Racing the Rain (14 page)

Cassidy looked down. “Well, I made the first cut, but that was it. I haven't decided if I should go out next year or not.”

“What gives? I thought this was going to be your bag now.”

“I don't know. I've tried every year since fifth grade. It's getting to be a kind of joke.”

Trapper looked at him as if trying to decide something. Cassidy finally got embarrassed and looked away.

“Hey, where are you headed right now?” asked Trapper.

“Just home. Stiggs and Randleman are gonna come over to mess around.”

“Those two scalawags can wait. Throw your bike in the back and come for a ride. Somebody I want you to meet. I'll drop you off at home afterward, save you a few miles of pedaling.”

Cassidy liked riding with Trapper, who was constantly tapping his horn, responding to beeps and waves as they went through town. He regaled Cassidy with fishing and trapping stories, as well as anecdotes about recent visitors, some quite famous, who had come by his camp on the Loxahatchee. Cassidy really wanted to ask about the strange events that led to his brother going to prison, but he couldn't think of a way to broach the subject. It reminded him of something else.

“What's going on with your friends from the dock?” he asked finally.

“Who?”

“Those two guys, Lucky what's his name and that guy Bobby. And their fishing client, that judge guy.”

“Listen, those are no friends of mine. His name is Holzapfel. He may think I'm a fan of theirs, and that's just what I want them to think, but believe me, I don't have anything to do with those guys and you shouldn't either.”

“How about the judge? He's all right, isn't he? He looked okay.”

“Between you and me—and I mean it, no talking out of school—Peel's in trouble, too. He's mixed up with betting and 'shine and all kinds of stuff, just like you'd expect for a friend of Lucky's. Judge Chillingworth's getting ready to lower the boom on him.”

“I thought
Peel
was a judge.”

“Just a city judge. Judge Chillingworth's the head of the whole circuit. They used to be friends, but he's about fed up with Joe right about now. This is between you and me now, you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Trapper was rattling on about how he taught the great Babe Ruth how to use a bait-casting rod. He made a right-hand turn off A1A and headed out the long, straight road that went west to Camp Murphy.

“We going to the base?” Cassidy asked.

“Yep.”

“How do you get in if you're not military?”

“Got a sticker. I was stationed here during the war. When they found out what I did in real life they made me an MP and a critter-getter. Gators in the ponds, snakes in the toilets, ducks on the runway, I was the guy they called. Believe me, wild and woolly as it was back then, I got called a lot. I still help them out now and again. They even pay me! Can you imagine that? I take home a critter I can sell, plus I get a U.S. government check in the mail. I guess that makes me a government contractor!” His laugh boomed in the trees.

Sure enough, at the guard station the MP didn't even get up from his chair, just leaned out the door and waved them through. Trapper ignored the signal and pulled over.

“Hey, Frank, is Lieutenant Lefaro at the gym this morning?” asked Trapper.

“Yeah, he came through about a hour ago. I guess that's where he was going. He was dressed in sweats anyway.”

The exhaust fans were beating away up in the rafters and the gym was empty save for two young captains playing badminton and one short, stocky, dark-haired guy shooting set shots from the top of the key. He looked to be of Mediterranean extraction. Cassidy recognized him as one of the guys he always saw playing in the really good afternoon pickup games. Games he was never invited to join.

He came over with a head-wagging, jaunty stride, a big smile on his face. The leather ball was tucked casually on his hip. Despite the heat, he wore white cotton sweat bottoms, a black singlet, and some kind of gold chain around his neck with a small gold medallion. Cassidy thought he was the most confident-acting person he had ever met.

“Hey, Trap,” the man said. “This the kid?”

“This is him. First Lieutenant Ronald Lefaro, meet freshman Quenton Cassidy.”

Lefaro stuck his hand out and when Cassidy took it, he was surprised how small and soft—almost dainty—it was.

“You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Lieutenant Lefaro is arguably the best one-on-one basketball player on this base, now that Al Smith has mustered out,” Trapper said. “Ron started all three years at Colby, and in his senior year, this officer and gentleman was an all-American.”

