American Masculine

by Shann Ray

  The high end is the shooter’s end, made for the pure shooter, a silver ring ten feet two inches high with a long white net. Tonight the car lights bring it alive, rim and backboard like an industrial artwork, everything mounted on a steel-gray pole that stems down into the snow and concrete, down deep into the wintry hard soil. The snow has fallen for hours, plush and white, and in the Chevelle’s light the snowflakes gather like small bright stars.

  Shale leaves the lights on, cuts the engine, and grabs his basketball from the heat in the passenger foot space. He steps out. The air is crisp. The wind carries the cold, dry smell of winter trees, and farther down, more faint, the smell of roots, the smell of earth. Out over the city, white clouds blanket everything. The night is Shale’s sanctuary, snow falling softer and deeper as it covers him and captures the whole world.

  This is where it begins, the movements and the whisperings that are his dreams. Into the lamplight the shadows strike, separate and sharp, like spirits, like angels. He’s practiced here alone so often since Weston left for college he no longer knows the hours he’s played. He calls the shadows by name, the great native basketball legends, some his own contemporaries, some who came before. He learns from them and receives the river, their fluidity, their confidence, like the Yellowstone River seven blocks south, dark and wide, stronger than the city it surrounds, perfect in form where it moves and speaks now, bound by snow. If he listens his heroes lift him out away from here, fly him farther than they flew themselves. In Montana, young men are Indian and they are white, loving, hating. At Plenty Coups on the Crow Reservation, at St. Labre on the Northern Cheyenne, Shale was afraid at first. But now he sees. The speaking and the listening, the welcoming: Tim Falls Down, Marty Round Face, and Max and Marc (Luke) Spotted Bear at Plenty Coups; Joe Pretty Paint at Lodge Grass; and at St. Labre, Stanford Rides Horse, Juneau Plenty Hawk, and Paul and Georgie Wolf Robe. All he loved, all he watched with wonder—and none got free.

  Most played ball for his father, a few for rival teams. Some Shale watched as a child, and he loved the wild precision of their moves. Some he grew up playing against. And some he merely heard of in basketball circles years later, the rumble of their greatness, the stories of games won or lost on last-second shots.

  Falls Down was buried at eighteen in buckskin, beads, and full headdress, his varsity uniform, turquoise and orange, laid over his chest: dead at high speed when his truck slid from an ice-bound bridge into the river.

  Paul Wolf Robe was shot in the heart with a large caliber pistol at a party near St. Xavier.

  Pretty Paint died before he was twenty-five, another alcohol-laced car wreck.

  Marty Round Face, dead. A suicide, Shale remembers. By knife or rope or gun, he can’t recall.

  There are these and many more. “Too many,” say the middle-aged warriors, the old Indians, “too young.” They motion with their hands as if they pull from a bottle. With their lips they gesture. They spit on the ground. Some of those who died held Shale in their hands when he was a boy, when they were young men. He remembers their faces, their hair like wind, cheekbones the push of mountains, and silvery humor ever-present in their eyes.

  And of the living and the dead, two above the rest: Elvis Old Bull and Jonathan Takes Enemy, at Lodge Grass, at Hardin. They were players in the eighties, and Shale with them. Elvis was three-time MVP of the state tournament: ambidextrous, master passer, prolific scorer. And of Takes Enemy it was said he ran with horses when he ran the hardwood. Hardin High was winless the year before he came, but playing point and shooting guard over the course of four years he created a powerhouse. The people followed him in big yellow buses, the old men speaking his name in a whisper, the grandmothers in native dress muttering hexes to his foes.

  Shale stares at the rim; the high beams have made everything new.

  Atop the rim the snow has settled in a soft white circle.

  DRAKE AND SHALE, DOWN in the dark of the city, two hoops lit by the lights of the Grand Cherokee. “This is it,” Drake said.

  “Yes,” said Shale. The nets had collected snow for hours; over each rim a band of snow had formed, six or eight inches high. The street was luminous, the architecture of each hoop in stark relief, angles of metal covered in white, everything sparkling of winter and light.

  It was 1:00 a.m.

  “Let’s make this the last,” Shale said. “Agreed,” said Drake.

  They got out, quietly closed their car doors, and moved into position, each of them a step farther back than normal. Twenty-seven feet. Thirty. The NBA line is twenty-three feet nine inches, thought Shale. The message is like an echo in his mind, only one shot at the game winner. In the title game his senior year he’d scored thirty-nine points, fourteen of those in the two overtimes, and they’d won in the closing seconds, the gym noise like an inferno. His brother had met him in the parking lot when the bus got back to Park High, and they went home and stayed up the whole night and laughed together and talked hoops. Shale remembered the team he played pro ball for in Germany two years after Weston died. In an old small gym in Düsseldorf with four seconds on the clock they were down one point when he missed the two free throws they needed to get to the play-offs. Freak accident, Shale thought, like Weston’s death. He blamed himself. Of all shots, how do you miss those? Brakes, engine failure, something. The car was so beat up, they never found the answer.

