Playing Without the Ball

by Rich Wallace

  Guys like me and Alan Murray, on the other hand, can’t wait for the season to get started. That’s why we’re out here, wringing sweat from our T-shirts even though it’s only fifty degrees out.

  Kaipo’s another story. He’s the only guy on the team with a prayer of playing college ball, even at a Division 3 school like Wilkes or Marywood. He says a few schools have shown interest. But he’s on the small side and has to have a kick-ass senior season or he’ll be going nowhere.

  Visions and Revisions

  We start slow on these early mornings, but this week it gets pretty intense. We go full-court.

  Maybe I’m a better player than Dana, I don’t know. I mean, I’m a guy, so I can push with more force, run a little faster. But she’s so well-schooled in the basics of the game. Her outside shot is just about perfect in form, and it never varies. She never makes a stupid pass or tries to do too much, like most of the guys I play against.

  But what makes her so good is what she does without the ball, the way she sets screens, or moves to the right place on the court, or cuts toward the basket at the exact right instant. This has always been the weakness in my game, knowing what to do when I’m not in the center of the action.

  She drives. I’ve got the lane blocked. She kind of bounces off me and I catch an elbow in the ribs. She dishes off the ball, swings around toward the hoop, and grabs a high, lofting return pass as I steady myself, a hand to her waist. She goes up, fades back, and shoots as my arm smacks her wrist.

  The shot misses as we come down parallel, body to body. “You want that?” I say.

  “What?”

  “The foul.”

  “No way.”

  My team gets the rebound. I sprint up to the arc, take the outlet pass, and keep running. They’ve got one guy back and Dana’s right with me, and all of my teammates are behind me. I easily dart past the guy and go hard to the hoop, making the layup over Dana’s outstretched hand with her taut, extended body pressing into mine.

  “Nice shot,” she says.

  I jog backwards, staying close to her as we move upcourt. She’s quite a specimen.

  Quite.

  I was supposed to check in with Shorty every day, whether I’m working or not. That arrangement lasted about a week. But Shorty will stick his head into the kitchen from time to time, say something like, “How’s it going?” and I’ll give a fifteen-second update. This is the extent of the guardianship.

  “That toilet working okay?” Shorty says.

  “Still gotta jiggle the handle to get it to stop running sometimes, but yeah.”

  Shorty just smirks and nods. I’m the first full-time resident of room number 3 in years. Before that, it was available, cheap, for a night or an hour at a time. It’s said that my father had been an occasional customer.

  “Hear from your old man lately?” Shorty asks.

  “Called him last weekend,” I say. “He sounded okay. Says hi.”

  Shorty shakes his head. “Los Angeles. Land of losers, smog, and faggots. You wouldn’t get me out there for nothing.”

  What he’s implying is: why the hell is my father out there, anyway? Well, what I know is that we were two months behind on the rent, he was about to lose his job managing the day shift at the Sturbridge Inn, and he owed at least a small amount of money right here to Shorty. I’m pretty sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

  What my father says is that it was something he always dreamed of doing, and now was the time. “It’s just something I gotta do,” he told me when we were packing up the car. “I spent my whole life here and I can’t stand it another day. I need warm air. I need culture. I need to meet blondes in bikinis.”

  “He needs to eat a few.”

  That’s Alan Murray talking to me during an outdoor four-on-four game, full-court. A kid named Ricky, just a sophomore, has been driving the lane effectively, hitting a couple of soft fallaways from eight feet. “He needs a facial,” Alan tells me, letting his emotions charge up just a little. He’s not a guy who’s going to take shit from anybody.

  Next time down, Alan eases off his man when Ricky drives. The kid makes the same move as the last two times, a little pump fake, then rising for the shot. Alan’s all over it, smacking it upcourt.

  “In your face,” he says as he moves past Ricky, adding a little nudge with his shoulder. Alan races upcourt, floats into the key, takes the quick bounce pass from me, and lays it in cleanly. He runs backwards toward the opposite basket, shaking out his arms and nodding vigorously. He’s ready for the tryouts.

