The Squared Circle (8 page)

“Something like that. You were talking in your sleep. Are you havin' bad dreams?”

“Not exactly,” he laughed. “I was back in the ninth grade playing against Egyptian.”

“You played for Brother Rice, didn't you?” Workman asked him.

Sonny was surprised. He downed the pills and rubbed his eyes before he said, “You know about him?”

“Oh yeah. I never met him, but I sure
heard
about him. He's got a reputation, or at least he had one when he was still coaching.”

“He's in a nursing home now.”

“He was one corncob sonofabitch, from everything I ever heard.”

“Yeah,” said Sonny. “I guess maybe. I'm never sure. I never would have been a player without him, though.”

More turbulence made the aircraft drop again, but Workman just smiled. “So why don't you tell me about Rice?”

“That would be a long story.”

“Okay, come up with a short version.”

Sonny had to think for a moment. He knew Coach Workman was trying to calm him. “I always remember the Anna–Jonesboro game,” he said. “I was a starter by then, scoring lots of points, etcetera. My uncle Seth was already introducing me to businessmen and other people who were supposed to be important. The high school coaches were always at our games, even college coaches. Uncle Seth said they were primarily there to watch me, to see if I would be a starter in my sophomore year.”

“So what about the Anna–Jonesboro game?”

“It wasn't the game itself, we probably blew 'em out.” But the rest, Sonny remembered crystal clear. After the game, in the milling around near the scorers' bench, Barb told him what a great game he played, and so did Andrea. Uncle Seth introduced Sonny to an insurance man, but Sonny was watching from the corner of his eye where he saw Rice talking to McAllister, the head coach at the high school.

By the time he peeled off his jersey in the locker room, most of the other guys were already showering. That was when Rice walked in and said, “Youngblood, I need to talk to you for a minute; come into the office.”

“Right now?”

“Right now. Follow me.”

As soon as they were both inside the basketball office, Rice closed the door. Sonny sat on a folding chair whose cold metal shivered his warm flesh. Rice parked in the swivel chair and groaned it like everything; he lit up a Marlboro Light.

“Youngblood, we need to talk. I'm going to give you some advice, which you may or may not decide to take. Players don't usually choose to listen to advice, because they think they know it all.”

“I can listen to advice,” said Sonny. His voice broke a little; the shortness of breath was from the tension created by going one-on-one with Brother Rice.

“You're not tired, are you?”

“No,” said Sonny. “I'm not tired.”

“Good. Bad things happen to players who are tired. Mistakes, lapses in concentration. Even a player with very little talent can be in shape. You, of course, have lots of talent.”

Sonny flushed a little. It was very matter-of-fact the way the coach said it, like he was counting his change or talking about the weather, but it was a high compliment. Rice searched for the ashtray that was hiding somewhere on the desk beneath piles of folders, mail, circulars, and sports literature. Even the telephone was mostly buried under paper.

Rice took a deep drag before he exhaled upward toward the steampipe ceiling. He continued, “Right now, it's talent that's getting you by. At this level it's enough. At the next level, it won't be.”

Sonny wasn't sure where the coach was headed, but he did know one thing: when you talked to Rice, your job was to listen.

“You don't know yet what it means to play hard. You can coast and win because of your natural ability. I can't see you playing with the sophomores next year, and neither can McAllister. You'll be on the varsity. From freshman basketball to the high school varsity is a big jump. What's going to happen when you're challenged?”

The compliments were nice, but Sonny couldn't help feeling wounded. He thought of the countless hours he practiced on his own, any time of year, any place, any kind of weather. “You don't think I try hard?”

“I think you play as hard as you know how. The time will come when you'll need to know how to play harder. Youngblood, I've seen thousands of players and coached hundreds. There's lots of talented players out there, but the thing that separates them, what makes the great players, is mental toughness. These are the guys with the switch inside; there's always another notch on the switch, so they can always turn it up one more level. They have the inner voice that keeps telling them ‘I can play harder than this' each time down the floor.”

