The Squared Circle (11 page)

Gardner said, “There's not a more anti-jock professor here than Erika Neil. When she was on the faculty senate, she made it her personal agenda to try and strip us down.”

Then Sonny informed them, “Erika Neil is my cousin.”

This information left Price and Gardner speechless. When they looked at each other, they seemed to lift their eyebrows simultaneously. Gardner turned back to Sonny. “Your what?”

“Erika Neil is my cousin.”

“What does that mean, your cousin? What kind of cousin we talkin' here?” It was Price again.

“I mean she's my cousin. My uncle Seth is her father and my aunt Jane is her mother.” How could he make it any clearer?

“She must be forty years old, how can she be your cousin?” But Gardner was giving Price the sign to back off. He poured himself a glass of water before he said to Sonny, “I hope you can forgive the unkind remarks about a relative. That was out of line.”

“Right,” echoed Price, who was adjusting his necktie knot.

Price and Gardner both knew Uncle Seth, of course, from booster club activities, but it was apparent they had no idea Sissy was his blood kin. It gave Sonny some pleasure to see them caught up short. It might have been Price's presence; the assistant Sonny liked was Workman, who was a
player
. Workman would stay after practice and go one-on-one with you until he dropped. But Price was some sort of middle-aged PR grad assistant. Sonny didn't know for sure what he was supposed to be.

“Is Coach Gentry coming to this meeting?” asked Sonny.

“No, he's not,” answered Gardner. “He has many duties, but academic compliance isn't one of them.”

Price added, “This isn't high school, where the head coach does the laundry and brings the extra socks.”

“It's a big, big program,” Gardner said. “That's what we're trying to impress on you here. It's so big that we can't make it work without communication and cooperation. You understand what I'm saying?”

“I can see your point.”

“Everyone needs to do their job, and everyone else needs to cooperate fully so they
can
do their job. That's why we always need to work through existing channels.”

“Are you telling me I can never drop a course on my own?”

“We're simply asking you to cooperate with the program for everyone's benefit.” Gardner paused. He took off his glasses, inserted them in the brown case, then put the case in the inside pocket of his sport coat. He sipped some coffee and closed the folder. “This is not something we like to talk to players about, Sonny, but we have had some preliminary investigative overtures from the NCAA.”

Sonny wondered what he meant by
preliminary investigative overtures
but he didn't ask. He remembered his earlier conversation with Warner, his sportswriter friend.

“We don't believe it's anything very serious,” Gardner continued. “Or anything to be alarmed about, but it does put us in a position where we have to be especially careful.”

“We need to know everything that's going on,” said Price.

“That's it, exactly.” Gardner agreed. “We need to know because we need to be in control. Can you see where we're coming from?”

“Of course I can see, do you think I'm stupid? If you want to break it down, I had an academic problem and I took care of it.”

“We'll all hope so. In the meantime, can we count on your cooperation?”

Sonny's impatience was uncharacteristic. “Why are you treating me like a hard case? I'm preregistered for second semester, you know what I'm taking.”

“Okay then. We'd like to apologize again for our remarks about your cousin.”

SIU's first home game was against Arkansas, rated ninth in the nation, in the early part of December. Not even the snowstorm that began in late afternoon could daunt the huge crowd that converged on the arena and overflowed it, yelping and bawling for blood.

Otis Reed, the point guard, went down with a severe ankle sprain late in the first half, which meant more playing time for Robert Lee. It also meant a closer game; the Salukis won the ragged, physical contest by a score of 82–72. Arkansas used a confusing mix of gimmick defenses, in and out of the box and one, the triangle and two, but Sonny's frustration, whenever it occurred, was never a match for his intensity. He finished with 29 points to share game-scoring honors with Luther. He also had six steals to lead all players in that department.

Among the horde of postgame backslappers and well-wishers, Uncle Seth and three of his friends were front and center. Aunt Jane, who was also there, seemed to get lost in the congestion.

