by Rob Roberge
“I came here to play,” Money says. He holds up a ball. “Lewie? Anyone?”
“I’m tired,” Lewie says. “I’m going back to the hotel. See you at the airport.”
“No one wants to play?” Money says. “You people are sad.” He looks at me. “How about a practice, coach? Let’s scrimmage.”
“Normal people are tired, Kenny. Let them go.”
“I’ll hang out,” Hedda says.
The team changes and hits the bus. Darnell and I hang back; sit on the sidelines while Money and Hedda play one-on-one. Money hits four or five jumpers in a row. I’ve been around him long enough to take it for granted, but every once in a while, it hits me how gorgeous his shot is.
“Money’s talking about getting some looks,” Darnell says.
I nod. “Jersey. Atlanta. A few others.”
Hedda has the ball and she puts Money behind her and backs him into the paint. She hits a pretty up-and-under scoop shot off glass.
“Pretty,” he says. “Adrian Dantley. She plays big like him.”
“I wish,” I say. “She’s no Dantley.”
“Didn’t say she was. She reminds me of him, the way she uses the body.”
“You play against him?”
He shakes his head. “He broke his leg my rookie year. But I saw him before that. A midget for a forward, but he could score on anyone.”
Money gets a rebound and takes it out to the three line and drains a jumper.
“Never seen a shooter like him,” I say.
“There’s a bunch of them,” Darnell says.
“Not that good.”
“Almost that good.”
We watch them play for a couple of minutes.
“Thanks for not cutting me,” Darnell says.
I look at him. “What did you hear?”
“Nothing. I’ve been around. A lot of people would have let me go, and I don’t figure it was the folks with the cash that kept me around.” He looks at me for a moment, and looks out at the court. “Money’s getting looks. Hedda’s got a European deal wrapped in the women’s league. Lewie, probably CBA. If anyone were interested in me, I would have heard by now. I can’t play—may need surgery—I make more money than most of the team, and no one else wants me. Don’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that someone might have thought of cutting me.”
The janitor comes in and says that he’s got to cut the lights. He tells Money and Hedda this.
“Five minutes?” Money says.
“I got a chance to get home early,” the janitor says. “Closing time.”
Money and Hedda keep playing. The janitor goes over to the far wall and sticks that little key into the light switch and half the power is cut. The regular lights stay on, but the court lights are cur, and it’s fallout shelter dim. Money’s shot falls.
“Don’t need no lights,” he says. “I know where the hoop is. Radar, baby.”
I tell them to hit the showers. I ask the janitor if we can wait and he nods. Money and Hedda head to the locker rooms.
“We’ll get a cab,” I say. “Get something to eat.”
The gym is dark. It’s just me and Darnell in the bleachers on our side. On the other side, the janitor goes through the seats, putting bits of garbage into a Hefty bag.
“So why didn’t you let me go?” Darnell says.
“Cutting you never came up,” I say.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“It came up,” I say. “But I thought it was stupid. You don’t cut a player like you.”
“I’m not the player I was,” he says. “I feel it. Can’t do what I did—even before the injury. I’m not me anymore,”
I turn to him. “I’ve been sticking up for you the whole season. Defending you. What are you telling me?”
“Nothing,” he says. “I appreciate it—your sticking up for me—but I didn’t ask for it.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m tired, coach. I’ve been clean for three years and played in five leagues trying to make it back, and I’m not sure why. You look at Money—he’d play in an empty gym for nothing. He loves the game. Hedda, Lewie, Childs—same thing.” He leans forward. “I could never pick up another basketball and be happy.”
“You’re talking shit,” I say. “You’re just depressed—you’ve never been injured.”
“No. Thought this before I got hurt. Took me all these years to realize I don’t like basketball that much—don’t know if I ever did.”
“I don’t buy it,” I say. “There’s no way—absolutely no way—you could have been the player you were without loving the game. You don’t get that good at something you don’t like.”
