Night Hoops (12 page)

I hit bottom at our last practice before the trip. On a three-on-three fast break, I made a spin move in the key, then tried to swoop in a running lay-in. The ball somehow slipped out of my hands and bounced off my forehead and out-of-bounds. I must have looked like a total fool. O'Leary's eyes went to the roof. He crossed himself. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," he bellowed, "help me in my time of need!" All the guys roared with laughter, and I managed a smile, but the lump in my throat was so big I could hardly speak.

That happened on December 24. O'Leary phoned that night. He started out by wishing me a merry Christmas and asking me about my family and all that, but something was up. Finally there was a long pause. "About the trip to Victoria."

"What about it?" I asked.

He coughed. "You know how tight things are with school budgets and all. Well, it turns out that they raised the prices on the Victoria Clipper. Instead of having money for fifteen, we've only got money for twelve. That means ten players and me and Mr. Fabroa, who's going to help chaperone. You see what I'm saying?"

"I understand," I mumbled.

There was a long pause. "Look, Nick, I know you're disappointed. But you're a sophomore. The team makes a trip every year over Christmas. You'll get your chance."

Once he hung up, Mom asked who I'd been talking to. I lied, telling her it was Luke. "I haven't seen much of him lately," she said. "Is he coming over?"

"No," I said. "He's got family things."

Christmas morning Scott and I opened our gifts early: clothes, CD's, the usual stuff. Without Dad there, it felt all wrong. Around noon he did stop by. Still, it wasn't like a real Christmas. He sat on the sofa in his normal spot, only he never kicked off his shoes, never even leaned back into the cushions. He didn't look any more comfortable than the insurance agent who'd come by to update my mother's policies.

After about an hour he stood to leave. I followed him outside. "I got some bad news yesterday," I said. Immediately his eyes registered worry. "It's about basketball."

"What happened?"

I blurted it out. "They just don't have enough money to bring everybody on the team to Victoria, so I'm not going."

His eyes flared in anger. "Tell O'Leary I'll pay the fare, if that's all it is."

I winced. "That's nice of you and everything, but I wouldn't want to go like that. You see what I mean?"

He thought for a minute. "Yeah, I see what you mean." He paused. "Are you telling me everything, Nick? You're not feuding with the coach or anything, because if—"

"No, Dad," I interrupted. "It's nothing like that. I'm just not playing well. I'm trying, but nothing is going right."

"Well, all you can do is try."

There was no anger in his voice, no disappointment even. It was as if he'd given up on me. He pulled his keys out of his pocket. "I should be going now. Merry Christmas, Nick."

We had our own little Christmas dinner: Scott, Mom, and me. Ham, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and for dessert pumpkin pie with whipped cream. There was nothing wrong with it, but there was nothing right with it either. I kept thinking about when I was younger—five, six, seven. Then two of my grandparents were still alive. The table was so crowded with food and people that we had had to put the extra leaf in. And the house, too, was full of sounds. My grandfather's transistor radio always on to the news, the jangling bracelets on my grandmother's arm. Now they were both dead, and my father was gone. My whole world seemed to be shrinking.

After dinner I told Mom about Victoria. She was upset at the thought of my being alone. "You come with us to Monterey. I can get another ticket."

But I knew how worried she was about money. Besides, the idea of seeing Scott on stage was too much for me. The way things were coming together for him just reminded me how everything was falling apart for me. "I'll be sixteen this summer. I can spend a few days alone. And if I need anything, I can always call Dad."

She thought. "You could stay at your dad's place. If you want, I'll ask."

"I don't want to stay there," I said, wondering if she knew about his live-in girlfriend. "I'll be fine here."

We talked some more about it, until she finally came around. But she hugged me tight when the airport shuttle arrived at our door early the next morning. "I'll call every night," she said.

Scott grinned at me. "Hey, Nick, now you can have one of those wild parties that make the newspaper. You know: Bothell Police Arrest..."

"That will be enough of that," my mother said, and I could tell she didn't think Scott was being the least bit funny. Then they were down the walkway and into the van.