“
Little
all-American,” Lefaro corrected.

“Still,” said Trapper.

Cassidy's eyes were as big as sand dollars.

“Okay, kid,” said Lefaro, “I've seen you a few times in pickup games with your buddies. You handle the ball good and you've got a decent shot. You leaving us, Trap?”

“Got to run some errands on base. Quenton, I'll be back to pick you up in one hour. Pay attention to this man. It could change your life.”

Lefaro was already walking out onto the court, motioning to Cassidy to follow. The other officers had finished their badminton game, so the gymnasium was quiet except for the big exhaust fans beating away at the warm air.

“Okay, here's the first thing you need to work on. And keep in mind, this won't be as much fun as playing pickup games with your friends. This is more like real work. But if you want to get better, this is what you need to do.”

Lefaro stood on the foul line, facing away from the basket. He motioned for Cassidy to go to the top of the key. He bounced the ball to him.

“Okay, let me show you how I would defend you,” he said. “Go ahead and drive on me. Give me your best move.”

Cassidy took the ball and, as he had been taught, first looked at the rim as if he might shoot. Lefaro's knees were bent slightly, but otherwise he almost looked as if he were standing around waiting for a bus.

Cassidy gave a quick jerk with his head and the ball as if he were indeed looking to shoot, but then brought the ball down and in an instant began driving to his right, thinking that he would blow by this way-too-casual older man for an easy layup.

Lefaro quickly sidestepped to his left, and before he knew it Cassidy was making contact, his progress toward the rim now subtly altered. He put his head down and drove wider to the right, trying to get around the man, but the more he veered out the more Lefaro rode him farther out. Finally, it got ridiculous and Cassidy realized that the man was not going to let him go right. In fact, he was overplaying Cassidy so much that the path straight to the basket lay wide open in front of him. All Cassidy had to do was stop his futile effort to drive to his right and just head straight for the hoop.

To accomplish this he retreated a half step, did a crossover dribble from right to left, started to dribble with his left hand, and . . .

The ball was gone. Lefaro was at the top of the key, dribbling casually, doing that little arrogant head wag, and looking at Cassidy with raised eyebrows that said:
See?

He had simply reached down and tipped the ball away as soon as Cassidy switched to his clumsier left hand. As Cassidy continued to the rim, Lefaro had slipped behind him and scooped up the ball. Cassidy ended up dribbling air.

“Know what happened?” he asked.

“Yeah, you stole the ball,” said Cassidy.

“Okay. But more basic than that?”

Cassidy shrugged.

“You can't go to your left,” Lefaro said. “Neither can most of your friends—well, except for the lefty. And he can't go to his right. If a guy can't go one way or the other, he's easy to guard. You give him the way he doesn't want to go, and overplay him the way he wants to go. You take away seventy-five percent of his game before he makes the first move. Try again.” Lefaro bounced the ball to Cassidy and assumed the defensive position.

Cassidy took the ball at the top of the key, did the quick shot fake, took one dribble to the right, and quickly crossed over to his left as Lefaro called, “Good!”

Lefaro stepped over to Cassidy's left to cut him off, but Cassidy now found himself with a half-step lead, which he tried to exploit by driving down the left side of the lane, dribbling with his left hand. For a thrilling split second he thought he was going to get an easy layup on this arrogant man, but Lefaro's incredibly quick feet had brought him back up against Cassidy, forcing him once again to the outside. Every dribble down the key he took, Cassidy was being driven farther from the basket.

When he was even with the rim, not knowing what else to do, Cassidy picked up his dribble and began trying to find a way to take his free step around Lefaro. It was impossible. Lefaro was right on top of him, and whenever Cassidy gave him any look at the ball at all, his hands were flashing out, slapping at it, clipping the ball, twice nearly dislodging it altogether.

Finally, out of desperation, Cassidy turned his back to the rim, took one step away, and shot a fairly decent hook shot with his right hand. Lefaro didn't block it, but he was in Cassidy's face the whole way, and Cassidy was almost proud that the ball actually caught the front of the rim before bouncing away. It wasn't really that close, but it wasn't an embarrassing attempt, either.