“I liked being the best at something,” he says. “Don’t know if I ever loved what I was best at and I haven’t been the best for a while.” Hedda comes out of the locker room—she’s across the court from us, 30 or 40 feet. “I think I would have been better off being good at something else.”
I stand up. “What?”
“Nothing specific,” he says. “Just something else.”
I shake my head. He’s just being honest, but I’m angry. You don’t piss on talent the way he has. But, who am I to tell him what he should love?
Money comes out a couple of minutes later and we start to leave the gym. The janitor has put on those little rubber gloves they use in hospitals, and he’s mopping up the blood and vomit from the court where the mascot fell. I look down and some of the vomit’s dried and crusted on my shoe.
55
I get home and there’s a message from Chucky Chandler about Money getting tryouts. There’s a call from Claude, my ex-brother-in-law, about our painting business. He’s having trouble getting a check out of some contractor. On the table by the window is a rose in a paper cup. Underneath is a note—a little damp from the water seeping out of the cup.
Welcome home. Missed you. PS. Bone let me in. Hope you don’t mind. Sean.
I look at it and feel better, but I wonder why she couldn’t have told me this when I talked to her.
56
“Ben Thompson, how are you?” Parcell stands and comes over to me as I enter his office. There’s a Mennonite woman—plump and middle aged—cleaning over by the bar. She’s dressed in blacks and grays, has what looks like a coffee filter on her head.
“No more topless cleaners?” I say, and the woman turns and gives me a strange look.
“Every Tuesday, Ben Thompson.” He sits and motions for me to do the same. “Every Thursday, she comes in and really cleans.” He leans forward. “You’re not paying for the cleaning with the other service.”
“Makes sense.” I look out the window. It’s a cloudless day and the sky is robin’s egg blue for what seems like forever. “So what’s the news?”
“First things first, Ben Thompson. Galveston’s folded.”
“I know,” I say. “I was there when it happened.”
He frowns. “No. You were there to see the result of what happened—a part of it, anyway. It’s been happening for quite some time. I tried to buy the team, but they wouldn’t let me own two, I tried to tell them it’s bad for the league—looks second rate to have teams dropping like that.”
“Sign of a bush league,” I say.
“Precisely,” he says. “Bad for the league, bad for the image—bad for the young men on that team.”
I remember the look on Billy Coleman’s face when he told me he had no idea what he was going to do. “True enough.”
“The ten Galveston players are in a dispersal pool. The owners came up with this—worst team picks first. We’re in second, so we’re picking sixth. Do you want to fill the roster slot?”
I shake my head. “Sixth man on Galveston isn’t worth picking up.” I cross my legs. “Clark, maybe Harden are worth something, but they’d go one, two. Nothing beyond that.”
“Still sticking with your boy?”
“Latimore?” I say.
He nods.
“Yes and no. It’s personal, but it’s practical, too. Hal
f of Darnell can get us to the finals. Not a player on the Galveston roster other than Clark—-who we have no shot at—who could do that.” I’m drawing on my sneaker with a pen, passing time—I feel like I’m back in school. “Makes no sense.”
“Don’t be loyal, Ben. It’s dumber than revenge.” He looks at me with concern. “I understand the impulse, but you’re wrong.”
I look up from my sneaker. “Do you know more about basketball than me?”
“I do not, Ben Thompson.” He looks hard at me. “Do you know losers better than me?”
I rub my neck. My hand passes over a scar I got when I was too drunk to stand over a urinal. Slit my neck down to the bone on some external plumbing. Bones aren’t white when they’re in you—they’re not like those biology skeletons. They’re more of a creamy living color. I fell in a puddle of piss, didn’t clean it or get it stitched, and my neck was infected for a few weeks. “I might,” I say.
“You do not,” he says.
“ I was a loser,” I say.
He waves my comment off like a traffic cop saying: Stop. “You were off-track. You were not a loser.”