"Good luck!" I shouted to Scott as the door closed.

Once they were gone, the house seemed wrong, as if it were a stranger's. When I took a cup down from the cabinet, it clattered on the counter. When I closed a door, the sound echoed loudly, as if I were in a museum. The background sounds of the house, sounds like my mother typing on her computer or Scott practicing his trumpet, were all absent.

Outside a light rain was falling. I turned on the television and tried to watch a movie, but my mind kept wandering. I turned the movie off, stuck in a Sonics video, but even that didn't help. The announcer was screaming about some tremendous dunk, but there was nothing inside me to match his excitement.

Time crawled by. I had to force myself to eat lunch. The mail came. Three catalogs—two for clothes and one filled with Valentine stuff.

Around four my mother phoned. They were in the hotel in Monterey. It was windy, but the sun was shining, and the coast of California was incredibly beautiful. She put Scott on. The band was going to compete the next morning, go to the aquarium in the afternoon, then take a night cruise in the bay. "They say there might be whales."

I ate a TV dinner, or half of it, then went to my room and turned on the radio. The Washington Huskies were at Wisconsin, up by six at the start of the second half. I listened for a few minutes, then flicked the radio off. I thought about calling Dad, but I didn't have anything to say to him. Besides, his girlfriend might have answered, and I definitely didn't want to talk to her. I turned off the light and lay on my bed in the dark, listening to the silence. That's when I
heard the gate creak open and the bouncing ball.

In the summer, I'd been the one playing ball all the time. Trent had been the loser, the quitter who walked off the court whenever his brother showed up. Now he was playing basketball every minute he wasn't studying, and I was spending my time turning the television off and on, flipping through catalogs, and generally doing nothing. When he became eligible—and he'd make it, with all the studying he'd done—he'd move ahead of me in O'Leary's rotation. I'd be the last guy at the end of the bench.

My body was settled into the soft bed. My stereo was right there. If I turned it on, I could block Trent out, block basketball out, block everything out.

There are moments in your life when you know you've got to go in one direction or another. I took a deep breath, exhaled. Then I pulled myself off the bed, changed into my sweats, and tramped downstairs and out the back door.

When Trent saw me he jumped back as if he'd seen a ghost. It took a second, but then I realized what had happened: I'd scared him. The lights were out in my house. He must have figured the place was empty, that I was in Victoria, and that my mom and Scott were gone, too.

"You mind if I shoot around with you?" I asked.

It was a crazy question. He was in my back yard shooting at my hoop. Then again, maybe it wasn't so crazy. Because once night fell the court became his, and I was the outsider.

"Sure," he said. "You can play."

In the pale moonlight the basket seemed only half real, half there. You'd think that the darkness would make it hard to shoot, but it actually helped me concentrate. There was nothing else to see, nothing else to hear. O'Leary wasn't shouting instructions at me; my dad wasn't scrutinizing my every move. There was just the basket in front of me, the ball in my hands, and Trent defending.

But in a way that's not even right. Because it wasn't Trent. Or at least not the Trent I knew, the tough-guy Trent, the Trent who'd knock you down as soon as look at you. There were none of the pointless shoves, none of the mean-spirited fouls, none of the trash-talk that marked his game.

Not that he didn't play tough. He guarded me tight on defense and he came at me hard on offense. I did the same to him. But everything was
fair.
It was the purest game of basketball I've ever played, so pure that neither of us ever thought of keeping score.

If we hadn't tired I think we would have played all night. But finally, on a stutter-step, he dribbled the ball off his foot. It rolled into the bushes, and neither of us made a move to go get it. "Enough," he said.

"Enough," I replied.

I went inside and got a liter of Pepsi and brought it out. I suppose I could have invited him in, but I didn't want to leave the darkness. We drank in silence for a few minutes.

"That was a good game," I said.

"Yeah," he answered. "It was."

He took another swig, then stood to leave. "How about tomorrow night?" I asked. "You want to play again?"

"Okay. Tomorrow night."