Two easy wins, one over Chicago State and another over Evansville, both at the arena in front of standing-room-only crowds, followed finals week. The Saluki record was thus pushed to 6–0, and when LSU lost a road game at Illinois, Sonny's team found itself ranked third in the nation in the major polls.

The D that Sonny got in Composition was offset by two B's, one in a P.E. class and another in Nutrition. He got a C in Earth Science. Combined with the A turned in by Sissy, his GPA would be above 2.5. He was tempted to photocopy the printout of his grades so he could have a spare to take to his old fraternity and throw in Geisel's face.

On the road to Memphis for the Tiger Invitational, Otis Reed's ankle was still tender. “I could probably play him, but I'd rather see him get another day's rest,” Coach Gentry explained to Sonny. “I'd like to try you at the point, at least some of the time.”

“Yeah, okay.” said Sonny. It was unusual for Gentry to talk game strategy with individual players. The trip by bus was also unusual, but this was a short distance.

“We'll walk through it as much as we can during the shoot-around.”

“Okay.”

Warner, who was doing a series of articles on what he called the psychological profile of successful players, was accompanying the team on the bus.

“You just have to throw the switch,” Sonny told him. “You have to play with intensity all the time.”

“Yes,” confirmed Warner, “there's intensity, but then there's what you do.”

“He's always popped,” said Luther Cobb, from his seat across the aisle.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Warner.

“I mean he's popped on ludes and reds. He's all wired up from the pharmacy.”

“Right,” said Sonny. Luther laughed out loud.

“But seriously, folks,” Warner chuckled.

“I don't know what it is,” shrugged Sonny. “It's just a game head. It's just my zone.”

It turned out Sonny's zone was just as effective at point guard. He scored 33 points in an easy 94–68 win over Jacksonville. With his long arms, he could snap passes effectively over a 1-2-2 or a 1-3-1 to locate the seams. Against the man-to-man, his explosiveness allowed him the penetration needed to lay the ball off to teammates for easy baskets. When the defense backed off, he simply rose up to shoot the three-pointer. Because the game was such a breather, Otis and his ankle got another day of complete rest.

After the game, Sonny had to sit at the press conference table with Coach Gentry. In response to a question about Sonny's performance at the point, Gentry said, “It might be his best position. But to be perfectly honest, other than posting him up down low, I'm not sure there's any position that wouldn't suit him.”

When a reporter asked Sonny if he had any scoring goals, Sonny said no.

The question provoked Gentry to remind the press, by way of a short discourse, of the defensive aspect of the game. “All you people think about is points. Scoring and offense. Don't forget, fifty percent of the game is played on the defensive end. You can't appreciate Sonny's real value to this team unless you appreciate his defense.” Hearing his praises sung so publicly was embarrassing to Sonny, but at least Coach Gentry was back in control of the mike. The reporters scribbled furiously.

Memphis State, the host team, was aroused for the championship game. Their arena was full of noisy fans, their players primed, but even so it wasn't close past the eight-minute mark. With Otis Reed back at the point guard spot, and Sonny back on the wing opposite C.J. Moore, the astonishing Salukis were back to full-bore. The final score was 116–84. C.J. had 29 points and Sonny 27, but it was Luther's dominant strength inside that stuffed the Tigers. He horsed the boards for 22 rebounds, blocked eight shots, and scored right at his 21-point average.

On the ride back, Luther wanted to know if Louisville or Georgetown got beat. Warner, sitting next to Coach Gentry, asked, “What difference does it make?”

“Come again?” said Gentry.

“Who wins or who loses. Let's be honest: This team on the bus is number one in the nation, period.”

“You can say that if you want,” said the coach.

“I do say that.”

“Just don't let my players hear you say it.”

But Sonny heard it and so did Robert Lee. And especially so did Hooker, the senior, and former walk-on, who had never before played on a ranked team. Hooker's grin seemed to stretch from one ear to the other as he strapped on his Walkman and closed his eyes.

The fresco project was painstaking and tedious, but Sonny's work turned out to be skillful. “You amaze me,” was the way Sissy put it.

