The Squared Circle (17 page)

“You get to be a superstar, and you want carpet in the dressing room. Am I right?”

“Okay you're right.” Sonny passed the ball to his cousin, who tried another of her flat push shots. It made contact with the chain net, but not the rim. Sonny watched his breath hang in the still air. Oddly enough, there was something about this moment that he found liberating and exhilarating.

“You shoot like a girl,” Willie Joe said to Sissy, and then he laughed.

She was retrieving the ball. “I do lots of things like a girl,” she responded. “But thank you for noticing.”

Sonny kept tipping in Willie Joe's missed shots, but then the black man said, “How 'bout a dunk?”

Sonny jumped up slightly to snap the ball down politely. The chain net made a soft
chunking
sound. None of it satisfied Willie Joe: “I don't mean that pussy shit, I mean a
slam
. I mean a
gorilla
slam.”

“Come on, Willie Joe.” This was embarrassing.

“
You
come on.”

“Go ahead, Sonny Youngblood,” said Sissy. “We want a gorilla slam.”

“Do you even know what a dunk is?” Sonny asked her.

“Of course I do. It means forcing the ball down through the ring instead of allowing it to drop through by means of gravity.”

Sonny had to pause a moment. “You think that's it?” he asked Willie Joe.

“Who gives a shit how you describe it? You know a slam when you see one.”

Okay, Sonny was convinced. He pivoted quickly to lob the ball underhand, so that when it made contact with the backboard, it caromed upward at a 45-degree angle. The moment it reached its highest point, when it would have begun its fall, his hands were there to seize it and drive it down through. The basket vibrated while Willie Joe howled his approval.

Sissy shook her head. “Is there an adolescent fantasy anywhere that doesn't torment you?”

But Willie Joe was hollering much too loud to hear her. When Sissy tried another push shot, Sonny blocked it by snatching it clean with one hand. She tried to get the ball back, but Sonny teased her by holding it too high. Sissy doubled her fist and took a swing at him, but he ducked it. Her momentum lunged her off balance, and she fell in a heap on the concrete.

Willie Joe's uncontrolled laughter echoed down the silent main drag of town. There were tears in his eyes. From her prone position, Sissy kicked his crutches out from under him. Two bodies on the pavement now, and Sonny wondered who might be hurt, or at least pissed. But they were both laughing their heads off, from flat on their backs.
What a hoot
, Sonny thought.

He jumped up swiftly to drive down a two-handed tomahawk so vicious it left the backboard swaying like a willow in the wind. He sat down on the pavement and pulled his knees up under his chin. Willie Joe's blue jeans, where they stopped, were folded and safety pinned. In the sunlight, Sissy's hair showed traces of red that Sonny had never noticed before.

In the cold but peaceful moment, Sonny had no desire to be anyplace else.

Gentry's game plan for Virginia was unusual. “Coach wants you to post up every chance you get,” Workman explained to Sonny. “We want to run every baseline pick we can. Down low, posting up. Okay?”

Sonny knew it was because the Virginia guards were so short. Coach wanted to capitalize on the height advantage he would enjoy. “What if they zone?” Sonny asked.

“If they zone, you'll go back to the wing. But they won't. They've only played eight minutes of zone in twelve games. They would have to be in extreme foul trouble before they would go to a zone.”

The huge and noisy crowd filled the arena thirty minutes before tip-off, partly in anticipation of CBS personalities and game-of-the-week preparations. It seemed so odd to Sonny, jogging through the pregame drills, to look at the comp seats where Uncle Seth and company were usually in place, and see instead Sissy and Willie Joe. Right next to them, Julio and Andrea. The two other seats were occupied by businessmen from Marion with familiar faces, but Sonny didn't remember their names.

Even before the ball went up for the tip-off, as the players pushed and shoved for circle advantage, the refs made it plain that they meant to keep the game under control. The oldest one paused before tossing the ball to say to both teams, “Let's get it together right now. Keep your hands off. We're here for basketball, not football. Are we okay?” This well-intentioned speech was essentially a waste of breath. The Salukis concentrated on pounding the ball down low to Sonny on the blocks, but the Cavaliers weren't surprised. They doubled down at every opportunity and thrashed him.