The next morning I woke up filled with energy. I made myself breakfast, then went out to the shed and dug out the painting stuff. The paint in the downstairs bathroom was peeling. It was supposed to be a creamy white, but you could see the pink and yellow that had been underneath.

My father had always said he was going to repaint. He actually bought the paint, but he never got around to it. I figured I couldn't make the walls look worse. So I scraped off the loose stuff, washed it down, sanded a little, then got to it.

Usually I get bored doing stuff like that, and pretty soon get careless, splattering the paint or getting some on the porcelain or on the window. But that morning I was careful to get the right amount of paint on the roller and to spread it on the wall evenly. I even did the window slowly. When I finished it looked really good, and I thought how pleased Mom would be when she returned.

In the afternoon I took my bike out and rode the trail down to University Village in Seattle. Nobody else was out, so I really moved, breaking a sweat. It started drizzling on the way back, and the misty air felt tremendous.

When I reached the railroad trestle in Bothell I saw Michael Ushakov. He grinned at me and waved. I thought of Katya and felt guilty that I'd never gone over to see him, so I stopped. He came right up next to my bicycle and started fingering my light, repeatedly pushing the yellow button that turned it off and on.

"You didn't have this before, did you?"

It was like him to notice anything new.

"No," I said, "it was a Christmas gift."

"From your mom?"

"From my brother."

"Scott?"

"Yeah, Scott."

"Scott's over at my house a lot. I like Scott."

I smiled at that. He pushed the yellow button a few more times. There wasn't anything more to say. I slung my leg over the frame. "You should go home now, Michael," I said. "You're going to get drenched if you stay out."

"Okay," he said. "See ya."

As I pedaled off I looked over my shoulder. He was headed right back to the railroad trestle.

My grades had arrived in the mail. I stared at the envelope for a while, took a deep breath, then ripped into it. Two C+'s, three B's, and an A in P.E. It wouldn't make my mother happy, but I'd be eligible to play.

I stuck a frozen pizza into the oven. After I ate, I popped a Sonics tape into the VCR, one where Payton scored thirty points on Allen Iverson. It was a great game, but I didn't watch it closely. Mainly I listened for the gate to creak open.

The Sonics game ended and I started on an old Tom Hanks movie. Still no Trent. Then, around nine, there was a lot of commotion at the Dawson house. Mrs. Dawson came down the front porch steps, yelling at Zack. Zack screamed right back. The shouting went on for at least five minutes before the Corolla raced off, tires squealing.

That was that, I figured. No Trent. But a minute later I heard him on the court, and about ten seconds later I was headed out the back door. Once I stepped outside, I nodded to him. He nodded back, took a hard dribble, pulled up, missed a fifteen footer, and we were at it again.

I don't know how long we went one-on-one. An hour maybe, with neither of us talking at all. Then—out of nowhere—Trent stopped. "You block out really well on the boards. Never foul or anything."

"Thanks," I said, surprised. Then it hit me what he was after. "You want me to show you some tricks my dad taught me?"

He dribbled the ball a couple of times. "Yeah, sure."

So I broke down the moves for him, piece by piece. He was a quick learner, and within ten minutes he was blocking out better than I do. "That's good," I said. "Really good."

He took a little jump shot, swished it, then looked at me. "I passed."

"What?" I asked, not following.

"My classes. I passed everything. I'm eligible."

"That's great," I said, and I reached out and kind of shook his shoulder. "Way to go. You'll play a lot."

"Think so?"

"You bet. You bring that instant energy when you come in. You'll get minutes."

He took another jump shot, missed long, retrieved it.

"I've never played in a real game, with a scoreboard and real refs and all that stuff. I've never even had a uniform."

"Well, you'll get one now. Coach will have one ready for you at the next practice. You wait and see."

We shot a couple of times each, then he spoke again. "Do you keep them at the end of the season?"

"Keep what?"

"The uniforms. Do you keep them?"

It was a good thing it was dark, because I had to smile at his question. He was like a kid at Christmas, all excited. "No," I said, making sure my voice was even. "They go back. As a matter of fact, if you don't get them washed and ironed, you pay a fine."