Home Games

by Benjamin Markovits

  That afternoon, for the first time all year, I don’t eat my lunch by the basketball court. I sit with Mabley and Pete and a few other kids in the school cafeteria. Everybody has heard about Mr. Tomski’s argument with Sam—they’re all laughing about it. Mabley laughs, too.

  When she gets up to bus her tray, I go with her. “It wasn’t funny,” I say.

  “What wasn’t?” She takes her knife out and scrapes the leftover food into the trash, then puts her cutlery in the tub and slides her tray into the rack. I’ve just got a milk carton and sandwich bag to throw away.

  “What happened with Mr. Tomski. I was there, and it wasn’t funny. He didn’t think it was funny either.”

  “You’re right,” she says, after a moment. “I shouldn’t have laughed. Sometimes I laugh just because everybody else is. It’s stupid. But why didn’t you say something?”

  “I am saying something.”

  “I mean to the others, at lunch, if you didn’t like what they were saying.”

  But the bell rings, and people are pushing past us—we have to get to class. “We can talk about it later, if you want to,” she says, drifting away, but I don’t really want to talk about it, because she’s right. When Sam looked at me on the football field, I looked away. When Pete makes fun of me, I don’t do anything. I just sit there and take it, and then complain about it afterward or avoid him. That’s how it used to be with Jake, too. That’s what my dad wanted me to see—you have to stand up for yourself, otherwise everyone pushes you around. But he isn’t here anymore to tell me.

  Twenty-One

  WHEN I GET HOME FROM SCHOOL, I ask Granma, “Can I call my dad?”

  It’s six o’clock, and Mom has gone out. She dropped me off after basketball practice and drove away again. It’s “girls’ night.” Once a month she goes to the movies with some of the teachers, including Ms. Fontenot, our school principal. (Mom calls her Bernie, short for Bernadette. “A lot of people wouldn’t have given me a job, after fifteen years out of education,” Mom says. “But she’s divorced, too. She knows what it’s like.”) Anyway, it’s just Granma and me tonight, which is why I’m asking her.

  “It’s pretty late, Ben,” she says.

  “I finished my homework in practice today. At least, most of it.”

  “No. I mean it’s later in London than it is here. Your father is probably asleep.”

  “I thought he was always working. I thought that’s what the problem was.”

  Granma’s making spaghetti—I can smell the hot water in the kitchen. “Is that what your mom says?” Sometimes she finds it easier to talk when she’s doing something else.

  “Sometimes. But I mean, before, when we were still in New York—that’s what she used to complain about.”

  “Well, there are people who live to work, and people who work to live. Your father is the first kind of person. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”

  “But the first thing Mom did when she got here was get a job.”

  “Yes, but that’s only . . .”

  “And Dad is always complaining about how hard he has to work.”

  “What do you want me to say? These things are complicated.”

  “Do you think they— Did they break up because of me?”

  Granma looks at me. “I think for a long time you were the only thing keeping them together.”

  But I don’t know if that’s true. Sometimes I remember . . . I remember them laughing when they didn’t think I was paying attention. Saying things to each other quietly, so I couldn’t hear. Sometimes when I lay in bed I used to listen to them watching TV. Talking while they watched. Their voices sounded different when I wasn’t around. Sometimes for no reason they would turn down the sound.

  “All right.” Granma takes the pot off the burner—she pours the pasta into a colander, and the window over the sink starts to steam up. “If you wake him up, it’s no more than he deserves. But don’t take too long. Dinner is almost ready.”

  There’s a telephone in the front hall, standing on an old-fashioned wooden desk with a built-in seat. Granma calls it “the telephone chair,” but it’s also where the mail ends up and she keeps her checkbook. I sit down and dial Dad’s number. Mom has written it on a Post-it note and stuck it to the wall. There are a lot of numbers.

  I have to wait for a while before the phone stops clicking, and then the ringing tone comes in, beep and then beep and then beep. And then I hear my father breathing in my ear, as close as anything.

