The Crazy Horse Electric Game (15 page)

With an audible sigh, almost a moan, Lacey pulls himself to his hands and knees. “He jus' there hauntin' me. He there an' I can't see him; they won't let me go close. But that bitch Coreen, she call me leas' once a day; tell me how I murder him. All she want be money. Long time I pay; but I never get to see him. Never get to make it right. She jus' call an' haunt me; tell me he a vegetable an' me a killer.”

“And…you took me in to take his place.”

Lacey's quiet a second, then says, “Yeah, you a cripple kid. I get this idea to get me out of Hell. Raise me a white cripple kid. Can't fix all the bad shit, but maybe I make up
some
.”

“Let's…go back home,” Willie says.

Lacey stands, the effects of the alcohol washed out of his body by a dynamite blast of anguish.

 

Willie's perched on the edge of the concrete wall bordering the patio next to the school, surrounded by schoolmates and feeling somewhat lost. He doesn't know what to say; how to get in. The day is warm, even hot for March; the bay fog burned off early. Most of the boys have removed their shirts; some are just coming from a lunchtime game on the court, and Willie looks around in envy. He's not even sure he knows what he looks like anymore, it's been so long since he's been willing to look. He used to like his body; be proud of his hard, natural, well-muscled build. But now he's lopsided; his left arm and leg are noticeably smaller, and he's very self-conscious about letting anyone see him. He catches a glimpse of Angel sitting on the grass talking to some other girls, and his envy of these guys intensifies. He wants to take off his shirt and show off some of his old moves on the court. He looks behind him to see Warren Hawkins lighting up a joint. Immediately Willie feels self-conscious; like he's in for trouble. Warren is big time at OMLC; everybody's hero. He's a tall, fast, strong black kid; real smart—though that isn't borne out on his report card—with the build of a
racehorse and these lightning-quick eyes that miss nothing. Everyone knows he's a fighter and everyone knows his temper is like quicksilver. He's easygoing most of the time, with a good sense of humor; really appealing; a natural leader. It's a bad idea to get on Warren's bad side.

Warren takes the joint and passes it on, and Willie fidgets a little. “You be watchin' right around that corner there,” Warren says to Willie. “That be where André my man comin' from if he comin'. You give me a signal, I be havin' this roach for lunch.”

Willie nods uneasily, knowing he'd be off the face of the earth if he refused, but feeling an allegiance to André. He hopes the joint will be smoked before it gets to him, but it isn't and he nonchalantly passes it on. Warren glances up. “You passin' up some good shit,” he says and there's an undertone of suspicion.

Willie smiles and says, “Yeah. Can't…do any dope since I…got hurt.”

Warren nods. “You ain't no narc.” It's a question.

Willie shakes his head. “Nope. Just can't do dope.”

“Narc last this long,” Warren says, snapping his fingers. “One second he awake, then he asleep.”

“I'm…not a narc,” Willie says again, calmly, his heart thundering in his throat.

“Awake. Asleep,” Warren says again, snapping his fingers.

A short, stocky black kid who hangs with Warren all the time—Willie knows him only as Kato—lights up another joint and hands it to Warren. “Come on, man, he ain't no narc. You jus' smokin' too much this good weed, make you crazy with par-a-noia. Tha's a brain disease you get when you become a drug addict like you is, Hawk.”

“Shee. I ain't no addict.
You
the addict. You ain't been down since Jimmy Carter runnin' things.”

“Who Jimmy Carter?”

“So, Willie Weaver,” Hawk says. “André the Terrible say you about ready to shoot some hoops with the big boys, that right?”

Willie shrugs. “Sometime,” he says. “Been working at getting it back.”

“André say you pretty hot shit where you come from, up there in Montana.”

“Where men be men,” Kato says, “an' sheep be
nervous
.”

“Whooo. Tha's a good one,” Hawk laughs. “Tha's
cold
, Kato. Make fun of a man's
home
land.”

Willie laughs. He hasn't heard that one.

“Anyway,” Hawk says. “You come on out when you ready. Old Hawk show you some
moves
.”

“I've…been watching,” Willie says. “You've already shown me some moves.”

“Shee,” Kato says. “Easy to have moves when you six-five an' built swift. Come out an' see some of
my
moves. Show you some rollin', bowlin' moves Hawk only dream of.” He turns to Hawk. “I done what I said. Checked my wheels out against BART.”

