by Dan Koontz
Ryan didn’t have time to register, much less modify, the gut reaction of surprise and disappointment that was painted across his face at first sight of his colleague before Dillon made eye contact with him. Dillon’s pale white cheeks blushed as the look of determination and resolve on his face gave way to searing embarrassment, and his gaze sunk back to the ground in front of him. He’d seen that look before – so many times. But he’d never gotten used to it – one of the many reasons he preferred to stick with electronic communication.
When Dillon looked back up, Ryan’s expression had overcompensated to an unnaturally effusive smile that came across as both condescending and emasculating. Dillon scowled at Ryan as he brushed by, his self-consciousness now turned to anger.
Ryan put it together immediately. He had to go through the same thing at the beginning of each school year, before saying or writing a word. He was the cute little kid with the can-do attitude. He realized he’d just given Dillon the same “Look at you, in the big kids’ classroom!” smile that he’d gotten every August at school. And unfortunately, he couldn’t take it back.
Just before Dillon turned the corner of the arena, he removed a smaller bag from his backpack, placed it on the ground against the wall and continued on his way.
Ryan started after him, picked up the bag and yelled out, “You dropped your bag!” – just for the purpose of satisfying any potential witnesses. But by that point Dillon had already re-entered the arena.
Ryan unzipped the bag to find a ticket to the game, the press pass, a walkie-talkie and a Bluetooth earpiece. A Bluetooth-enabled walkie-talkie. He had to hand it to Dillon, that was a pretty clever way to make sure there would be no record of their communication with each other. He fit the earpiece in his ear, turned the walkie-talkie on, put the smaller bag inside his backpack and headed into the arena. Amazingly their plan was still right on schedule.
~~~
The score was 24-18 Chicago at the end of the first quarter, and the CSKA Moscow execs were getting restless. Scowling with their arms crossed in front of them, they muttered to each other tensely in Russian. J’Quarius Jones had yet to take the floor.
“Ya govoryu po rusky (I speak Russian),” Bradford announced in their direction to try to settle them down with the only Russian he knew, hoping they wouldn’t test him on it.
He bit down on his knuckle as one of the Chicago kids scored again. The longer they continued to lead, the slimmer the chances were that J’Quarius would see any action. “You’ll excuse me for a moment, gentlemen?” he grinned coldly.
Stopping about halfway up the aisle, he pulled out his phone and fired off a message to Hansford Washington: “GET J’QUARIUS IN THE GAME! NOW! RUSSIANS ARE HERE!” Then he stared intently across the court as he slammed his finger down on the send button to see if his text came across. Hansford’s hand went briefly down to his right front pocket, apparently silencing his phone, but he never diverted his attention from the game.
Bradford was seething, but with no other recourse, he sauntered back down the stairs and joined his restless guests in the stands, reassuring them that J’Quarius would probably see “significant action” in the second half.
“Yes!” he whispered, pumping his fist slightly as the Ohio team scored, cutting the lead back to six.
~~~
“Tell me what you know,” Ryan said bluntly, wearing his Bluetooth earpiece. Direct and to the point, the statement couldn’t be construed as condescending, and it highlighted the fact that Dillon had essential information that Ryan not only needed but was unable to get himself. He hoped it would be enough to erase the first-impression fiasco.
“First of all, hi,” Dillon said with a low but cracking voice that was obviously in the process of changing. There was a confidence to his tone that suggested Ryan’s play must have worked. “Do you have something to jot notes on?” he asked.
“I don’t need to take notes,” Ryan said dismissively.
“Listen, you need to know this like the back of your hand. I would suggest you jot some stuff down. If you end up not needing the notes...”
“Look, I – I don’t need to take notes,” Ryan repeated, more self-consciously than boastfully. “You said you’ve seen my file?”
