Home Games

by Benjamin Markovits

  Two days before the big game, Mr. Tomski takes us all aside at the beginning of practice. “No more running,” he says.

  He’s dressed in plain brown pants and white sneakers and the kind of shirt camp counselors wear—short sleeved with a collar. He has a whistle around his neck. You can see where he stopped shaving that morning.

  “Now I know y’all are a little mad at me right now.” Even when he loses his temper, he doesn’t speak loudly—you have to lean in to listen. But he isn’t angry now, and his voice gives you a kind of slow-burn feeling. “And you should be mad,” he says. “I’ve been working your tails off. But now’s the time to get mad at somebody else. Get mad at Murchison. That’s who you should get mad at.”

  Murchison Middle School is who we have to play against on Friday night. The Murchison Matadors—they wear gray uniforms and come from the other side of town, across Route 1. Nobody likes Murchison.

  For the first hour of practice, the team just scrimmages—they play games. Everybody has a good time. But then Mr. Tomski tells the kids to cool off, take a water break. Afterward, they walk through some of their sets on offense and defense. He shows people where they need to stand on the court, and what they need to do, depending on the situation.

  “Everybody should know these things by now. Still, it can’t hurt to be reminded.”

  But somehow the players keep making mistakes. Mr. Tomski loses his temper. Eventually, he calls over to me—I’ve been sitting on one of the bleachers by the side of the court, just watching.

  “Get on out here, Ben. Do you know the plays?”

  “Yes, sir. I think I do.”

  “Thinking’s got nothing to do with it. You know or you don’t. Okay, now, show these people where they need to be.”

  And for the next half hour, I run through the plays with Pete and everybody else. Almost like I’m part of the team. Nobody bounces the basketball or takes a shot, but we pass it to each other, back and forth, and move around the court as Mr. Tomski tells us to.

  I’m wearing long trousers and my heavy school shoes. Usually I don’t need to get changed after practice, but by the time we finish I’m in a real sweat.

  Mom drives me home afterward. It’s still light enough that she lets me play in the backyard for a few minutes before dinner. I can hear Mabley jumping on the trampoline next door. It makes a kind of thump and twanging sound when she’s out there. So I walk over to the bamboo hedge and crawl into my little hiding place between the leaves.

  I can watch Mabley flying through the air, twisting and spinning and turning somersaults. She isn’t smiling—she has to concentrate too hard for that—but somehow she looks happy anyway. She looks like she’s showing off.

  Then she slows down, bouncing more and more gently each time, and somebody else climbs on to the trampoline. It’s Pete Miller. I hear him say, “You’re going to get yourself killed, jumping like that,” and then they both start trampolining together. Pete isn’t bad, but Mabley can make him fall over whenever she wants, which makes her laugh. He doesn’t seem to mind.

  For a while I just sit there, hoping that Mabley will notice me and ask me to come over. And then I hope that she won’t, and that Pete won’t either, that nobody will see me. The sun is going down, it’s a warm evening, and everything glows a little and looks strange, and I feel like, I don’t belong here, this isn’t my place, nobody really wants me around. I watch them until Granma calls me in to supper. Mom has gone out with “the girls” again—it’s just another Wednesday night.

  Twenty-Three

  ON FRIDAY MORNING, Mom takes my arm on the way to the bus stop, like she’s an old lady and I’m helping her along. “Now, I don’t want you to get excited. But your father has a conference in Houston—he flew in last night. I told him about your game.”

  “Wait, what? Dad’s here? But it’s not my game. I’m not playing.”

  “I told him about your game,” she goes on, ignoring me, “but I don’t know if he can make it, I don’t know what his schedule is. Anyway, you’ll see him sometime this weekend.”

  “Why are you telling me now? Why didn’t you tell me before?” For some reason it sounds like I’m freaking out, but I’m really not—I just want to know. My voice isn’t totally under my control.

  “I got an email this morning. You know your dad. That’s how he always does things. He pays attention to things when he has time to pay attention to them—when they’re the next thing on his list.” She pauses. “Your father is a very busy and important person.” And I remember what it was like in New York.

