by Randy Ribay
Once again, I shake my head. Santos buries both.
Soon as the ball’s back in my hands, I’m ready to make them pay. I inbound to Eric and follow behind as he takes it up. Soon as he sees the trap coming, he gives it back to me, and then I’m gone. Shake my man with a crossover and then take it straight to the hoop. Yurevich steps in the way, but I’ve got too much momentum to stop or kick it out. I leap through him and slam it hard with both hands, swinging on the rim for a second before dropping back down to earth.
But the good feeling’s ruined by the sound of a whistle—the ref signals an offensive charge on me.
This time, I can’t hold back. I step to the ref. “You blind? He was moving!”
His face gets red. “This is your warning, Twenty-Three. Calm down.” He walks away.
“Bullshit!” I shout at him.
Another whistle: tech.
The crowd starts booing, and it feels good to know they’re on my side. What doesn’t feel so good, though, is Coach subbing Clay in for me since a tech counts as a personal foul, which puts me at three. Still the first half, and already I’m in danger of fouling out, so I can’t blame him. Head down, I make my way to the bench. Coach makes me sit next to him. I really don’t want to. I know what he’s going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.
“What are you trying to prove?” he asks, his eyes on the action as play resumes.
Someone hands me a cup of water. I down it, then grab a towel and wipe my face. I’m breathing hard, trying to control my anger that it doesn’t seem like I’m going to even have to try to throw this game. “Nothing.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
I shrug. “I want to win.” It feels like a lie, knowing what’s on the line with Wallace. But it’s technically true. I do want to win.
“We all do. But you’re not going to do it from here, are you?”
I don’t answer. I watch as Santos steals the ball from Eric and scores on a fast break for what feels like the millionth time tonight.
“You’ve got to settle down. Play smart,” Coach Baum tells me. “I know you’re full of energy since you rode the bench the other night, but there’s still plenty of game left. But if you get two more fouls, you’re done.”
I nod. Glance at the clock. Three and a half minutes left.
“Can I go back in now?” I ask.
Coach shakes his head. “At the half.”
I exhale. Lean back. Down some water, crush the paper cup, and toss it over my shoulder. Yurevich backs Drew down and spins inside for two off the glass.
Now it’s The Santos and Yurevich Show. They drop bucket after bucket, while we’re getting so many bricks we could build a house. And I’m sitting there, powerless again.
The only good thing is that Santos gets called for reaching in on back-to-back possessions, so Fairview’s coach subs him out. He notices me watching him return to his bench, so he smirks, points at the scoreboard, then brushes his shoulder off.
19–37, Fairview.
As the final seconds in the half run down, I start heading to the locker room before the rest of the team. The buzzer blares at my back.
50
Nasir
All around the arena people stand, stretch, and make for the bathrooms or concession stands. I shift in my seat and look up at the scoreboard. St. S is down bigtime.
Even Bunny can’t seem to handle Santos and Yurevich on his own. Whenever he moved up to help with Santos, he left Yurevich open down low. Whenever he slid over to help with Yurevich, he left Santos open up top. Maybe I can work on my game this summer so that can be Bunny and me next year.
“You want anything, Nasir?” Ms. Thompson asks as she slides out of the row with Mr. Thompson and the little kids in tow.
“Nah, I’m good,” I say. “But thanks.” I poke Justine and Ash as they go by. They giggle and try to slap my hands away. Anna asks Keyona if she wants to go to the bathroom, and they both leave.
Jess stays behind, though, pulling out her phone. I watch the cheerleaders perform their halftime routine. They’re nice to look at. The blond one Bunny tried to make out with is especially cute.
I stretch my arms over my head. Roll my neck. Lean back. “So,” I say to Jess. “What’s new on the Internet?”
“I’m reading,” she says, without taking her eyes off the screen.
“What are you reading?”
“A book.”
“What kind of book?” I ask, ignoring her sarcasm.
“The kind with words.”
I shrug. “I prefer the kind with pictures.”
