Odd Jobs (4 page)

“Why, why now?” I demanded.

My father smiled and said, “Because I have to work on putting the bad guys away.” He was so proud to talk about that end of the job, that he was a lawyer who helped put the bad guys away.

“But you need to help me today. Won’t you play?” I pleaded.

He saw my heart was going to explode so he said, “Okay, this is what we’ll do. Fifteen minutes today — we’ll call it a warm-up. Heavy training starts tomorrow. You meet me at 6:30 a.m. sharp. Got it?”

“Really, we can play today?” I asked.

“Yeah, we can play for 15 minutes. Only if you agree there’s not a minute more than that today. The bad guys won’t mind waiting a few minutes I’m sure.”

Almost missing that opportunity to play with him put the scare in me. We did our “warm-up” that morning and I never overslept again.
I
was there at 6:30 sharp the next day, and my father was out in the driveway, waiting for me.

I learned that you have to be careful what you wish for. I thought I was going to be playing basketball with my dad, and my father thought this was the beginning of my NBA career. I thought I would be shooting around and maybe playing some one-on-one with him, and he had all these drills planned. I didn’t dare complain because I was just happy to be with him.

“How about we work on shooting today, Dad?” I asked.

“That will come in time, but first you need to work on your vision,” he stated.

“Vision? I can see fine. What’s up with that?”

“Kevin, I’m not talking about needing glasses. You need court vision to play this game. You need to see things other guys don’t. That’s what makes some players great. Now, you want to learn about vision?”

“I guess.”

“Well, first of all, right now, you and a lot of the guys your age dribble with the palm of your hand and your head down. But if you do that, how are you going to see the open guys?” my father asked. “How are you going to make those miracle passes?”

“I dunno.” At that point in my life, who thought about passing the ball? We all just wanted to score. Actually playing the game was a whole different level.

“Okay,” he said patiently. “You need to dribble the ball with your fingertips instead of the palm. If you use your fingertips you get much more control. And keep your head up. Wouldn’t you rather watch the game instead of your hand?”

I shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”

“Son,” he said earnestly, “there is a whole world beyond your hand. There is a whole story developing, and things aren’t always as they appear. Always learn to see beyond your hand. When you’re confident the ball is under control with your fingertips, then you can see who is open and, equally important, who is going to be open.
In
this world you can’t just look at yesterday and today; you need to see tomorrow. Keep your head up and soak in the whole picture.”

I didn’t quite understand his point then, but I’m glad I always remembered it. That week we did a bunch of drills and
I
learned how to keep my head up and dribble with my fingertips. I got the hang of it and felt pretty good, so one day I had the balls to ask if we could do some shooting. I mean, after all, wasn’t that basketball?

“Oh,
you think you have this mastered?” my father asked.

“Yeah, I’m good at dribbling and keeping my head up. C’mon, Dad, let’s do some shooting.”

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. As soon as you master the steps, we’ll move over to shooting.” My father grabbed the ball and walked us over to the side of the house where
11
cement steps separated the front yard from the backyard. My father then instructed me to dribble down those steps with my head up, using only my fingertips. It didn’t work out too well. Anytime I bounced the ball on the corner of a step, the ball shot free like a champagne cork. My father said that when I could get up and down the steps
10
times without losing the ball, we could move on to shooting. It turned out to be no small feat, but during that long and difficult process, my dad and I had some of our best conversations.

“Dad?” I asked.

“Yeah, pal.”

“You said the great players have vision, right?” I asked as I dribbled up the steps for my third lap in my attempt to get to l0.

“Yup.”

“Well, who was the best? Who had the most vision?”

“Oscar Robertson, maybe Jerry West,” he said.

“I never heard of them. Were they the best ever?” I asked.

“Maybe; they sure had the vision, and it made them great.”

I bounced the ball carefully and felt like this would be the winning lap. Still,
I
wanted to keep the conversation going, so I asked, “Does that mean they were the best basketball players of all time?”

My father thought for a moment. “Michael Jordan had the vision and everything else you can imagine.”

I finished the fourth and fifth laps and my rhythm was great; I knew I was going to do the 10 laps. “Michael Jordan?” I challenged. “He’s not better than T-Mac.”

“Better,” my father answered.

“Not better than Dirk Nowitzki?”
I
shot back.

“Much better,” my father said, smiling.

“Okay, okay not better than Shaq!” Because that I wouldn’t hear of. Shaquille O’Neal has always been my idol.

Now, my father knew he was sharing idol status with Shaq, so maybe this was his opportunity to get an edge. “Please, not even close.”

“Not even close? How could that be?”

“Shaq might be twice the size of Michael Jordan, but he’s half the player.”

“C’mon,” I whined. “Half the player?”

“Keep dribbling,” my father encouraged me. “I’m telling you, Shaq is half of Michael Jordan in his prime.”

I couldn’t help but imagine what half a player actually looked like. I started my seventh lap dribbling up the steps. “So if Michael Jordan in his prime is missing his arms, who wins? Michael Jordan or Shaq?”

