The Right Hook of Devin Velma

by Jake Burt

  That’s when it hit me.

  I was on film, in photos, and on the news.

  Wearing a Blake Griffin jersey.

  I didn’t even have time to shrug out of it before one of the nurses called, “Addison Gerhardt! You’re up!”

  The sound of the applause chased us down the hall. We all crammed into the exam room. There was barely enough room for the doctor.

  “I hear I’ve the pleasure of treating a hero this evening,” she said as she carefully unwrapped my hand.

  “I’m a Warriors fan,” I managed after my mom put her hand on my shoulder.

  She laughed. “Well, we won’t hold that against you here.”

  The doctor was very patient, and very nice. She politely ushered everyone out when it came time for X-rays, and she let them back in again as she changed my bandages. She didn’t even seem to mind as all three Gs offered advice on how to best treat my fingers. Triple-G suggested leeches. She was kidding.

  I think.

  It turned out there were no fractures in my hands—just the ugly, excruciating fingernail thing. The doctor talked to my parents about how to take care of them. No basketball for a couple of months, at least. There was also this goopy stuff to put on, and to top it all off, a tight gray glove, padded at the fingertips. The doctor took a little pair of scissors and cut off the final two fingers and the thumb of the glove so that my unhurt fingers could poke through.

  “It looks like you’ve got a bionic hand there, Addison!”

  We all turned at once to see who had spoken. Devin gasped and ran to his father, who had been wheeled to the exam room by G. He held out his hand to slow his son down, then beckoned him forward for a cautious hug.

  “Dad! You’re here!” Devin exclaimed. Mrs. Velma seemed less enthusiastic.

  “Why on God’s green earth are you out of bed?”

  “Nurses said it was fine. And besides, if watching my only son throw himself from the top of the Staples Center wasn’t enough to give me another heart attack, I think I can handle a drive to the hospital and a couple of hugs.”

  He got more than a couple. When it was my turn, I had to use my left arm. My right stuck out awkwardly, like I was holding up a peace sign.

  “Addison,” Mr. Velma said, his hand still on my shoulder. I knelt down in front of him so he wouldn’t have to look up. “I’m sure I speak for our entire family when I say that we owe you a debt we cannot repay. Our son is so incredibly lucky to have a friend like you. Were you not by his side, I’m certain he wouldn’t be here now. Thank you.”

  I nodded and offered him a smile. When I stood, I found the rest of the Velma family there, all lined up to thank me. There were five more peace-sign hugs, and all of them repeated what Mr. Velma had said: if I wasn’t there, Devin wouldn’t be here now.

  I knew exactly what they meant, and despite the pain in my hand, I was in total agreement. Still, as I heard their thanks, I couldn’t help but start to think of it in another way: If I hadn’t agreed to help Devin with his schemes, would we have been at the game at all?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  SOAKING IT ALL IN

  I was so exhausted by the time we got home that I fell asleep still wearing the Blake Griffin jersey. My mom and dad both tucked me in, making sure the blanket was rolled away from my hand and that my head hit the pillow. I think they pulled my shoes off for me, too. At least, I woke up barefoot.

  The clock above my closet said it was twelve forty-five in the afternoon. I had to rub my eyes twice to read it, and I accidentally smashed my glove-covered fingers into the side of my nose. I gasped. There was nothing quite like pain to get you moving.

  I finally tossed the Blake Griffin jersey away and wandered down the hall. I thought about stopping at the bathroom to check my bandages and put some medicine on my fingertips, but the smell coming from the kitchen was too tempting.

  “There’s the hero of the day!” my mom said. My dad was at the stove, frying up a panful of cinnamon-sugar apples. On the table was a huge waffle and a plate of spicy sausage. Mom pulled out the chair for me. I had two sausage links in my mouth before my backside hit the seat.

  “We made your favorites,” Dad said. “Twice.”

  Mom smiled, pointing at the trash can. A cold waffle sat atop a mound of eggshells. Its edges were jagged.

  “I may have done some nibbling when it was apparent you weren’t going to get out of bed at your normal time.”

  “Thanks, guys,” I said. “For both breakfasts.”

