by Carl Deuker
Outside it was mostly gray, but with a little blue in the sky. At the end of my walkway I stopped and looked at Trent's house. The garbage can was lying on its side by the back fence, stray pieces of paper littered the flower beds. It looked just the way it always looked.
Chapter 9
When I opened the door to the locker room, Luke was in his uniform and Darren was lacing up his shoes. No sooner had I sat down in front of my own locker than Coach O'Leary came over. He didn't say anything; the look in his eyes asked the question for him. I shook my head. He turned and went back into the coaches' office.
The locker room quickly filled up. Markey, McShane, Chang, Fabroa. Each guy came in, looked around for Trent, then dressed.
A few minutes before we took the court, O'Leary went to the chalkboard and laid out the game plan as if nothing were different.
As soon as O'Leary finished, we ran out into the packed gymnasium. The band played the school fight song; cheerleaders yelled into their megaphones; the dance team did flips along the sideline. Two thousand people roared for us.
O'Leary had the team manager bring out the rack of balls. We went through the lay-in line seven or eight times, and then we just shot around.
That's when the questions started. Kids would walk by and call out to us. "Where's Dawson?"..."Dawson never showed?"..."Is Dawson hurt?"
It wasn't just at courtside either. You could hear Trent's name murmured up in the bleachers, in the aisles, all through the gymnasium. I saw a reporter from the Eastside Journal talking with O'Leary. Even the Garfield coach kept looking at us, then looking toward the locker room.
The horn sounded—game time. We put our hands together and hollered just as we always did, maybe even louder than usual. At center court we stared down the Garfield guys, trying to be tough.
It didn't take Garfield long to find our weakness. With Trent missing they pounded the ball inside. Their center had twenty pounds on McShane, and he used that weight to muscle McShane out of the way. Their forwards somehow seemed bigger, too. On missed shots they crashed the boards, swinging their elbows, clearing space.
They scored the first five points of the game and at the quarter led by nine. Luke sank a three-pointer on our first possession in the second quarter, and our crowd came alive, but it was then that the Garfield coach hit us with a wave of substitutes.
Their fresh legs turned the game into a rout. My arms were so tired I could hardly lift them over my head. My legs went rubbery; I lost my foot speed, and jump shots that normally found the bottom of the net barely reached the rim. And the other guys were in the same shape.
Garfield went for the kill—running every chance they had, gambling on defense, hounding us full court. And we broke. Not just physically, but mentally. On the final possession of the half, Garfield hauled down four straight offensive rebounds before their center, tired of seeing shots bounce off the rim, powered down a vicious dunk that rocked the backboard just as the horn sounded. We were playing at home, but there was a smattering of boos as we left the court, our shoulders slumped and our heads down. One guy leaned over the railing and hissed: "You suck!"
Inside the locker room guys collapsed onto benches, eyes on the ground. About five times O'Leary looked as if he was going to say something, but every time he was about to start, he stopped.
When I was certain no pep talk was coming, I went to the sink, stuck my head under the faucet, and turned on the cold water. I pulled my head out, gave it a shake, then closed my eyes and toweled myself dry. When my eyes were closed, when the whole world had gone black, I thought of Trent.
I pictured him on a bus somewhere, looking out the window and watching the telephone poles click by. He'd know the game was going on. He'd even be able to tell what quarter we were in by the time. Was he playing the game in his mind? Or did he even care?
O'Leary clapped his hands. "Let's go, gentlemen."
There weren't many cheers when we took the court. The gym was still full, but the tension had gone out of the crowd. Even the band sounded sluggish. The guys were down too, tossing up jumpers as if it were gym class. I thought about calling my teammates together, saying something to them, but you don't lead by talking.
The horn sounded, and I was standing at center court for the tip. I was the point guard. Win or lose, I had to lead.
The ref tossed the ball up; McShane got a piece of it, and then a Garfield guy swatted it toward the scorer's table. The ball was headed out of bounds, but instead of letting it go and hoping for the call, I hustled after it, caught it, spun, and threw it to Markey just as I crashed into the timekeeper. I didn't see how Markey scored; I was picking myself up off the ground when the ball went through the net. But I did hear the roar from the crowd. Markey high-fived me as he hustled back to play defense, and his eyes were alive.