“Oh. Right,” Dillon said, remembering why he’d sought Ryan out in the first place. “So this is what I found. You might already know some of this, but J’Quarius was raised by his grandmother, Verna Jones, who died of cancer. His mother Cheryl Jones died in childbirth, and his father is unknown, but Avillage has always been supremely confident that no one is going to come forward. There’s no paper trail as to why they’re so confident.
“He was adopted by Avillage and placed with Arlene and Hansford Washington just after he finished 7th grade. Hansford is a high school basketball coach and the assistant coach of the Chicago AAU team. Arlene primarily stays at home and helps out with coaching too. Aaron Bradford is the chairman of his board of directors.”
“Ok. Any controversy? Any dirt?” Ryan asked, unsure how to use any of this bland biographical information in a post-game interview.
“It looks like J’Quarius really had his heart set on going to college, but Avillage wouldn’t release his medical records, so no one could offer him an athletic scholarship. He’s resigned to go to Russia to play professionally at this point, but I don’t think he’s too happy about it.”
“I wonder if J’Quarius knows anything about his biological father,” Ryan wondered aloud. It seemed to him that J’Quarius was doing pretty well with Avillage (like Ryan was himself.) Sure, he was probably miffed about not being allowed to go to college and by the fact that he’d be losing a huge chunk of his pro basketball salary down the road to his shareholders, but Ryan wondered if that would be enough for him to put any effort into joining their cause.
On the other hand, every adopted kid wants to know about his biological parents; that was Ryan’s whole motivation for being at a basketball game in downtown Cleveland instead of at his friend’s house in the suburbs.
“Dillon,” Ryan asked hesitantly. “Do you have any more info on my parents?”
“Yes,” Dillon answered curtly. “We can talk about it later. After you get J’Quarius to join us.”
“It’s conditional?” Ryan asked, shocked and somewhat offended. Maybe Dillon wasn’t over that unintentional look he’d given him.
“It has to be,” Dillon said flatly.
“Well, what if I can’t get to him?” Ryan asked, feeling suddenly overwhelmed.
“Then we’ll have to come up with a plan B,” Dillon said unsympathetically. “This is very important.”
~~~
By halftime the game was knotted at 46, and the Chicago team jogged off the floor to a chorus of boos. The Russian businessmen clearly weren’t the only ones who had noticed J’Quarius’s conspicuous absence from the court.
The game had been both entertaining and competitive, but the only thing most of the fans had paid to see was the next NBA superstar before he was a star.
Above the entrance to the visitors’ tunnel, Leonard Weinstien jockeyed for position with a host of amateur photographers. Then just before J’Quarius was directly beneath him, he unfurled a 72 by 36 inch banner with a neon-orange background that couldn’t be ignored. On the left side of the banner in large black print was Leonard Weinstien’s contact information along with the statement, “Your father loved you.” Taking up the entire right side was a blow-up of the picture Melvin Brown had enclosed in his letter to Weinstien. Melvin was nineteen in the photo and in perfect health with bright eyes and a wide smile, kneeling on one knee in his football uniform. J’Quarius stopped cold just in front of the sign. Aside from the dated hairstyle and thin moustache, he could have been looking in a mirror.
He looked up at Weinstien who smiled reassuringly at him and nodded back down to his contact info printed on the banner, before J’Quarius was rushed into the tunnel by his coaches. Hansford, who’d entered the locker room ahead of J’
Quarius, hadn’t seen the banner.
Hansford and Arlene had warned J’Quarius that one day someone may come forward claiming to be his biological father. They’d made it clear that whether the claim was true or not, they would never stop being his parents and they’d never stop loving him, but they’d warned him to be skeptical. And he was.
The banner read, “Your father loved you” though. Past tense. Was he dead? In jail? Had he stopped loving him? Whatever the case, it would be an ineffective way to start a scam, if that was the intent.
From the opposite end of the arena, Ryan had watched the banner unfurl in front of J’Quarius through his binoculars. He now had his answer. J’Quarius did not know about his biological father.