  Tendinitis

  Friday night arrives and I don’t feel like being here. People keep playing unlucky-at-love songs on the jukebox.

  Spit’s band comes on about 10:15, a welcome relief from the canned stuff. I tap my fingers with the melody on the edge of the sink. And then I look up, and there’s this vision in the doorway. She’s about five-foot-six, brownish hair to her shoulders, a little bronze cross on a chain.

  “You the guy in charge?” she says.

  “In charge of hamburgers.” I try to give her a mature smile. “Want one?”

  She grins. “Could I get some ice?”

  “Yeah. Like in a cup?”

  “How about a plastic bag? I’ve got this tendinitis in my elbow, and it’s aching. It’ll be fine if I can ice it for five minutes.”

  “Sure.” I take a bag of corn from the freezer and say, “You can sit in here while you ice it, if you want,” which is very charitable of me. I suppose she’s twenty-one, because Shorty checks I.D.’s, but it can’t be by more than a couple of minutes. “What’d you do?”

  “It’s just tennis elbow,” she says. “I played about four hours this afternoon.”

  “Cold out.”

  “Indoors.”

  “Oh. You good?”

  “I’m all right. I’ll be playing on the team over at the U.” The University of Scranton, she means.

  She’s got the corn on the sandwich table and is leaning over to rest her elbow on it. Another cute woman sticks her head in the kitchen. “Julie?” she says.

  “Hi.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “This nice guy is letting me use his kitchen to fix my injury,” she says. She points at me. “This is …”

  “Jay,” I say.

  “Hello, Jay,” the one in the doorway says. “We’re gonna dance,” she says to this other one with the ice.

  The ice girl nods. “Give me two minutes.”

  Two minutes. Two minutes. “So,” I say. “Where … uh … You like the U?”

  “Yeah. Where do you go? Or don’t you?”

  “Not yet,” I say. “I’m like, working for a while first.”

  “Oh. Well, college is cool.”

  “I imagine.”

  She looks around the kitchen, then her eyes rest on me.

  “So,” I say. “Tennis, huh?”

  “Yeah. You play?”

  “Not really. I play basketball.”

  “Good game.” She gets up. “Hey, thanks,” she says.

  “No problem.” Don’t leave now. “I’ll put this in the freezer. Come back if you get stiff again … Julie.”

  “Thanks. I think I’ll be all right.”

  “Have fun dancing,” I say.

  “I will. Have fun making hamburgers.”

  “I always do.”

  Tryouts

  I have no illusions that I will make it to the NBA, or that I’ll even play college ball. I just want to wring everything out of this body, take it as far as I’m able. I don’t even expect to be a starter this season—we’ve got the best point guard in the league in Brian Kaipo—but I think I can earn some significant playing time backing him up. First I have to make the team, of course.

  There are about forty guys in the gym when I get there, shooting at all six baskets. I pick up a ball and start dribbling, checking out the competition.

  Coach blows his whistle, and we all take a seat on the floor. He runs through the procedure: th
ree days of tryouts and he’ll take ten guys for varsity; twelve underclassmen will make JV, and two of them will also sit varsity.

  Five varsity guys are back from last year, and three of them are guards. So I figure there’s maybe two slots I could fill, but probably only one.

  “Get in groups of six or seven for layups,” Coach says. “Bounce passes, nothing fancy. Let’s go.”

  We shoot layups from both sides, then jump shots and free throws. The coaches walk around from group to group, but they already know what most of us can do. After an hour of drills he says to take a three-minute break and we’ll scrimmage. He calls six guys over and spends about thirty seconds talking to them. Then those six start walking to the locker room, shaking their heads. Coach didn’t waste time making the first cuts. He goes over to Kaipo and a couple of the other returnees.

  We get two five-on-five full-court scrimmages going, using the side baskets. I get in the stronger group. Coach puts his five likely starters on the floor and tells me to line up at point guard for the other side. That’s a good sign, except that I’ll be guarding Kaipo.