For the first minutes of the third quarter I was all over the place, sometimes saving the ball, more often not. But even when you don't make the great play, hustle pays off. One guy throws his body on the floor and all of a sudden everybody does. Rebounds, loose balls, even the ref's calls, all came our way. Garfield's eighteen-point lead shrank to thirteen, then ten.
Finally their coach called time-out. Our fans gave us a standing ovation. Luke waved a towel in the air, and the crowd roared louder. It was the Garfield guys who were shaking their heads, looking for all the world like a team that was behind, not ahead.
After the time-out our crowd stayed on their feet, yelling, screaming, and stomping on the bleachers. Garfield, clearly rattled, forced a shot. Luke rebounded and hit me with a quick outlet. But they had two guys back, so there was no chance for a fast break.
I walked the ball up the court, all the time looking to Luke's side. The guy guarding me saw my eyes and was lulled by my pace. He was sure I was going to feed Luke. Instead, I put on a burst, blowing right by him. One of their big guys came up to stop me as I reached the key. I crossed over on the dribble and went up for the shot. That's when I got hit. I'm not sure what it was, whether it was an elbow or a shoulder or a forearm. All I know is that my nose was totally flattened, that the blood came gushing, and that there was no whistle.
As I crumpled to the ground, Garfield's center cleared my missed shot. For a second I saw all these feet going by me. I tried to get up, but my mouth was full of blood.
Garfield scored, and immediately the ref blew his whistle, stopping play. O'Leary came out, gave me a towel to hold to my nose, and helped me to the sideline. I slumped onto the chair and dabbed at my nose to try to get the bleeding to stop. O'Leary knelt in front of me. "You okay?"
"I'm fine ... I'm fine," I answered, anxious to get back on the court. But the bleeding wouldn't stop. I looked up to see Garfield score again, this time when my guy drained a three-pointer over Chang. "You've got to put me back in."
O'Leary shook his head. "You know the AIDS rule. The refs can't let you play. Listen, Nick, there's a doctor here. You go back into the locker room with him. He'll get you fixed up."
As I walked down the aisleway toward the locker room, the crowd groaned. Garfield had scored again.
The doctor sat me down on the bench and started squeezing my nose. I winced in pain. "Do you have to do that?"
He kept squeezing. "If you want to play I do." He took some gauze out of a first-aid kit and stuck it up my nose. "There's nothing broken. Lean forward and pinch. I'll be back in a minute."
After he left I sat dabbing at my nose, rotating the towel to get a clean white spot so I'd be able to tell when the bleeding had stopped. I pinched, and pinched harder, but still the tiny drops of blood came.
Time crawled. Finally the locker room door swung open again. I looked up, expecting to see the doctor. I was going to tell him that he had to do something, and fast, but it wasn't him. Standing in front of me, wearing baggy pants and a T-shirt, with his hair slicked back and his duffel bag slung over his shoulder, was Trent. For a split second my body went electric, as if I'd sunk a shot from half court at the buzzer. Then, as quickly as
it came, the feeling went.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I don't know exactly. I guess I had to see the game, see how it all ended."
I wasn't sure I understood. "You mean you've been here the whole time?"
He nodded. "Almost. I snuck into the coaches' office right after the game started. It's got that little square window. You can see most of the court, and the scoreboard, and nobody can see you."
"And you just watched?"
"Yeah. I just watched."
I dabbed my nose—no blood. I threw the towel to the ground and stood. "Look, I don't understand why you're here, or what you want from me. But right now I don't have time to find out." With that I pushed by him, hustled up the aisle, and back to the bench.
As I took the chair next to O'Leary, I looked up at the scoreboard. We were down by seventeen with fifty-seven seconds left in the third. Bad, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.
"You okay?" O'Leary asked, his eyes glued to the action on the court.
"Yeah," I said. "Listen, Coach, there's something I should tell you."