  “You earned it!” a voice called out from below. “Good morning, Addison!”

  “Good afternoon!” I yelled back. “Hi, Ms. Culverson!”

  “You need anything else up there? I’ve got OJ if the kid wants some!”

  My dad crouched by the hole. “No thanks, we’re good.”

  “My whole poker crew saw Addison on the eleven o’clock news last night. Your son giving out autographs yet?”

  I laughed, holding up my right hand. My mom giggled, too, and she swiped a strawberry off the side of my plate. Dad hurried back to the apples before they burned, and he brought the whole pan over, tipping the entire sizzling cascade of caramel and apple chunks onto my waffle. After he let the pan rattle into the sink, he returned to the hole.

  “No autographing for Addison, I’m afraid. Apparently, it takes quite a bit of effort to catch a kid half your size.”

  “Dad!” I exclaimed.

  “Teasing! We—”

  The sound of the phone ringing cut my dad off.

  “I’ve got this one,” he said. “You dote on our son.”

  As Dad answered the phone, Mom leaned in.

  “That’s maybe, like, the tenth or eleventh call this morning.”

  “People checking if I’m okay?”

  “Some. Moms and dads of your friends at school. A few have been news stations.”

  It was suddenly hard to swallow the mouthful of apples and waffle I’d been chewing. I took a gulp of milk from the glass nearby and managed to wrangle it down.

  “News stations?” I echoed.

  “You made quite a scene! We’re not surprised. And don’t worry,” she said, reaching out to cover my good hand with hers. “You don’t have to talk to them unless you want to. I think you had enough exposure yesterday. A lot of practice, hmm?”

  I thought about the crowd of people outside the emergency station at the stadium, and I shivered.

  “Yeah…”

  “Then you leave the phone calls to us. Maybe try to get your homework done and take it easy today. Eat another dozen waffles.”

  I smiled. “Deal.”

  After I finished eating, I retreated to my room. Homework, fortunately, was a bunch of reading and only a little bit of math. It took me a few seconds to work out how to handle the pencil, but once I found that I could hold it like a knife and sort of stab down at the paper, I was fine. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon in there, happy to be hidden away—the phone kept ringing and ringing.

  It was near dinnertime, just as I was thinking about scoring another round of waffles, that my mom stuck her head in, the cordless phone in her hand.

  “This is one I think you might want to take,” she said, smiling. I flopped onto my bed, and she put the phone in my left hand.

  “Addi!” Devin said.

  “How did you know I had the phone?”

  “You always sigh right before you put it up to your ear.”

  “No, I don’t.” Do I? Okay, I probably did.

  “Have you gone on your computer yet, man?”

  “No. I woke up way late and have been doing my homework. How’s your dad?”

  There were a few seconds of silence.

  “He’s okay,” Devin whispered. Then, much louder, “I have twelve thousand followers, Addi! Overnight!”

  I palmed my face with my other hand … gently.

  “That’s great, Devin. Your plan worked.”

  “You should see some of these tweets on my feed. Here.
I’ll read them to you.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Yo Devin! That was scary last night! Glad U … She types out the letter U here, by the way. You know, like R-S-T-U, instead of the word you—”

  “Yeah, I get it, Devin.”

  “Good. Anyway, Glad U R okay!”

  “Who’s that from?”

  “Some girl I don’t know. Here’s another: Wow! You’re that kid that fell!!! And the next one: So happy 2 see U okay! U should thank that guy who caught U!”

  “I’m really happy for you, Devin. Now we—”

  “Hold on, bro. I haven’t gotten to the best part. Are you ready for this?”

  I stared up at the Y-shaped crack in the ceiling. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “@ THE game last night. Saw this whole thing. Kid is my new hero! #greatcatch #thecatch #catch #Valentines #miraclekid.”

  “That’s a lot of hashtags.”

  “They’re not just any hashtags. They’re her hashtags, Addi!”

  I flipped the phone to the other hand, regretted it, and flipped it back.

  “Her?”

