Second-String Center (4 page)

Dunk walked to the free-throw line. He’d be shooting two. He rubbed his cheek with his fist and waited for the ball.

“Automatic,” said Spencer, who was lined up to Dunk’s left.

And the first one was—a nice, gentle arc, just over the front of the rim, rippling through the net.

Dunk exhaled hard, letting the air make a whistling sound through his rounded lips. Making that shot was like the sun coming up or something. He immediately felt like he belonged in the game.

The second one was just as true. Dunk ran back on defense.

Johnson and Fiorelli each made a shot, but Dunk didn’t touch the ball on the next few possessions. When Miguel got fouled driving for a layup, the horn sounded for a substitution.

Dunk turned and saw Louie jogging onto the court. He walked off, and the spectators gave him a nice hand.

Coach stood by the bench and put his hand atop Dunk’s head. “Quick rest,” he said.

David squeezed over so Dunk could sit down. And there was Jared, on Dunk’s other side.

“Hey,” Jared said quietly. “Nice job out there.”

“Thanks.” Dunk pulled the front of his jersey up and wiped his sweaty face.

Jared was dressed to play. Dunk was surprised Coach had put Louie in.
Guess that’s it for me,
he thought.

But when the Hornets called timeout a few minutes later, Coach told Dunk to report back in. Palisades had a 9-6 lead. Coach also put Lamont in for Willie, bringing more size into the lineup. Willie was barely five feet tall. Lamont was a husky five-eight.

“Lamont will move inside with Dunk,” Coach said in the huddle. “Go with the three-guard set. And keep running!”

Dunk picked up his second foul, but he later grabbed a rebound and scored after a Fiorelli misfire. So the Hornets had narrowed the gap to 13-12 by the end of the quarter.

Jared took over at center for the rest of the half, but his touch was definitely off. He made only one shot and threw a couple of bad passes. Meanwhile, Johnson got hot for Palisades, helping to build the lead to eight points.

The Hornets were a frustrated bunch when they left the floor at halftime.

Spencer smacked his palm against a locker. “Not in our house!” he said to his teammates. “No way they come in here and embarrass us in our gym.”

“Get a grip, Spence,” Coach said. “I’m not unhappy with our effort or the execution. The shots just haven’t been falling for us.”

“We gotta get in Neon’s face more,” Willie said. “Give that boy open shots and he kills ya.”

“True,” Coach said. “We’ll switch out of our man-to-man defense and go with a box-and-one for the time being. Spencer, you stick with Johnson; Willie and Miguel, you need to collapse in on him a bit and help out. And keep feeding the ball inside to Jared. Those shots will fall soon.”

The new defensive set did slow Johnson down, but the Hornets were not able to cut the gap. Palisades was utilizing a similar strategy, having one player glued to Jared and at least one other always in position to double up on him. Jared made a couple of baskets, but he also picked up his second and third fouls.

Midway through the fourth quarter, Coach waved Dunk over to sit next to him. “We need more size out there,” he said. “Their big guys are all over Jared—he needs some support under the basket. You report in for Willie, and we’ll move Fiorelli out to the third guard spot.”

So Dunk checked in. This felt good; this was the real thing. Quality floor time with the game on the line. Dunk turned and saw his parents and Aunt Krystal in the bleachers.

The scoreboard showed 3:46 to play, with Palisades holding a 39-31 lead.

Dunk hadn’t played since the first quarter, so he felt a bit out of sync as play began. But he was fresher than the rest of these players, who’d been sprinting and pounding on each other all afternoon.
Be smart,
he thought.
Don’t choke.

Johnson had the ball, crouching low as he dribbled, easily keeping it away from Spencer. He gave a quick stutter to his left, and Spencer stumbled back on his heels. Johnson darted the other way and skipped into the open.

Dunk was guarding a forward near the basket, on the far side from where Johnson was driving. The Palisades center was waving for the ball, locked in a battle for position with Jared.

As Fiorelli stepped in front of Johnson, Dunk shifted closer to the center, expecting Johnson to pass. And here came the ball. Dunk wasn’t quite quick enough to grab it, but he was right there in the action. The center turned toward the baseline, then pivoted back toward the basket, right into Dunk’s path.