Hawk looks puzzled. “What you talkin' 'bout?”

“Tryin' to see what's the fastest way to school. Rode my bike one day, took BART the next. Bike one day, BART the next. Get
down
, Ka-to.
Alternate
. Did that for a week.”

Everyone looks at Kato like So The Hell What?

“Know what I fin' out?”

“What you fin' out, Kato?”

“Take me less time to ride my bike. Every day. Really. Fin' out BART be worse than my bike.” Kato convulses into a high laughter, as Willie's head snaps up. “Get it?” Kato chokes. “BART be worse than my bike. Like a dog.”

Hawk slips Kato into a headlock and makes him promise “no more them jive-ass things. Pigs come get you for that,” he says.

Willie relaxes and laughs. Awful as it seems, this may be the connection between his worlds.

For a time following the night outside Lacey's battered son's room, things seem to quiet down a bit for Willie. He becomes more a part of the group that hangs around Hawk and Kato, though he doesn't find
real
closeness, and concentrates hard in school and harder at regaining his physical self.

Lisa is great. “Tell Lacey we need a hundred and forty dollars for a special class that isn't covered by your scholarship,” she says as they finish their workout on the court, ripping the Velcro fastener off her small wrist weight and flipping it into the backseat of her car. They've worked eight weeks, and she's removed a lot of the extra weights to match Willie's improvement; only these small ones remain.

“A hundred and forty dollars,” Willie says. “For what?”

Lisa smiles. “I won't tell you, then you won't have to tell him. Tell him it's a hell of a deal, though. Normal cost would be about two hundred and fifty dollars. Tell him all the kids taking the class have to pay extra.
Don't
tell him you're the only one taking it.” She walks around to the driver's side, opens the door, leans her elbows easily on the roof. “And get ready to clear out some early-morning time, say around six. It's time for Phase Two.”

Willie doesn't question her; he's come to trust her completely, knowing she keeps her little secrets and surprises to spring on him so he won't have time to figure out reasons and excuses.

He stays on the court after she drives away, working on a move to his left that requires only one dribble with his left hand and a long step; designed to keep honest any defenders cheating to his right because he is so obviously right-sided. He dribbles several times with his right hand, visualizing a defender in his path to the basket, cross-dribbles to his left, taking a long step around, then back to his right hand, moving in under the hoop, protecting the ball with his body, flipping it up for a reverse layup. He attempts the move ten times, scores eight.

“Not bad for a man be earthbound.”

Willie turns to see Hawk and Kato and a guy he doesn't know walking through the gate toward the court, and waves. The edge is off his relationship with Hawk—Hawk knows now he isn't a narc—but Willie's still pretty careful; partly because when he watches Hawk play he wishes desperately he could match skills with him back when he was healthy. If only Hawk knew, if he had seen him at the Crazy Horse Electric game, Willie would get the respect he deserves.

“Little two-on-two?” Kato says, popping a jumper from the free-throw line.

“Naw, I…gotta go.”

Hawk says, “Let it wait. Time you see what you can do. Time to take all you new guns to the war. See if they shoot. See if you got
ammo
.”

Willie starts to protest, but Hawk says, “Me an' you, Crazy Horse. You take my man Kato. I take Ernie. Do or die.” He swishes one from the top of the key, turning to walk to the half line even before the ball snaps through the net, waiting patiently there while Ernie removes his sweats. Ernie is about an inch taller and a bit stockier than Hawk. They look to be a good match. Ernie doesn't speak, just bends down, grabbing his toes to stretch, then walks toward the basket, taking
two long, quick strides, and leaps easily to the rim, hanging there a few seconds before dropping to the ground.

“Ernie think he bust up the rim, won' have to suffer no
humiliation
,” Hawk laughs, flipping the ball to Willie, signaling the start of action. Kato crowds him and Willie dribbles to his right, protecting the ball with his body. Kato's hand flicks around Willie like a snake's tongue, but Willie's long arm keeps it away. With precision timing, as the snake's tongue retracts, he flips the ball around behind Kato's back into the key, just as Hawk breaks around Ernie, and Hawk scoops it up at full speed, faking once, then sliding behind Ernie, who has overplayed him. He lays it up easily for the point. They score four more before turning the ball over; one of them on Willie's short jumper and another on a sort of jump-hook he developed to keep leapers away.

