Basketball (or Something Like It) Page 3

“A week?”

  “No TV, either.”

  Nathan didn’t look up. His mother would take away the Xbox controllers and hide them, but Nathan knew the No TV would never be enforced. It would last for a day or two, and then his mother would be busy and forget about the whole thing.

  Nathan nodded again.

  “Do you understand why it’s so important that you don’t lie to us?”

  Nathan’s mother spoke softly. It was that soft teacher voice, from when she used to work.

  “So you can trust me,” Nathan answered.

  That seemed to be working. He could practically feel it, like something in the air loosening up, dissipating.

  “I’m really sorry,” Nathan said. “I’m sorry.”

  It was quiet.

  “So you really want to try out for this basketball team?” his father asked him.

  “Yeah, Dad, I do.”

  “Why?”

  “I wanna play. My friends are all on the team,” Nathan said.

  “It’s not a goal, you know, Nathan. It’s a game. That’s all it is. It’s not going to lead to anything. It’s not going to help you make the right friends or get you into a good school.”

  So what if his father was wrong about all of the above?

  “I know, Dad,” Nathan said.

  “It’s a game.”

  “I know that, Dad,” Nathan said. “It’s just for fun. It’s healthy, too. It’s good exercise. We did a lot of running.” He added that one in for his mother.

  His father hadn’t said yes yet. Nathan wondered what he was thinking. Maybe he was thinking that Nathan would be led down some terrible road to African-American basketball ruin; that his grades would fall off all through high school because all he would do was hang out in the gym and practice ball. He would practically flunk out. But he’d be offered a scholarship at some lousy college anyway. Then he’d get his high-school girlfriend pregnant (not that Nathan had one), get married at eighteen, get injured before he’d had a chance to play, and wind up a strung-out drug addict living on the street.

  Is that what his father was thinking?

  Is that what had happened to Uncle Troy?

  Of course, there was one minor piece of information Nathan’s father didn’t yet have.

  Nathan wasn’t good.

  In fact, he was probably the worst kid at the entire clinic. He had air balled all his foul shots. He missed all his layups. He couldn’t dribble with his left hand at all and not very well with his right. He didn’t get one rebound.

  “Look at the bright side,” Nathan told his father. “I might not even make the team.”

  His father suddenly stopped thinking and spoke out loud.

  “Well, that’s nonsense,” he said.

  Nathan took that as a yes.

  THE TRYOUTS

  Anabel

  For Anabel, her brother’s tryout dragged on for two boring hours at the middle school. Her father felt he had to stay, even though all the parents were told it was a closed gym. Apparently her father also felt Anabel was not old enough to stay home alone, and her mother was out of town. Again.

  “I could go to Caroline Nagy’s house,” Anabel begged.

  But Caroline Nagy, it turned out, had thrown up three times when she got home from school that afternoon, so Anabel had no other choice but to wait with her father at the tryout. It was too late to call any other friends.

  “You can do your homework. You must have homework,” her father suggested. And he left her, with her books sprawled out in the hall floor, while he paced outside the gym doors, which were shut. Every now and then they opened, and one of the coaches or kids stepped out to use the bathroom. When the door stuck open by accident, Anabel’s father drifted toward it. For a while he stood in the hall watching, but within a few minutes he was standing inside the gym.

  Anabel watched the whole thing. She figured her father would be standing on the sidelines by the locker room within five minutes. Hopefully he’d know enough not to shout out instructions to her brother during the tryout.

  “You’ve got to box out, Michael. Box out!”

  Guess not.

  She had finished her math and Spanish work. She zipped up her binder. The floor was filthy, and dust had stuck to all her book covers. She sat cross-legged staring at the wall across the way and listening to the balls bouncing inside the gym, like a kind of thunking music. She could hear her father’s urgent comments to Michael. Any minute, Anabel predicted, they would be throwing him out of there.

  But for the time being, she was alone in the hall. Her mother would call that night and ask if she had done all her homework.

  “Yes, Mom,” Anabel would say because nothing less was expected by either of her parents.

  School was a sure thing, and Anabel liked that. If you did your work, studied for tests, finished your projects, you were pretty much guaranteed a good grade. There wasn’t any risk in that. It was safe.

  Anabel thought about her mother packing for her trip that morning.

  “Imagine, Annie,” her mother was saying. “I was so afraid when I first took this position. I thought I wouldn’t be good enough. Nothing was easy. I thought somebody was going to look up from their desk one morning and say, ‘Who is this lady? What is she doing here?’”

  Her mother laughed. She closed the suitcase and clicked the locks down.

  “Sometimes I still feel like that and look, they’re flying me all over the country.”

  “But what if someone does say that?” Anabel asked her mother.

  “Say what, honey?” Her mother was pulling the heavy suitcase across the bed. It landed with a thunk on the carpet.

  “What if someone says you’re not good enough. Says who is this lady? What is she doing here? What would you do then? What would you have done?”

  Anabel’s mother got it all wrong. She thought Anabel was asking her mother about her job. She thought she had needlessly worried her daughter and now she had to comfort her.

