by Simeon Mills
Kanga stepped off the bike and, in a much deeper voice than I’d ever heard come from his mouth, said: “Let’s kill DePew.”
• • •
We filled the school bus to capacity, not only with basketball players but Cheerbirds too. I’d had classes with Cheerbirds, of course, and observed specimens skipping down the hallway, alone or in bunches. But I’d never witnessed an entire team in a confined space. They occupied the front half of the bus, tripled up in the seats, various parts of their uniformed bodies spilling into the aisle. Behind them were the basketball players (plus me), who were ordered to double up. And there was Brooke, in a seat by herself, computer open on her lap, and—oh! to be that computer’s battery warming Brooke’s knees!
As I passed her on the way to the back of the bus, I couldn’t help myself: “Got some ice cubes, huh?”
The pocket of Brooke’s coat was packed with ice cubes she had, for some reason, stolen from the trainer’s cooler. The fabric darkened in a wet spot around the pocket. She growled at me, and I saw her mouth was full of ice too.
Kanga and I sat in our usual seat configuration—Kanga at the window, me on the aisle—when a curious thing happened. Kanga said, “Switch.” He stood up and waited for me to scoot along the seat, past his thick legs, until I was at the window and he was on the aisle. What surprised me was not that Kanga demanded we switch seats, but that I complied so amicably. I smiled out the window, pretending this was exactly where I wanted to be.
Mr. Belt addressed us from the front of the bus: “What can I say? Focus. Concentrate. Why do we, as a society, play basketball? What is basketball? I don’t want to hear any laughing. No grab-assing. Get your heads in the game. Get your asses on the same page . . .”
If I craned my neck to see past Rye’s dress shirt, I could just make out the back of Brooke’s scalp. I adjusted the sensitivity of my ears and found the steady pop and clack of her keyboard. My hearing still wasn’t perceptive enough, so I heightened the precision to an absurd level, until I could hear the skin pores on Rye’s shoulders bubbling with pus. But also: Brooke’s fingers. In the cacophony of bodies and motors and atoms colliding, I gave my processor the task of zeroing in on the subtleties of each clack of Brooke’s keyboard, and twenty-two seconds later I had the hardest erection of my life. I depowered my ears. I shut down my eyes, nose, and mouth, cocooning my sensors entirely. It was no use. My audiographic memory had already captured the spasm-inducing sound of Brooke’s fingertips on the keyboard. But it could have been worse. Back in seventh grade I had an erection lasting three days. It was all because of my English teacher, Mrs. Kittle. While lecturing at the front of the room, she had stepped with one foot onto a chair and wiggled a finger down the instep of her shoe, then absentmindedly dragged that same finger across her upper lip to sniff it . . .
By the time the bus stopped in front of DePew High School (home of the Rabbits), I no longer had a loaded shotgun shell in my pants. The team disembarked into a sour-smelling building. We separated. The Cheerbirds and Brooke went somewhere, while the boys followed Mr. Belt into a girls’ locker room. Here the team would change into uniforms. But first the boys slowed their movements. They scanned their surroundings, mentally filling the space with its natural inhabitants: the nameless girls of DePew High School. Everywhere was proof of them. Bars of soap. Bottles of shampoo. Deodorant. Rye casually tried a locker door. Locked. On the floor lay a filthy white piece of notebook paper.
“Listen up,” said Mr. Belt. “Do any of you know what persistence is? If not, get ready for the ride of your life. Or perhaps just a little speech about persistence from the master himself. I’m talking about the Ceiling Fan, who’s here to address tonight’s topic.”
The Ceiling Fan was suddenly standing before us. He must have driven his tiny car to DePew and slipped into the locker room without our noticing. Instead of the appropriate game-day shirt, tie, and slacks, the Ceiling Fan had merely exchanged his INVISIBLE SYSTEMS sweatshirt for a heavy blue sweater, which had caused an orange rash to climb up his neck. He had also gotten a haircut for the occasion—apparently just today—as his forehead, ears, and sweater were covered with tiny hair clippings.
“Who wants to hear about persistence?”
The team was already changing into their uniforms. They stopped, half-dressed, and gathered around the Ceiling Fan.