“Cool.” She swipes the screen. The cheerleaders gyrate. I yawn.
“Seriously, though,” I say, “what are you reading? Something social worker-y?”
She puts her finger on a word to mark her place and looks up like she’s seeing me for the first time. “Social worker-y?”
“Yeah. Anyway, why do you want to be a social worker? I heard they don’t make much money.”
“They don’t,” she says. “But I want to help people.”
“I feel you,” I say, thinking about what Bunny and I were talking about last night. “Me too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“So what do you want to study, then? When you get to college.”
I shrug. “No idea. I like reading. Maybe I’ll be an English teacher or something. Come back and work at Whitman High.”
She nods, slides her phone back into her pocket. “Right on.”
And I feel my face getting warm, remembering how I used to crush on her hard back in the day. She’s three years older than Bunny and me, so she never hung out with us. But she was always around. Beautiful and far away, like an angel.
But suddenly, she seems much closer.
I clear my throat. “So you think St. S is going to win?” It’s a stupid question, since I already know the answer, but it seems like something that makes sense to say.
She shrugs, props her arm up on the armrest, chin in hand.
I laugh. “Don’t you have faith in your brother?”
“I do. But he needs to start passing more. Nobody can do everything alone.”
“Not even Bunny?”
“Not even Bunny.”
We settle into a comfortable silence and watch the cheerleaders wrap up their routine.
The stadium refills. The rest of the Thompsons return, along with Keyona and Anna. I poke Justine and Ash again as they slide past me on their way to their seats.
The teams jog back onto the court to wild applause. I try to catch Bunny’s eye, but he’s got that look on his face. Focused. Determined. The only thing that exists for him right now is the next sixteen minutes.
51
Bunny
Fairview’s press is so loose it’s insulting. We break it, and I post up. Coach really stressed the slow-it-down business, so I pretend like I’m fighting for position while the guards just keep tossing it back and forth like they’re playing monkey in the middle.
After a couple more passes, Santos gets annoyed and lunges for the interception. But he’s a second too late, and Eric glides to the hoop. The defense collapses into the lane, so he whips it behind the back to me, and I drop an easy two off the glass to make it 21–37.
Back on defense, I’m covering Yurevich now, and the dude can’t shake me. So Santos launches a long three. It looks right on—perfect arc, slow backspin—but it hits the heel of the rim and pops straight up. Everyone leaps, but I rise above them all and snatch it out of the air, clear the area by swinging my elbows, and then hand it off to Eric.
We run down about twenty seconds just passing it along the perimeter, barely putting it on the floor at all. Santos sags back, too nervous to try for the steal again. Eventually, Eric gets a good look and fires a jumper. It bricks, and I fight my instinct to try for the put-back and tip it to the top of the key. Frustration getting the best of him, Santos swipes for a steal and gets called for reaching in.
I clap. Finally a good call.
We inbound and reset our offense. With the defense sitting back, Eric puts up a long three and nails it. The crowd explodes. The Fairview players all glance up at the scoreboard. 24–37. They’ve still got a comfortable lead, but I know they’re starting to sweat. The momentum’s shifting.
Fairview forces the shot on their next few possessions and manages to hit a couple. But each time we get it back, we stall and find the open man.
The quarter ends with Fairview only up 39–47.
Eight points behind. Eight more minutes. Even though I’m burning with anger that I’ve got to make sure we lose, I’m going to scare the hell out of them.
Right off the inbound, Santos fakes left, spins right, and powers it into the lane. I step in the way and plant my feet. He smashes into me, and we both drop to the ground.
Whistle: charging.
Drew helps me up and then we bump chests. That’s Santos’s fourth—one more, and he’s done. The crowd instantly realizes this, and half of them cheer while the other half start chanting, “Bullshit.”