At the first TV time-out, Sonny had five points, but it felt like twice as many bruises, especially on his wrists and forearms. The restless, angry crowd made it hard for him to concentrate on Coach Gentry, who was saying, “Just keep your composure. They've got fouls to give, so that's what they're going to do. All of this is predictable.”

Sonny nodded, while taking deep breaths. He wiped his dripping sweat and tasted the blood from the cut inside his mouth. The coach continued, “From now on, when they foul you, they're going to put you on the line. Just stay cool and make your free throws.”

Gentry was right, but Sonny had to wonder if it was worth it. By halftime he had 20 points, 13 of which had come from the free throw line. But it felt like his nose was broken, and the ringing in his ears from an elbow shot wouldn't go away. The Virginia guards were short, but they were strong; they were powerfully built like fullbacks. They could dish out physical punishment and so could their backups, who were like clones coming off the bench.

Sonny even had to wonder about the strategy itself. Virginia couldn't stop him, but it took the Salukis out of their regular offense, and the game was too close for comfort at 45–36. For the first time in his life as a player, he had the urge to tell his coach to change the game plan. They didn't need this offensive gimmick to beat this team. Maybe not any team. Instead, he sat still and took deep breaths while the trainer painted his cuts with a styptic pencil and applied Vaseline.

The second half was more of the same. Sonny was so wired up late in the contest, it felt like high voltage galvanizing every pore of his body. He pounded home two monster dunks with the fullbacks hanging on him; each time, the bellowing crowd seemed to rend the air. The third time he tried it, though, he was undercut off the end of the court. He bounced up with his fists clenched and went chest-to-chest with Greene, one of the Virginia hatchet men.

“Go ahead, you pale motherfucker,” Greene hissed at him.

“Fuck you, nigger.”

“Ooooooeeeee!” exclaimed Luther Cobb, with a grin on his face. Luther was bending over and grabbing at his shorts, exhausted; if there was going to be a fight, it seemed as if he would use it as an opportunity to get a breather.

The refs stepped in quickly to separate Sonny from his stocky tormentor. On their feet, the 11,000 spectators were deafening, yet the referee's words were somehow audible: “Both of you come with me.”

This referee stepped between them while the other two kept the rest of the players apart. Two Virginia players restrained Greene, while Hooker, with a firm grip on Sonny's arm, followed along to the scorer's table, where both head coaches were waiting.

“I want these two on the bench for a while to cool off,” the ref informed them. But it was hard to hear him above the din.

“That's five on Greene anyway,” someone from the scorer's table shouted. “He's out of the game.”

Taking him by the other arm, Coach Workman helped Hooker lead Sonny toward the bench. “Just be cool, man.”

“Is that fuck out of the game?”

“Just be cool.”

Sonny felt the shakes. The trainer stuffed a gauze cylinder up his left nostril to stop the bleeding. “Leave me in. If Greene's gone, just leave me in.”

“I can't leave you in with this blood, you know that.”

He pushed the trainer away. “Just leave me in.”

“Just be cool, Sonny,” Workman told him.

The ref wouldn't hear it anyway. Coach Gentry told Sonny, “Just have a seat and cool off. I haven't got a choice here.”

By the time Gentry finished his statement, it didn't matter anymore; Sonny's shakes turned to weightlessness again. He was floating, his feet weren't making contact with the floor. He was cut loose, out of himself, precarious. He got to the bench somehow and sat down while the game resumed.

He felt his skin burning. The team manager draped a fluffy towel across his shoulders and gave him a cup of water. He was still floating and shaky, though. Sonny swallowed all the water in two gulps, then blew some bloody snot into the empty cup. Some of the Vaseline was smeared into the corner of his right eye; it filmed his vision.

Sonny didn't re-enter the game. The final score was 83–68. Georgetown was still number one in the nation, but the Saluki hold on number two was solid as a rock.

