The City Below (27 page)

What am I going to do? The question hit him as familiar, but not from the psalter or the saints. What am I going to do? Then he recognized the words as those he had attributed to Senator Kennedy after Bobby's death. What am I going to do
now?

Ted Kennedy: Terry Doyle's unlikely existentialist, his unlikely saint.

He brought his face up out of his hands and, again automatically, his gaze went to the crucifix above him, the gnarled, twisted fist of a body. A lost human life.
Of
human life: how could that phrase have been made to seem so full of death? Looking right at Jesus, he asked his question again. What am I going to do?

No answer.

The faint ticking inside the chapel radiators. The fastidious chirping of some bird outside. The gold light sliding down the chute of rays from the upper windows. A glorious afternoon, the yellow energy of a world outside, its music slipping in through cracks in the wall.

Terry had never felt such a
lack
of consolation so starkly in this place before, and he was trained enough to think, staring at the cross, Now I know better what that means. Pick up your cross.

And then?

Once more automatically, he blessed himself. An empty gesture. Can they really take this from me? From
within
me like this? They could. They were. What he would do, he hadn't a clue. He only knew what he wouldn't do. "No fucking oath," he said, and his lips moved, though he was not one who made a habit of speaking aloud to Jesus. "No fucking lie," he would have said, "to you."

He blessed himself again, a wave of the hand at his face and shoulders, as if before a foul shot. He got up quickly and left.

BC. Roberts Gym. The God Squad. Go Eagles!

Basketball, that's what.

***

Squire arrived at the gym carrying Molly in one arm. They had crossed Boston singing "Itsy Bitsy Spider," Molly manipulating her fat little fingers in front of her nose, the spider on the spout. Again and again, the spider fell to her lap,
kerplop,
and she made her father start the song over. Heaven.

At stoplights, Squire had leaned his head out the window and sung loudly, putting on display the happiest child in America and her good father. When he'd arrived at the grand Catholic enclave behind the cardinal's residence, he'd let Molly crawl onto his lap, between the steering wheel and his chest. When he'd slowed to ask his question of the first seminarian he saw, the kid reached in to tickle Molly's chin, and didn't think twice about telling Squire where Terry Doyle was.

Molly's eyes opened in wonder as he carried her through the double doors into the gym proper. "Look at that, honey," he said, lifting her higher. Two dozen boys were practicing on several courts around the cavernous arena. Basketballs soared above them like the Ping-Pong balls dancing on air in the parish bingo machine.

"Basketball, Molly."

"Popcorn," Molly said. Her arm shot out.

Squire laughed when he saw it, a better association than bingo. "That's right, sweetheart Popcorn."

When the scorer's buzzer sounded, Molly covered her ears, burying her face in her father's neck.

Squire moved into the bleachers, a nearly vacant stretch of planks. Only a few students here and there had drifted in to watch. In past years not even they would have been here so early in the season, but this was to be BC's year. Squire sat down, stroking Molly.

At the buzzer, the players had stopped shooting and converged on the bench. Zip Ryan was waiting for them, a ball under one arm, a clipboard in one hand, a whistle between his teeth. A coach you didn't mess with.

On the wall opposite was a huge new banner, gold letters on a dark red background:
ALL THE WAY EAGLES
1968.

If there was an air of expectation hanging over this team, it was because of the single player whose head and shoulders protruded from the circle, the colored kid, BC's first seven-footer, Bean Nicolson. Now that he was a sophomore, this giant was supposed to make the big difference.

Squire watched Nicolson, one of only three or four Negroes in the huddle. He wore number 7 on his shirt. Nicolson's face, unlike those of his fellow blacks, was an impassive mask, and across the distance there seemed something sullen in the way he listened to the coach.

Squire put his squirming daughter down on the bench beside him, but kept an arm firmly around her as she immediately tried to throw herself between the bench planks at his feet. "Sit still, honey. Come on." He jostled her roughly as he scanned the gym, the clustered players, the assistant coaches behind them, the team managers collecting loose basketballs in canvas-sided laundry carts, the few other spectators. Then he saw Terry.