  “Yes,” he says. It doesn’t sound like a question.

  “Hi, Dad. Did I wake you up?”

  “Ben?” There’s a pause at the other end. I hear a rustling noise, as if he’s sitting up in bed. “That’s okay. What’s on your mind?”

  “I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “So talk.” After a moment, he adds, “I’m sorry, Son. It’s been a long day. I’ve been working very hard. I was fast asleep.”

  I don’t know what to talk to him about. I want to tell him about Mr. Tomski, but I can’t. I want to say, You have to get over here now, there’s something going on. But maybe nothing is going on, I don’t really know. I just have a feeling that . . . something is happening, which . . . it’s going to be hard to take back. Like, when Jake and I were horsing around in the kitchen, and then the mug broke. Even before it broke, you kind of knew, this is stupid, something is going to happen. “Two of my teachers had an argument today,” I tell him, just to say something.

  “What do you mean they had an argument? In front of the kids?”

  “They were shouting at each other on the football field.”

  “What were they shouting about?”

  “One of them wanted to kick us off the field.” In my mind, I can see Sam standing there in his shorts and boots, with the big bunch of keys swinging from his belt. “I guess he isn’t really a teacher. He’s the—he’s, like, the groundskeeper. He takes care of all the outside stuff.”

  “Well, what did you think?” my dad asks. “Who was right?”

  I can hear Granma in the kitchen, setting the table—she always makes a lot of noise when she moves around. For some reason, I want to keep my voice down. I feel like I’m having a secret conversation. “Nobody was right,” I say. “Everybody was wrong.”

  “Well, that’s what it’s like sometimes.”

  “It’s weird because I kind of know both of them pretty well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The caretaker guy, he’s called Sam. There’s this old basketball court behind the football field, and he lets me play there at lunch. Sometimes he even shoots around with me. And the teacher, Mr. Tomski—”

  “What about him?” Dad says.

  “Well . . . he’s my teacher. He’s also the basketball coach. So I see him at practice every day. You know, I’m the manager.”

  “I know,” he says. “Your mother mentioned that. I would rather you played.”

  “Dad, that’s not what I want to talk about right now.”

  “Okay,” he says. “Okay. So what happened? What did you do?”

  “Nothing really. Sam walked away, and then Mr. Tomski kind of gave up, too. We went back inside. I didn’t do anything. I just felt . . . bad. I felt like I let him down.”

  “Who?”

  At first I don’t answer. “Sam. He looked at me and I kind of looked away.”

  “Well, it doesn’t sound to me like you were the problem, Ben. It’s not always your fault. And it’s not always your responsibility to fix a situation.”

  We don’t say anything for a while—I’m just kind of staring at the shoes in the front hall. Eventually my dad breaks the silence. “One day I’d like to tell you my side of the story. But maybe that’s the last thing you need to hear.”

  A car drives past the house, with the lights on. The front door has glass panels on either side, and the lights flash against them and then flash away. For a second, I think that Mom is coming home early.

  “When am I
going to see you again?” My heart’s beating very quickly, like it does when you’re doing something that could get you into trouble.

  “Soon. As soon as I can. I thought it might be easier for both of you if I stayed away for a while.”

  “Maybe it is easier. For Mom.”

  I can hear him shifting around in bed, adjusting the pillows or something. There’s a kind of sound the phone makes, as if it’s brushing against his face, and he hasn’t shaved. A crackling sound. But maybe that’s just the telephone connection.

  “Is she there?” he asks me. “Does she want to talk to me?”

  “No. She usually goes out on a Wednesday night.”

  “Who with?” he asks.

  “I don’t know, it’s girls’ night. That’s what she calls it. They normally go to the movies.”

  But I’m thinking of Mr. Tomski, and I wonder if I should say anything. Instead I ask him a question. “Dad, if I wanted to move to London . . . with you. I mean, if that’s what I wanted to do . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I mean, what would I have to do? Is there . . . like, I mean, would you just come and get me?”

  “Is that what you want me to do?”

