The Squared Circle (3 page)

Lee lifted a corner of the washrag to speak. “I couldn't be better. I just hope we all get to do it again tomorrow night.”

“I'm really sorry, what they did to you. You gonna be okay?”

“Shit. If we scrimmage again tomorrow, I'll be right in your face again.”

Sonny laughed. It was amazing, the way you couldn't get him down. Couldn't
keep
him down, anyway.

Robert Lee lifted the corner again. “I suppose you're going to shoot now.”

“Most likely,” Sonny answered.

“You'll be going over to Davies to see if it's unlocked. One workout a day ain't enough for you.”

“Most likely.” Then Sonny had a thought. “You want to come with me?”

This time Robert Lee lifted the whole rag. “Are you out of your freakin' mind? You saw what they did to me.”

“Yeah, right. Sorry.”

Just after Robert Lee got the washrag back in place, Harris came into the room, walking slowly. He was trying to relight what was left of the short cigar. Without looking at Sonny, he tilted back in a wooden chair against the bolster next to Robert Lee's head. Harris made Sonny nervous; everything he did seemed arrogant.

“How we doin',
amigo?
”

Robert Lee answered without lifting a corner. “Who, me? Hell, I'm just great, how about you?”

Harris was Robert Lee's pledge father. He chuckled as he blew his smoke in twin nostril streams. “Any gastrointestinal distress?”

Robert Lee cut loose with a whopper of a belch. “You mean something like that?”

Harris laughed out loud and pretty soon Robert Lee joined him, until the two of them were hysterical like little kids. Robert Lee took the washrag away and rolled on his side. Sonny didn't laugh at all; if there was something funny, it eluded him.
They fucked him over like they did and now it's funny
.

Harris tipped forward in the chair so all four legs were back on the floor. He handed Robert Lee the cigar so he could have a drag. “My son, you make me proud.”

“I'm sure.”

“The olive gambit was the best I've seen. That was big-time hair.”

Robert Lee took a second drag, then passed back the smoke. He exhaled just before belching again. “Next time, don't be so proud, okay? My ass is still burning.”

“That's the beauty of it,” chuckled Harris. “Big-time hair, Robert Lee.”

Sonny didn't get any of this. He stood up to leave.

Harris turned to look at him for the first time, the smile still on his face but all the humor gone out of his eyes. As if he could read Sonny's thoughts he said in a flat voice, “You don't get any of this, do you, Young-blood?”

Sonny's voice was tense, but his answer honest: “No, I don't.”

“No you don't what?”

“No, I don't, sir.”

“What
do
you get, Youngblood? Other than a double team or a pick-and-roll, just what the hell do you get?”

Sonny hated the contempt. He knew he had to leave, he was on the verge of telling Harris to go fuck himself. Instead he said, “I have to go now.”

“You have to go what?”

“I have to go, sir.” He headed out the door without looking back. Over his shoulder he said, “See you, Robert Lee.”

He headed for the quad by way of Thompson Woods. It was a still and warm October night. In the mist, the pole lamps looked like London streetlights in old Jack the Ripper movies. The soggy fallen leaves beneath his feet crowned the blacktop with a slick layer of thatch.

He tried to stop thinking about the lineup. Burkhart didn't come down at all. Was there something meaningful that a pledge father was for? Something that he was supposed to do? Whatever it was that bonded Harris and Robert Lee was beyond Sonny's understanding.
You don't get any of this, do you, Youngblood?

He knew he would get what he needed at Davies, where he found a side door unlocked. The old gym was obsolete since the opening of the new arena, but you could never obsolete a ten-foot rim affixed to a rectangle. He shot layups and jump shots for nearly an hour, stripping eventually naked to the waist. Left-handed, right-handed, left-handed, right-handed, the old, ragged nets plopped on short shots and snapped on long ones. Sonny cozied into this warm and private freedom like a bird in its nest. Custodial workers came and went without taking notice of him; they were used to this.