Smoke streamed from Rice's nostrils while he paused to crush out his cigarette. Sonny tried to think of this as something other than a put-down; he knew his coach wouldn't waste this kind of time and energy on an average player.

“You see what I'm saying, Youngblood?”

“Sort of, I guess.”

Rice tipped back in the straining chair. He locked his fat fingers on the enormous belly. “You ever watch
Nova
, Youngblood?”

“No, my mother does.”

“They're running a series on sharks. You should see the sharks in a feeding frenzy, turning the water red.” He was smiling his crooked smile. “Ferocious and single-minded, but somehow in control. Here's what I want to say to you: Some players
will not lose
. The tougher it gets, the more they turn up the switch. If you can learn something about mental toughness, you can be a great player.”

Rice closed his eyes.
A great player
? Sonny asked himself.
Is that what he said?
He studied Coach Rice, with the usual confusion. Could such a lard-ass as him ever really play the game? He was a sonofabitch but he was also a brilliant coach, the primary reason Sonny and his teammates whipsawed their way through every opponent. After the long silence Sonny asked, “Is it okay if I take my shower now, Coach?”

Rice opened his eyes and leaned forward in the chair. “Just one more thing. Let me see your hands.”

Puzzled, Sonny held out his hands. “Here, hold up your left one flat,” Rice instructed. When he did, Rice pressed his own large, fat hand against Sonny's palm, fingers spread. Sonny's fingers were longer.

The coach told him, “Your hands are big and strong, Youngblood; you must have a twelve-inch span here. One of these days, you're going to grow into them.”

Once their hands were separated, Rice continued, “I wouldn't be surprised if you grow to be six five or six six. If you do, you could play just about anywhere on the floor. Posting up, facing the basket, hell, your ball-handling is good enough you might even work as a big point guard.”

Then the coach took his usual long pause to get his breathing reestablished. “Now look at your hands again. There's
two
of them, not one. At this point, you're too right-handed. You need to do everything you can to develop the left. Practice with your right arm tied or in your belt. Hell, you can even put it in your pocket if you don't get distracted and start to play with yourself.”

Sonny laughed. He was still looking at his hands held out in front, with his fingers spread. Feeling foolish, he put them down.

“Left hand, Youngblood, think left. Left hand, left hand, left hand. The more ambidextrous you are, the more versatile you become.”

“Thanks a lot, Coach.” Sonny wasn't sure why he said it, but it seemed as appropriate as anything else.

Brother Rice looked him in the eye. “Maybe I underestimate you, Youngblood. Maybe you do know how to take advice. Now go get a shower; you're stinking up the place.”

Workman was laughing. “He must have been a piece of work.”

“I'd say so,” Sonny agreed. He noticed the roughness had gone out of the ride. “It looks like the turbulence is behind us,” he suggested to Workman.

“Looks like,” Workman agreed. “Maybe Brother Rice was one of those evil geniuses. You run across people like that from time to time, and you can find them in any field, not just sports.”

“Maybe. Whatever.” Sonny was very drowsy at this point. It must have been the pills kicking in. He fell sound asleep like a baby for the rest of the flight.

The bleary-eyed players deplaned at 2:30 A.M. Central Standard Time at the Carbondale Airport. Even at that hour, and in freezing rain, more than a thousand fans waited to greet them. Monday morning's
USA Today
would show that most polls now ranked the Salukis number four in the nation.

Sissy's house was in the high timber, about a mile above the artsy village of Makanda on the western edge of Giant City State Park. A narrow blacktop serpentined the incline to get there, but needed plenty of downshifting. Her property was at the road's end, where the blacktop turned to rutted gravel for a couple of hundred yards. The cluster of old pines and cedars provided major shade even in late November, with the oak and sycamore branches stripped clean.

Sonny asked her, “What do you do when there's snow and ice?”

“It can get very tricky,” Sissy admitted. “Sometimes this road is the last to be plowed, and that's when we're lucky. You didn't tell me you have a car.”

“Uncle Seth gave it to me.”

“Mmm. Before we get any equipment loaded, I wonder if you could help me move some studio materials?”