The cleaning woman finishes and leaves. I watch her go, turn and look out the window. “What’s this about?” I say.
“About?”
“You and me. I don’t get you. What’s the deal? Why the high opinion? What’s your investment in this?”
“You need to know?”
“I’d like to know. Why me in the first place? You could’ve had any number of coaches.”
“Fair enough, Ben Thompson.” He puffs on his cigar. “I saw you play in college whenever I could. Thought you’d be something in the pros. I loved your game.”
“That’s it?” I say.
“I followed you. Talked to scouts. Heard what you went through after the surgeries. People admired you.”
“When?”
“Chicago. ‘84 pre-draft camps.”
“I couldn’t pay anyone for a tryout at that camp.”
“That’s not the point. You worked when it was stupid to keep working. And you failed, failed and failed,” he says. “I was in a position to help you and, I might add, have some fun. Always wanted to own a team. When I bought one, I hired you.”
“Because you liked the way I played fifteen years ago?”
“That was part of it,” he says. “The rest is none of your business. If more than two people know you did a good thing, you did it for the wrong reason.” He leans back and his chair creaks that rich leather creak. “Why are you sticking with Latimore?”
“Because he can help me.”
“That’s a lie and you know it, Ben Thompson. Why did you draft him?”
“Because he was one of the best I’d ever seen.”
“Was. Listen to yourself. Was. That’s the wrong tense.”
“He’s still got game,” I say.
“Stop it. Stop lying to me. Stop lying to yourself. He does not have game. Hell, he can’t even play and we’ve got a knee expert that says he’s on his last leg, so stop this nonsense. Stop feeding strays and giving change to every nut-job wearing tin foil to protect them from aliens, People will stick you dry if you let them. You are a coach. Listen to me, Ben Thompson. I’m helping you.”
“You’re full of shit,” I say. “I’m not lying to you—I’ve forgotten more about the game than you’ll ever know. If I say he’s got game, as far as you’re concerned, he does. That was our deal. I handle the game—you handle the money.”
“True,” he says calmly. “But it’s my money that pays for your game. It’s not as simple as you make it. The money and the game—they’re not mutually exclusive.”
“I won’t cut him. Fire me, do whatever you want, but he stays. This is my decision.” I stand up. “Are we done?”
“I hope not,” he says. “Sit,” He looks up. “I won’t cut him. Sit.”
I sit down.
“Before our conversation took an ugly turn, I was going to tell you something. Craig and Parker. You played poker with them.”
“Right,” I say.
“Don’t pout, Ben Thompson. You’re wrong here, but I’ll 1et you be wrong. Keep your loser. Craig and Parker own, or owned, the Syracuse Blizzard.”
“The CBA Blizzard?”
He nods. “One and the same. It’s mine.”
“I’m unclear.”
“I bought the Blizzard. Moving them lock, stock and barrel to Florida.” He re-lights his cigar. “I need a coach.” He puffs to get the cigar going—rolls it over the flame. “What do you say?”
The CBA—a step away from the NBA. Real players and full rosters. A full season—56 games. I think for a moment about what Chucky said about me being scouted. No matter what, though, I probably wouldn’t do better than this. But more of these arguments, more push and shove with Parcell.
“Can I think about it?” I say.
“What’s to think about?” he says.
I decide not to re-hash the who’s in charge argument. We both know it’s his show and that Latimore could be gone in one phone call from The Chicken Man. “Where are you going to play?” I say. “Can’t have a CBA franchise in that gym.”
“We’re going to have to move it up here to Tampa, “ he says. “But you can still stay down in Sarasota. Not much of a drive, Ben Thompson.” He frowns. “You’re talking details much too soon, here. There will be a place to play, there will be players, there will be an assistant coaching slot, a trainer—all the fringes. You’ll have a raise. But let’s not talk details now. Do you want it?”