After the game he had recovered enough to do a post-game interview with Jack Sikma, who did the color for CBS. Sikma asked him if he liked playing low post in a game this physical.

“Not hardly, but it's what Coach wanted.” At least his nose wasn't bleeding anymore.

Sikma said, “By consensus, you're the number one freshman player in the nation. How does that make you feel, Sonny Youngblood?”

“It's fine, I guess,” answered Sonny, feeling bored. “I just have to play. We have to keep winnin'.”

“You made twenty-eight free throws today. Did you know you set a school record?”

“What else could I do? They were poundin' ass on me in there.”

After they went to commercial, Jack Sikma told him, “You can't say
pounding ass
on the air. But nice game, man. We'll be seeing you down the road, I'm sure.”

Sonny shook his hand, then jogged to the locker room. There was some reassurance: He was surefooted again.

“I never knew,” was what Sissy said. And then she added, “I never understood.” These were her words of introduction as she slid beneath the covers to lie beside him.

“You didn't understand what?” He was now wide-awake.
Had he heard the floorboards creak beneath her feet?

“The report you wrote on the Isis legend was the first thing.”

In the dark. “You read it?”

“Right away. Just as soon as I realized what it was. Oh Sonny, there's no written work required for independent credit.”

“I know that. I wanted to write it anyway, maybe even
because
it wasn't required. What did you think of it?”

No hesitation. “I thought it was deliciously childlike, like a junior high report taken from an encyclopedia.”

Sonny lifted his head to protest, but Sissy pushed it back down onto the pillow. On his arm, he felt her skin brushing.
Was she naked?

“Hold still,” she insisted. “It was so touchingly naive and literal I almost cried when I read it.”

He wondered why she was using words of admiration to describe a report she found so juvenile. “I just didn't think it could ever really happen,” he said. “A woman goes around the world collecting her husband's body parts, or her brother's, or whatever, and then putting them back together until he's healed. Are there people who actually believe that happened?”

“Probably. Regrettably.”

“Regrettably?”

“If they believe that resurrections literally happen, they can never understand them.”

“Why not?”

“Because they can't see through to the meaning that may be there. Do you understand?”

“Not hardly.” He also didn't understand why she was in his bed, although there seemed to be a remote corner of his deep-down self that
did
know. Not in a way that went into words, of course. By this time Sonny's eyes were accustomed to the dark so he could see, but her abundant hair concealed most of her face.

He tried to lift his head again, but with the same result. “Hold still,” she told him. “The report was only the first thing. I haven't told you the second yet.”

“You might as well, since I don't understand the first one.”

“You understand more than you know, Sonny Young-blood, which is the whole point. The second thing was your game—the one I came to watch.”

“What about it?” Even though the Virginia game was three days ago, the emotional drama of the second half was still vivid to him.

“It was the intensity,
Liebchen
. That's what I didn't understand.”

“You have to play hard. When you come out of high school you think you know how to play hard, but you really don't. I can always turn it up another notch; that's maybe more important than talent.”

“I'm sure that's how your coaches motivate you, but I'm talking about the expectations of thousands and thousands of people. The unspeakable pressure to succeed and never fail, and then to have your success or failure so public and so immediate.”

Sonny fumbled for words. “We do have good crowds.”

“Not to mention the millions of dollars hanging in the balance,” she said. She turned on her side. “The rest of us can't comprehend that kind of pressure. Even those of us who are given major responsibility, so-called, don't have to
perform
. We are expected to succeed, but it's all so conditional.” Sissy's voice was now scarcely more than a whisper. “We don't have to be
heroic
.”

“I don't like being called a hero,” Sonny answered right away.

“Unfortunately, you aren't given a choice. It's called the hero's burden.”

He could feel the warm flesh of her thigh. “Are you naked, Sissy?”

“No, I'm wearing my nightgown. Are you naked?”

“No.”

At this point, Sissy sat up to take a sidesaddle position on the edge of the bed. “I had to be at your game to truly understand the dimensions of the burden. To expect all of this from willing young men and then to pretend, somehow, that they can function as college students.”