Pull (4 page)

5.

A day before the season starts, Bolden lets me run with the 1s. Maybe he's tired of seeing Rider butcher our offense. Or maybe, just maybe, he's going to turn me loose in the opener after all.

Doesn't matter the reason—we mash it. I fly past Rider and get to the rack for a deuce. I hit Stanford on a seal for a lay-up. A pick-and-pop for Fuller. Everyone's got new bounce in their step, clicking along at full speed at last. Part of it is just knowing each other—I know right where Reynolds wants the rock for three. I also know when
not
to give it to him. I know the sweet spot for Stanford at the shallow wing, but I also know that expression he gets when he's pushed out too far from the basket. But part of it is the ramp-up in skill from Rider to me—when in doubt, I just rip it to the rim. A lay-in. A jam. A dime to Jones.

Problem is, it's a tease. Just as we're getting a good rhythm, Coach barks, “Bowen back to the 2s.” I know better than to react, so I just take a deep breath and flip my jersey. When I line up across from Rider, I'm tempted to flip him inside out too—just show out against him so
everyone knows that, with me at the point, the 2s could run the 1s off. But I don't. I stay into Rider enough so it's not obvious I'm slacking, but I let him start the offense. When he cuts through to the wing and catches a pass from Fuller, he lets the rock just linger out there in front of him. I could rip it and run, but I just give it a quick poke—enough to let him know he's got to tighten up his stance. He tries an entry to Stanford, but the ball gets tipped out of bounds.

Murphy gets right in Rider's ear. “You just got to see it earlier,” he says. “Stanford likes it quick, before he gets a body on him.”

Rider nods in appreciation. “I feel you,” he says.

Sure enough, next time through he catches on the wing and pops the orange to Stanford quick. Stanford rises in rhythm and fires front-rim-back-rim-out. While I'm boxing him out, I hear Rider grunt, disgusted that they still couldn't get a deuce. Tough luck, kid.

But as soon as the ball's dead, Rider's getting more encouragement, this time from Bolden. “That's not on you,” he says. “All you can do is get the ball where it's supposed to be. The rest is up to your teammates.”

Rider still looks a little tight. His eyes stay downcast, like the pressure of filling in for me is bowing his neck. Stanford, who never said word one to me when I was coming up as a freshman, backhands him on the shoulder. “Lighten up, man. My misses don't go on your line in the box score, so you can't drag them around with you on the court.”

That coaxes a smile from Rider, at least. It's a quick one though, because Bolden fires the rock at him and blows his whistle to set us back to action.

Amazing
. I get nothing but grief from people—Rider gets
nothing but love. Whatever. You can only control what's right in front of you, and that's what I do the rest of practice. After Murphy's lecture the other day, I join in on the Rider pity party and take it easy on him.

At last, Bolden cuts us loose. He makes a line for me—moving at as close to a sprint as the old man can muster. While the other guys hit the showers, he stops me at mid-court. “I saw you coddling Rider,” he says.

“Yeah?” With Bolden, I'm never quite sure what to expect. Maybe he's going to get pissed at me for this too.

“Well, that's more like it,” he says. He smiles. It's not that a Bolden smile is rare, but his expression is usually pinched into such a scowl that the act looks like it hurts him—like his face just isn't supposed to do that. He gives my shoulder a quick squeeze, then holds up his index finger. “You're just sitting one game. One. That's just a blip in the season. But the way you handle it will go a lot further than one game. Understand?”

“Yes, Coach,” I say.

He pops me flat-handed between my shoulder blades, a motion of approval. Then he saunters off the court, his stride looking stiff with age.

I holler to Murphy, who's retrieving a loose ball from the bleachers. “Murph! Send that one here. Gotta work on my pull-up some.”

He smiles. He always loves it when kids stay late to work. Which means he loves me most of all. For the next fifteen minutes he works with me. He stays on the blocks and then flashes at me, hand extended, when I rise to shoot. Then he tracks down my shots, made or missed, and pops them back at me to start again. By the end, he's got as good a lather up as I do, and it all feels good. I bury my last six in a row and call it a day.

But we know. Murphy knows. Bolden knows. I know. Hell, Rider knows. We're doomed without me running point.