  “Oh, I was just kidding. I mean, everyone is afraid when they start something new. Right?”

  Anabel’s mother walked back to the bed. She lifted Anabel’s long ponytail of blonde hair and held it in her hands gently.

  “I’ll be fine,” she told her daughter. “Don’t worry about me. Everything will be alright.”

  There was a second Anabel wanted to correct her mother. No, Mom, I meant me. I was really asking about me. What happens if I try to do something? What happens if I’m not good enough? And what happens if I don’t try at all?

  But if Anabel had wanted to say something to her mother, she couldn’t remember now. Her father came out of the gym with a scowl on his face. That scowl was for Michael, wasn’t it?

  “I did all my homework, Daddy,” Anabel said.

  He smiled. “Good girl.”

  Jeremy

  At the end of the tryout, the two coaches—tall with the belly and short with the muscles—came out in the hall to talk to all the parents. The parents stood like they were all holding tickets to the ten-million-dollar lottery drawing.

  Jeremy’s grandmother wasn’t there. She told Jeremy to call her from the pay phone when the tryout was finished. She had had enough experience to know these things never ended on time.

  “We will be posting the team roster on the website by Friday night,” the tall coach announced.

  “What time?” a voice came out of the crowd.

  Jeremy made his way over to the pay phone. He dropped in the quarter his grandmother had given him. Then he realized he didn’t know his telephone number.

  “I don’t … well, probably by eight o’clock, but I’m not sure how long it takes to go up on the site,” the tall coach answered.

  “How many players are you taking?” another dad asked.

  Jeremy stood with the phone still in his hand. He didn’t know what to do.

  The two coaches looked at each other as if they had been expecting this question. The muscle coach answered.

&n
bsp; “This year we are only taking ten, maybe eleven players.”

  This caused a gasp in the crowd, followed by a murmur of discontent.

  “Why not twelve like last year?” That came from a mom.

  Ten was fine, Jeremy thought. There had never had more than ten kids on a team back home. Half the time only two or three parents could drive to the games anyway, and that way everyone could fit into their cars. He was still holding the receiver in his hands.

  “The seventh grade had thirteen last year.” Another mom.

  Thirteen would never fit into two cars. Jeremy put the phone to his ear, but he didn’t dial information. It was just as easy to listen to these dumb parents. Obviously the parents who were complaining had kids that sucked. Or they wouldn’t be complaining.

  The tall coach stepped forward. “We may take twelve. But thirteen is too many. Ten is ideal, with a seven- or eight-man rotation and work in the other two.”

  Again the crowd shifted around. More people started talking quietly to one another. Jeremy was standing right behind two women and a man who had slipped back a few steps. And they were pissed already.

  “Of course, his son will make the team. No doubt,” the first woman whispered. Loudly.

  “Of course. I wonder how many point guards they’ll take?” the other woman said.

  The man looked at both of them like they were so totally stupid. “If they only take ten kids, they’re not going to take another point guard. Harrison Neeley and Tyler Bischoff both play point,” the man said. “Scott doesn’t have a chance.”

  The women both glared at the man.

  “You’re so negative,” the first woman said.

  “It’s a fact. The two board members’ kids make the team, and it’s a done deal. Team is filled.”

  “That’s so unfair,” the other woman said. She looked like she was going to cry. “Scott is as good as Tyler Bischoff.”

  “Well, so is Trevor.”

  The two women agreed. “It’s so unfair.”

  The coaches must have almost finished their talk, because all the parents were gathering up their kids and starting to leave. There was still a lot of talking. The two women had pushed their way, against the flow, up to the two coaches.

  “Ten players. Well, we’ll just see about that,” the first woman was saying to herself. Then Jeremy could see them talking, but he could no longer hear anything clearly. He just wanted to get out of there. He pressed the coin return but his quarter didn’t drop out.

  “You need a ride?”

  Jeremy looked up. It was one of the boys from the tryout. He wasn’t bad. Kind of short, but he could handle the ball. And at least he passed the ball.

  “Sure,” Jeremy said. He hung up the phone. He clicked one more time to see if the coin would come out, but it didn’t.

  The kid’s name was Hank, Jeremy was pretty sure. Yeah, his name was Hank.

  Nathan

  Nathan watched his father’s face when the two coaches talked about how many kids would be making the team and how many kids would be playing.

  One of the coaches was answering a question. “Well, let me explain something to you. To everyone. This is sixth grade. And it’s travel. If you want to play on a team where everyone gets equal time, then play rec.”

  Nathan’s father was nodding his head. He loved this tough stuff, Nathan knew. He was a self-made man. Nobody had paved his way, nobody had made life easier for him. He didn’t ask for favors from anyone and he didn’t give them.

  “Don’t you think they are a little young to make a determination like that?” an anxious woman right up front raised her hand and asked.

  She went on, “I think it’s too early to be having kids sit on a bench a whole game. They’re only eleven and twelve years old.”

  Nathan’s father didn’t say anything, but Nathan could see what he thought. They’re old enough. They’re old enough to work hard and earn their place.

