The Squared Circle (20 page)

“Fresco panels,” said Uncle Seth. “Great.”

When Sonny got the car started, he looked up to see Uncle Seth stumbling toward the passenger door, in the rain.
Now what?
He put the window down. Seth said, “I forgot to tell you something. Brother Rice died last night.”

“Rice is dead?”

“He died in the nursing home.”

Sonny was surprised, but he felt neutral about the information. For several moments he didn't speak. Seth just stood in the rain, breathing hard, but with no other apparent discomfort. He finally said, “End of a legend, huh, Sonny?”

“End of a douche bag would be more like it.”

“How could you say a thing like that?”

“If I can't, who can?”

Seth was shaking his dripping head. “I just don't see how you could say that.”

“You should go inside now, Uncle Seth. You're getting soaked.”

Sonny spun gravel on his fishtail path out of the driveway. He got the car up to speed and turned the wipers on medium. If Rice was dead, he asked himself, why should it be a surprise? Carrying around that extra 150 pounds, smoking his three packs a day, sitting around on his fat ass instead of getting any exercise. Why would his death ever be unexpected? The only surprise would have to be that his death didn't come years earlier.

Maybe Uncle Seth was right: Maybe Rice was a legend. People die, but legends don't.
Was that it?
Maybe he and Seth were both right: Brother Rice was a legend
and
a douche bag.

Whatever, this new information was a distraction. Sonny meant to concentrate on the road, but he kept seeing the interior of the old gym. The day Brother lost it in practice.
Was that a good day or a bad day?

He listened to the wipers whining his windshield. He watched the broken white line at the center of the wet pavement. He didn't see them though. He saw only that afternoon in practice, four years earlier. The fat man on the bleachers who was pissed because they were screwing up the fast break.

“Goddamnit! When I say fill the lanes, I mean fill the lanes! You stand around with your thumb up your ass, how d'you expect to get it done? Do it again, and this time, move!” Thursday practices were always the worst because they usually came just before game day. Rice was working them on the fast break following a missed free throw. Butch Cross was the shooter.

Hands on hips, Sonny took the third spot along the lane; Mickey Stanley and Dick Lynch had the lane positions under the basket.

Butch made six free throws in a row, but Rice seemed patient. “It's okay,” he said to Butch. “Just keep shooting. Don't miss on purpose.”

The next time he missed, Mickey Stanley grabbed the rebound. He turned to make the outlet pass, but only after a moment's hesitation did the players start to break for the other end of the court.

Brother Rice blew his whistle with a special fury. “
Goddamn
! How many times do you people have to be told?!” He walked heavily over to the free throw line. He took off his glasses, then used his shapeless handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his eyebrows and the bridge of his nose.

“Listen to me and get this straight. When we have to practice the same things repeatedly, we waste time. Wasting time means we're inefficient, and inefficiency makes losers. Am I making myself clear to you?” He paused, for breathing and for sinking in. He put the glasses back on.

At the top of the circle, and outside Rice's range of vision, Julio arched his back to stick out his scrawny belly as far as he could. As soon as Sonny saw the mockery, he felt a frightening impulse to start giggling. He turned his head away so he could stare at the bleachers and bite down on the insides of his mouth.

“If you people can't learn this by five o'clock, then we'll stay till six. If you can't learn it by six, then we'll practice till seven. Whatever it takes. Do it again and this time fill the lanes. You see where Julio is? By the time the ball is rebounded, you should have the lanes filled this far out. Now goddamnit, get it right or I'm going to start kicking some ass!”

Sonny watched him walk to the side of the court where two players not involved in the drill were standing.

Butch Cross missed the next free throw, and Lynch grabbed the rebound. This time, the other players bolted instantly. Lynch snapped the outlet pass to Julio on the left wing; he took two quick dribbles and fired a long pass to Sonny, who was in the middle. The pass had perfect lead time. When Sonny gathered the ball in, he was closing on the free throw line at the other end.

Rice blew the whistle. “Fair. C-minus. Do it again.”

They did it again, and again, and again. It was obvious to Sonny by this time that Butch was missing free throws on purpose, but if the coach noticed, he didn't seem to care.