With a quick swipe, Dunk easily stole the ball and gripped it tightly with both hands. Miguel shouted his name, and Dunk turned and fired an outlet pass. Spencer was already sprinting up the court, five yards ahead of Johnson, and he hauled in Miguel’s long pass and made the layup.

Fiorelli’s three-pointer a minute later cut the lead to three, but Johnson answered with an off-balance jumper. And when Jared picked up his fourth foul in the final minute, the resulting free throws put the game out of reach for the Hornets.

“If you’d showed up on time, things might have been different,” Spencer said sharply to Jared in the locker room.

“It wasn’t
my
fault,” Jared replied. “Some things are more important than basketball, you know.”

Spencer frowned and took a seat in front of his locker, yanking off a sneaker. “Whatever it was, don’t make it a habit.”

“Yeah,” Lamont said. “Can’t you schedule things around the games? Especially a game like Palisades!”

Jared shrugged his shoulders and scowled. “If I could’ve been here, I would have.”

Coach Davis came into the room and leaned against a locker. “Not bad,” he said to the dejected players. “Today was their day, but we’ll see them again in a few weeks. Spencer, you ran into a machine today in Johnson. And their inside game was better than I’d anticipated. We had some bright spots. Louie and Dunk did a great job filling in underneath. Miguel was sharp. Jared was a little off.

“It’s just one loss. It’s early. Be here at three thirty tomorrow, ready to work even harder.”

Coaches were always saying stuff about every guy on the roster having an equal role, that the team won or lost together. That was true, Dunk knew it. But being out there at key moments—most of the first quarter and then again with the game on the line—you couldn’t beat that.

He peeled off his jersey and wiped his chest with a towel. Coach’s bit of praise had softened the sting of the loss a little. Dunk had played an important part in this game.

He left the gym with a large group of players heading uptown, including Spencer, Fiorelli, Lamont, and Jared. Most of them were angry about the loss. They didn’t notice that Jared was soon lagging behind.

Dunk waited at the corner of Fourteenth and the Boulevard for Jared to catch up.

“You hurt or something?” Dunk asked.

Jared shook his head and quietly said, “No.”

“Just one game,” Dunk said. “We’ll get ’em next time.”

“Yeah.”

“Could have gone either way. A shot here, a shot there, and we win it.”

“Right.”

Dunk wasn’t getting much of a response, so he quit trying. They walked the next couple of blocks in silence.

They reached the large digital clock that jutted over the sidewalk from the Hudson City National Bank. Jared stopped and stared at the clock. Dunk looked at Jared, then up. Forty-one degrees at 5:57 P.M. The Boulevard was busy with people going in and out of the restaurants and commuters stepping off the buses and heading home.

“Worst game I’ve played in a long time,” Jared finally said. “I got eaten up by guys I should have smoked. Couldn’t make a shot. Couldn’t play defense. Fouled everybody who came near me.”

“You weren’t
that
bad,” Dunk said. “You actually kept us in the game.”

“Still should have won it. My fault.”

Jared leaned against the bank’s brick wall, dropping his gym bag to the sidewalk. “You know where I was this afternoon instead of in school?” he asked, not looking at Dunk. “A lawyer’s office.”

“Why?”

Jared let out his breath, and his mouth fell into a deep frown. “So my parents and their lawyers could argue about where I’m supposed to live while they hack out their divorce. Supposedly they wanted my ‘input.’ ”

Dunk was shocked. He knew kids whose parents were divorced, but he’d never been around anyone while it was happening. He’d never been to Jared’s house. He recognized Jared’s parents, but he couldn’t remember ever speaking to them. “So why are they splitting up?” he asked.

“Who knows? They fight all the time lately.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know. Money. What we have for dinner. Who does the laundry. Everything, you know? Stuff that wouldn’t even matter if they weren’t always mad at each other.”

Dunk thought about his own home. Just him and his parents, and they all got along well. “So what happened?” he asked. “At the lawyer’s?”

“They decided to juggle me back and forth. Most days I’m still here; some days I’m with my dad. He took an apartment over in Hoboken. As long as my mom stays in Hudson City, I can keep going to school here, even if I spend some of my time at my dad’s.”