  “Jeska Stone’s! And she posted a video she caught on her phone! I’m on her Twitter! Well, I mean, you’re there, too, of course, but I’m on there! Should I message her to tell her who I am? Should I tweet at her? Do you think she’d retweet me?”

  “I think she probably doesn’t even read her own Twitter feed. She’s gotta have people for that, right? Like, servants or something?”

  “I think they call them assistants.”

  “Yeah, those.”

  “I’m gonna tweet her. Maybe make an Instagram account, too.”

  “What about your homework?”

  “Pssh. I think I pretty much have the best excuse of all time. And besides, I might not even be in school tomorrow. I’ve got to decide which interviews we’re going to do.”

  “Interviews?” I gulped.

  “Yeah, man. And don’t tell me you haven’t been getting offers. I’ve got a busy signal every time I’ve called your landline.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Listen. I know talking isn’t your thing, but if Mornings with Darcy and Rob calls, would you please, please, please agree to do the interview with them? They offered an appearance fee if we gave them an exclusive, but they said they’d only do it if they had you, too. Darcy and Rob! That’s the biggest show in L.A.! And it’s syndicated!”

  “I know who Darcy and Rob are, Devin.”

  “Then you’ll do it? Appearance fee, man…”

  I sat up straighter. “Like how much? Enough to cover your dad’s bills?”

  “Nah. Not even close. But think of the followers I’d pick up!”

  “I don’t know.… There’s a whole audience there, right? Like, hundreds of people watching?”

  “That’s just in-studio, Addi. Millions more watch on TV at home! Think of the exposure we’d get!”

  Oh, I was.

  Devin kept going. “And Addi? The appearance fee—we both get it. Isn’t there anything you could use five thousand dollars for?”

  I had to shake my head to clear it. Five thousand dollars? I thought of the envelope from the government. I thought of the stupid dishwasher crashing through our floor. I thought of my dad, who’d be home right now if he didn’t have to take the taxi back to the garage. Was five thousand dollars enough for a down payment on a new car?

  “I’ll … I’ll think about it,” I said, and I hung up.

  The rest of the day we left the phone disconnected. We still got calls on my mom’s cell, but the TV stations didn’t have that number, so it was much quieter. I sat back and watched movies while my parents brought me food. I had to admit, it was nice—not that I wanted to make a habit out of scaring them half to death.

  In the morning, Dad bit the bullet and drove me to school in the taxi, since he was worried about reporters. He wasn’t wrong, either: there were two news vans outside our apartment building and three more in front of the school. He drove me to the teachers’ parking lot and waited for a faculty member to pull up. It turned out to be Coach, who also taught sixth-grade PE.

  “Coach Bach!” my dad hollered from the taxi. “Coach!”

  Coach hustled up to the window, his track pants swishing with each step. If I was ever going to work at a school, I’d be a gym teacher, for sure. They got to wear the comfortable clothes.

  “There he is!” Coach said, reaching through the window to offer me a high five. I held up my glove and shrugged. Coach’s face fell.

  “The price of heroism,” he mumbled. “How long are we going to be without our star player?”

  I sighed. “Two months, at least.”

  “Missing the rest of the season?”

  I nodded, and I felt a little queasy. It seemed more real now that Coach knew.

  “Well, focus on getting better, and don’t worry about disappointing the team. Yes, it’s…” His voice dropped much lower, and he puffed out his chest. “Sixth-grade basketball!” Then he exhaled and spoke more softly. “But it’s also just sixth-grade basketball.”

  My dad nodded in agreement. “Good point, Coach, and thank you. May I ask you for a favor?”

  “Anything, Mr. Gerhardt.”

  “I believe I spotted some press vans outside the front of the school.”

  “You surely did. I saw them, too, and Principal Carrillo sent out an e-mail last night warning us. We’ve got three faculty members out by the wall this morning. Don’t worry, Mr. Gerhardt. We’ll keep the kids well insulated.”

  “And we appreciate that. Do you think that you might have time to walk Addison into the building, maybe let him stay in the gym until the bell rings?”