  Drake and Shale were in unison, the rhythm step, the gather, one shot reflecting the other, the arc of each ball smooth in the air like a crescent moon—and each follow-through a small cathedral, the correct push and the floppy wrist, the proper backspin, the arm held high, the night, the ball, the basket, everything illumined.

  THE NET IS LONG and white, even thicker than he’d hoped, leaden with snow. He’s back at Eastside, young, vibrant, Weston a short drive away, and Shale has trained for this moment, ten hours a day the summer leading up to his senior season, eight hours the summer before, for the state title, yes, but more for moments like these, to rise with Falls Down and Pretty Paint, with Roundface and Old Bull and Takes Enemy: to shoot the jump shot, and feel the follow-through that lifts and finds the rhythm, the sound, the sweetness of the ball on a solitary arc in darkness as the ball falls and finds its way.

  For Shale every shot is a form of gratitude, especially a shot like this. He had so wanted to play with Weston at Montana State and all the hours have paid off, the letter of intent signed a few weeks ago after winning the state title. He and Weston will room together, everything now in preparation for what lies ahead, the huge college arenas, the national exposure as Shale runs the break with Weston on the wing, the confidence Shale will need to do well under pressure. Walking toward the court he holds the ball and says aloud:

  FALLS DOWN SHAKES HIS MAN, SCORES GAME WINNER.

  He narrates the headlines of his heroes, headlines he’s collected from the Billings Gazette, the Missoulian, the Livingston Exponent, and taped to the wall in his bedroom. He kicks an opening at the baseline corner of the court and as he clears the snow, the corner lines reveal themselves, and a step farther in, the place where the three-line intersects the baseline. With his shoes he sweeps a path about two or three feet wide, following the three-point line in a wide span up and around the key, all the way to the other side. He also clears a swath along the baseline and up in order to outline the blocks, the key, the free throw line. From there, to keep from spoiling it he walks back down to the baseline and up around the three-line again to the top of the key. Here he clears a final straightaway, deep into three-point territory.

  PRETTY PAINT BOMBS FROM THE LOBBY FOR TWENTY-THREE.

  All is complete. The maze he’s created lies open, an imprint that reminds him of the Hi-Line, the Blackfeet, and Calf Robe, a form of forms that is a memory trace and the weaving of a line begun by Indian men, by white men, by Shale’s father and Pretty Paint’s father, by their fathers’ fathers, and by all the fathers that have gone before, some of them distant and many gone, all of them beau
tiful in their way.

  One town to the west Weston is alive. And because Shale loves Weston, he plays for Weston. The loneliness and the love that unburden loneliness are like a basketball in flight, the yearning and the longed-for affection, the heightened expectation, the resolution that comes of seeing the ball in the net.

  The moon is hidden, the sky off-white, a far ceiling of cloud lit by the lights of the city. Snow falls steady and smooth like white flowers. Shale puts the ball down and blows in his hands to warm them. His body is limber, his joints loose from clearing the snow. He has a good sweat going. It’s just his hands that need warming, so he eyes the rim while he blows heat into them. The motion comes to him, the readying, the line of the ball, the line of the sky. He removes his coat and throws it out in the snow toward the car. He’s in his gray T-shirt, and steam lifts from his forearms. The words he speaks are loud in the silence:

  TAKES ENEMY SHOOTS DEEP THREE FOR THE WIN … MAKES IT!

  One shot, everything on the line. The ball is perfect, round and smooth. The leather conforms to his hands. He squares his feet and shoulders to the rim, and the gathering runs its course. At the height of the release his elbow straightens. He lands, and his hand as it follows through is loose and free, the ball the radiant circle he’s envisioned from the moment he looked out his trailer window, small sphere in orbit to the sun that is his follow-through, a new world risen with its own glory here among the other worlds, the playground, the schoolhouse, the sheriff’s station, the firehall.

  Breath plumes from his mouth and all is quiet and slow as the snow falls and the darkness and the shadows bend backward from the white tall backboard. He sees the halo of snow on the rim, the ball falling from above like a dark stone, piercing the white ring. A great boom sounds and snow flings wide. And seeing it, Shale exhales and smiles, the snow soft on the night air, tiny points of light glittering as they descend to the ground.

  He breathes and stares at the open net, at the ball that has bounced and come to rest in the snow of the key. An arm of steel extends from the high corner of the school building. A light burns there.