My stomach drops. I think of painting condo developments until I’m sixty. Painting is one of those jobs that kills you slowly—it offers just enough variety for you to think you’re not stuck. I flash on Lobster Boy and his whisky and TV trays and a sad dull life. My empty life back in Miami. “Yes,” I say. “I think I do.”
“Coach Ben Thompson.” He shakes my hand. “You’ve made the right decision.”
I turn and walk out of his office, hoping that he’s right.
57
Hedda makes the “News and Notes” section of The Sporting News. It’s a small article, but it doesn’t treat her like a total circus freak. I’m out by the pool reading it. Bone’s filled it with water and it looks like a real pool, except for the old diving board.
“Everyone’s been great,” she says in the article. “I had trouble adjusting—more off the court than on. It took a while to convince them I could play. But, they treat me like a player now.”
I put the paper down, wondering how strange it must be for her. Ann Meyers signed a contract with The Pacers in the 70’s, but she didn’t make the roster. Nancy Lieberman-Cline played in a minor league. There was that woman goalie in hockey. Not much precedent for what she’s done. I see Sean coming from the parking lot.
“Hey stranger,” she says.
“Hey.”
“What’s wrong?” she says. “Thought you’d be happy to see me.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d be happy to see me.”
“You didn’t get my note?”
“I got it,” I say. “You just seemed kind of distant on the phone.”
She takes a deep breath. “We’re not married.’” She sits next to my chair. “I like you, Ben. But I’m not a be-there-all-the-time kind of person. I need to be alone a lot.” She rubs my arm. “OK?”
I sit there for a minute, thinking she’s worth more than a couple of personality quirks. “OK.” I hold up the paper. “My players are getting ink.”
“Saw it,” she says. “They don’t mention you.”
I shrug. “I’m nobody. The reporter asked me some questions about her, but I must not have said anything worthwhile.”
“What did you say?”
“That she’s a legitimate player, but she’s got real problems with her body. They asked me if I thought she could go pro—big-time—and I said no. Don’t think it fit the tone they wanted.”
“You don’t think a woman could nuke the NBA
?”
“Someday,” I say. “But she’ll probably be a guard. A quick one. Not a power forward.”
She frowns, but it’s not her you’re-a-sexist-asshole frown, more of a world-isn’t-fair one. She bends down and kisses me lightly. “Missed you,” she says. “Really.”
“Same here,” I say.
We go down to The Bunker. Terry waves—he’s talking to some old man in overalls at the bar. He looks over.
“Coffee,” I say.
“Tequila,” Sean says.
Terry looks at his watch, raises his eyebrows. He gets the bottle. “Training wheels with that?”
“Straight,” she says. She turns to me. “We’re celebrating.”
“We are?” I say.
“I sold a piece,” she says. “Two, actually. One’s a great resume piece. The other one pays.”
“Really,” Terry says. “Congratulations.”
I pat her on the back, let my hand rest there for a moment, rub it in circles. “What’d you sell?”
“A French Feminist piece about alternating roles of power and gender in the workplace—the absence of a center in pseudo democracies,” she says. “And another that’s a sort of diary of a phone sex operator thing.”
I sip my coffee. “I wonder which one paid.”
“Don’t think too hard,” she says.
The guy at the bar drinks a beer and looks teary-eyed at the hoiries behind the bar. Looks like he’s been plucked out of a country song. He’s thin and beaten-looking. The kind of guy they always seem to do TV interviews with after hurricanes. When the flood comes, he’s up on his roof. He’s staying put. That kind of guy. Sean shakes his hand and introduces herself.
“Dan Toller,” he says. “Your neighbor.” He points at me.
“The man with the eggs?” I say.
He nods, and points to his empty beer glass. Terry gives him a refill.
“You OK?” Sean says.
It’s a question I wouldn’t have thought about asking—-none of my business and the answer’s probably long and sorrowful—but she has this quality of being able to talk to anybody. Her IQ’s got to run circles around most people, but she seems interested in them. Weird. If I were that smart, I don’t think I’d be that interested in the world.