Then another break that was too slow to develop. Rice blew the whistle in rage, but Julio dribbled on anyway, with weary body language, to the other end. He shoveled a feeble layup off the glass. Coach blew the whistle again. “Goddamnit,
Chico
, give me the ball!”

In his flushed face, Julio's frustration was evident. When he threw Rice the ball, he threw it too hard, from too close. The ball smacked onto the fat man's belly before he could react with his hands. He went red in the face and doubled over, fighting for breath.

It was 30 seconds, but it felt like 30 days to Sonny, watching the disabled coach sink to his knees. All the players stood so motionless and silent it was as if mannequins had replaced them. Sonny felt his own pulse pounding in his head. He couldn't imagine what the consequences would be for Julio.

When Rice finally recovered, he was flushed and sweating. Slowly, he pulled his huge carcass erect. His eyes like two pinpoints of metallic light, he approached Julio deliberately, without a word. The closer he got, the more Sonny sucked in his breath, certain he wasn't the only one. When Rice stood in front of him, Julio, five feet six inches and 120 pounds, stood like a condemned criminal with head hanging and hands on hips.

There was one more moment of terrible silence before the coach drew back his right arm and delivered a powerful slap upside the head, right on the top of Julio's left ear.
Crack!

Julio fell to the floor like a doll. When he landed, he thumped. He stood up slowly with his eyes brimming and the left side of his face bright red.

In a ringing voice, Rice made an announcement: “I should be kicking this little spic sonofabitch off the team, but instead, I'm going to do him a favor. I'm going to teach him a lesson he'll never forget.”

Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he hit Julio again, in the same spot, maybe even harder. Again, he was knocked off his feet.

“Get up,
Chico
!” commanded the coach. “Get on your feet.”

When he stood up the second time, Rice didn't hit him, but instead gave him an order: “Take off your shoes and socks.”

The wiry point guard stood with slumped shoulders and a look of bewilderment. He had the guts to meet Rice's eyes, even while wiping tears with the back of his hand, even with the rose-colored swelling that was already smoothing out the left side of his face.

“You heard me. I said take off the shoes and socks.”

Standing and watching, Sonny felt his stomach tighten by the moment. Moving slowly, as if in a trance, Julio removed the shoes and socks. He stood barefoot in the center circle.

Coach Rice turned to speak to the other players. “We're going to have a scrimmage. Full scrimmage, red against gold! During the scrimmage, you're going to step on his feet. You hear me? Step on his feet!”

Sonny heard, but he didn't understand. Whatever it meant, since he was wearing a gold jersey, the same as Julio, it probably didn't apply to him.

But as if he could read minds, Rice declared, “I don't care if you're on his team or not! Step on his feet! Every chance you get, step on his feet! You're not hurting him, you're doing him a favor! He's not worth a shit now, and he never will be without humility!” With no further guidelines, the furious coach blew his whistle and ordered them to start the scrimmage.

Sonny's dilemma was no less than anyone else's. It was an acute one, to somehow participate in the scrimmage while looking for opportunities to stomp on the unfortunate teammate's bare feet.

“Step on his feet!” screamed the coach.

Julio moved aimlessly about the court, his left eye purpling into a slit, the right one liquid with tears. Some players made a halfhearted attempt to step on his feet, but faked it like pro wrestlers, anything to avoid the coach's wrath. Sonny decided if he ran the fast break like they practiced, it would keep him away from Julio, but at the same time send Coach Rice a signal of his dedication.

“I told you to step on his feet!” the frantic coach screamed again.

The one thing you couldn't do, though, was disobey Brother Rice. Sonny wasn't sure when his confusion turned to rage, or how, or why. He only knew that inside he felt like a simmering volcano. Each time down the floor he was more desperate to target his anger and frustration.
This is the switch
, he thought to himself, in an unexpected and incongruous moment of reflection.
This is turning it up a notch and maybe even more. This is the switch
.

“Goddamnit, step on his feet!”