It was nearly midnight by the time he sat beneath the basket where he began pulling on his shirt. Sonny felt in no hurry to leave. He spun the pebbled texture of the ball across his fingers where it soothed like the touch of a lover. The fraternity was mostly for the purpose of satisfying his uncle Seth anyway; he said out loud, as if speaking directly to Harris, “You don't get any of this, do you?”

2

There was a coffee shop in the east wing of the clinic, and it was there that he ran into his cousin Erika, an SIU art professor. When she asked him to join her he agreed, but not with much enthusiasm; even though she was family, and he knew her well enough to call her by her nickname, Sissy, there were years and space between them.

While Sonny was easing his long limbs under the small table, she said, “I forgot how tall you are. You look as if you could drop the ball right in the basket without jumping up.”

“No, I have to jump for that.” It must have been a funny remark somehow, because Sissy laughed. Sonny assumed the conversation wouldn't be about basketball, but Sissy said, “I keep reading all about you in the papers.”

“I always heard you weren't into sports,” said Sonny.

“I'm not enthused about the excesses of major college athletics,” she replied, “but how could I be indifferent to the heroics of Sonny Youngblood?”

“Let's don't say ‘heroics.'”

“Are we modest, Cousin? When I was in the hospital, I read the column in the
Post-Dispatch
, which characterized you as the white Michael Jordan.”

Sonny felt a little foolish. He looked down, with no reply.

“Sorry I embarrassed you,” Sissy said. Then she asked him why he was at the clinic.

“I'm here for drug testing. I'm waiting for the results to be signed by the lab.”

“Drug testing?”

“It's just routine. I never touched a drug in my life. But if you're on a varsity team, you have to have a specimen analyzed every week. When you get the results, you have to take them back to the athletic director's office.”

“But why are you being tested now, Sonny? Isn't this the football season?”

She sure does ask lots of questions
, he thought. “It doesn't matter if your sport's in season or not,” he answered. “You still have to be tested on a regular schedule.”

“How comforting to know that the integrity of our games is monitored with such vigilance.”

“I guess,” said Sonny. He decided to ask her a question. “So why are you here?”

“I'm having some blood work done. I had surgery last month.”

“Are you okay?”

“I'm doing well, thank you. I have to take it easy for a while, and my teaching load is reduced to half-time this semester.”

Sonny had only a few memories where Sissy was concerned, but she seemed thinner. She had a cotton ball taped to her arm over a bruised vein.

“How is your mother?” Sissy asked.

His mother's condition was never a comfortable subject. “I haven't seen her this month. She's the same.”

“I saw her last month. I paid her a visit just before I had the surgery.”

“You did?” Sonny was surprised. As far as he knew, his mother never had visitors other than himself and Aunt Jane. Once in a blue moon, Uncle Seth. “Did she know you?”

Sissy shrugged, and then she smiled. It was a nice smile. “Yes and no. She didn't speak, but I brushed her hair and braided it. Her hair is so long and fine. She seemed to enjoy the procedure, so I choose to think that some part of her knew who I was.”

Sonny noticed the gray streaking Sissy's own hair, which was thick and black. Some of her fingernails were long, but some were broken. At the cuticles there were traces of residue like steel-blue paint. He decided his professor cousin was too sophisticated; it seemed like pressure trying to keep up his end of the conversation. When she asked him what classes he was taking, it only felt like filler.

“Composition, Nutrition, P.E., Earth Science. And Introduction to Anthropology.”

“Is everything going well? I know people who play sports have large demands on their time.”

“Yeah, everything's fine.” He could have added
except Composition and Anthropology
, but he didn't. His Coke was finished and he felt certain that the test results would be finished by now, so he stood up. “I better be goin'.”

Sissy was smiling at him. “Have a nice day,” she said. Her teeth were nice and straight. He wondered if she was teasing him somehow, but he didn't know her well enough to tell.

The car itself wasn't much to look at—an '88 pale yellow Toyota with significant body rust—but Uncle Seth assured him it was a good runner. If it would run, Sonny was happy to have it.