  Kaipo’s maybe five-foot-ten, a couple of inches taller than me. He’s got wide-set, pale-blue eyes, and they’re crossed just enough to be noticeable. He’s a deadly shooter. He hits long-range three-pointers on their first two trips downcourt, but Coach doesn’t say anything.

  I make a few nice looks inside, hitting big guys for layups, but our side is getting beat pretty good. Kaipo’s scored twice more before I get a hand on a pass, knocking it upcourt and chasing it down. I’ve got the ball and a full stride on anybody else, and I drive to the hoop and lay the ball gently off the backboard for two.

  Coach finally speaks to Kaipo. “Move your ass, Brian,” he says. He brings in that blond sophomore, Ricky, for me a few minutes later, nodding to me as I leave the court. I get a drink and sit against the wall.

  I go in for Kaipo a while later, getting some minutes with the probable starters. I’m feeling good about this; Coach is giving me a fair shot and I’m playing all right. I cover Ricky, and we’re pretty well-matched. He seems tentative, though, scared even. I get a couple of steals, another fast-break layup. He hits a couple of jumpers, makes some decent passes.

  I’m good at dishing the ball off, finding the open man, but I have trouble knowing what to do next, where to go. It’s an instinct guys like Kaipo were born with, but I’m missing it. I have to keep telling myself what to do instead of it being a natural part of my game.

  We run line drills, shoot more free throws, and hit the locker room. I don’t say much of anything, just shower and get dressed. Two more days of this, then he’ll pick the team. Based on today, I think I’ll make it.

  I drink about nine gallons of water, then leave the locker room at ten to 6. That gives me just enough time to check my mail before the post office closes. I average about one worthwhile piece of mail a week, but I look in my box every day anyway. Today there’s an envelope: a letter from my father.

  They’re closing up, so I take it outside to read. There’s a check for a hundred bucks. I’ll cash it as soon as I can, because it’ll probably bounce again. He wants me to call him. He says I need to get a phone. He wants to know what I’m planning to do for Thanksgiving, that it wouldn’t kill me to go to my mother’s for a day or two.

  I look up and Spit’s walking toward me.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Jay. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” I fold the letter and stick it in my pocket. “What about you?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “You’re not working?”

  “No. You up for anything?”

  “Yeah. Anything.”

  I look around. “Hit the diner?”

  “Sure.”

  We walk the half block up Main Street to the diner and take a seat in a booth.

  “I started writing some new songs today,” she says.

  “At work?”

  “Yeah. I had nothing to do, so I typed lyrics into the computer. I’m trying to blend punk with some traditional Portuguese stuff.”

  The attorney she works for is fresh out of school and doesn’t do a lot of business. His father is a prominent real-estate/insurance guy, and he put his soft, nerdy son through law school and set him up in an office above his. Spit does his typing and some research.

  “He’s such a weenie,” she says. “I don’t know what he thought I was working on. He’s got like two appointments all week. I figure if I look busy he won’t get rid of me, but there ain’t a whole lot to do.”

  “You think he’ll dump you?”

  “Nah. He’s too worried about his image. He wouldn’t be caught dead answering his own phone. And his father pays my salary anyway. Just till he gets established, he says. Ha.”

  The waitress—the new one—comes over and asks if we’re ready to order. Spit asks for tea with lemon. “And maybe some toast.”

  I say, “Orange juice. I don’t know what else …. Soup maybe.”

  “We have clam chowder and cream of broccoli.”

  “I guess chowder.”

  “Cup or a bowl?”

  “Um, a bowl.” This is dinner. I’ll cash the check and eat good tomorrow. “Extra crackers, please.”

  Spit pushes back her hair. “You make the team?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “You care?”

  “Yeah. I care a lot.”

  She nods, then keeps nodding and turns it into a kind of dance, back and forth with her shoulders and all. “You need your rushes, too, huh?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think of it like that. It’s kind of pure. Just energy. Like you block out everything else and just use what you got.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “Try singing in the spotlight sometime. You might like it.”

