's gym was rocking, and O'Leary's time out did nothing to slow the momentum. At the half we were down 37–19.