Kato and Ernie catch up on Ernie's sweet outside baseline jumper and a couple of lightning-quick moves to the hoop that leave Hawk a step behind. Kato gets around Willie for two easy ones, but Willie adjusts and eventually is able to keep him outside most of the time. Excitement floods through him at being able to stay with these guys, though most of his contribution comes through pinpoint passes to Hawk, working the inside
against Ernie. His old anticipation is coming back—he almost always knows where Hawk is going to be. Occasionally he gets excited and throws the ball away, but each time that happens he slows down, closing his eyes; centering himself, remembering the miles of tape Lisa has shown him of Larry Bird “taking whatever time he needs to make his move,” no matter what the skills of his opponent. And Willie gets back in control. He wishes Lisa had stayed to watch.

They play four games to fifteen; Willie can't even remember who wins which. He just knows he's back doing something he loves; something he thought was gone from his life.

 

“A hunnert forty bucks for what?” Lacey looks at him as if he's asked to drive the Chrysler to Montana.

“I'm not sure. Some kind of special class. Both Lisa and André say it's required.”

“Other kids all payin'?”

Willie nods. “Lisa says everyone who takes it has to pay, and that it's a required class for me.”

“Jus' thinkin' some new ways to suck old Lacey dry,” Lacey says in disgust. “Hunnert an' forty bucks. You gonna be doin' some
work
around here for that. Maybe build me a hot tub.”

Willie laughs. “Lacey, I'll make you a deal. If you don't have five hundred dollars rolled up in your front pocket right this minute, I will build you a hot tub. If you do, I get the money free. A gift.”

“Cold day you get a hunnert forty from Lacey Casteel as a
gift
,” Lacey says. “You gonna
work
for this.”

“‘Tote that barge; lift that bail,'” Willie sings.

Lacey reaches into his front pocket and peels off a hundred forty in twenties and tens. “You in
deep
financial difficulties now, boy, an' don't you be forgettin'.”

“Thanks, Lacey. I won't be forgettin'. Really. Thanks.”

Two days later Lisa drives Willie through downtown Oakland and under the Oakland estuary to Alameda, a nine-minute drive from school, to Nautilus of Alameda, where she plunks down the $140 cash to take advantage of a special membership drive. She also buys one for herself. Then she walks him through all the weight machines, showing him special ways to work on his left side to catch it up as far as possible. After that, three times a week—Monday, Wednesday and Friday—she packs him into her car the moment school lets out—before he starts his janitorial duties—and hauls him off to Nautilus to work out for an hour
and a half. And Willie gets stronger.

That same afternoon Lisa drives him to an old building surrounded by more old buildings with steel bars guarding what few windows aren't already boarded over. Inside, they watch for more than a half-hour as a young Japanese man in a World War II crew cut—tiny in stature, but catlike in quickness and anticipation—guides fifteen pre-teen and teenage kids through what looks to Willie like a cross between some kind of Oriental martial art and poetry.

“It's called Tai Chi,” Lisa whispers as the three rows of kids glide through their movements. Willie's really drawn to them because it looks like they have an abundance of what he's been missing: balance. The instructor looks up and spots Lisa, nods calmly, almost serenely, and continues the exercises. When he finally approaches them, almost gliding across the floor as if walking and flying are the same, Willie expects a bow followed by some wise utterance
à la
David Carradine in “Kung Fu.”

“Lisa, you hot little number,” the instructor says in perfect English. “Where you been? I thought we were going to start working out again a month ago. I've been lusting for you.”

“Hi, Sammy. I know. I've just been really busy. This
is Willie Weaver, the boy I told you about.”

“Ah,” Sammy says, “Crazy Horse.” He puts out his hand and Willie takes it, smiling self-consciously. “I've been expecting you. Lisa thinks I can help redesign your unit and then we'll all be famous when she sells her thesis to the
Enquirer
.”

Lisa laughs. “‘How I Regained Use of My Arms and Legs on a Simple Diet of Beefalo Patties and Carrot Stix.' I'll write it under the name of Victoria Principal.”

“So,” Sammy says, “how about next week? Start about six Monday morning? Work at least four days?”

Lisa nods. “That okay with you, Willie?”

Willie's along for the ride. Lisa's never steered him wrong yet. “Fine.”