  It’s about five blocks from Granma’s house to the bus stop, and eventually she lets go of my arm. Some of the sidewalks have trees leaning over them or agave plants spreading across the pavement. They look kind of like ordinary spider plants except the leaves are stiffer and have little spikes, or teeth, running along the edges—I never saw one in New York, but in Austin you see them a lot. But the roads are big and quiet enough that we sometimes walk in the middle of them; there isn’t much traffic. Nobody says anything for a few minutes, which is totally normal—I mean, it’s pretty early in the morning, but for some reason it feels weird to me. I mean, I feel like Mom is holding something back, or waiting to say something, and eventually she says it.

  “There’s something else he said in his email.” This is how she begins. Because it’s a school day, she’s kind of already in teacher mode—she’s wearing slacks and a little jacket, and her shoes that go clip-clop on the street. “I don’t want you to think I’m mad, Ben, because I’m not. But I just wished you felt like you could talk to me about it, too.”

  “What?” I say. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “He wrote that you talked to him about moving to London. He said that’s what you wanted to do.”

  I don’t say anything, and she says, “Is that true?”

  “I guess I talked to him. I mean, we just talked. He’s my dad and he’s in London—so it just seems like—it’s something we talked about.”

  “Is that what you want to do?” She sort of stops in the road to look at me.

  “Do you want to—I mean, would you come to London, too?”

  She sighs. “I’m happy here, Ben. It means a lot to your grandmother—she was lonely before, and I used to worry about her. It’s not easy being the only child, I guess you know that. But we have a good life here. I’m working again, I have friends. I like it here. I thought you did, too.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  We’re standing in the middle of the road now, facing each other.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if that’s . . . You don’t listen to me. It’s like you’re not even listening to yourself. I don’t have any friends.”

  “What about the basketball team? You’re friends with those boys.”

  “I’m not on the basketball team. That’s just something you make me do. The kids there . . . they make fun of me.”

  A car comes by, and we have to move to the sidewalk.

  “What do you mean? Who makes fun of you?”

  “I don’t know. Pete Miller. Everybody else on the team.”

  “That’s not true. Tom said . . .” But she can’t remember what he said, and sighs again. “Ben, it’s still . . . it’s early days. Give it a chance.”

  “Mom, it’s been almost a year.”

  “The first year is always the hardest. It was hard for me when I first moved to New York.”

  “Granma says it’s the first twenty years.” Mom sort of shakes her head, exasperated. “How long did you live in New York before we left?” I say, and she looks at me but doesn’t answer. “Did it get better after that first year?” I ask.

  She starts walking again. “We can talk about it this weekend.”

  “Is he coming to Granma’s house?”

  “We thought it might be easier for everybody if I dropped you off at his hotel. But we can talk there, too. We can all talk.”

  We get to the bus sto
p early. Only a couple of other kids are waiting; more cars go by. It rained in the night (it woke me up, clattering on the roof), and the roads are still wet. You can hear the tires squeak on the asphalt, but the sky looks clean and blue. A woman from the house on the corner walks outside barefoot to pick up her newspaper from the grass.

  Mom says, “Apparently, they’ve got an all-you-can-eat breakfast. At the hotel. Apparently, it’s famous. You’ll have a good time.” Then she says, “Don’t worry about it, Ben. We’ll sort everything out.” But she doesn’t sound like she believes it.

  Then the bus comes and I have to get on it with everybody else.

  For the first few classes, all I can think about is my dad. He’s coming to see me. This makes it hard for me to pay attention to the teacher. One of them, Ms. Kaminski, says to me, “I know you’ve got a big game today, Ben. But right now, we’re talking about triangles. That’s what you need to be paying attention to.”

  I stare at her.

  “Triangles,” Ms. Kaminski says again, pointing to a picture on the blackboard. “Not basketballs.”

  “I’m not on the team,” I tell her.

  “I thought you . . .” she begins to say, looking puzzled. Mom has made me dress in a jacket and tie that morning, so I look like all the other players. “I thought you were.”