“[email protected],” he whispered, committing the email address of the man with the banner to memory.
Two sections and twenty rows closer to the court, Bradford had watched the same scene unfold, aghast at the sight of Melvin Brown’s picture. He was and should have remained a non-factor. Things couldn’t be going much worse. He frantically added Weinstien’s contact info into his phone while the banner was down, inadvertently transposing the “e” and the ”i” at the end of Weinstien’s name.
Back in the locker room, Coach Wright harped on his players about stepping up their pathetic defense and sluggish ball movement, while scattering in just enough praise to keep the team’s spirits up. As he ranted, Hansford briefly dropped his gaze down to his phone and read the new message from Bradford.
As soon as the head coach finished his pep talk, Hansford walked up behind J’Quarius to see how he felt.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ve felt fine the whole time. I’m just nervous.”
“You think you might want to try and play a little bit?” Hansford asked. “The Russians are here to watch you.”
“I guess I’ve gotta try at some point,” J’Quarius said with a tepid smile. “It’s probably harder on my heart having to watch the other team make runs on us, being stuck on the bench.”
“I’ll talk to Coach Wright,” Hansford said, patting him on the shoulder. “Now listen. If you feel like you need a sub, you ask for one. Don’t try to be a hero.”
“I won’t,” J’Quarius assured him. “Oh and Dad, there’s one other thing I want to talk to you about – after the game.” With only four minutes until the start of the second half, there wasn’t enough time to bring up a subject as complex as his biological father.
“Sure, son.”
~~~
The subdued crowd erupted, as J’Quarius finally shed his warm-ups and threw them over to the bench.
Bradford heaved an internal sigh of relief, but glanced at his Russian friends with a knowing smirk, as if he’d never had a doubt. The Russians couldn’t help but smile back.
From the opening tip of the second half, the crowd’s discontent evaporated. J’Quarius mesmerized the fans, his teammates, his soon-to-be employers and even the other team with highlight-reel dunks, no-look passes, and lockdown defense. The ESPN announcers screamed out the play-by-play, straining to yell over the crowd.
By the end of the third quarter, Chicago was up by a comfortable fourteen points, and Bradford was seeing green.
Ryan, with his heart pounding out of his chest, made his way down to court level and got in line with a few eager members of the press to gain early access to the visiting team’s locker room. At the front of the line, a stadium security officer sat on a foldable chair, mindlessly scanning barcodes and nodding in the direction of the door to the locker room after each pass cleared. They always did.
Ryan looked over at the Chicago bench, shocked at how huge these high school kids were from his new vantage point.
“Kid!” the security guard said impatiently. “Let’s go!” He scanned the barcode and then flicked his head in the direction of the door.
Synergistic aromas of sweat, spray-on deodorant and bleach belted Ryan in a full-on olfactory assault as he entered the locker room. Most of the media members were transfixed on the flat-screen TV on the back wall where the final quarter was about to start back up, oblivious to the odor. No one seemed to think anything of the smell – or of Ryan’s presence.
“How you feel?” Coach Wright asked J’Quarius.
“Good, coach,” J’Quarius said.
“You got a couple more minutes in you?”
“Definitely.”
With the outcome of the game more or less decided, Coach Wright drew up one more play for the crowd. After that, the plan was to sub each of his seniors out individually, to allow the fans a chance to show their appreciation and then empty his bench to make sure everyone on the team got some playing time.
The overhead buzzer blasted to start the final quarter, as the ref handed the ball to the home team’s point guard. Dribbling it out nervously, he kept a wary eye on J’Quarius who herded him over to the left side of the floor close to midcourt. J’Quarius then gave him a little room to his right, which the point guard took as soon as he saw it.
As he dribbled past, J’Quarius wrapped his long arm around the point guard from behind, poking the ball forward to his waiting teammate. Before his teammate had even secured the ball, J’Quarius was already accelerating toward the other team’s basket.
