Swagger

by Carl Deuker

  I put up my hands to calm him. “No, it’s okay. It’s okay. You did the right thing. We’ll put it aside for a while. There’s too much going on right now. Okay?”

  “You promise you won’t tell anybody?”

  “I won’t do anything without talking to you first. I promise.”

  He stepped farther back into the darkness. “I’m going home.”

  “That sounds good. I’m ready too.”

  “No. I’m going home alone. I don’t want you with me.”

  “Don’t be crazy, Levi. We’re heading in the same direction.”

  “Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.”

  Before I could answer, he’d turned and raced across the playfield, disappearing into the shadows.

  3

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER I WAS in my room, the lights off, my mind and body reeling. I kept trying to come up with some way to make the chaos go away, but Levi had said what he’d said, and there was no going back.

  I thought about school, the team, the games. How could I walk the halls of Harding, smile at kids, be a basketball player? How could I even look at Hartwell? Just the thought of him, of what he’d done, made me sick inside.

  But when I thought about telling someone—whether it was in a day or a week—that also made me feel sick. Levi’s father had screamed at Rachel over a tight blouse; what would he do to Levi? He’d want to kill Hartwell, but he’d blame Levi.

  He’d blame his son.

  Maybe Levi was right; maybe keeping it secret was the best thing to do. But that would mean Hartwell would get away with what he’d done, and that couldn’t happen, because he’d do it again. I’d read about guys like Hartwell in the newspapers. They didn’t stop until someone stopped them.

  When your mind is buzzing, you think you’re going to be awake all night, but you never are. I saw midnight, then one fifteen, then one fifty—but nothing after that. My alarm went off at six, and I sat up with a pounding head and an aching body, as if I’d been in a fight. I slouched downstairs and heated up some milk for hot chocolate and ate a piece of toast.

  I left the house at my normal time. I was certain Levi would be gone, but I knocked on his door anyway. His mother answered, her face expressionless. “He left half an hour ago,” she said in a monotone, and then she closed the door.

  As soon as I stepped inside the school, I started sweating. I’d never felt completely at home in the hallways at Harding, not like I’d felt at home at Redwood High. There were just too many faces I didn’t know.

  Through my first two classes, I could feel the blood pounding in my head. Luckily, I wasn’t called on in either class. When I stepped into Butler’s chemistry class, Celia pulled me aside. “Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, making myself smile. That’s when I remembered my scholarship. Celia was the second person at school I’d wanted to tell, after Levi. Now I couldn’t bring myself to say a word about Monitor College. Had Richter called me just last night? It seemed years ago.

  As the day dragged on, a new dread came on: practice. Seeing Levi and Hartwell together would make everything more real and more horrible. How could I look at either of them? Winning or losing didn’t matter. Basketball didn’t matter. All I wanted was for everything and everyone to go away.

  As I was standing at my locker right before health class, I spotted Hartwell in a side hallway. The instant I saw his face, the ground beneath me moved. My heart started pounding fast, the blood rushed into my head, but then it was as if all the blood had gone out of me. I was burning up, and a second later I was chilled. I felt the dizziness come, felt myself start to fall, but someone’s hands reached out and grabbed me and held me upright. It was Gokul. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He helped me to the nurse’s office, where Mrs. Van Deusen had me lie down on a cot. She stuck a thermometer into my mouth, and her eyes went to her watch. “I’m fine,” I said when Mrs. Van Deusen took the thermometer out.

  She scowled. “You’re not fine. You’ve got a fever of one hundred and one. I’m calling your mother; you need to go home.” She looked to Gokul, who had stayed. “You can go back to class now.”

  Gokul was about to leave when I remembered practice.

  “Can you tell somebody on the team that I’m going home sick?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Gokul said. “Cash is in my sixth-period class. I’ll tell him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Gokul patted me on the shoulder, a smile on his face. “You get healthy, Jonas. Everybody knows we’ve got no chance to win the whole thing. But we’ve really got no chance without you.”