“You guys know me. I’m someone who loves basketball. I’m your friend. So I can be honest with you guys. When I see you play, I see a lack of persistence. I talked to Coach Belt about the persistence problem, and he said he’d burn your asses about it, but I said ‘No.’ I said, ‘Hey, I’ll talk to the guys and maybe—who knows?’ Coach used to burn my ass. Back in freshman year. I know about Coach’s ass-burning.”
Mr. Belt grinned at the Ceiling Fan, as if this were a warm memory they shared, but the Ceiling Fan just stared at the team, frowning.
“I remember freshman year. I remember all the crap. All the girls. The parties. The crap. I know there’s a lot of crap freshman year. The last thing you guys need is me burning your asses about persistence.” He picked a basketball up from the floor, holding it lightly on his fingers. “You.” He gestured with the ball toward Kanga. “Let’s talk about girls. You got a girlfriend, Kanga? Up in the bleachers? You got a girlfriend up there?”
Kanga just blinked at the Ceiling Fan.
“Come on. You can tell me. I’ve been watching you. Good-looking ballplayer. But are you persistent? Do you got a little honey up there in the bleachers tonight?”
Kanga’s exhaust fan clicked on. Or maybe it was my own.
“I knew it,” said the Ceiling Fan. “A little bit of honey. That’s what freshman year’s all about, right? There’s nothing I love better than a little bit of honey. I was just like you, Kanga. But is your girlfriend wearing your practice jersey to the game tonight? She better be wearing it. Promise me she’s wearing it, Kanga. Make a promise right now. Say ‘I promise.’ ”
“I promise.”
“Are you going to wink at her during the game? At the free-throw line? A little wink. Honeys go crazy for that crap. Are you going to give her a wink?”
“Yes.”
“What was that?”
Kanga hesitated. He finally said, “Yes.”
“Yes?” repeated the Ceiling Fan.
“Yes.”
“No.” The Ceiling Fan slapped the basketball. “You don’t wink at them. You never wink into the bleachers. There’s nobody in the bleachers. No honeys. I don’t even care if your honey is a teacher. Senior year you used to be able to kiss a teacher if you beat Richardson and won the district. Even the manager got to.” The Ceiling Fan gave me a serious look. “But I don’t know about that crap nowadays. The teachers you got now, they’re skinnier than ours. Too skinny. Pretty girls don’t want to be teachers anymore. Now they’re all playing professional sports. Half the teachers you see anymore are guys.” The Ceiling Fan slapped the ball again. “Here I am talking about teachers, and Kanga’s probably dating one. I bet it’s Mrs.—”
“I’m not.”
“Can I finish a sentence?”
“Yes,” said Kanga, but he was squinting at the Ceiling Fan, a facial expression The Directions categorically advised young robots not to make toward unfamiliar adults.
“Do you have something to say?”
“No.”
“Because I’m listening.”
Kanga was still squinting.
The Ceiling Fan continued: “I told Coach, ‘The important thing is persistence.’ I asked him, ‘Is Kanga persistent?’ ”
“I am,” growled Kanga.
The Ceiling Fan smiled. “I like this kid.” He palmed the ball and slowly extended it toward Kanga, as if anointing my brother. “He’s persistent. That’s one of you guys. And then there’s James.” He swung the ball toward James Botty. “Also persistent. That’s two.”
James puffed out his chest with honor.
“Which leaves the rest of you. For
the rest of you guys, here’s my question: Who wants to be more persistent? Raise your hand.”
Rye was the only one who raised his hand. “Coach says I need more big’uns.”
“What are ‘big’uns’?” asked the Ceiling Fan.
“I’m not sure,” said Rye.
Rye and the Ceiling Fan looked at Mr. Belt, who made a thoughtful smacking sound with his lips, then said, “Persistence.”
“Stand up,” the Ceiling Fan said to Rye.
Rye was the least-dressed person in the locker room, clad only in his white briefs and athletic goggles. He stood before the Ceiling Fan.
The Ceiling Fan held the basketball between them. “Look at this ball in my hands. All that matters is this basketball. Look at it. What are you thinking about? I want you thinking about the ball. I don’t want you thinking about me.”
Rye stared at the ball, concentrating on it.
“What are you thinking about?”
Rye glanced at the Ceiling Fan.
“Crap. You’re thinking about me, even though I told you not to. Why are you thinking about me?”