The whistle blew. A foul was called on Garfield's center. O'Leary grabbed my shoulder. "Later. Get in there for Chang." He felt me hesitate. "Go!"
I checked in at the scorer's table, then stepped onto the court. As I did, the people in the bleachers stood and cheered. Puzzled, I looked around trying to figure out what was happening. Luke and Darren were both smiling a little, and I realized that the fans were cheering for me, that they were standing and cheering for me. The hair on the back of my neck rose. I didn't know what to do, so I kind of waved in appreciation. The roar grew louder.
The ref handed the basketball to the Garfield point guard. He in-bounded it and I back-pedaled on defense, looking for a chance to make a steal. I anticipated his pass, broke on the ball, only he didn't throw it. My man went back door for an easy lay in. Big star, I thought to myself as I brought the ball upcourt. Keep that up and they'll stand and boo.
We held for the last shot, a jumper from the corner by Carver, which rimmed out. With one quarter left in the season, we were down nineteen.
Then, during the quarter break a low murmur went through the gym, a different kind of murmur than I'd heard before. O'Leary stopped midsentence and looked around. So did the other guys. Even the Garfield players stopped, puzzled.
Then the chant began. "Dawson! Dawson! Dawson!" We couldn't see him, but our fans could. He was coming up the aisle toward the court. I looked to where I knew he would appear. The seconds ticked away. And then he was there.
He walked toward us, joined the huddle. "Where the hell have you been?" O'Leary snapped. Before Trent could answer the horn sounded. O'Leary scowled. "Get out there," he snapped. "See if you can do something."
As we took the court I watched the other guys, watched the way they looked at Trent. They weren't mad at Trent, not the way I had been. Confused, bewildered—that's how they looked.
Then Trent, maybe for the first time in his life, did exactly the right thing. He went from player to player, holding up his fist. When each held up his fist in return, Trent lightly tapped his knuckles against theirs. Finally he came to me. His eyes were hard and tough; they would always be hard and tough—the eyes of an outsider. But he was going to play the game, and that's what mattered. We tapped knuckles just as the ref blew his whistle.
On their first possession, Garfield's guard made a terrible pass that went four rows into the stands. The fans went crazy, as if we'd scored twenty unanswered points. I abounded to Trent and the chant started again. "Dawson! Dawson! Dawson!"
Trent took that in-bound pass, dribbled across the time-line, then returned the ball to me and set up in the low blocks. Everybody in the gym knew where the ball was going, including all five Garfield guys. The smart play would have been to fake a pass to him, and hit Luke or Carver. But there are times when things are just fated.
I dumped the ball into Trent. Before the double-team reached him, he gave a quick up-fake and then spun baseline to the bucket. Their center rotated over, but Trent went up anyway and banked home a twelve-footer. I thought the roof would come off the gym, that's how loud the cheer was. "Dawson! Dawson! Dawson!"
When that shot went through the hoop, I felt as if we'd somehow become invincible. There was no way any Garfield guy was going to muscle us, no way they were going to get one loose ball, or one contested rebound. No way.
For the next two minutes we totally shut Garfield down. A blocked shot. A double-team leading to a travel, a bounce pass out of bounds. A steal. We rattled them good, and on the offensive end, we made them pay for every mistake. I swished an eighteen-footer, Carver banked home a runner, Trent snaked in a finger roll off a drive to the hoop. The nine-teen-point lead was down to eleven.
Garfield's coach called time-out. It was so loud it was hard to hear anything O'Leary said. But what did it matter? We all knew what we had to do. Shut them down; score fast and often.
After the time out, Garfield went into a weave offense, trying to run us ragged and run time off the clock. There's no shot clock in Washington high school basketball, so you can stall as long as you want, and if the weave works you get a high-percentage shot.
But it only works if the defense goes to sleep. That possession was a war of wills. Who would crack first? Would it be one of us, going for the steal when it wasn't there and giving up the back-door lay-in? Or would it be one of them, a bad pass or a turnover on the dribble?