  My mother arrived twenty minutes later. Once I was home, I went up to my room and tried to read Sports Illustrated, but the words swam on the page and the dizziness wouldn’t go away. I gave up, flicked off the light, and fell asleep.

  I didn’t wake up until ten o’clock the next morning.

  When I saw how late it was, I jumped out of bed, dressed quickly, and rushed downstairs. My mother and father were both at the kitchen drinking coffee. “Why didn’t you wake me?” I said.

  “You needed to sleep,” my mother said.

  “But—”

  My dad spoke next. “Jonas, I talked to Coach Hartwell. He says you have to be at school for your afternoon classes or you can’t play against Lynden, but that you can rest until then. You’ve got a couple more hours. Take it easy—you’re going to need your energy.”

  4

  THE DIZZINESS WASN’T COMPLETELY GONE, but at least I didn’t feel as if my knees were made of Jell-O anymore. I ate lunch at home, and then my mother drove me to Harding. As I got out of the car, I forced myself to stand tall. I could do this; I could get through the state tournament and then face whatever would come after.

  Spanish class was Spanish class. I answered a few questions, read a little about Picasso, and the hour went by. It was health that I dreaded—Levi would be there.

  I lingered in the hallway until just before the bell rang. I knew where Levi was without even looking. All year I’d taken the seat next to him in the back row. But I couldn’t sit next to Levi and pretend that everything was okay, so I used my tardiness as an excuse to take an open desk toward the front. A couple of times during class I looked back toward him, but both times his head was down. He didn’t want to see me, either.

  When class ended, I waited for him by the door. It would have looked strange if we’d gone to the team bus separately, and I think he sensed that too. As we walked to the parking lot, kids called out, wishing us luck.

  There were about fifty kids in the parking lot. Some of the guys were already on the bus, and they shouted out the window to their friends, who shouted encouragement back. I didn’t join in, and neither did Levi. He grabbed a seat up front, next to Brandon, so I headed to the back.

  We’d been on the bus for five minutes before Hartwell climbed on. He stopped all the screaming with a look. “Wait until you’ve won something before you celebrate.”

  The guys stayed quiet as Hartwell gave a short lecture on keeping our focus. As I watched him, the unreality of it returned. Hartwell was so classy—tall, lean but strong, well dressed. He had a ready smile and always knew what to say. And he had just the right amount of swagger in everything he did. If someone had asked me two days earlier: Who do you want to be like when you’re twenty-five? I’d have answered: Ryan Hartwell.

  I looked at Levi. His eyes were fixed on the floor. What sort of hell was he going through? I felt a new surge of white-hot hatred for Hartwell, for that classy look, for that easy manner, and for that arrogance. He’d searched out a target, like a hawk circling over a field. He’d found Levi, and he’d struck.

  Hartwell finished his talk and then said something to the bus driver. I closed my eyes as we pulled out of the parking lot. In front of me guys talked, but nobody was loud. Somewhere during the hourlong ride, I went into a semi-trance, doing everything I could to turn
my mind off.

  I came out of it when the bus exited the freeway. The sound of the motor changed; the speed of the bus changed, and the Tacoma Dome was right there, an American flag waving from the top of the blue and white roof.

  We pulled to a stop in the parking lot. I grabbed my duffle bag, stood, and was immediately overwhelmed again by the sense that the earth was quaking beneath me. I was so lightheaded that I had to grab hold of the back of the seat to keep from falling. Somehow I managed to make my way off the bus and follow Hartwell through the players’ entrance into the locker room.

  I sat down on a bench, my head still swimming, and changed into my uniform. When everybody was ready, Hartwell called us together and gave us a final pep talk. I don’t know what he said: I was too afraid I wouldn’t be able to walk to pay attention. It was as if I were on the deck of a tiny sailboat in the middle of a typhoon.

  Around me, guys hollered things like, “Let’s win this thing!” and “This is our time!” Moments later they stood and ran out of the locker room and through the tunnel. Seconds earlier I didn’t think I could walk, but somehow I was swept up and out with them.