Rye quickly returned his gaze to the basketball, atoning for his mistake.
“Why are you thinking about me, Rye?”
This was my thought: The Ceiling Fan wasn’t thinking about the ball either. He was thinking about Rye. I glanced at Kanga, whose mouth was twitching with the same idea. Kanga was squinting at the Ceiling Fan’s basketball, hands clenched, as if about to smack it from the Ceiling Fan’s grasp.
The Ceiling Fan turned and set the basketball on the floor against a wall. “This is a team-building exercise. Rye, you try and touch the ball.” He paused to pull his heavy blue sweater over his head. He tossed it on a bench. Beneath the sweater was his stained INVISIBLE SYSTEMS sweatshirt. “I’m not going to let you touch the ball.” The Ceiling Fan got down into defensive position. “Go.”
Rye would have had a clear view of the basketball if he’d dared to look between the Ceiling Fan’s legs. They were parted enough that Rye could dive between them and touch the basketball. But Rye said, “I don’t think I want to do this.”
“Come on.”
Rye looked at Mr. Belt.
“Game time,” said Mr. Belt. “Let’s give the Ceiling Fan a big round of—”
The Ceiling Fan ran toward Rye, his arms rotating like a windmill, tangling Rye up and lifting him off the floor. “I got you,” he whispered, then let Rye down. “But I won’t hurt you. Not this time. Why would a grown man want to beat up a freshman in high school? It’s not even fair. I could crush you if I wanted, so what’s the point?”
The team held its breath, waiting for what the Ceiling Fan would do next. Rye stumbled away, the Ceiling Fan’s orange rash having now spread across his neck. A definition was repeating itself in my processor: Persistence |pər·'si·stən(t)s| (noun): steadfast refusal to deviate from a course of action in spite of negative feedback. A plumber must have persistence when dealing with a stubborn toilet pipe.
The Ceiling Fan sat down, indicating his speech was over.
Mr. Belt said, “Let’s give him a round of applause.”
10
THE BIRDS PLAYED POORLY. They couldn’t concentrate. They blinked into the powerful lights of the DePew gym like the cave dwellers they were. On defense they spun in circles, throwing their hands up, as if to say, “I’m supposed to be guarding whom?” Mr. Belt called a time-out just to have the team tuck in their shirts and tie their shoes. Luckily, our opponents were not basketball players. DePew was a football town. Their boys were wide and slow. The Rabbits’ ancient basketball uniforms were mysteriously tailored with belts, and many of the players added kneepads to the look, suggesting a more primitive style of play. The permanent tan lines on their arms indicated these young men drove tractors on farms. In early December, many of their parents still smelled of manure. (I was in the top row of bleachers, videotaping.) Rye, our largest team member, would have been an average-size player for DePew. But Rye was having himself a night—eighteen points, seventeen rebounds, and four assists—and it was solely due to his inspired play that, with five seconds left in the game, the score was tied.
My job as videographer had been simple: keep the ball in frame, occasionally glance at the scoreboard, try not to zoom in too closely on Brooke Noon at the end of the bench typing on her laptop. My job as Kanga’s mother had been easy too. I hadn’t needed to cheer or yell or threaten to kill the referee, because Kanga hadn’t seen a moment of action. Mr. Belt believed he needed to “learn the system” first by watching the other players flounder.
But now Mr. Belt could smell a win. He grabbed Kanga by the neck and shoved him onto the court. His instructions to my brother were simple: “Throw the ball—are you listening, Kanga?—throw the ball to the guys wearing green jerseys—I said GREEN—not the guys wearing yellow jerseys, not the . . . Hello, Kanga?”
“I am not a robot,” Kanga said.
Mr. Belt scrubbed his ear with a knuckle. “Beg pardon?”
“Not a robot. I am,” he repeated, “not a robot.” Kanga smiled. Then he jogged to the baseline where the referee was holding the ball.
Mr. Belt blinked. He nodded. “Sure kid. Whatever. Just lemme see those big’uns!”