His brother sat hunched over his knees on the frontmost spectators' bench, right behind the team, where Red Auerbach would be sitting if this were a Celtics practice. Terry was in black, and only a second glance told Squire it was a priest's shirt he was wearing. He was absently spinning a basketball as he watched the players in the huddle. Terry had never been able to sit on a bench without that pleading air of "Me, Coach. Me!" He had it now, pathetic bastard.

Seeing Terry from behind, at such a distance, Squire felt a blast of insecurity. He wanted to believe that the errand that had brought him here was asinine, but Squire was not indifferent to their grandfather's feelings. Terry had to understand that people were hurting because of him, but how the hell to say so?

His gaze went back to Nicolson. Sportswriters were already comparing the kid to Lew Alcindor. Nicolson too had grown up in Manhattan projects, developed his game in hot-hands shootouts on playgrounds whose hoops lacked nets, and honed it at Power Memorial. If Nicolson had chosen BC instead of UCLA, it was because his mother trusted priests. As a freshman he had set scoring and rebound records. This year, the sports pages agreed, he would lead the team to a coveted slot at the postseason NIT, or even the NCAA championships.

Molly just refused to sit still. Squire picked her up and bounced her on the bench so hard that she looked up at him, shock on her face, before bursting into tears. "Shut up," he hissed. Nothing to do but take her into his arms once more. Molly's crying echoed across the stands. Squire was sure Terry would hear, but he did not look their way.

A few minutes later, before Molly had fully quieted, Zip Ryan finished his talk The huddle broke up and a few players clapped. Half the team grabbed scrimmage shirts and moved downcourt. Another group, the shorter ones, guards, formed a double line along the far side and began a passing exercise. A third group moved to another corner, where a coach had set up folding chairs, obstacles in a weak-hand dribbling drill.

Nicolson alone did not move away from Ryan. Shit, this is one gawky coon, Squire thought, now that he saw him clearly. His long arms hung, it seemed, to his knees. His burred head was bent forward, leading his upper body in a slouch that conveyed not subservience but brooding unhappiness. His legs were amazingly thin, his white socks rising goofily above his calves.

The coach reached an arm up to the kid's shoulder and leaned into him, talking energetically. Nicolson nodded. Suddenly Ryan swung around, threw an arm toward Terry, and waved him over.

Terry seemed taken aback, and did not move.

The coach barked an order, then grinned for the first time, as if he could use the imperative with Terry Doyle now only as a joke.

Terry joined them, tucking the ball under his arm. He looked out of place on the edge of the court in his priest's getup. The coach put an arm on Terry's shoulder. Terry was taller than the coach, but next to Nicolson he seemed short. And Squire just couldn't get used to seeing his brother in that dog collar.

The coach slapped each young man on the back, pushed him out onto the court Compared Terry's trousers and shirt, Bean Nicolson's skin was not black but a soft, smoky brown. Terry dribbled the ball easily as he moved. Nicolson trailed him with strides that left the upper part of his body completely immobile. They moved toward the one free basket, and Terry took the white tab from his collar and unfastened the top button. That simply, he stopped looking like a priest and became a coach.

As Nicolson took up a position near the basket, Terry toed the foul line, bounced the ball three times, and drew a bead. He had always been a deadeye foul shooter. At practices he could drop a hundred in a row, and that's what he began to do now. Nicolson took the ball as it fell through the strings and flipped it languidly back to Terry. Quickly Terry sank a dozen shots. The ball never touched the rim. And it was clear that he could keep it up.

Squire smiled to watch him, and he enjoyed sensing the tall colored kid's respect sprout and grow. It showed in the way he notched up the zing with which he passed the ball back. Finally Terry missed. But then he knocked off another string of six or seven baskets. Any hint of Nicolson's resentment was completely gone. Terry took his next pass and snapped it back, moving to trade places with Bean.

From beneath the basket, Terry watched impassively as Nicolson threw three bricks in a row before sinking his first shot. Terry let him sink another, and only then pointed at his feet and spoke casually. Nicolson seemed to ignore whatever the tip was, but after missing another shot, he adjusted his stance. Terry said something else, a word of encouragement, and now Nicolson nodded. A moment later, Terry joined him at the foul line to demonstrate exactly how to place his feet The kid listened, asked a question, then took up his position again, imitating Terry. He shot When the ball went in, he grinned and nodded, then resumed the exercise.