It was Dick Lynch who stole the ball and headed for the other basket. Gliding on the dribble, he might try one of his semidunks, or he might just lay it in soft, but there would be no reason to expect any interference. Sonny felt electrified; he bolted down the lane with the quickest acceleration he'd ever known. His attempt to block the shot would be too late, but it would be extra effort, and it would let off steam. He left his feet from ten feet out.

The ball traveled gently from Lynch's fingertips to kiss the glass eight inches above the rim. Sonny flew from behind like a blur, barely brushing the back of Lynch's head. With his left hand, he spanked the ball savagely against the glass. It ricocheted all the way to the free throw line. Sonny's left-handed blow left the backboard vibrating.

“Jesus Christ!” said One Gram.

The stunned Dick Lynch yelled, “Goal tending! Coach, that's goal tending, you saw it!”

Brother Rice only threw back his head and laughed savagely. “Way to go, Youngblood!”

Most of the players were standing around in the aftermath, trying to absorb what they'd seen, but it was more humiliation than Lynch could endure. He turned to Sonny, “You dumb fuck, you ever do that to me again, I'll beat the shit out of you.”

Sonny felt out of control. He just laughed and said, “Piss off.”

“Are you crazy? You say that to
me
?”

They were faced off, but Rice's whistle re-established his agenda. “I told you girls to scrimmage full-out. Now get moving.” He blew the whistle to restart the scrimmage, but the stress of it was reduced now that Julio was no longer the exclusive focus. He was still barefoot, but there were no further orders from the coach to step on his feet.

When the practice was finally over, Rice sat them down on the first row of bleachers. “You have just had a demonstration of what happens to a player on this team if he is insubordinate. The only way to win is with total discipline, and total discipline is what we will have. Is that perfectly clear?”

No one spoke.

“Maybe you didn't hear me. I said, is that perfectly clear?”

“Yes,” the players mumbled.

Then Rice laughed, but it was still the savage laugh, the one without humor. “I presume,” he said, “that our little
Chico
will want to wear his shoes and socks the next time we practice.”

It was supposed to be funny but no one laughed.

“We're going to take all twelve of you to Dongola tomorrow. The bus will leave at five-thirty sharp. I expect a big lead at halftime because I want to get some more playing time for the reserves. Are there any questions?”

When no questions were forthcoming, Rice dismissed them.

It was a very subdued locker room. Butch Cross spoke softly, but in the quiet moment his voice was clearly audible: “I'm quittin'.”

“You're quittin', Butch? Come on.”

“Buc-buc,” said Lynch.

“Kiss off.”

Could you just quit?
It was a shocking idea to Sonny, who was slowly peeling off. Did Butch really mean it? Could you just quit and that would be that? Why not, though, maybe it was that simple.

“Come on, Butch, you can't quit,” said Mickey Stanley.

Butch looked up at him. “Who's going to stop me? Not even Brother Rice can force you to stay on the team. It's my decision, right?”

Sonny wondered again if he really meant it, then turned to look at Julio, sitting in his jockstrap. Head bowed down, elbows resting on the thin but sinewy legs. Even with his face lowered, the swelling around his left eye was still visible.

Sonny asked him quietly, “You're not quittin', are you Julio?”

Julio answered without looking up. “Are you kidding? The fucker's not scaring me off the team.”

Uneasy, Sonny pulled his car off the road. He left the engine running and the wipers wiping.
Are you kiddin? The fucker's not scaring me off the team
.

If he was going to sit in his car and think, he decided he should turn his hazard lights on
Was that what Brother wanted all along? Was that what made him a genius?

It was a curiosity to him how his flashbacks assumed a pattern. They weren't random phenomena, they had focus. Rice might be dead, but this latest memory conformed to the pattern. Almost exclusively, it seemed, the events of his past that came a-calling were ribbed into a spine of events that occurred during March of his ninth-grade year.

That meant Brother Rice and Barb, basketball, and his mother's slow but sure slide into final madness. The vividness of this cluster of memories convinced Sonny they must be important.
Was Sissy like Barb?
He had to wonder if his current malaise of floats and shakes and disorientation was somehow the flip side of wiring it up over and over, turning the switch ever one notch higher and then higher still? But if he felt disposed to look for parallels, where would he find one between Brother Rice and Coach Gentry?