  “Well, I’m not.”

  After lunch, the whole school gathers in the main gym for a pep rally. Mr. Tomski and the rest of us wait in the second gym, next door. All the boys apart from me are wearing basketball uniforms, long shorts and tank tops that look shiny under the lights. I’m still wearing my jacket and tie and big-soled school shoes.

  There are double doors between the two gyms, and Mr. Tomski opens one of them a crack to see what’s going on. The bleachers are full of kids. I can hear the noise they’re making, it sounds like a train passing by—a train that keeps going and going. I remember taking the subway to Coney Island with my dad and holding my ears against the screech of the wheels against the metal tracks. Suddenly, my heart starts racing again, I don’t know why.

  After a minute, somebody gives the signal to Mr. Tomski, and he swings both doors open. The players in their uniforms run into the main gym through a kind of human tunnel: two lines of kids holding their arms overhead, touching hands and making a long arch. The cheering gets even louder. The school band plays a marching song, and the principal stands in the middle of the court with a microphone in her hand.

  Pete Miller’s the last player to come out, and he walks instead of runs. I don’t think the noise can get any louder, but it does. I feel something on my shoulder, and Mr. Tomski leans down to shout in my ear.

  “They’re playing our song,” he says.

  “What?” I can hear him, but I don’t understand.

  “It’s our turn. To walk out there.”

  “But—I’m not on the team. I don’t have a uniform on,” I say.

  “Neither do I. Come on, son. This isn’t a choice.”

  He puts his hand on my shoulder again. He has a heavy hand, and together we walk out into the bright lights of the main gym. It’s so loud it’s almost like you can’t see—and not just loud but warm. The air is thick with all the kids crowding on the bleachers and stamping their feet and cheering.

  When we reach the middle of the court, Mr. Tomski lets go of me, and I walk over to the players lined up next to the principal, Ms. Fontenot, in two rows. I sneak in behind them because I feel stupid standing there in my jacket and tie, the only boy not wearing a uniform.

  Ms. Fontenot makes a short speech, after raising her hands until everyone quiets down. “This just shows what you can do if you put your minds to something.” Her voice is real Texan, or southern anyway—sweet and slow. “All of these boys have sacrificed two hours after school every day to get here. They’ve put in the time and they’ve done the hard miles—I know Coach Tomski likes to make them run.” She smiles, but it’s hard to be funny if you’re the principal. Everybody knows you have to say all the stuff you have to say. My mom likes her, though. Ms. Fontenot doesn’t take any baloney from anyone, Mom says. She’s got gray streaks in her hair, which she doesn’t bother dyeing, and likes to wear cowboy boots—you can hear them click as she strides around the hallways. I can see them now, under her bright red dress. “The work you put in, you get that out in the end. This is what we call a teachable moment, where all of you sitting out there can think, I want to be on that court, with these kids . . . fighting for something together.”

  I’m standing with all the other players, but it’s like, I don’t know if she’s talking about me, too. I feel like a big phony. The band plays the school song, everybody cheers, but then it’s suddenly like an ordinary lunchtime afternoon, kids talking and filing out, shuffling along the bleachers, waiting at the doors. Going back to class.

  The band is the last to leave. It takes them a while to pack up their instruments; Mabley looks at me as she gathers her music up and puts her sax away. She gives me a little wave. Then one of the janitors gets out a big double broom and sweeps the floor—going up and down in rows. After the court is clear again, Mr. Tomski starts to lead the team through a light practice. Ms. Fontenot has let them skip class for the rest of the school day to get ready for the big game. I’m walking away when the coach calls out to me.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got French,” I say.

  “Come here,” Mr. Tomski tells me.

  The rest of the team are practicing free throws, lining up and taking turns. I don’t move, I just stand there. Mr. Tomski jogs over to me by the doors to the hallway that lead back to the rest of the school.

  “What’s up?” Mr. Tomski says. When I don’t answer, he goes on: “Come on, son. I’m not just your teacher here. I’m your friend. What’s on your mind?”