“Lots of people go through that, I guess.”

Jared shrugged. “I know. Doesn’t make it any easier.”

“Sure.”

“Imagine if I was living full-time in Hoboken?” Jared shook his head and gave a halfhearted smile. “I’d be playing
against
you guys.”

“That wouldn’t be good.”

“Tell me about it. . . . So for now my dad is supposed to pick me up after practice every Wednesday and bring me to Hoboken for the night, then drop me back here Thursday morning. And I’m there every Friday night and most weekends. At least until they work something out for good. If they can’t work it out, then a judge decides.”

Jared looked away again and wiped his eye. “Don’t say nothing,” he said softly. “To Spencer and those guys, I mean. I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“No problem. Does Coach know about this?”

“Yeah.”

They started walking again. They both lived down toward Jersey City, away from the busy downtown area of the Boulevard.

“So why’d you tell me?” Dunk asked.

“I don’t know. Everybody knows they can trust you.”

“They do?”

“Yeah.”

Dunk had never heard that before. It made sense, but it felt good to hear it.

“I feel for you,” he said, “but you know I can’t go easy on you in practice. That’d make me look bad.”

Jared looked surprised. “I don’t
want
you to go easier. If anything, go
harder.
That’s my oasis out there on the court. You keep pounding me. I’ll keep pounding back.”

“I plan to.”

D
unk’s parents were almost done eating when he got home from the game. There was a plate of fried ham on the table, macaroni and cheese, and a big dish of peas and corn.

“We just couldn’t wait any longer,” Dad said. “The game ended over an hour ago.”

“Yeah. We hung around some after.”

“You played great,” Mom said. “You want to heat up that ham?”

“Nah, I’m sure it’s fine. I’m not too hungry anyway.”

Dad looked at his wife with an amused grin. “Not hungry, he says. Just wait—he’ll finish every scrap on the table.”

Dunk stabbed at a piece of the ham and dumped some vegetables onto his plate. “We’ll see.”

“You really did play well,” Dad said. “I was glad to see Coach put you in during crunch time at the end. Shows that he knows he can rely on you.”

“That
was
nice,” Dunk said, chewing as he spoke. “Before you got there, I played almost the whole first quarter. Jared was late, so I started.”

“Isn’t that something?” Mom said. “Sorry we weren’t there.”

“No problem.”

“I’ll get off early for one of the games and be there for the beginning,” Mom said.

Dunk shrugged. “Today’ll probably be the
only
time I start. But yeah, I may see some early playing time. I had four points and I think three rebounds. Plus that steal.”

“Well,” said Dad, “I promised myself I’d watch the Rutgers game tonight, and I have just enough time to shower first. You’ll clear the table, Cornell.”

“No problem.”

“You have homework to do?”

“A little. I’ll catch the second half of the Rutgers game with you.”

“And I have to run over to my sister’s,” Mom said. “Can you believe that girl doesn’t know how to sew on a
button
?”

“Why doesn’t she bring it over here?” Dunk asked.

“Lots of studying, she says. I don’t mind. I like to get a look at her place once in a while . . . make sure she’s not keeping it a pigsty.”

Dunk held back a smile. Krystal was in for it, just as Dunk would be if he kept his room a mess.

So Dunk ate the rest of his dinner alone, which suited him fine. He had mixed emotions about the game, but he was barely thinking about that. Jared’s news about his parents had him worried.

Everything seemed cool here—his parents almost never raised their voices, and they seemed like best friends. So he couldn’t see them ever breaking up. But he definitely felt bad for Jared.

Dunk did the dishes and climbed the stairs to his room. The house was small—just the kitchen, living room, and a bathroom downstairs, and two bedrooms, an office, and a bathroom upstairs. He shut his door and turned the CD player on softly to an old Tracy Chapman song. Aunt Krystal had loaned him the CD. Then he lay back on the bed and looked around the room.

The third-place medal from last summer’s state YMCA tournament sat on his desk.
Should have been gold,
he thought. The coach had unexpectedly put Dunk in the game in the closing minute of the semifinal against Camden, knowing that Camden needed to foul somebody if they had any chance of getting the ball back. Dunk had a reputation for always making his free throws, but he came up empty that time and the game slipped away.