Playing Without the Ball (16 page)

“No problem,” he says. “Work it inside.”

I guard my man tight while they move the ball patiently around the arc. He gets the ball and gives a kind of stutter step, then lofts it over me. It caroms off the backboard and into the hoop.

I smirk at Alan as he inbounds the ball. “Time for a little run,” I say. I bring it up and dribble in place at the top of the key, between the legs and all. I can take this guy easy. I drive the lane, give a little juke, and send a soft left-hander toward the rim.

Rejected. Somehow one of their guys gets a hand on the ball and slaps it upcourt. They chase it down and pull back, setting up their offense again. They’ve been practicing.

Their heaviest guy drives the baseline, and Alan scoots over to cut off the lane. The guy makes a neat bounce pass to my man cutting in, and he lays it off the board for two more.

I shake my head, but I still give a little smile as Alan passes it in to me.

I get the ball inside to Alan and he scores easily. Then Danny gets a steal and hits me on the run for a layup. They call time-out. We’re trailing 18-10.

They slow it down a lot, passing around the perimeter and
eating up the clock. I hit a couple of threes and Alan gets some inside points, but they’re still up by five at the half.

The frustration continues in the third quarter. We’re flat as can be, probably because of the emotional letdown after the near-comeback against Kaipo’s team. And it doesn’t help that I keep throwing the ball away. I’ve always had a habit of telegraphing my passes, but it’s worse when my focus isn’t right. Tonight I just want to get this over with, make one big run to put these guys away, then forget this game ever happened.

I get a couple of steals early in the fourth quarter and hit a driving layup and a short jumper. Then Alan gets a defensive rebound and hits Peter with a long outlet pass, and Peter gets it inside to me for another layup. That gives us our first lead of the game, 36-35.

They call time-out. Alan says not to lose the momentum now that we’ve finally got it. “We lose this game, we suck,” he says.

But suddenly we turn ice-cold again. They change their defense to a box and one, keeping a guard on me all the time and doubling up if I drive. The man on me is deceptively quick I discover after he slips his hand in a couple of times and smacks the ball away. I recover the first time, but the second time they get control and it leads to a layup that gives them back the lead with about a minute to play.

We call time-out, down by a point. “Hold for the final shot,” Alan says. “Jay, work it in to me or take an open jumper. The rest of you crash the boards. They’ll be doubled up on Jay and me, and one of you might get an easy put-back. Now suck it up or be embarrassed. Let’s go.”

Alan inbounds to me and I dribble up slowly. They try to
trap me at midcourt, but I get around it easily. I whip it to Alan, but he hasn’t got good position, so he kicks it back out to me. I keep dribbling, then take another time-out when the clock gets down to twelve seconds.

“Okay,” Alan says. “We want to shoot when it gets under eight. We have no time-outs left, so don’t try to call one. Be smart. Twelve seconds is a lot of time.”

I inbound the ball to Alan to be absolutely safe, and he gives it right back. I drive to the free-throw line, give a quick fake, then unleash a running jumper that circles the rim and falls out. There’s a scramble for the rebound. For an instant Alan has it, but he loses control and the ball bounces toward the corner. Peter grabs it and fires a wild, off-balance shot that doesn’t reach the rim.

The fat guys go wild.

We just stand there stunned.

I
don’t think I’ve been in the guidance office since I was a freshman, but I stick my head in there between classes on Friday and ask the secretary if I can have a Weston Community College application. I figure I should at least look it over. Keep my options open.

I mentioned to Alan the idea of possibly playing ball there next year, but he’s already been accepted at Yale. Kaipo’s going, though. And Julie’s there.

I lean against some lockers and glance at the application.

This does not look like a great weekend ahead. Spit’s band is playing over at Ground Zero tonight and tomorrow, and there’ll be a DJ at Shorty’s again. It’ll be boring as hell. I’ve been praying that Julie will show up, give me a chance to explain.

What is it I hope to explain, though? That I wasn’t having sex with Spit. That at that moment of misunderstanding I was innocent of wrongdoing, and was free and clear to pursue any and all possibilities with Julie. Clean as a whistle, I was.

Spit and I haven’t talked about this. She had promised to talk to Julie, of course, but the chance hasn’t come up. And there have been numerous intervening escapades since then. So I’m not sure if Spit would try to kill me or not. Or kill Julie. But I think the sex thing is fizzling out in a hurry. At least from my point of view.

“Hey,” somebody says.

I turn and it’s Beth from the team. “Hi,” I say.

“What’ya got?”

I show her the application.

“You going there?” she asks.

“I don’t know. I don’t have any idea what I’m doing next.”

“I don’t envy you,” she says. “Well, in a way I do. You’ll be out of this school in a few months. But I’m sort of glad I’ve got a while longer to figure out what I’m going to do.”

“Well, I’m in no hurry either. I already got a job. Or I can go to California to be with my dad. Whatever. I was mostly thinking about college so I could play basketball.”