My father laughs at this imagery. “Lessee ... Michael Jordan with no arms versus Shaq. Michael Jordan wins.”

“Dad!”

“Kid, you’re talking about Michael Jordan.”

“How about if Michael Jordan didn’t have his arms or his legs?”

“He’d still win,” my father said quietly.

“Get out of here, you’re crazy!” I said.

“Son, I know it’s hard to believe because you’ve never seen him play, but if Michael Jordan played against Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Dirk Nowitzki and your beloved Shaq, all would lose to Michael Jordan, even if Michael Jordon was just a nose on a table. That’s how great he was.”

The sight of a nose on a table beating all those basketball greats was too much for my 10-year-old brain to take. I laughed so hard that the ball I was dribbling hit the corner of the step and shot away. I only made it to my ninth lap and the stair torture test had to continue.

“Ha!” my father said with a snort. “That’s why you need the vision. There are always distractions that can stop you. You’ve got to fight through and keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball in your mind and watch the court. See it develop. I’m going to work now. Keep working on the stairs, and maybe tomorrow will be your day.”

It wasn’t the next day that I won the stair challenge, nor was it the day after that. Looking back now I can’t remember how long after the Michael Jordan’s nose debacle that my accomplishment came, but I do remember when it happened I kept my mouth shut and took care of business.

There was that time in life when things fell into place. When if you worked hard you beat the stairs. It was a great theory, that is, if you worked hard you got what you needed. Then there came the time that no matter what happened and how hard you tried, the stairs beat you. Looking back, I can’t remember the day I beat the stairs, but I can point to the minute in time when all the stairs of the world started beating me, when everything changed and never went back, no matter how hard I tried.

My mother was running some errands and my father took my little sister Katie and I into town to get a few things to start the new school year. I needed a haircut and Katie needed shin guards for her first season playing soccer. While I was getting a haircut, my sister was combing her doll’s hair. The doll, Karen, was wearing the same pink skirt and white shirt as my sister. The doll also had the same blonde curly hair that Katie and my mother shared.

As
I
sat in that chair getting my haircut, in the mirror I could see Katie grooming her doll and I saw my father staring at the newspaper in his lap.
I
don’t think he turned one page. His eyes were on the New York Times but his mind was back in his office, working. We caught his mind there all the time.

After my haircut, Dad bought Katie’s shin guards and she and I conned him into getting us some big sloppy ice cream cones. Then we were ready to go home. We went back across the plaza, and when we were about to cross the street to our car, my father warned Katie to be careful not to get any ice cream on her doll. But Katie had left Karen in the ice cream shop. When she realized her loss, Katie let loose a shriek that I swear could have melted our ice cream faster than this unusually hot late August day.

I told them both, “It’s no problem. I’ll get Karen and meet you back at the car.”

“Thanks, Kevin,” Dad said. “We’ll wait for you right here.”

“Naw, you don’t have to do that,” I insisted. “You guys wait in the car and get the air conditioner cranking,” I suggested.

Katie screamed. “No, I want to see Karen.” Her face was red and her eyes glistened with tears. She was past the point of no return, so there wouldn’t be any reasoning with her.

“Okay,” I said to them both. “I’ll get the doll and wave to you from the ice cream store and then you guys get the AC going.”

“That sounds like a plan,” my father agreed. “Hey,” he added, “make sure you’re careful crossing the street.”

“C’mon, Dad, I’m almost 11. I know how to cross a street.”

“Of course you do,” he said and smiled. “I’m just saying it because I care about you.”

I sprinted over to Chico’s Ice Cream and saw Karen perched on the counter. I grabbed the doll and stepped outside. I waved it in the air back and forth and my father and Katie waved back. I couldn’t see Katie’s face but I try to remember how relieved she must have felt. She knew Karen was safe and she could enjoy her sloppy ice cream cone. I also always remember what my father said about caring about me.

A black car zoomed around the corner faster than any I had ever seen. Oddly enough, everything happened in slow motion. The windows on the car were smoked dark, but one window wasn’t completely closed and you could see long red brittle hair in contrast to the dark car. There was screaming and hollering coming from that open window. The car swerved in all directions, and then it veered right toward my father and sister. It lifted my father clear in the air and rolled over Katie. The car never slowed down and careened out of sight. Katie’s cone was still intact on the pavement but the ice cream had been separated and was unrecognizable amid the crimson mess. How could it be? I thought, unable to process what I had just seen. Dad and Katie lay on the sidewalk like broken mannequins, but the ice cream cone was still intact.

A hit-and-run accident. They never found the guy. Drunk driver, they hypothesized. Broad daylight and everyone could see it but no one saw it but me. The whole process was only a few freak seconds. Did the delay waiting for the doll cause a bizarre juxtaposition that couldn’t be reversed? It was just a few seconds. Yet those few seconds caused a disruption that ended two lives and sent two others spiraling in a completely different direction than they were headed before.