  “I don’t know.” And it feels like, almost for the first time in my life, what I say is going to . . . I mean, it’s important for me to be honest, to say what I mean, because what I say matters, and I have to get it right. “I like . . . I guess I like knowing that it’s an option.”

  “It’s an option,” he says. “And if this is something you want to do, this is something we can talk about. This is something we all need to talk about. I mean, your mother, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you told your mother how you feel?”

  “No. I don’t know. Not really.”

  “Why not?” my father says.

  “She’s kind of . . . she’s got a lot . . . going on. And right now, we still share a bedroom, and it’s like . . .” But it feels like I’m discussing Mom behind her back. “Anyway, I don’t always want to talk to her about everything.”

  “I understand.” Then he says, “Do you want me to start the conversation?”

  I think about this for a minute. “Not yet.”

  And that’s that. We say good night and hang up. “Okay, kid,” he says, and I say, “Sleep tight.”

  Then Granma calls me in to dinner, and I sit down to a plate of spaghetti. The windows are still steaming in the kitchen. “How was your father?” she asks. “Did you wake him up?”

  “Fine,” I tell her. “Yes, I woke him up.”

  She looks at me while I eat. “I wish I had a nickel for every time you said fine. I’d be a rich woman.”

  But I’m lying in bed now and thinking about that call—going over everything we said and remembering the way my heart suddenly started racing. Just thinking about it makes my heart beat faster again. But I don’t feel sad. For some reason, I feel excited—about what, I can’t figure out.

  Twenty-Two

  THE NEXT DAY, I take my lunch out to the basketball court again. But first I stop at Sam’s hut and knock on his door.

  There’s a television sound coming from inside, like the noise of a baseball game. I wait and listen, feeling the sunshine on the back of my neck. Bugs are flying around; I can hear them, too. Eventually Sam comes to the door, with a sandwich in his hand.

  I’ve spent all morning working out what to say, but for a second I forget and can’t even remember why I wanted to talk to him. Then it comes back to me. “I’m sorry I didn’t do anything. When Mr. Tomski took us out on your field.”

  “What could you do?” Sam takes another bite of his sandwich.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.”

  “What could you say?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m sorry anyway.”

  Sam has a way of looking angry and like he’s kidding at the same time. After a minute, he says, “It’s all right. Mr. Tomski came over yesterday to apologize himself.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said what he needed to say.” Sam laughs. “Come on, big man,” he says. “Let’s shoot some hoops.” He finishes his sandwich and steps inside to get the basketball.

  It’s a short walk to the court, just a few steps. On the way, Sam asks me, “Are you getting skinny on me, kid?”

  “My mom says I eat too much. I eat all the time.”

  He looks me over again. By this point, I’m standing under the basket.

  “Reach up your hands.” So I stand up straight and lift my arms in the air—then jump up and touch the bottom of the net.

  “Big man is getting bigger,” Sam says.

  Usually, we take turns to shoot, but today Sam keeps feeding me the ball. “Move and shoot,” he tells me. “Move and shoot.” I run to a spot on the court, and he passes it to me. Then I shoot and he passes it to me again. I’m not really thinking about anything, but sometimes I catch a glimpse of the ball in the air—trees in the background, the telephone wire, a few clouds, something falling out of the sky toward the rusty brown rim with a ragged old net like a bucket at the end of a rainbow. Then I run to another spot and Sam passes me the ball.

  Afterward, when the bell rings, Sam says, “I told him about you.”

  “Who?” I’m still sweating a little and have to get my stuff together. I didn’t even have time to eat lunch—it’s still in the bag.

  “Mr. Tomski. I said, look out for Ben. The kid can shoot.”

  Walking back to school, across the football field, I eat my peanut butter sandwich and throw the rest away in one of the metal trash cans by the back doors. I can’t work out if I’m glad Sam said what he said, or not—if I want Mr. Tomski to know.