  And then an amazing thing happened. As soon as I stepped onto the basketball court, the world steadied. I looked at Levi, and I could see relief wash over his face too. “Just play,” I mouthed to him, and he nodded.

  We were where we belonged.

  We went through the lay-up line a couple of times and shot around for a few minutes. There were photographers and TV cameramen everywhere—the game was going to be broadcast live across the state. When our warm-ups ended, the lights went dim. One by one, the starters for both teams were introduced, while multicolored searchlights cut the darkness and rock music blared from the speakers.

  None of the fanfare mattered; none of it made me nervous. On the basketball court, the rules were clear; the goal was clear. Hartwell was no longer a person: he was a coach, and I could listen to the coach, even though I hated the man. On the basketball court, I was safe.

  The full lights came back on, and the horn sounded.

  It was game time.

  As I walked to center court, I sized up the opposition. Lynden High was starting four white guys and a Hispanic guy. Not one of them was very tall, crazy muscular, or amazingly athletic. They were just guys.

  Levi directed the opening tip to Cash, who corralled the ball and passed it to me. I brought it to the top of the key, and Cash used a screen by Nick to pop free in the corner. I hit him with a perfect pass, and he stepped into a high-arcing three-pointer.

  Swish!

  Cash’s gorgeous shot made a jittery Lynden team even more jittery. On their first possession, Lynden’s forward fumbled a pass out-of-bounds. Cash hustled the ball inbounds; I raced into the forecourt and fed Levi, who was set up on the low block. The guy guarding me dropped down to double-team; Levi kicked the ball right back to me; and I drained a wide-open three-pointer. After another Lynden turnover, Levi grabbed an offensive rebound and stuffed the put-back, giving us an 8–0 lead fifty-two seconds into the game. The Lynden coach jumped off the bench to call time-out.

  Lynden’s time-out worked . . . sort of. After our red-hot start, the game settled down. They were a solid team; they wouldn’t have made it into the state quarterfinals if they weren’t. We didn’t score on dunks and three-pointers every time down; and they didn’t fumble the ball away on every possession.

  Even though Lynden played better than they had at the beginning of the game, and even though we had our cold spells, we were never threatened. All four quarters, I let the game come to me. On offense, my passes were crisp, my decisions solid. On defense, I clogged the passing lanes and rotated when I was needed. I never looked at the score or the clock. I was totally in the moment, and Levi was there with me. He hauled down rebounds, blocked shots, scored on put-backs and power moves. When the horn finally sounded ending the game, cheers rolled down on us from the stands. I looked up at the scoreboard: Harding, 68; Lynden, 48.

  It should have been a moment of pure elation. I should have luxuriated in the cheers washing over me. But Hartwell had stolen any joy. I hated the cheers because they meant the game was over. I wanted to stay on the court and play and play and play. I wanted to play a thousand games, one after the other.

  5

  GONZAGA PREP WAS PLAYING BELLARMINE in the next game, and we’d play the winner the following night. Hartwell was staying to scout the game, which meant the bus was staying. “If you’ve got a ride home, and you want to leave, it’s okay with me. If you want to stay and watch, that’s also okay. Those of you that leave—don’t celebrate too much, because we’ve got another game in twenty-four hours.”

  Most of the guys stayed, but I asked Levi if he wanted a ride home, and he nodded. We met my parents outside the locker room.

  On the drive back to Seattle, my mom and dad were talkative at first, telling both Levi and me how great we’d played. You can only do that for so long, though, so soon we all lapsed into silence. My parents were worn out from cheering; we were worn out from playing. Still, I was glad my parents were there—it made it impossible for us to talk about Hartwell. The ride to the T-Dome had seemed to take ten hours; the ride back felt like it was over in ten minutes.

  My dad dropped Levi off; Levi didn’t even look at me as he got of the car. Back home, I ate a microwaved burrito and followed that with a bowl of chocolate ice cream. My mom sat across from me, but we didn’t talk much. When the ice cream was gone, I retreated to my room, where I checked my text messages and my e-mails. Coach Richter had sent congratulations, and so had Celia and Uncle Frank.