Squire saw that Nicolson had a seven-footer's awkwardness at the foul line, an obvious disjointedness that hiccupped the length of his body. The movement began at his feet and calves, but by the time the ball left his fingertips, his upper body and his legs were going in opposite directions. When he had to react in the heat of regular play, a Nicolson could make the moves, even from the outside. But at the foul line, with all that time, the temptation was to think too much, and that was why the pine trees were always lousy foul shooters. The great Nicolson, it was soon apparent, was no exception. If Terry was going to be his tutor, good luck.

"That's your uncle Terry," Squire said at one point, aiming Molly's finger. But they were too far away, and she hardly knew Terry anyway. She pulled her finger back, returned it to her mouth.

Squire stared at Nicolson and thought of all he'd read about him: the Killer Inside the Key, a sure thirty points a game
without
free throws. Bean Nicolson, BC's big chance.

And yes, it gradually dawned on him, what would never be seen in ink. Bean Nicolson was Squire Doyle's big chance as well.

***

Molly eventually fell asleep in her father's arms while the basketball players worked their drills. Thirty minutes later, the brain-jolting buzzer woke her up and she began to cry. The players, including Nicolson and Terry, converged once more on Ryan at the bench.

Squire stood up with his fussbudget daughter and began drifting down the terrace of the stands. "Molly ... Molly ... Molly ..." He rubbed his face against her shirt, but she only whimpered. He made a game of giant steps out of descending from bench to bench, but to no effect. Still, he did not regret bringing her. Hadn't she efficiently opened the seminary gate for him, and wasn't she maybe about to open a vault? A perfect beard: what could be more harmless than a man with his baby? "Molly ... Molly ... Molly."

Terry saw them. He waved happily from his place on the edge of the team huddle. Then he hopped over the players' bench and skipped up several rows to wrap Squire and Molly in a hug. The child's protests did nothing to dampen Terry's delight.

Squire caught Coach Ryan's eye and grimaced: Sorry to interrupt. Ryan glared back meanly, and Squire saw him suddenly as a stooped rodent.

Terry took Molly and carried her down to the floor, to the lowermost bench. Sitting, he began to ride her on his knee, singing, "Pony girl, pony girl." She laughed, bouncing like a rag doll. Terry looked up at his brother in triumph.

The coach went back to haranguing his players, most of whom seemed to take pleasure in being chastised. But not Nicolson, whose face seemed cut from brownstone.

Squire sat next to Terry. "Jeez, bro, I saw you with Bean. You're his Auerbach."

"What are you doing here?" Terry mugged for his niece.

"They told me at St. John's you were over here. What, the team mascot?"

Terry grinned. "Chaplain, Nick. Remember? A true chaplain at last"

"Our Charlie."

"So, what's up?"

"The cardinal called Gramps."

"You're kidding."

Squire reached across for his daughter. Molly did not resist as her father took her.

"What did he say?"

"The Cush? He said you're a pain in the ass."

"Come on, Nick."

"I'm on your side, okay? Let's start with that."

"You don't know —"

"I don't care either. I'm on your fucking side, get it? The question is, how do we get these assholes to lay off? Right, Moll?"

"This is one race you can't fix, Squire."

Squire looked at his brother sharply. "What the hell does that mean?"

"Nothing. An expression."

"You scared me there, a hint of disapproval from my big brother."

"I don't judge you, Nick. Mostly because I don't know what you do."

"Flowers, buddy. A chain of stores now. I'm a fucking flower entrepreneur. But we're supposed to be talking about you."

"What about me?"

"There's an oath, right? And you won't take it because it's bullshit, right? Birth control, right?"

Terry laughed despite himself. "That about sums it up."

Squire put his hand on Terry's arm. "Good for you. Hold your ground."

"That's not what Gramps sent you here to tell me."

At that moment the ballplayers, like a multithroated creature, let out one loud groan. Several threw towels in the air. The coach had just told them to hit the road, the quarter-mile track outside, twenty laps. Ryan stared them down and they scattered, retrieving sweatshirts and warmup jackets, scowling while they balanced on one leg to don sweatpants. A counterfeit protest: if they didn't love to run, this wouldn't be their game.