“Okay,” said Lefaro, who was at least breathing harder now. “You had a good fake and a good first step. Then what happened?”

“You were on me.”

“Right, but what happened?”

“I took a hook.”

“You took a
desperation
hook,” said Lefaro.

Cassidy said nothing but had to admit it was true.

“You went left because I gave you left. That's all well and good. But then when push came to shove, you didn't have anything to finish with. I've seen your pull-up jumper on the right. I've seen your driving hook on the right. What do you have on the left?”

Cassidy shook his head.

“Basketball, like most sports, is a game of action and reaction. If I overplay you to your right, knowing that's where you want to go, I'm trying to make you pay for your weakness. So what do you do in response?”

“Go left?”

“Not just go left, but go left
successfully.
Make me pay for overplaying you. The only way to do that is to learn how to score going left, just like you do going right. Learn to dribble better with your left hand, get yourself a reliable left-handed layup, a left-handed hook that you're not afraid to shoot in a game. Practice other tricks, your crossover move, or that inside-out hook you tried, but practice them until they're natural moves that you actually
like
to do, not ones you use when you have to.”

Lefaro noticed that Cassidy looked a little glum.

“Sorry, kid, none of this will be much fun until you do it in practice and then start seeing it work in games.”

“I don't mind practicing,” said Cassidy.

“I know that. I've seen you. That's why I'm here right now. But you've spent a long time practicing the things you do best. It's always more fun to work on strengths rather than weaknesses. The problem is that a smart opponent will make you pay for it. The way you beat him is to not have any weaknesses.”

Cassidy was in a kind of shock. The simple truth of what Lefaro was saying stopped him completely. He had thought he was playing the game of basketball all this time. What he was really playing was half a game of basketball.

“All right, let me show you one more thing,” said Lefaro, heading back to the top of the key. “You guard me now.”

He checked the ball to Cassidy, who tapped it back. Cassidy assumed a defensive stance a half step to Lefaro's right, but staying ready to adjust, figuring Lefaro would have some good moves to his left.

Lefaro took the ball, looked at the rim, brought the ball up in shooting position . . .

And shot the ball! It cut the net cleanly and with enough backspin that it bounced right back to them.

“All right,” said Lefaro. “Don't forget: that's the third option. I can go left, I can go right, or I can shoot. Those are your three options in one-on-one. Let's try again.”

Cassidy checked the ball back to him and again assumed a slight overplay position to Lefaro's right.

Lefaro brought the ball up, faked the shot, pulled the ball back down, and started to his left. Cassidy did a quick sidestep to his right to cut off the drive as Lefaro straightened up and shot the ball again, this time catching the back of the rim and deflecting straight down through the net.

Jeez
, thought Cassidy,
I'm getting drilled here.

“Once more,” said Lefaro, checking the ball to Cassidy again.

This time Cassidy was primed. If Lefaro tried the little one-hander again he'd be eating some leather. Cassidy tapped the ball back and assumed a defensive position a half step closer to him. Lefaro took the ball, did a little halfhearted fake to his right, then started to bring the ball up into shooting position. Cassidy shifted his weight to his toes and got ready to spring. When Lefaro went into the first motions of his shot, Cassidy began to elevate, the toes of his Converse low-cuts now barely on the floor.

In the blink of an eye Lefaro was gone, quick-stepping around him and casually laying the ball up softly against the glass backboard. He hadn't gotten Cassidy quite into the air, but he had rendered him nearly weightless, and therefore helpless, before bringing the ball down and zipping by him.

Cassidy sighed and hung his head. He was just plain beaten. As his father would have said, no two ways about it.

“I don't get it,” he said. “What am I doing wrong?”

“Nothing really,” said Lefaro, walking back with the ball tucked on his hip, head wagging outrageously. “I've shown you three ways I can beat you, and you know you can't discount any of them. You have to be ready to counter all three, and it's just more than you can handle right now. That's the position you want to put
your
opponents in.”