Uncle Seth always seemed to have lots of free time, but plenty of money. He had quite a few irons in the fire. One of the irons was used cars. He owned at least one used-car dealership that Sonny knew of, besides which he'd always been ready to buy and sell from his own backyard. It seemed like there were always half a dozen beaters of various descriptions parked between the house and the barn. They came and went like weather fronts.

Sonny sat at the breakfast table in the huge kitchen, Seth on his left and Aunt Jane making perfect fried eggs with no burnt edges, and Bob Evans sausage patties, thinly sliced. While Sonny wolfed down breakfast, Seth read the newspaper by concentrating on the business section and the classifieds. He lit up one cigarette after another. Every once in a while, he made a note on a napkin about cars or real estate or public auctions. He needed a shave. He wore a sleeveless undershirt with coffee stains; his big belly hung over the top of his khaki trousers.

Through the kitchen window, Sonny could see the Toyota sitting near the back of the large gravel parking lot. Right next to a Buick station wagon with a sprung door on the passenger side. Beyond, through the gray mist, he could see the rest of Uncle Seth's property, from the tenant farmer's drafty-looking house on top of the hill, to the acres of timber with the marshes in back. Sonny knew he would have to leave soon or else he'd be late for the press conference, but he didn't want it to look like he was just grabbing the car and running.

He thanked Uncle Seth for the car.

“Don't give it a second thought,” his uncle replied. “How you s'posed to get around the campus without a car?”

Sonny tried to think of the vehicle as a necessity. While he was making the effort, Uncle Seth added, “I should've got you one sooner. You been in school more 'n two months and no wheels. I should've got you one sooner.”

Uncle Seth had bad teeth and bad breath. He was a slob, there was no getting around it, although Sonny felt guilty thinking that way because it was Seth who'd helped Sonny and his mother back on their feet again when his dad took off. Let them move in for awhile, found them the apartment, even got his mother a job at the phone company.

Aunt Jane turned away from the skillet to make her contribution: “Besides, if you have your own car, maybe you'll come to visit more often.”

“Maybe so,” said Sonny.

“We're goin' to the press conference,” said Uncle Seth. “Think we'd miss that? I better get myself cleaned up.”

Sonny drove fast on the way back to Carbondale to give his car a test run, but any speed over 75 and it started to shimmy and shake. It didn't matter; it seemed to be a good runner, just like Seth claimed.

For the press conference, the players were required to wear their maroon and white warm-ups, the new ones with the angular, bionic saluki dog extended across the zippered chest. By the time Sonny slipped his on and got to the arena, he was late, but just barely. Uncle Seth and the cronies had already arrived.

It seemed like Minicams were perched on a hundred shoulders. Student assistants and S.I.D. staff kept trekking back and forth from Lingle, the office complex, bringing the coffee and donuts, publicity material, and stacks of printed handouts. It was the biggest media event for SIU basketball that anyone could remember. So big in fact that none of the conference rooms was spacious enough to accommodate the throng of reporters and photographers. Everything would be held in the arena, including the press conference. The entire event was open to the general public, who filled nearly half of the lower-level seats on both sides.

For the interviewing, a long table was set up beneath the north goal. There were eight microphones spaced along it. Facing the table, the semicircular rows of folding chairs for reporters reached almost to the center line. In addition to the media people who traditionally covered SIU athletics, there were scores of reporters who represented a wider publicity range. Even the
Tribune, Sports Illustrated
, and ESPN were there.

Before the formal stuff started, Sonny made a try at small talk with Uncle Seth and his friends. Seth wanted to introduce him to Hufnagel.

“We've met before,” said Hufnagel to Uncle Seth. He told Sonny, “I saw you in the Mount Vernon game when you were a junior. You scored forty-seven points. I think you made nine threes in a row.”

“Right,” said Sonny, shaking Hufnagel's hand. He tried to remember exactly who Hufnagel was, or what it was that he did, but Uncle Seth had introduced him to so many guys, all the way back to ninth grade. Sonny was pretty sure about one thing, though: He'd never made nine treys in a row, at least not in a game.

“Look at this,” said Uncle Seth, waving his hand at the congregation of media visitors. “This is recognition. This is respect.”