  “I think that can be arranged, yes,” Coach said, smiling as he scratched his blond beard. He opened the door for me and grabbed my backpack. After I said good-bye to Dad, Coach snuck us around the back way. He let me turn on all the gym lights, which popped satisfyingly as they warmed up. I helped him set up the square plastic scooters for fourth-grade gym class, and he even fed me the ball for five minutes while I shot left-handed jumpers.

  “See? Maybe it was a blessing in disguise,” Coach joked. “You’ll be ambidextrous by the time you’re all healed. You’ll have to thank Devin for letting you save him!”

  I smiled. Hanging out with Coach made me feel a little better about having to miss the rest of the season, but I’d still suffer without it. Basketball wasn’t my favorite sport just because I was tall. It was the pace of the game: everything happened so fast that there wasn’t any time to think. And less thinking? That meant less freezing.

  The best was when Coach drew up plays. He’d use a dry-erase board to design a backdoor cut off the inbounds, or tweak our 2-3 zone to account for a kid who could shoot from the wing. Everything I needed to do was laid out for me; all I had to do was follow the big letter A on the board.

  As I stared out at the hallway full of kids, wondering how many of them had seen the game or heard the news, I wished Coach had a play to get me to homeroom. Maybe if I rushed out right when the bell rang, there’d be so many lockers slamming, kids yelling, and backpacks brushing by that I’d be able to sneak through.

  Or maybe not.

  “Ohh man!” I heard as soon as I stepped into the hallway. The fourth graders had already started lining up to go into the gym, and at the head of the line was Benji. His eyes were as big as golf balls. I tried to ask him what his freckle count was this morning, but he wouldn’t even let me talk.

  “Addi! Addi! Did you, like, see yourself? It was awesome! Devin was all like, runrunrun, ’n’ you were all like, ‘Noooo! Wait, bro!’ and he was all like, ‘Aaaah!’ and you were all like, ‘I’ve got you, bro!’ and then it was the falling and the snagging and the cheering and … Addi!”

  You wouldn’t think someone could successfully reenact my catch of Devin, especially not a fourth grader (by himself, in a crowded hallway, on the linoleum floor), but he pulled it off. Sort of. It was mostly just B
enji rolling around, grabbing his own ankle, doing some sort of handstand thing, and then collapsing in a heap and panting. I helped him up with my left hand, and all the other fourth graders murmured, “Oooh.”

  “I touched him!” Benji exclaimed, and he held his hand out so that the other little kids could feel his fingers. I rolled my eyes, but it was hard not to smile as I left them and headed toward homeroom.

  When I got to the classroom, Devin was already there. He was standing on a desktop, his arms out wide, with fifteen other kids gathered around him. Even Ms. Gillespie was watching … and seemed fine with him being up there.

  “And then the world turned upside down! I felt completely weightless, completely free. It was like I was an eagle, soaring on the roars of the crowd.” He paused, pointed at Ms. Gillespie, and snapped his fingers. “That was a simile I just threw in there for you, ma’am.” She nodded, and he continued. “And then, out of absolutely nowhere, divine intervention!”

  “Addi!” Martina Ruiz shouted, her curly hair bouncing as she sprinted over and gave me a hug. Two seconds later and I was mobbed.

  Devin extended both hands toward me and said, “Right on cue. Nobody can say the guy doesn’t have impeccable timing!”

  Holding my own sore hand above the crowd and whispering a prayer of thanks for being the tallest kid in the grade, I waded through the kids to my desk and sat down. I looked at Ms. Gillespie, but she winked, then pointed at the clock. There were still five minutes left in homeroom.

  “Enjoy it,” she mouthed. I shivered.

  Devin, I thought, was enjoying it enough for the both of us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  SQUEEZING IT ALL OUT

  So it turned out my dad couldn’t pick me up from school until after his shift was over at five o’clock. Normally that wasn’t an issue, but since I couldn’t go to basketball practice, that left me with two hours to kill. I would have loved to have gone across the street to grab a snack at the food trucks, then maybe hung out at the park with some of the other guys, but that was a no-go, too. Principal Carrillo made the call: she didn’t want Devin or me out there by ourselves, not with the press still hanging around. And boy, were they still hanging around. We could see their trucks—five of them now—from the windows of the detention room.