He looked back as he reached the three-point line and sure enough, the ball was in the air. J’Quarius stomped down hard on the free-throw line and then took flight off his left foot as he caught the pass from his teammate. Palming the ball in his fully-outstretched right arm, he reared back, arching his back as he flew. Then just as he reached the apex of his jump, the totality of his motion – torso, arm, hand, ball – shifted violently forward, culminating in a thunderous dunk that brought everyone in the arena out of their seats. The ESPN broadcasters didn’t even attempt to comment on what they’d just seen, both for lack of words and for the realization that it would be at least half a minute before they would stand a chance of transmitting over the deafening roar of the crowd.
J’Quarius came back down to his feet, turned toward his bench, and looked straight at his dad with sheer terror in his eyes. Then he crumpled to the ground.
As if a switch had been thrown, the crowd went stone silent.
Ryan, watching from the visitors’ locker room, Dillon from high in section 213, Weinstien near the tunnel, and Bradford five rows from the floor simultaneously mouthed the word, “No.”
Hansford sprinted out onto the court with a medic trailing right behind him carrying a defibrillator. For the second time in as many games, Arlene Washington rushed down from the stands screaming, “I’m his mother! I’m his mother!” bypassing the security guards.
J’Quarius lay flat on the court, his face, misted with sweat, slowly turning gray. The medic threw the fallen player’s shirt up and applied the defibrillator pads. His shout of “Clear!” echoed all the way to the rafters of the eerily silent arena. J’Quarius’s chest heaved, as the electricity flowed into his body, but nothing else moved. Hansford couldn’t bear to see his wife watch this and threw himself between her and J’Quarius, holding her tightly in his arms.
The medic hit him with a second jolt. Again nothing.
A group of blue-uniformed paramedics materialized from the far end of the court, running over with a stretcher and as much equipment as they could carry.
One applied a mask over his mouth and nose and squeezed oxygen-spiked air into his lungs by bag, while another applied EKG leads hooked up to a portable monitor. It didn’t take a medical degree to recognize the flat line on the display. One of the paramedics loudly announced that he’d gotten an IV established, as his colleague handed him an ampule of epinephrine, which he quickly jetted into J’Quarius’s vein. Still nothing.
With a man at each corner of the stretcher, four paramedics lifted him off the floor, allowing the collapsible wheeled scaffolding to lock into place underneath him, and raced toward the ambulance to the sound of cautious applause from an apoplectic audience not quite sure how to respond. A
ll the while, the paramedic at J’Quarius’s head continued rhythmically squeezing the bag, inflating his lungs against no resistance.
Within seconds of hitting the emergency room, after 21 minutes of CPR, 17-year 11-month old J’Quarius Jones was pronounced dead.
~~~
Back at the arena, Ryan and all the other media members, had been quickly ushered out of the locker room to give the Chicago team some privacy.
Ryan placed the Bluetooth earpiece back in his ear. “Did you see that?” he asked, in utter shock.
“Yep. Figures,” Dillon answered disappointedly, as if something had happened directly to him. “This whole thing was for nothing! We were so close!”
“I hope he’s ok,” Ryan said, not even considering the possibility that this youthful embodiment of physical fitness was already dead.
“Me too,” Dillon said. “But even if he is, I don’t have any idea how we’re gonna be able to make contact with him at this point.”
“I tried,” Ryan said, holding out hope that Dillon would still give him whatever information he had on his parents.
“Well, we’ll have to try again. Think. And I’ll be back in contact with you – somehow.”
“Wait,” Ryan pleaded. “What about my parents?”
“Sorry, I can’t give away my only leverage,” Dillon said heartlessly. “I need you.”
“What?” Ryan snapped back angrily. “If you think telling me whatever info you have is going to make me less committed to your cause, I don’t need it. Don’t contact me again!”
“Your dad’s friend Jared Ralston is a minority owner of your stock,” Dillon blurted out. “And he’s been on the board of directors since day one.”