  For a minute, I just stare at my shoes, the ones that give me blisters when I run. Then I look up at Mr. Tomski. “Mom said my dad might come to the game.”

  He doesn’t say anything, and finally I ask, “Did you know he was coming?”

  Mr. Tomski has brown eyes and wrinkles around his eyes, but they don’t look like smiling wrinkles. He spends a lot of time at his ranch, out in the wind and sun. Eventually he says, “She said something to me this morning. I’m glad he can make it to the game.”

  “Well, he might come. Or he might not. Mom wasn’t sure.”

  I can hear the sound of basketballs bouncing against the wooden floor and echoing against the high ceiling of the gym. It’s a nice lazy sort of sound but loud enough that I feel like I can say whatever I want to say to Mr. Tomski, and nobody else will hear us.

  “Do you want him to come?” Mr. Tomski asks. He has a way of sticking his tongue into the pocket of his cheek, as if he’s got a big piece of chewing gum in his mouth.

  I think about this and look down at my shoes again. “I don’t want him to see me . . . like this.”

  “Like what?” Mr. Tomski starts to say but then stops himself. “I tell you what. I’m pretty sure we got a spare uniform somewhere in the office. How about you put that on?”

  He has to repeat himself before I nod.

  “But I’m warning you,” Mr. Tomski says. “If you put on that uniform, I might just have to play you. There’s a rumor on the grapevine that you can shoot.”

  Twenty-Four

  FOR THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON, all I can think about is the game. After practice, the players shower and throw their shorts and shirts on the locker room floor, and I go around with a laundry bag, picking up the wet clothes. These are just the practice uniforms. We have a different set for games.

  It’s my job to make sure the real uniforms are clean, to carry them on the bus for road games, and to hand them out to all the players before tip-off. (There’s a big Whirlpool washing machine in the office, with a Maytag dryer stacked on top of it, next to the restroom door.) Mr. Tomski has found a spare uniform for me, but I’m still wearing my school shoes. That’s what worries me most, b
ut I tell myself it doesn’t matter, that I’m not going to play anyway. And if Dad sees me sitting on the bench, he probably won’t notice.

  After the final school bell, the boys head for the showers and get changed. Everybody comes out looking sharp, in jackets and ties. Pete Miller’s tie has a picture of Michael Jordan on it. I’m wearing an old green tie that used to belong to my dad. I’ve also got a checklist of things to remember—Mr. Tomski’s clipboard; the medical kit; and, most important of all, the big duffel bag of fresh uniforms. I sling it over my shoulder on the way to the bus.

  It’s only about a twenty-minute drive to Murchison Middle School. I know the first part of the way pretty well—it’s the same road the school bus takes driving me home. The neighborhood seems to be changing, like Sam says. There are fancy new houses, made of metal and glass, some of them still under construction, and a few run-down-looking houses, with sagging roofs, and leaves still on the roofs, and wooden porches. One of the front yards has an old car propped up on the grass—it’s missing a few wheels. There are cement blocks holding it up.

  Staring out the window, I remember something Mabley told me once. It was early in the morning, and she had squeezed in next to me on the bus. I said to her, just for something to say: “I guess the people around here like to hang on to their cars.”

  “They don’t have much money.” There was something in her tone of voice that made me blush.

  “When I lived in New York, we didn’t have a car,” I said.

  “That’s different.”

  “Why is it different?”

  She looked me over. I didn’t know if she was teasing me. “I could tell when I met you that you were one of those kids.”

  “One of what kids?”

  “That you weren’t used to thinking about certain kinds of stuff,” she said.

  It makes me a little angry, going over this conversation in my head. For some reason I want to say to Mabley, “You were the one who laughed when Sam and Mr. Tomski argued about the football field.” But I also remember telling my dad, when I left the apple core on the sofa: Maria can clean it up. That seems like a long time ago, like something that happened in a different world. I want to explain myself to Mabley. I want to say, “Maybe I’ve changed.”