  The regular season is almost over. On Friday Mom takes home the school newspaper to show Granma. It has a story about the basketball team, with the names of all the players: Pete Miller, Adam Hancock, Daniel Krasnick, Gabe Hunterton, Breon Joyner, Cory Caldwell, Dai Menudo, Blake Snyder, Steve Chou, Amir Brown. Coach: Harlan Tomski. Manager: Ben Michaels. Granma says, “Look at you. Your name in lights.”

  “I’m just the manager, Granma. I’m basically the guy who does the laundry.”

  “Let me be proud of you if I want to be,” she says.

  We have a week to prepare for the first round of the playoffs. From that point on, if we lose, that’s it—we can all go home. No more practice after school. No more games on Friday night. But if we win the next game, we have to play another; and if we win that game, too, we have to play another game after that. Five straight wins will make us the state champions.

  For the first time all year, Mr. Tomski makes us show up for practice on Saturday—we’ve got the gym all day. It feels weird coming to school with nobody there. The parking lot is empty, the corridors echo. Even the gym feels different. The light coming in the big windows behind the basket is weekend light—you can feel the whole afternoon slipping by outside, while we’re stuck in here. But it’s not a bad feeling, everybody has a job to do, and nothing else matters.

  Mr. Tomski decides that we need to get in better shape. We have one star player, Pete Miller, and a lot of average players. But even average players, if they run hard, can cause trouble for a short amount of time. Mr. Tomski plans to use plenty of substitutions. There are kids like Blake and Steve who have hardly played all year, but Mr. Tomski warns them, you better be ready. “A basketball game is two hundred minutes long—that’s how I think about it. You need to put five kids on the court for forty minutes of game time. I need minutes from everybody. That means everybody. Run your hearts out.”

  We’re standing at half court. Dust rises in a shaft of sunshine over our heads; everything looks faded, like a black-and-white movie. I’ve got the balls ready, and kids are waiting to hit the layup lines, but Mr. Tomski keeps talking. His voice sounds different in the empty gym, it bounces off the hardwood floors. “Every team we play from here on in is going to be bigger and better and stronger than us. What we hav
e to do is try harder. But don’t worry, we’ve also got a secret weapon. The best player in the city. Maybe the best player I have ever coached.”

  I notice that whenever Mr. Tomski says things like this, Pete smiles but also ducks his head and looks away. Like he doesn’t want to think about it.

  We have lunch outside on the picnic benches—everybody eats their sandwiches, but Pete sits in a corner and doesn’t talk much. People leave him alone. Around three o’clock, Mr. Tomski lets us out, and we wait in the parking lot for our parents to pick us up. Pete’s mom comes before mine, and I see her get out of the car—she’s wearing heels and wobbles a little when she walks. She calls him honey. “I’m not going to touch you, honey,” she says. “You’re kind of gross right now.”

  On Monday, everybody comes to practice early and leaves late. Nobody goofs around. They even stop calling me Ball Boy. For one thing, everybody’s too tired—Mr. Tomski is “licking us into shape.” That’s what he calls it. He makes the players run “ladders” over and over again—sprinting from one side of the court to the other as fast as they can. Afterward, everybody has to take a couple of free throws, and if anybody misses both shots, the whole team has to run more ladders.

  I start to feel bad, standing on the sideline, watching them run. Mr. Tomski can be short with me, too. He complains about the way I set up the cones or fill the water bottles or collect the balls. “Hustle up,” he says. “You see how hard everybody’s working.” Another time he makes me run ladders with the rest of the team. “Just so you get a taste of it.”

  It’s almost a relief, but I feel like throwing up afterward. My school shoes have big rubber soles. It’s like running with weights on your feet. One of my toes gets a blister, and I have to wear a Band-Aid under my sock for the rest of the week.

  Even Pete looks worn-out by the end of practice. Every time there’s any kind of race, he forces himself to win it. Afterward, in the showers, he stands with his eyes closed and lets the water fall over his face. Only two showers work—the hot water on the other wall is broken, and since Pete isn’t moving, kids have to take it in turns to wait for the second one. By the time he comes out, everybody else is already getting dressed.