“I'd put you in a class,” Sammy says, “but I don't want to limit which disciplines we use. Tai Chi isn't enough. I want to make this as intensive and varied as we need to. I haven't worked with physical disabilities before, but it seems like a perfect thing to do. Besides, it gives me a chance to watch Lisa in her tights.” He nods back to the kids exercising across the room. “Wouldn't do for them to see my Oriental mystique broken down.” He kisses Lisa a quick, soft kiss on the mouth that tells Willie there's more going on here than just a thesis, and pads back to his class. As Willie and Lisa
start for the door, Sammy hollers back at them, “And bring your cane!”

“Listen to Sammy real close,” Lisa says, driving back toward the school so Willie can finish his janitorial duties. “He teases a lot, but he says damn little that's meaningless. Everything he'll say to you is something you can use; either now or sometime.”

“You like him,” Willie says.

“I do like him. And I love him. Someday, when our paces match…”

In the following months Sammy taps into Willie in a way that almost frightens him. Willie discovers that his mind and body are merely extensions of each other, and Sammy teaches him how one can transfer power to the other. He learns that, even though he is just less than six feet tall, there is a bottomless well inside him, holding a map with specific directions around his physical limitations, information about his emotional pain that helps him let it be. He sometimes finds himself telling Sammy his best-kept secrets in the same way he might talk about what he's going to have for lunch; realizing only later, lying flat on his makeshift bed at Lacey's house, what he has revealed. And he knows, in that way that humans sometimes just know things, that Sammy would never hurt him with any of what he has disclosed.

And Sammy teaches him to use the cane. “I don't want to make you a warrior,” he says, “but I also don't want you helpless on the street at a bus stop. Ever.” So Willie incorporates the cane into his balance.

On a hot day in July, a day when the natural airconditioning of the Bay Area is on the fritz and the fog stands far out to sea, Lisa and Sammy and Willie sit in a circle, cooling down after a tough workout.

“So, where are you, Willie?” Sammy asks. “Where do you want to go now?”

Willie shrugs, thinking.

“What's in you that needs work?”

Willie can't get it.

“What hurts?”

“My family,” he says. “My sister. My goddam sister…”

“Your sister's gone.”

Willie nods. “I know. But it doesn't leave me alone.”

“It probably never will,” Sammy says. “But you'll find a place to put it. What else?”

“There's one thing,” Willie says, “and I know it shouldn't be there. I should just be glad to be playing sports again. I mean, when we play ball at the park, I'm good, I really am. I play smart and I never hurt my team. I get my points; almost never throw the ball away.”

“And?”

“And then I go home and I replay the Crazy Horse Electric game in my head, and I know I'll never have that
moment
again. It was so high. Everything was together. And I begin to wish it hadn't happened; like if I didn't know about it, I wouldn't miss it so much. It's so selfish…” His voice trails off, then snaps back. “It's like with Missy. Sometimes I wish she'd never been born, just so I wouldn't know how special it was to have her…”

“You can choose to look at that lots of ways,” Sammy says. “You can use your sister—or the baseball game—to beat you down or build you up. But remember: every moment of your life is part of you. You say you can never have that moment, or your sister, again. I say you'll always have them. They're part of what makes you Willie Weaver.”

Lisa massages the back of Sammy's neck, running her hands through his short hair and down over his chest, toward the elastic band of his gym shorts, and Sammy smiles. He leans over and reaches for the wallet inside his workout pants on the floor beside them, pulling out a five-dollar bill; hands it to Willie. “Why don't you go get yourself some breakfast for about forty-five minutes?” he says, and Willie leaves them alone.

 

In late August, after a basketball workout with Lisa and a couple of pickup games with some neighborhood stars, Lisa calls Willie into the office, once again booting André, who is trying to come up with the fall class schedule, outside. “Close your eyes,” she says, and Willie obeys. “Extend your arms and touch your fingers together lightly,” and again Willie does as he's told. “Now bring your fingers to your center.”

Willie's center has moved.

 

When school starts in September, Willie sees it with new eyes; he's feeling power over his life. On registration day he notices Angel standing in line to register for Chemistry, starts toward her, stops, then goes ahead. He's not had any kind of meaningful dialogue with her since that crazy night at Lacey's, but she hasn't been off his mind for more than the length of one pickup basketball game. And if Willie knows anything, it's that you'd better act when you get the chance; because once the chance is gone, it may be gone forever.