Play stops as Fairview’s coach and Santos argue with the ref. Things get heated, and a moment later, the ref signals a tech on Fairview’s coach. Oldhead’s face flushes red. He tosses his clipboard to the ground and steps right up in the ref’s face, shouting up a storm. The ref starts to walk away, and then the coach grabs his shoulder. The ref blows his whistle again and jabs his finger into the air, ejecting the Fairview coach from the game.
Veins bulge in the dude’s neck as he continues screaming even as he heads out of the gym. He kicks over a chair before he disappears into the locker room, and the Fairview players exchange lost looks as we clap it up.
One of the Fairview assistants—a young-looking dude with glasses—picks up the clipboard and shouts at everyone to get back into position.
Because of the double tech against their coach, we get four free throws. Coach Baum chooses Eric to take them. He misses the first but sinks the last three, cutting the lead to five.
Santos stays in the game and calls some play as he crosses half-court. The other guard sets a pick, and he flies around it. Instead of driving, he fires a pass through the lane to Yurevich—but I’m right there and taking it downcourt in the blink of an eye. Santos and the two-guard backpedal to stay with me, and I can see them trying to figure out if I’m going to kick it back, pull up, or take it all the way. Feeling unstoppable, I fake like I’m going to pop it back but instead take it all the way and tomahawk it so hard the backboard shakes like it’s going to shatter as the crowd lose their minds and cameras flash like lightning.
Santos laces his hands behind his head, looking up at the ceiling. Yurevich yells at the shooting guard. The young assistant coaches stand on the sideline, jaws clenched and arms folded across their chests, looking like they’re in over their heads.
We don’t let up. Press so hard that Fairview can’t even inbound. They get called for five seconds, and the ball’s ours again. Our guards shave some time passing around the perimeter, and then Eric cuts into the lane and dumps it to Drew, who gets an easy two. Just like that, it’s a one-point game at 46–47. If I can keep it like this until the end, maybe there won’t be too much shame in taking the L.
Fairview uses their last time-out, a thirty-second one. We huddle up, Coach talks some more about keeping it slow and staying in control, and then we hustle back onto the court at the ref’s whistle.
Santos breaks the trap on the next possession and ends up finding Yurevich posting. He tries backing me down, but I’m not giving up any ground, so he picks up his dribble. He looks to the outside like he’s going to pass but then pivots, swinging his elbows—clocks me right in the nose.
There’s a flash of red.
Everything goes blurry.
I stumble backwards.
Nothing and then a rush of pain at the center of my face. My eyes tear up, and I feel something warm leaking out of my nostrils. At first I think it’s snot, but I touch it and my fingers come away bloody.
I drop to one knee and cover my face with my hands. But the blood won’t stop. It leaks through my fingers and onto the court. Coach Baum and the trainer rush over and start talking to me. But with the noise from the crowd and my head ringing, I can’t make out a word they’re saying. I hear someone snapping on latex gloves. A moment later, the trainer moves my hands away and then presses thick gauze to my face.
Once it turns red, the trainer tosses it aside, tilts my head back, and shoves a rolled-up piece of gauze into each nostril. She helps me to my feet and then the crowd applauds as she leads me over to our bench.
My head starts to clear up, but the pain holds steady. The center of my face feels bright and warm.
“Tilt your head forward,” the trainer says.
I follow her instructions.
“Good. Now pinch the bridge of your nose. Like this.” She does it on herself to show me, and then I copy her. Pain flares soon as I do. I clench my teeth. “Good. Now tell me how it feels.”
“Great,” I say, even though I’m pretty sure this shit is broken because it feels the same as it did when I broke it playing on the courts by my house a few years ago.
I hear the whistle blow. Sneakers squeaking. The thud of the ball against the court. I start to look up, but the trainer holds my head in place. “They start again?”
“We should take you back for x-rays.”
I shake my head. The movement brings more pain, but I don’t let it show. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“Right. Just keep holding it like that,” she says at my side. “Let’s see if we can get this bleeding to stop. Then we’ll see how you feel.”
I clench my jaw and keep my head down. The pain pulsates, like my heart’s beating inside my nose.
