Night Hoops (16 page)

O'Leary railed at us in the locker room, but when you haven't played, it's hard to listen. Back on the bench at the start of the second half, I found myself hoping we'd fall even farther behind. Thirty points down and I figured O'Leary would stick both Trent and me in.

But Franklin took off the press at the start of the third quarter, and their intensity came off, too. We didn't cut into their lead, but they didn't extend it. At least not for most of the quarter. Then Fabroa sat down and Chang came in for the last two minutes of the third quarter. He immediately threw away a couple of passes and made a stupid foul. The quarter ended with Franklin making a 9–2 run that stretched their lead to twenty-five. O'Leary turned sideways in his seat, a scowl on his face, and looked at Trent and me. "Abbott ... Dawson, you're starting the fourth quarter."

The game was over. Carver was on the bench; Luke was on the bench. There were more people eating hot dogs out in the lobby than there were up in the stands, but Trent didn't care. It was the "Star Spangled Banner" all over again. He was in a game, in a
real
game, and his eyes were shining. And if it was good enough for him, then it was good enough for me.

Trent was so pumped up that for the first couple of minutes he was wild, bouncing around like a pinball, totally disrupting Franklin on one possession but then giving up an easy basket on the next. When the ref whistled him for a charging foul his fists clenched, but then he turned and raced down-court, and I breathed easier. His first shot—a little jumper from the free-throw line I set up with penetration—was halfway done before it rattled out. Still, he drew the foul. He must have bounced the ball twenty times before he took the foul shot. It was a bullet, bricking off the back rim with so much force that the Franklin guys smiled. I sidled over to him. "Just like in my back yard," I whispered. He nodded, and his next shot was perfect.

With four minutes left he hit his stride and I hit mine. For the rest of the game we dominated that court. He'd haul down a rebound, give me a quick outlet pass, then fill a fast-break lane. I'd dance a pass through the defender's arms back to him for a driving lay-in, or I'd pull up and stick the jumper myself.

It was garbage time, and with their big lead the Franklin defenders weren't exactly up in our faces. Still, by the final buzzer we'd cut the twenty-five-point lead to twelve—and that's good playing at any time. As we walked off the court I saw the Franklin coach staring at Trent and me, wondering what would have happened had we played earlier. I hoped O'Leary was wondering the same thing.

In the car on the way home, Trent didn't exactly rattle on nonstop, but when I mentioned a shot or a rebound, he'd talk about it a little, and he couldn't keep that crooked smile from his face. "You were wonderful," Mom said to him. "Simply wonderful."

When Mom pulled onto our block, her headlights played on Trent's house. There were three cars and two motorcycles in the driveway, and more cars parked in front. Every light in the house was on. I looked at Trent; his face was tight.

"You want to come in for a little while?" I asked.

"That's okay."

"You sure?" I said, rubbing my hands together against the cold. "We could play some cards or something."

He shook his head. "No."

"See you tomorrow then."

"Yeah. See you."

I went inside, talked to Mom a little, then sat on the sofa by the window and stared across the street at Trent's house. Every once in a while his front door would open and somebody would spill out, laughing or swearing—or both. Our windows would rattle from the volume of the stereo until the door slammed shut again. The party was still going strong when I headed upstairs to my bedroom.

The next evening Dad phoned. It seemed like forever since I'd talked with him, but it had only been a week since Michael Ushakov had been shot. "I'm flipping through tonight's newspaper," he said, his voice excited, "and whose name jumps off the page and smacks me in the face. Six points, four assists, two steals, and no turnovers. I told you to call me if you were going to play."

I laughed. "I didn't know I was going to."

"Well, how about against Roosevelt? That idiot coach isn't going to stick you back on the bench again, is he?"

"I'm not starting," I answered, "but at practice today I did get moved to second team. I should see some real minutes."

"I'll be there, and that's a promise." He paused, and his voice became serious. "I knew you could make it, Nick. I always believed in you."

When I hung up, I was smiling ear-to-ear. Then I turned and saw Scott. "Was that Dad?"