Khakis. The worst. Off the court, I lean toward jeans and a plain t-shirt. Just a chill look. But for church, for dinners at nice restaurants, for anything my Mom decides requires proper dress? Khakis and a checked button-down.

I do get a once-over from Jasmine, who smiles at me and says that I “clean up nice.” So there's that. But I still always feel like a phony when I'm in these clothes, especially now. In front of me, my boys are getting warmed up. They glide through the lay-up lines. Fuller and Rider burst toward the rack at game speed, while Reynolds works on his step-back. The red and green of their warm-ups flash past, while behind them the crowd keeps filing in. For a team like Brownsburg, people might not pack the gym, but it's still our opener and the place is buzzing. Then the band kicks in—no Wes anymore, though I don't know if it's because he got booted or he ditched it—and I feel that jump to my pulse. I feel like I should sprint back to the locker room and shed these street clothes for a uniform.

There's no telling what they're saying with the band blasting, but now and then I see people nod or point in my direction. On the court, the team's getting warm, the coaches are out near mid-court helping our bigs stretch their hammies. And over here I stand by the bench, clapping encouragement next to the equipment manager. No wonder I'm getting some stares. I guess word didn't get out that I was sitting, but I'm sure by tip every last man, woman, and child in the Marion East gym will have it figured out that Derrick Bowen's a screw-up who got his ass suspended for the opener.

The stares come from the other end of the floor too. The Brownsburg coaches see me in street clothes and then they huddle-up to talk strategy. One after another, I see the Brownsburg players sneak a peek in my direction. With each one, there's this little shift in their expression—just a slight lift of the eyebrows that says,
Hey, we got a chance to come in here and steal one.

The buzzer sounds. The crowd settles. The starting lineups trot out. Lord, I can barely watch. I've heard players talk about having to sit and play cheerleader while they're injured. They all say that's the worst part of the injury—not the pain, not the re-hab, but just sitting there without helping their teammates. That ball goes up. I've got Oxfords on my feet instead of my new D Rose 5s. It feels like going over to Jasmine's house to watch her make out with another guy.

The game waits for no one. As soon as Stanford controls the tip, they're into it. Not a soul in uniform is thinking about me. They've got a game to play. Kicks chirp against the hardwood. The defensive chatter of
Help here
and
back-screen coming
mixes with the grunts of bigs fighting in the post and claps of open men wanting the rock. Rider does his best. He runs us through our offense. When things break down, he sprints out to get the ball near mid-court and re-set. But on the next time through the offense, he makes the same mistake he'd made in practice—he sees Stanford in the post, but waits an extra beat before making the pass. It gets swiped and Brownsburg pushes the other way.

When Fuller tips a Brownsburg pass out of bounds, Murphy slides down next to me. “Chin up now, D-Bow,” he says. It sounds wrong to be called
D-Bow
now. It's like that should be reserved for when I'm on-court. “You still can help us.” I nod, but it's not enough
of an agreement to please Murphy so he stays after me. “Come on now. Every time-out, you need to be in Rider's ear, telling him what to expect. You got to encourage your teammates out there when things get rough.”

“Got it,” I say. He's right, but somehow the thought makes me ill.

On the other end, Reynolds gets beat baseline and Brownsburg's up 2-0.

It's gonna be a long night.

We hang. Stanford gets himself rolling in the third, burying a baseline J, a turnaround, a put-back and a little finger-roll in succession. Reynolds knocks in some treys, showing that he's grown up quite a bit from his rocky freshman year.

But we don't have anything on the court that makes Brownsburg get jumpy. After a quick timeout, they start doubling Stanford—and it's not even a hard double, just a guy dropping down a little further to make Stanford think twice. That's the only adjustment they have to make. Aside from that, they stick to the shooters, stay in front of us on D, and box out. Pretty textbook.

On the other end, they hum through their sets. It's basically a flex offense, nothing we haven't seen a million times. But it suits them. Their bigs can shoot, and their guards have some heft to them. So sooner or later, Stanford or Jones get hung on a screen and their men drop in Js. Or Reynolds or Rider gets buried in the paint and either foul or give up an easy deuce. By mid-fourth, Brownsburg's opened up a seven-point lead. Our ball, and we're looking for a spark. So, yeah, we're hanging. But we're not supposed to
hang
with Brownsburg. We're
supposed to slap them with a twenty point beat-down and run their asses back to the suburbs.