  Each booth has its own little jukebox thing. You turn a silver wheel on top to flip through the selections. She starts going through it, saying, “Lame. Lame. Decent. Lame …. You got any quarters?”

  I check. “I’ve got one.”

  “Good enough.” She takes it and punches in some numbers.

  “You like this?” I say when Frank Sinatra comes on, singing “Let Me Try Again.”

  “It’s honest,” she says. “Yeah, I like it.” She kicks me gently under the table.

  “It looks like it’s between me and this sophomore for the last guard spot,” I say.

  “You should be better than a sophomore, aren’t you?”

  “Probably. Yeah. But not much. And see, he can start JV and play some varsity, which I can’t do because I’m a senior. Plus he’s got potential for the next two years.”

  The waitress brings the soup and the tea and a whole basket of crackers and rolls. She’s what, nineteen maybe, with blondish hair pulled back in a ponytail. I thank her warmly and she leaves.

  Spit wipes her nose with her hand. “Getting a cold,” she says. “So you think you’ll get cut?”

  “I don’t know. It’s close. If I play my ass off the rest of the week, I think he’ll have to keep me.” I stare into space for a few seconds, then shrug. “It ain’t up to me.”

  Second day. Kaipo’s bringing the ball up slowly and deliberately, grabbing a breath while he can. I pull the front of my T-shirt out of my shorts and wipe the sweat from my face, but it doesn’t halt the tide. I’m dripping and panting but I’m into this, it’s been intense. You lay off this guy for a second and he kills you, taking advantage of any hesitation. I love it. He kicks my ass most days, but once in a while I have the edge. On those days I know I’m a player, because Kaipo’s game never wavers much. If you nail Kaipo twice a year, you remember it.

  He crosses midcourt and I shadow him, not quite pressing. We’ve been guarding each other for half an hour steady and he hasn’t outplayed me by much. Coach sent some more guys packing a while ago, so there’s only twenty-six left. I know I’m getting a long look because I’m one of the guys who could be sacrificed.

  I love the rhythms
of basketball, the ups and downs. You get burned a few times, make an awful pass, clank a few shots off the rim. But then you get in harmony, hit two, three jumpers, quick, sharp, like hammering nails.

  Kaipo tries to penetrate and I swipe at the ball. But he gives a quick fake and he’s past me, setting up at the top of the key and firing. It swishes.

  I take the inbounds pass and dribble up quickly. Kaipo picks me up, focusing hard with those crossed eyes. I pass to Alan Murray on the wing, then take it back. I give a look inside but there’s no one open. Murray sets a pick for me at the foul line and I take it and shoot. It swishes, too, and I forget about getting burned on defense.

  “Lazy,” Coach says to Kaipo. “Fight through those screens, Brian.”

  Kaipo doesn’t acknowledge the coach. He says “Nice move” even as Coach is riding him. He dribbles upcourt, drives into the lane, then throws a wild, behind-the-back pass out of bounds.

  Coach blows his whistle. He stares hard at Kaipo. “Ricky,” he says. “Get in there for Brian.”

  The guy with the roses usually comes in around 11, walks from one end of the bar to the other, and sells about three flowers a week. It works like this: maybe there’s two or three women down one end, kind of huddled together in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Some factory-working cowboy or a plumber’s assistant will hand the flower guy three bucks, point out the woman he thinks is most vulnerable, and send the guy over to her with a paid-for rose. I’ve seen this happen enough times to know that it doesn’t work.

  I’ve thought about it, though. This week especially, like if Julie ever comes back with her tennis elbow and interested smile. Maybe that could work.

  Or maybe I could get the guy to walk into the gym some Tuesday morning at 6. Ha.

  Third day. Kaipo and two of the other starters are sitting on the stairs to the gym when I leave the locker room. He nods as I come up.

  “Jay,” he says.

  “Hi.”

  “Cut day,” he says.