I am not a robot? I might as well have just watched Kanga pop his head off his neck, toss it in the air, and fix it back into place. My camera immediately found the Ceiling Fan to measure his reaction. The assistant coach had been positioned beside Mr. Belt throughout the game, but at the particular moment Kanga had said “I am not a robot,” the Ceiling Fan had been itching himself with a hand up the front of his sweater, thus missing the whole interaction. I am not a robot! I wanted to give him a monthlong lecture about never, ever mentioning being a robot again—did you hear me, Kanga? EVER!
But there was a more pressing matter: Kanga inbounding the basketball against DePew’s full-court press. It was an unlikely moment to give Kanga his first game-time experience, but clearly Mr. Belt was desperate for anyone with enough height to toss the ball through DePew’s giants, all five of whom were arranged on their half of the court to defend the inbound pass.
Apparently, their coach had called a football play, assigning all five players to sack the quarterback, which was Kanga. From my vantage point, the weakness in DePew’s strategy was glaring. By placing all their boys so close to the basketball, there was an unprotected, vulnerable court behind them, the half containing our hoop. Rye, standing alone at the center circle, had the same observation. His heels were lifted slightly off the floor, ready to jump toward our basket, if only the ball could find its way past the Rabbit blockade.
The referee held the basketball, a whistle stuck in the corner of his mouth. I could have shouted to my brother “LOOK FOR RYE!” but I kept my mouth shut. The Directions advised that children, not parents, should dictate the course of their own successes and failures to ensure more authentic learning experiences (page 591). The ref handed Kanga the ball.
Kanga wasted three seconds staring at the foreign object in his hands. Then something clicked. He planted his foot back like a javelin thrower.
Rye, seeing my brother about to bomb the ball in his direction, took off toward our hoop.
A DePew player with a full mustache watched patiently until Kanga cocked the ball behind his head. The player jumped. He jumped high. He jumped higher than a farmer jumping over a cow. He had known the whole time that Kanga would attempt to pass the ball over his head, and now he was going to intercept it.
Except Kanga didn’t.
Instead of launching the ball over the defender, Kanga bounced the ball under him. And not just a bounce. The ball smashed the gym floor so hard it shook the bleachers beneath my feet. The camera (if you watch the footage) jiggled ever so slightly as the ball flattened against the court. I managed to follow it, arcing, deflating, a negative parabola from algebra class, the ball nearly touching the gym lights at its vertex . . . the gym went silent for this . . . then floa
ting down, misshapen, into Rye’s hands. He was standing beside our basket. He was alone. He stared at the basketball—air hissing from a tiny mouth on its surface—before remembering to gently swish it through the hoop. Hectorville won.
Mr. Belt and the rest of his players were suddenly on the court. They ran like their necks were broken backward. The Cheerbirds leapt. Everyone flocked to Rye—the Ceiling Fan, especially, who hugged Rye, lifting him off the floor, and screamed in his face, “That’s what I’m talking about! Persistence!” Only James Botty appeared unmoved by the victory. He stalked toward Kanga, who hadn’t yet budged from his inbounding position. Of course, it had been James whom Kanga had replaced as inbounder, forcing James to watch the final play from the bench. “Not a robot, huh?” he said through gritted teeth.
“What?” said Kanga, confused. He clearly had no memory of what he’d said to Mr. Belt.
I yanked him away from James, to the safety of the girls’ locker room. I decided not to mention his slipup, instead just saying, “Lucky pass, brother,” because a pass that precise had to have been luck, right? I’d seen Kanga’s report card, and he’d never gotten better than a C in math. Such a shame for a robot.
Under the lights of the DePew parking lot, as we lined up to board the bus, a large mother and father approached Kanga. The mother shouted: “That boy is not fourteen! I want to see his birth certificate. I want some official documentation of age!”
The father stood by, nodding his head.
She continued: “What you did to that ball . . . Not even my husband could do that! How old are you?”
Mr. Belt arrived. “What’s the problem, Kanga? Are these your parents? Why aren’t you boarding the bus? Get your buns on the bus!”
Kanga boarded the bus, and the father yelled after him: “Documents can be forged!”
• • •
The bus was dark and dank, pressurized with the voices of forty hooting ninth graders. Birds and Cheerbirds were now stirred together. Kanga had been swept to the very back seat, accompanied by Rye, whose goggles flashed as he recounted the final play. Kanga, wearing an engrossed smile, added his own perspective, and both boys cackled with surprise when their story ended with a Hectorville victory.