"Yeah."

"I knew he'd call once he saw your name in the paper."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know what it means."

"No, I don't," I said.

He laughed mockingly as he pushed past me. "Fine, Nick. Have it your way."

It was different sitting on the bench during the first quarter of the Roosevelt game. I tried to stay cool and calm, but it was hard. O'Leary wasn't going to mess around; I was sure of it.
If the first-stringers fell behind, Trent and I were going in.

And fall behind they did. The Roughriders' point guard buried a three-pointer on his first shot, made a pull-up fifteen-foot jumper on his second, and then was perfect with another three-pointer a minute later. The last shot was unreal. Fabroa had his hand in the guy's face, but it was still dead center. We were down 11–2 when O'Leary popped off the bench.

"Nick, Trent!"

It's different going into a game in the first quarter rather than the fourth.
No need to rush,
I told myself as I stepped on the court.
Slow and easy.
Roosevelt couldn't keep up their hot shooting. No team could, not even an NBA team. All we had to do was play our game and we'd reel them in.

Sure enough, they went into a little funk. The guy I was guarding, who hadn't missed with Fabroa hanging all over him, suddenly couldn't sink anything, even when he juked me and was wide open from ten feet. Luke knocked down two jumpers and the nine-point lead had shrunk to five by the end of the quarter. Neither Trent nor I had done much of anything, but O'Leary left us out there.

For the first few minutes of the second quarter, we kept on doing nothing. Roosevelt's lead grew back to eleven. I felt as if I was running in mud—working hard but not getting anywhere. I knew Trent felt the same way; I could see the frustration in his eyes.

It was a fast break off a missed three-pointer that got us untracked. Trent snagged the long rebound, hit me with a quick outlet, and then filled the lane on the left. I took the ball up the center of the court, faked to Luke on the right, then gave a no-look pass to Trent. He caught the ball and in one motion laid the ball off the glass. The lone Roughrider back was totally spun around, but he still managed to foul Trent. I gave Trent a hard high-five, and his eyes were scary. I knew the Roughriders were in for it.

After that fast break he dominated them. It wasn't just his strength either; it was his will. He wanted the rebounds more than anybody else, and he got them. And once he got them, he whistled outlet passes to me and I drove the ball down Roosevelt's throat. I was the point guard, which meant I was supposed to distribute the ball to everybody. Luke got it sometimes, and so did Carver. But whenever there was a choice, I fed the ball to Trent. By the half we'd taken a five-point lead, and by the end of the third quarter we'd stretched it to sixteen.

When the lead hit twenty-two O'Leary took us both out. As we left the court, cheers poured down from the bleachers. Trent returned to the bench and pulled a towel over his head. But I looked up into the stands and pumped my fist into the air.

At the next practice O'Leary moved Trent and me to the first team, and the up-tempo style that suited us was back, too.

There is nothing I like more than creating in the open court, and Trent had become a dream finisher. I fed him the ball again and again. Everything was working for him: the drives, the jumper, even the three-pointer.

At the end of practice, O'Leary had me wait on the court until all the guys were in the locker room. "That was solid, Nick. Real solid," he said. "I like the way you and Trent play. You have a feel for each other, and that's something you can't coach."

"We've been practicing together," I explained. "I know where and when he likes the ball."

"Yeah? Well, that's good. That's real good. Only don't forget about Luke and Darren. Those guys can score too, and they get itchy when they're not getting their shots."

"Trent was hot today," I said, defending myself. "So I got him the ball. I'll get them the ball when they're hot."

He nodded. "Fair enough. Find the hot hand and feed it—you do that and you'll be starting at point guard for the next three years. Guaranteed. Now go shower up."

I started off the court, my spirits soaring, when he called out to me again. "Hey, Nick, have they caught Trent's crazy brother?"

"No," I answered. "They haven't."

He frowned. "Well, I hope they do. And soon."