Sonny shrugged. “Sure.”

Her property was a farm once upon a time, but looking at the steep, wooded terrain, Sonny couldn't see where there was much suitable space for growing crops. The house was a tired-looking two story with faded yellow paint. The barn, which looked solid enough, was closer to the house than the dilapidated tractor shed. Outside the shed was an old, gray Ford tractor, and behind it, an uneven pile of barn siding that must have come from a torn-down building. There were only three of them, the bags of clay that Sissy wanted him to carry from the Bronco to the barn, but they were the 80 pounders. It took Sonny three trips.

Most of the lower barn, which she used for a studio, had evidence of recent remodeling. “But there's a lot more that needs to be done,” she told him, “to make it an adequate studio. It needs a skylight for one thing—how about it, Carpenter?”

Sonny laughed. “I think that would be a little over my head.” There were three large worktables that looked like shop benches, galvanized garbage cans with tight lids, a roomy sink area, and an assortment of sculptor's tools, which Sonny knew nothing about. The heat came from a Franklin wood stove. She asked him if he would store the clay in the floor-level cabinets.

“I do appreciate this, Cousin. Since it's not in the syllabus, we'll call it extra credit.”

Remembering about her surgery, he said, “You're probably not supposed to do any heavy lifting.”

For the most part, this was going to be an equipment run. With a load of tools familiar and unfamiliar, Sonny drove the Bronco down toward Makanda slowly while Sissy made notes on a clipboard.

The village was so tiny, a church on a slope and a small stretch of quaint storefronts, that you could take it all in at a glance even without a high-ground advantage. An abandoned, ramshackle building with peace-sign graffiti spray painted on its weathered siding slouched next to the defunct railroad tracks. And on the right, where Sonny pulled the Bronco to a pause, a basketball court: incongruous and central, a young slab of concrete, maybe 20 by 20. An erect basketball goal with fan-shaped metal backboard and orange rim in good condition.

“Why are we stopping?” Sissy looked up from her notes.

“Why is this here?”

“I have no idea.”

“But who plays here? It looks like nobody even
lives
here.”

“There are a few people who live here, although no basketball players that I know of. Maybe it's a shrine,” she said sarcastically. “Maybe the gospel according to Little Egypt dictates that even Makanda must have its own fieldhouse.”

“Very funny.” The storefront where they got out sold wood carvings by local artisans. In the back was a huge shop with modern power tools for woodworking. A black man with no legs was sitting in a swivel chair and sweeping sawdust from beneath a band saw. Sissy was starting the introductions when the man said, “Shit. You're Sonny Youngblood.”

Sissy said, “Oh Lord.” On her face she wore the pained expression that begs for patience. “Sonny, this is Willie Joe.”

Willie Joe's rolled-up overalls covered his stumps, above or below the knees, Sonny couldn't tell. “Sonny Youngblood, give me five. Man, did you kick some ass in the NIT!” Sonny gave him five.

“Willie Joe,” demanded Sissy, “if I showed you a picture of Paul Klee, would you recognize him as quickly?”

“Depends who he played for, Baby! Ha!”

Sonny laughed.

“Drumroll, Baby!”

Sissy simply shook her head before she said, “It must be a sickness I'll never comprehend. The way boys will be boys.”

“You need to be careful of this one, Sonny; she's a man-eater.”

“She's my cousin,” said Sonny.

“Oh, sorry.” Willie was using a wire coat hanger to scratch his left stump.

“It's okay, the two of us are more or less just getting acquainted anyway.”

Sissy asked Sonny, “Don't you find it peculiar the way he apologizes to you but not to me?”

Willie Joe began asking questions about Luther Cobb and the Arkansas game, but Sissy said, “We need to get started, Willie Joe. Where are the crates?”

The packing crates, some of them as large as pallets, were stacked behind the building. As soon as Sonny loaded three into the Bronco, there wasn't any more room. Sissy said, “It's kind of Willie Joe to let me use his work space, but it's also inconvenient. I'll be a much happier camper when my own studio is finished.”