  “Well, Debbie, that’s the league philosophy. You’d have to bring that up with the board,” the other coach answered.

  The short one had to look up in order to nod his head in agreement when the tall one was talking. Nathan almost started laughing.

  When they got into their car, Nathan’s father was angry.

  “Everyone in this town is looking for the easy way out. They all want the kids to have every advantage. They all think they can get what they want for their kids just by demanding it,” Nathan’s father was talking.

  When his father sounded like this, Nathan always had a picture in his mind of him standing in the laundry room on a box of Tide laundry detergent. That came from the first time his mother told his father to “get down off his soapbox.” Even though Nathan had learned what the expression meant, he never could get the image out of his head.

  “They are so used to getting their own way,” Nathan’s father went on. “They’ve made it to the top, and they think that nothing but the top is good enough for their kids!”

  Nathan was used to this. His father went on about this kind of thing all the time. He hated this town and everyone in it. They were all spoiled white elitists. It made Nathan wonder why they had moved here two years ago. His mother hadn’t wanted to. Why did his father want him to go to school here?

  Who was Nathan supposed to be friends with, if his father disapproved of everyone?

  “Some things in life you have to earn,” Nathan’s father went on. “No matter who you are.”

  Nathan was quiet.

  “I don’t have any problem at all with playing the better kids in order to win the game. That’s life,” Nathan’s father said. They were almost home.

  “That’s life,” he said again as they pulled into their driveway. “We won’t have any problem with that, will we, Nat?”

  “No, sir,” Nathan said.

  We sure won’t have that problem, because there is no way I’m going to be on that team. I lost the ball every time I dribbled. I passed the ball over everyone’s head. I dropped every pass. I even kicked the ball once.

  But Nathan didn’t say that. As angry as his father had been when Nathan had snuck out to the basketball clinic didn’t compare to how disappointed he was going to be when he found out his son didn’t make the team.

  Hank

  So you just moved here?”

  Hank hated when his mother did this. It was like she knew that Hank couldn’t tell her to stop talking in front of somebody else, so she would take full advantage of the situation and try to extract as much information as she could.

  “Yeah,” Jeremy answered. He was sitting in the backseat. Hank was in the front.

  Thank God his mother hadn’t said anything about Hank not exactly weighing enough for the passengerside air bag. Jeez, that would have been so embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as having to listen to his mother grill the new boy on where he used to live.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” Hank’s mother said. “Do you like it here?”

  “I guess so.”

  “So where did you live before?”

  It was so obvious he didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Central City,” Jeremy answered.

  That shut her up.

  For a second. She just switched topics to her true agenda.

  “So how was the tryout? Were there a lot of boys?”

  Hank didn’t answer, so after a beat Jeremy did.

  “About thirty.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot.”

  “Not really,” Jeremy answered.

  Jeremy obviously didn’t know the secret language of Laurie Adler. Jeremy didn’t know what Hank’s mother was really trying to find out.

  “So … how did you two do? Did you play basketball on a team before, Jeremy?”

  “Yeah, back home,” Jeremy said.

  Hank’s mother made a little noise like she was trying to sound humbled by that or something. “So how do our North Bridge boys stack up? I mean, what did you think?”

  The hidden plan.

/>   “They’re okay. Some of them, anyhow.”

  “Oh,” Hank’s mother said.

  She must have been dying to just come right out and ask, but she didn’t have to.

  “Hank was definitely one of the good ones. There’s no way he won’t make the team,” Jeremy said.

  Maybe he knew that language after all, or maybe Jeremy was just being nice. Or maybe he was nice.

  Hank shrugged. He turned to Jeremy. “Man, you’re really good. You were the best one.”

  Jeremy suddenly laughed. “Hey, did you see that one kid who ducked and put his hands over his head? What was that all about?”

  Hank laughed. “Oh, yeah. And did you see the ball bounce off his head and hit that kid, David Sklar, right in the face?”

  Just then the car made a sharp left-hand turn. “This is your street, right?” Hank’s mother asked. “What number house did you say?”

  Hank noticed it. His mother didn’t. Jeremy sort of stiffened up and started looking out the window. He didn’t know, did he? He didn’t know the number of the house.

  “There,” Jeremy said, pointing. “That house.”

  “Oh, that’s funny. I always thought that was old Nancy Binder’s house. You know Nancy? She works at the post office,” Hank’s mother rattled on.

  “It is,” Jeremy said quietly.

  The car pulled up into the driveway. It was a one-story house with rows of colorful flowers lining the walkway.

  “It’s my grandmother’s house.” Jeremy opened the back door and got out. A light in the house went on, like a beacon. “Thanks for the ride, Mrs … Thanks.”

  “Adler. But call me Laurie. And you’re very welcome. Any time. We go right by this way” (which they didn’t).

  “Thanks,” Jeremy said.

  The door slammed shut. Hank’s mother waved to the woman, who must have been “old Nancy Binder” from the post office, standing at the front door. She did look pretty old.

  When they were far enough down the road, Hank looked out the window and said, “Nice going, Mom.”

  She must have known it, too. She didn’t talk the rest of the way home.