I watch Rider on this critical possession. I try to will him to do the right thing. He catches it left wing. His man is slow to challenge. Rider can hit that.
Pull
, I think.
Just pull.
But Rider waits and looks, while his man closes the gap. Then Rider decides to put it on the deck. The kid just does everything a second too late—and a second is an eternity on the court. Rider starts middle, gets cut off, then spins to go back baseline. Right where his man wants to take him. No man's land. He gets pinned on the baseline and picks up his dribble. No shot. No passing lanes. Finally, Fuller sprints all the way cross-court to try to bail Rider out, but Rider is so off-balance he can't get any zip on the pass. It gets picked. Brownsburg runs. And
bang
—a transition three for the kill shot.

When the players filed off the court, our crowd gave them a solid ovation. It's not the kind of thing Marion East fans do after a loss—we're not into moral victories. But they knew the guys gutted it out the best they could without me on the floor. So, in a way, those cheers felt like an insult to me. I mean, I know they didn't
mean
it that way. But it's like the whole gym was saying,
We know this one wasn't the fault of the guys in uniform.

In the locker room, Bolden was just as encouraging. “You stayed after it,” he said, clapping his hands. “You fought buzzer to buzzer, and that's all I ask.” It was like some other coach had slipped into Bolden's skin. He was so cheerful it wouldn't have surprised me if he started handing out gold stars to people, like some kindergarten teacher.

Once the showers are going full blast and Stanford cranks some
Pusha T as loud as the locker room stereo can handle it, Bolden decides he's not so cheerful with me. I'm slouched back in my locker, not knowing what to do—no cause for me to shower up, but it would seem wrong to just split—when Bolden steps to me. He crouches in front of me like he does during time-outs, so at least for anyone checking us it just seems like a normal player-coach chat.

“I have to say, Derrick, I'm a little disappointed in you.”

My back stiffens and my jaw tightens. It's sure as hell not my fault we got run at home by Brownsburg. What, the guy didn't like the way I cheered or something?

“I know Murphy told you before the game that you had to help Rider along as much as you could. Hell, I told Murphy to tell you that.” Bolden shrugs. He shakes his head. “For a quarter, you did that. And then you went silent. Derrick, when you're part of a team then you're part of a team
all the time
. Not just when you're out at center court in uniform.” Now he leans forward, a little rasp rising in his voice. “You're part of a team when you're healthy, when you're hurt, when you're awake, when you're asleep.
Always
. So that means you've always got to be looking for a way to help your teammates.” He jabs his index finger about an inch from my chest. “Lift them up, so sometime when you're down they'll lift you. That's what teammates do, Derrick.”

Then he stands and is gone.

Shit
, I think
, I could lift them a lot easier by being out there on the floor.
But I figure I'll get my crack soon enough.

After that, I've had about enough of the post-game locker room, so I hit it. Only there's no quick escape. Immediately I get stopped by Eddie Whitfield, his phone pointed at me like a weapon. Whitfield's
the high school hoops guy for the
Indianapolis Star
, but he's got an even more important column—a blog that always has the scoop on where any Indiana recruit is leaning. I've got to tread carefully.

“Rough one tonight, Derrick,” he says.

“Yeah, but we'll bounce back,” I say. It's a throwaway line, pure cliché, but saying it on the record makes me nervous. Last year, it was Moose who handled any player interviews. By seniority, it should fall to Stanford. But even Coach knows that people like Whitfield want to talk to me, so I'm in the crosshairs now.

“Any comment on sitting out a game?”

“Just can't wait to get back,” I say.

“You feel like your absence made the difference tonight?”

“Aw, man, we could have run those guys, sure,” I say. It's out before I think. But as soon as I say it, I know it's a bad move. I look back to the locker room, and there's Stanford. He's ready to cut out, but he heard it, I know. He sneers at the two of us. I'm sure he probably thinks he's the one that ought to be getting these interviews—not a junior who was suspended for the opener.