They had quickness, and all five of them could handle the ball. Ten seconds went off the clock. Twenty. Thirty. Then came the break. A bounce pass came low, hitting the guy I was guarding in the knee. In a flash I was down on the floor after it. The Garfield guy leaned over to tie me up, but before he could, I rolled the ball to McShane. Carver had broken free; McShane baseballed a pass the length of the court. Too high and too far—but Darren soared to catch it and in one motion put up a shot before tumbling out-of-bounds.
The shot was too hard. A Garfield guy was positioned for the rebound, but somehow it was Trent's hand that rose above his to tip the miss back up. The ball hung on the rim for an excruciating second. Two thousand people held their breath. And then it dropped in, and the place exploded. Again. The lead was only nine.
Right then we relaxed. It was only for a second, but we paid for it. Nobody had gotten back on defense. The in-bound went the length of the court to a streaking Garfield guard. He caught it, laid the ball up and in, and was fouled. When the free throw rattled in, their lead was twelve.
From that point on we were playing against the clock as much as we were playing against Garfield. They scored and then, but nothing they did—passing, shooting, rebounding—was crisp. They short-armed their shots and had rubbery knees on defense.
Everybody contributed. McShane rebounded like a demon. Luke made a beautiful cross on a drive up the gut and spun in a reverse lay-in. Carver swished a fifteen-footer with a hand in his face. I knocked down a sweeping hook from the right of the key. With two minutes and ten seconds left we pulled within five.
"De-fense! De-fense! De-fense!"
The crowd was up on its feet, exhorting us. I could feel another turnover coming. I could just feel it. Then, out of nowhere, their point guard rose and made a three-pointer from the corner even though I had my hand right in his face, and I mean right in his face. The lead jumped back to eight.
I rushed down court, determined to get the hoop back right away. But I was in too much of a hurry. I dribbled the ball off my knee, Garfield, picked it up, and they were off. As I watched that fast break develop, my heart stopped. Another bucket and they'd be up by ten and we'd be out of time.
I don't know how Trent got back, and I'm not sure his feet were really set. But he took the Garfield guy's knee in the chest, toppled backwards, and the ref bought it. "Offensive!" he shouted, and he pointed dramatically that the ball was to go our way.
At our end we worked the ball to Luke. His jumper was par
tially deflected. The rebound was one of those weird things that comes straight down. A pack of guys went for it, but the ball came out in McShane's possession. No hesitation—he went right back up with it and banked in a four-foot shot. We were down six with just over a minute left.
We pressed—no choice. But Garfield's point guard busted across the center line with a three-on-two fast break. He should have taken it to the basket, but he pulled it back to run the clock. The ball went down to the left corner. Trent and Luke double-teamed, arms waving. The guy turned into Trent, and Trent yanked the ball out of his hands, just took it from him. I was off, and the pass was on the money. A Garfield guy planted himself at the top of the key. I wrapped the ball behind my back and blew by him. A simple lay-in, just like a million others I'd made. I laid the ball softly against the backboard and it settled into the net. Four down with fifty-three seconds left.
They brought the ball in before we could set up any kind of a press. And once they crossed the time-line they went into the four corners, spreading the court and making it impossible to double-team. Pass and cut, pass and cut, pass and cut. The seconds ticked away. When to foul? When to foul? I was about to hack at my guy when a pass slipped through the hands of their forward. Carver pounced on it, hit me, and we were off again. This time two guys were back. I drove into the lane, then skipped a pass to Carver. He was fifteen feet out and he stroked it, a beautiful jumper that was perfect. Down two with twenty seconds left.
O'Leary called time-out. "Go for a quick steal, but foul when it gets under fifteen. And remember—we have no more time-outs!"
The horn sounded. We turned and took the court. I was so tense I didn't hear the crowd, though they must have been screaming their lungs out. I couldn't swallow; there was no saliva in my mouth. I looked at Darren, at Luke, at McShane. They were as tight as I was. Then I looked at Trent. His eyes were glowing, that little crooked smile on his lips. All of a sudden my nervousness was gone. This was it—what I'd dreamed about for years. I might as well enjoy it.