“Yeah, I can’t imagine you without it,” she says. “Oh, shit. I’m late as hell for class.” She starts running off. “See you Sunday night,” she says.

We play the Cardinals on Sunday. We need a win pretty badly.

I don’t see Spit all weekend. Work is as expected both nights, dreary and lonely. There’s never more than twenty people in the bar. Shorty lets me shut down at 11 both nights.

So Saturday at midnight I go out for a walk, just up and down Main Street once. There are a couple of small groups of kids hanging out, one group huddled in a doorway down
by Seventh Street, and the other by the bench near Turkey Hill.

That night I have that dream I most fear having, the one where it’s resolved in your favor, when she tells you that you’re the one she wants, and for an instant you’re the happiest guy in the world. Then you wake up, look around the room, and for a long, long time you’re the saddest.

I don’t even know who I was dreaming about.

W
e’ve fallen into a tie with the Cardinals because of our two recent losses, and we play them tonight with first place on the line. We beat them last time, but it was close.

Kaipo’s got his team right on our asses, too. I get to the Y early and check the bulletin board:

STURBRIDGE YMCA
CHURCH LEAGUE STANDINGS

Bishops 72, Cardinals 58

Methodist 51, Presbyterian 45

New Covenant 53, Baptist-Lutheran 37

Bishops 68, New Covenant 44

Baptist-Lutheran 37, Methodist 36

Kaipo toys around with the Baptists in the first game, scoring about twenty-five before halftime. I sit in the bleachers with Alan and Beth.

Alan barely says anything. You can tell he’s psyching himself up, because he’s staring at the court with his mouth kind of hard, shutting his eyes every few seconds. Last year when we were playing JV, he would throw up before some of the games, especially the ones that figured to be close. He said the jitters usually went away after that.

I’m feeling edgy, too, but I don’t think I show it like he does. I tend to gradually focus in on the game over the course of the day. Right now I’m about ninety percent there. By game time, I’ll have tuned everything out.

Beth nudges my knee with hers. “Big game,” she says.

I turn my head halfway and look at her. “True,” I say. “I think every game is gonna be big the rest of the way.” I point out at the court. “It’s gonna come down to us and them,” I say, meaning Kaipo’s team.

“You think?”

“Yeah. I mean, who else is gonna beat them? The way he’s playing.”

She nods. “He’s great. And he’s such a nice guy, too. He never acts like he’s a star. I love watching him play. He’s so fluid.”

“Yeah. Smart too. He almost never makes a mistake.”

Alan finally speaks, still staring straight across the court. “You can stay with him, Jay. You might not shut him down, but you can neutralize him enough for us to beat them. You just gotta step up. But that’s two weeks away yet. Let’s think about tonight.”

Tonight turns out to be intense. I’m guarding Donny Colasurdo, who’s my height but more muscular from playing football. He and I play at about the same tempo, ready to run the fast break when the opportunity arises, but content to set up and drive and play the other guy tight.

It’s close throughout—neither team can get ahead by more than three or four points. Alan nails a baseline jumper with about six seconds left to send it into overtime.

We huddle up and I wipe my face with a towel. It’s been a physical game and Alan’s got four fouls. The bleachers are full. The first two teams stayed around because this one’s for first place, and the other two are waiting to play. Plus New Covenant’s got its whole contingent of fans waiting, so there’s a lot of noise coming at us. “Play tough defense,” Alan says. “Fight through the screens.”

Alan taps it to me off the jump ball and I shield it from Colasurdo with my body. Overtime is four minutes, and I want to use a lot of that clock.

I dribble outside the arc, then bounce the ball to Robin on my left. I yell for the ball right back and Robin cuts inside. Alan gives me a screen and I penetrate, but their center rushes over to me and I have to adjust my shot. It bangs off the rim and they get possession.

Colasurdo has a jump on me, and they get him the ball. He takes it to the hoop and lays it over Peter for two.

I bring it up slowly and they don’t press. We work it around outside for about forty-five seconds, until Alan gets around his man inside. Peter gets it to him and Alan hits a fallaway jumper to tie it up again.

There’s a lot of passing, a lot of patient offense. We
exchange baskets, with them getting a backdoor layup and me getting a put-back on Alan’s miss. They call time-out with about forty seconds left.

“One rebound,” Alan says. “One defensive stop and then we hold for the last shot. Let’s go.”

They bring it in. Colasurdo is definitely their best ball-handler, but they don’t have any really shaky players like we do. He dribbles outside, watching the movement in the key, and I know he’s going to take it in himself.

Suddenly he drives to my left. Alan yells, “Screen,” but it’s too late. I collide with the guy setting the pick and Colasurdo gets past me. He goes up for the shot and Alan is on him, knocking the ball away.

There’s a whistle. The ref points at Alan.

“That’s five,” Colasurdo says, clapping his hands.

Alan’s fouled out. He clasps his hands behind his head and looks at the ceiling. Then he looks at the bench.