  I answered them all and then remembered that the Gonzaga-Bellarmine game was on a local television station. I went downstairs and flicked it on—Gonzaga led by eight with five minutes to play. I didn’t turn the TV off until the Gonzaga guys were jumping around at center court, celebrating. When I did flick it off, I felt completely exhausted. That was good—it meant I’d be able to sleep. And I did, until three thirty. After that I tossed and turned, wanting the night to end, but not wanting the next day to begin.

  I stopped by Levi’s house on Friday morning, but he’d already left for school—no surprise—so I walked alone to Harding High. As soon as I stepped inside, I felt the hallways buzzing with excitement. Our victory over Lynden had electrified the students and the faculty. Even kids who never followed sports smiled at me, slapped me on the back, and wished me luck.

  There was a pep rally last period. The school band played the fight song; Hartwell talked about sportsmanship and effort; Mr. Diaz again lectured everyone about driving safely. “This is a great time for Harding High. Don’t ruin it by killing yourself or someone else.”

  When the pep rally ended, the team headed to the parking lot, where the bus waited to take us to the Tacoma Dome. Levi got on before me and hunkered down by himself in the back, so I took a seat up front.

  After the locker room and Hartwell’s pregame instructions, I kept waiting for the adrenaline rush, but it didn’t come. I didn’t really want to be there, but where else did I want to be? As I laced up my shoes, I imagined myself at Monitor College, far away from Hartwell both in space and time. I’d have new teammates and a new coach. I’d be playing in a new state, separated from everything familiar. I’d always been slightly afraid of that moment, but now I wanted to get away. To get away and have Hartwell and Harding High behind me. To have Levi behind me, too.

  Finally it was time for Cash and me to lead the team onto the court. It was a win-or-go-home game, but the hair on my arms didn’t stand up; my spine didn’t tingle. The energy, the focus, the desire—they weren’t there. Still, I was a leader of the team; I had to dig deep and find the energy, the focus, the desire. I had to suck it up and face everything—the basketball games and then what would come afterward . . . what had to come afterward.

  6

  AS HOT AS WE WERE at the start of the game against Lynden, that’s how cold we were against Gonzaga. On our fir
st possession, Cash crossed over on his guy, drove into the lane, and smacked into a defender who’d rotated over to draw the charge. No big deal, except Cash did exactly the same thing on our next possession, with the same result. One minute into the game, our top scorer was sitting on the bench in foul trouble.

  Early in the season, when Cash had been our only true scoring threat, we would have been beaten. Nick, DeShawn, even Levi—none of them had trusted their own ability, especially on the offensive end of the court. Now we were a complete team. I sized up Gonzaga’s defense, looking for a mismatch, and found one. The guy guarding Levi was huge but slow—he couldn’t handle Levi one-on-one.

  I set up a two-man game to see how Gonzaga would defend. As soon as I dumped the ball into Levi, my guy left me and dropped down to harass Levi. That meant they knew they couldn’t cover him straight up. Once the double-team came, Levi passed the ball back to me. I was wide open for a three-pointer, but I missed long. A couple possessions later, we ran the same play and again I missed the wide-open shot.

  I wasn’t the only one off target. We couldn’t hit the ocean with a rock, while everything Gonzaga tossed up seemed to go in. A couple of minutes into the game, we were down six, and for a third time I missed a wide-open shot, this time short. Hartwell yelled something at me, but as I backpedaled to play defense, DeShawn gave me a thumbs-up. “Keep shooting,” he shouted. From the bench I heard Cash yell the same thing.

  That support gave me the boost I needed. The next time we worked the play, my release was free and easy. The ball hit the back of the rim and went down. A minute later, I hit another long three-pointer, cutting Gonzaga’s lead to four points.

  Those two outside shots opened up the inside for Levi. Gonzaga couldn’t run the double-team at him because they had to cover me, and their big lug couldn’t handle Levi’s speed one-on-one. All through the second quarter, Levi took that hulk to the hoop, either making baskets or passing to DeShawn whenever DeShawn’s guy rotated over to help. As those two piled up points, we inched into the lead.