I hear the crowd roar. My teammates groan.
“What happened?” I ask.
“You don’t want to know,” the trainer says.
I sigh. Close my eyes. Take a deep breath. Try to will away the pain, the blurriness, the fog, the blood. I listen to the game and try to guess what’s going on by the sounds. There are a lot of whistles, a lot of stopped action, making me glad the last few minutes of a close game almost always get stretched out.
“I’m ready to go back in,” I say.
The trainer kneels in front of me. “Let’s see.” She slides the pieces of gauze out of my nostrils and they come away dripping red. But I don’t feel anything running down my nose. She nods. “Good.”
“So I’m cool?”
She shakes her head. “We’re trying to keep you safe, okay? It’s swelling. Let’s get some ice on it and see if that helps.”
“The game will be over,” I say. “Can’t you give me one of those facemasks and let me go back in?”
She ignores me. “Can you sit straight up?”
I do, but as soon as I lift my head, it swims with pain and my stomach clenches with nausea. I don’t even manage to catch the score before my eyes get blurry again, so I close them. But I get a bit of relief a moment later when she presses the ice pack to my nose.
I keep my eyes closed and continue listening to the sounds of the game. The cheerleaders. The ball. The sneakers. Guys calling for the pass, the pick, the shot. The coaches shouting. And, over it all, the sound of the crowd, welling and swelling like the ocean.
The ball clangs as it hits the rim. Grunting and yelling. A whistle. The crowd goes wild.
“What happened?” I ask the trainer, my voice muffled by the ice pack.
I feel her shift to look at the court. “Santos fouled out.”
I smile. It hurts. “What’s the score now?”
“44–49. Fairview. A little under two on the clock.”
“Thanks,” I say, thinking about how happy Wallace probably is about now.
The pain starts to fade, numbness taking its place. I open my eyes just in time to see Yurevich back Drew down and drop two. Coach calls our last full time-out.
> “I’m good now,” I say, putting down the ice pack and standing.
“Hold on,” the trainer says. She peers into my left eye with a penlight, and then my right eye. She clicks off the light. “Follow this,” she says, and starts moving the pen back and forth. I concentrate on that thing real hard. I must have passed because she nods and slips the pen into her back pocket. “Do you feel dizzy at all?”
“No.”
“Nauseous?”
“No.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?”
I touch my nose, and it feels swollen as hell. “Zero,” I lie.
She gives me a skeptical look.
The ref blows the whistle. Time-out’s over.
“So? Can he go back in?” Coach asks over her shoulder.
The trainer stares at me for what feels like an hour but is really probably a couple seconds. She glances at the scoreboard. “If you don’t feel right, pull yourself out right away, okay?”
“For sure,” I say.
“Get out there,” Coach says.
“Don’t fuck this up,” Clay says as I sub in for him.
If only I didn’t have to. I step back onto the court, the whole place going wild. Everything’s thundering and vibrating. I can barely hear myself think.
Luckily, I don’t need to think. This right here is instinct.
“Welcome back,” Yurevich says, grinning. “Looking good.”
I ignore him. Rub my eyes carefully and glance at the scoreboard as I head to the sideline to take the ball from the ref. My movements feel slow and my head foggy, but I push through. The scoreboard reads 48–55, Fairview. One minute and fifty-seven seconds left to make this loss as close and as respectable as possible.
Right off the whistle, I fire it to Eric and then move like I’m cutting to the hoop but then step back, shaking Yurevich. Before he recovers, Eric swings the ball back to me, and I launch it from behind the arc.
There’s silence—and then the crisp kiss of the ball finding the bottom of the net. The crowd blows up.
Next play, the kid who subbed in for Santos at point ends up dribbling into a trap and then stepping out of bounds. I inbound to Eric, who whips it to Drew down low. Since Yurevich is sticking to me, Drew’s got a mismatch. He backs his shorter man down and then kisses it off the square for two. Just like that, it’s 53–55.