“Maybe if you didn't always underestimate me, I wouldn't amaze you.”

“Touché. Olé.”

In addition to its age, the fresco's exposure to uneven heat and humidity had contributed to its unstable condition. Sissy identified where panels might be separated, based on the mural's content and condition. Her dividing lines improved the likelihood of the mural's eventual restoration, but they delineated panels of uneven size and shape. The strength and touch it took to remove them were characteristics Sonny possessed. With his height and leverage, he could even pry out panels next to the eight-foot ceiling while standing flat on the floor.

Sometimes, though, he told Sissy to slow down.

“Don't be silly. I'm fully recovered.”

“Let's hope.”

“I am five feet nine and one-hundred fifty pounds of focus,” Sissy declared. She locked her arms in the pose of a bodybuilder. “I am woman. Hear me roar.”

Sonny laughed out loud at the comical image of his middle-aged cousin in the bodybuilder's mode, wearing her Donald Duck T-shirt beneath her Oshkosh overalls.

It was ten P.M. by the time they were on the road back to Makanda. A few snow flurries sprayed the air, but nothing to affect driving conditions.

“Do you mind if I sleep in the guestroom?” Sonny asked.

“Please do. You must be exhausted.”

“The dorm's closed and I don't feel like driving to Abydos.”

“You don't need to ask permission, Sonny. You're welcome to use the bedroom anytime you like.”

When they got to the house, he didn't do any unloading. He went upstairs to the guestroom. There were two books on the nightstand. One was a large hardcover of art restoration, with pages of illustrations and photographs. The corner was turned down on the first page of the fresco chapter. The other book was a paperback about the Isis and Osiris legend. The two books gave him a good feeling because they were gifts from Sissy; they had nothing to do with required reading.

The good feelings did not prevail on another day, later in the week. When he got to her house, Sissy was on the phone. He couldn't distinguish her words, but her tone was one of distinct irritation. She was on a long time, so Sonny made some toast.

Sissy was wearing a blue twill work shirt and Levi's blue jeans. Her annoyance was evident in the aggressive manner she burned her toast and gobbled it down. While Sonny maneuvered the Bronco down the uneven hillside, he thanked her for the two books.

“You're welcome.” But her distraction was obvious in her flat voice.

All the way through Carbondale and two-thirds of the way to Murphysboro without conversation. Silence. Then Sonny told her about the grilling he got from Gardner and Price over dropping Anthropology without permission. It was his attempt to make conversation, but it turned out to be a mistake.

“Please.” she said. “What would you expect?”

“It wouldn't hurt if they treated us a little more like human beings,” was his answer.

“And why should they do that? Just to pretend there's something humanizing about big-time college athletics?”

“I wouldn't know about that. Coach Gentry has a way of keeping himself out of the picture, more or less.”

“Why would you expect him to do anything else? Do you expect him to care for you? He's an overpaid, over-protected broker of a large corporate enterprise.”

“This is college competition, Sissy, not the NBA.”

“Oh, can you grow up? You're a professional jock who doesn't get a paycheck. You are useful, like a copy machine. You line the pockets of CEOs and media executives. You're a spare part in a professional entertainment industry whose only link to the university is pretend.”

Now he was mad. “I can't understand why you're so pissed. And why do you always assume that I'm stupid?”

“Did I say anything about stupid? I wouldn't waste my time on a stupid person. You're just underdeveloped; too much of your brain is in storage.”

“I just love basketball; it's as simple as that.”

But Sissy wouldn't let up. “You don't just
love basketball
, you're driven. People who are driven are frightened. Tell me what you're afraid of.”

“I'm not afraid of anything. Maybe I'm afraid of you.”

“Why?”

“I don't know why.”

“Are you afraid of yourself? Are you afraid of finding out who you are?”

Sonny was even more pissed. “Would you get off my case? Why is it such a big deal to you what I think?”

“Turn here.”

She meant the mini-mall on Murphysboro's edge, which they were approaching. Sonny swerved sharply into the mostly empty parking lot. Sissy got out of the car and went inside.