The victory over Roosevelt was just the beginning. Against Woodinville Trent had ten rebounds and twenty-two points, while I added eight points and dished out eight assists. The Juanita Rebels were next. Again Trent had a double double—twenty-four points and eleven rebounds. I handed out nine assists, seven of them to him. After that we avenged our earlier loss to the Eastlake Wolves, then beat the two dogs of our league, Redmond and Lake Washington. Our overall record was a mediocre 8–6, but in the league we were 8–3, and we still had two games left against first-place Garfield.

You put together a winning streak like that, and the locker room should be a wild place. Guys singing, towels snapping, water splashing everywhere. But the energy in our locker room wasn't that much greater than when we'd been losing. Sure, guys congratulated each other, said "Good game" and all that. But they dressed quickly and left in little groups of two and three.

On the day of our first game against Garfield, I was sitting alone eating a grilled cheese sandwich and soup in the cafeteria. Luke spotted me and came over. "You mind if I sit here?"

"No problem," I said, glad for the company.

We talked about the food, the game coming up, school. I wanted to relax, have it be the way it was early in the year, but there was a tightness to his jaw that made me uncomfortable. He had something to say, something I wasn't going to like. He finished off his milk shake and put the cup down on the table. "We can't keep winning this way, you know."

"What do you mean?" I asked, even though I knew.

He tipped the empty cup back and forth. "Come on, Nick. The other coaches aren't stupid. They read the papers, check the box scores, scout the games. It's Trent and you, and the rest of us just run up and down the court. That works against lousy teams, but a great team like Garfield will shut one or both of you down, and that'll be that."

"It hasn't happened yet," I said.

"It will. We're not a real team, Nick."

His words hung there for a moment, like a ball hanging on the rim. I swallowed. "Okay. If you get open, I'll get you the ball. The same thing with Darren, with everybody."

Luke stuck his hand out across the table. I reached out and shook it. Then he left.

I finished my lunch alone. The tomato soup was watery, the milk was warm, and the grilled cheese looked and tasted like yellow rubber. It was the best-tasting lunch I'd had in weeks.

Garfield. You just say the name around Seattle and people think
basketball.
That's how good they are. We'd originally been scheduled to play them in December, but then they'd been invited to some super-tournament tournament in Washington, D.C. So now we were going to face them twice inside three weeks.

The first game was at their school, which is in the heart of the Central District in Seattle. No Bothell Cougar team had ever won there. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, I knew why.

Everything about inner-city high schools is different from schools in the suburbs. At Bothell our buildings are all one story. The campus roams around for blocks. There are baseball fields and football fields west of the school, tennis courts on the north, garden spaces and grassy picnic areas in between the buildings. Fancy murals decorate the walls; tile pavers edge the walkways.

All of Garfield High was squeezed into one city block. The main building consisted of three stories of tired-looking brick and wood. The halls had a musty smell; the ceilings and walls had holes where plaster had fallen down and stains where rain had leaked through the roof. The porcelain sinks in the locker room were yellow with age. You wouldn't think stuff like that would matter to a basketball game. A court is a court. But little things can throw you out of your comfort zone, make you nervous and edgy.

When we took the court, it only got worse. Bothell High has about twenty black kids in the whole school; Garfield has more like a thousand. Right behind our bench was our band, and then clustered around them were Bothell parents and students—though not too many had actually come. Almost all of those faces were white. The rest of the gym was a sea of black and brown faces, with a few white faces here and there. I know it shouldn't matter, that people are people and all that. But you can't tell me that the Garfield guys feel at home when they're playing in a gym packed with white people.

I looked around at my teammates and their faces were pasty. Even Luke looked scared. That surprised me—I figured he'd be the one guy who'd be okay. Then I remembered what he told me about his fancy house in Atlanta, and I thought about the big house he had in Bothell. He was as much of a stranger to the inner city as I was.

We started the game scared, which means we started soft. We got up on them on defense, but not all the way up. We went after rebounds, but not with every ounce of energy. It was as if we were pitching pennies for some big prize at the fair. We expected to come close; but we didn't expect to win. We would have been satisfied to keep the score close, lose by eight or ten, just so long as we weren't blown out.