  He reaches the ball, lifts it up, and carries it to the Chevelle. As he walks he is caught in the beam of the headlights and snow surrounds him, his body ghostly black and behind him the net moves in the wind, each square clear and clean. The ring of snow is like a white wreath above the rim.

  He turns the car out from the playground to the street. The city knows nothing of him, nothing of those who have spoken his name, the shadows, the young Indian men and their night, their stars that blaze and die out, and the dawn that comes walking. He and Weston and the nature of their dreams. Inside the trailer, the floor doesn’t creak or strain. He slips unnoticed from the living room to the hall, more quiet than the breathing of his father. In his bed he draws the covers to his chest and leaves his arms free. He casts the basketball up over his head into the darkness, and follows through, releasing everything, catching the sphere again in his hands. He lays the ball near his head. Closing his eyes he sleeps deeply. He is not lonely. He is not afraid.

  SIMULTANEOUS FOLLOW-THROUGHS and two basketballs in flight that fall toward the hoop, the rim …

  “Nope,” Drake said, and from the corner of his eye Shale saw Drake’s shot glance away while Shale’s ball came in awkward and hard and hit the flat space to the right and back of the rim where it smacked off the backboard, angled quickly to the ground, rolled, and stopped finally in the snow along the gutter.

  “This is fun!” Drake said. “Thanks for bringing me out here.” He ran to get his ball and try again. Shale waited and watched as Drake bricked two more, then he walked and retrieved his own ball. Drake hit the fourth attempt. “Not much snow left,” he said. “I bet it’s incredible if you hit it on the first one.”

  “Yeah,” said Shale. He was holding his basketball as he looked at the seams.

  “You gonna try yours again?” Drake asked.

  Shale looked at his shoes, then off up the street. “I’m done,” he said.

  “Really?” said Drake. “C’mon. Take another shot.” He raised his arm in the form of a follow-through, and smiled. He lowered his hand and touched Shale’s shoulder.

  “I’m good,” Shale said. “Thanks, though.” Drake eyed the rim, wanting the shot himself. “You ready?” Shale said.

  “For what?” Drake said as he moved a little toward Shale’s hoop.

  “To go home,” Shale said.

  Drake looked at him, then back at the hoop again. He paused. “I guess so,” he said.

  Shale saw the look, Drake was disappointed, even sad, and Shale was surprised because Drake rarely looked sad. Face of light, almost never down; a true believer. But things change. You can’t get back what you had. No one can. He walked to the Cherokee and got in, and Drake followed.

  As they drove the road was free of cars. Shale faced the window. Drake looked straight ahead.

  Finally, Drake slowed some and looked over. “I think it’s worth another try.”

  “Late,” said Shale. “I better get home.”

  Drake paused, and looked once at Shale, and back to the road. “Good enough,” he said, and he pushed the gas, and the hum of the car carried them as they drove north again through snow that was still falling, deep and quiet over the city. They were only a block or two from Steer Inn and Shale’s car when Drake spoke again. “Just one more, Shale, what do you think? For me.”

  Shale turned to him. The voice had been so like Weston’s, tonally. He studied Drake’s face. He wanted to see the look again, and there it was, but different this time, purpose in Drake’s eyes, and dedication, even devotion, there with the joy. Real joy, as if failure were out of the question. Drake faced forward and peered out at the road, the snow. Things do change, Shale thought, new things come. The sound in the wheel wells was something peaceful that worked on him, something that worked like Drake’s voice, to undo tension, to unravel things. “Okay,”

  Shale said. “All right.”

  “Thanks,” said Drake, and he looked over again, and smiled.

  “Where to?” he said.

  Shale wasn’t sure, then he remembered. Only one place, and he said to himself, It doesn’t matter, does it, the misses, such small things. It’s not about me. It shouldn’t be. “Up Highway Two,” he said. “North.”

  Twenty minutes on, he directed Drake off the highway, then five miles east on Day-Mt. Spokane Road. At a crossroads they took a sharp left, the road following a barbed wire fence with steel posts, the lines well set, Drake and Shale quiet in the Cherokee as the road ascended past stands of aspen and pine, up a ridge, and finally out on top to a wide parking lot. At the far end of the lot was an old one-room schoolhouse. The place formed a vista over the land, over field upon field that led down and away to Bigelow Gulch, to the south and farther south to the mountains, and far off, faint to the eye, the red flicker of radio towers.

  “There,” Shale said.

  “There it is,” said Drake.

  To the right of the building, two baskets stood opposite each other, the expanse between them dull white, subdued by snow. Beyond the baskets the land fell down and away. Winter lovely and full over the fields. More and more snow, thought Shale. The hoops were about fifty feet apart, a lot like Eastside to him, but flatter, no slant, and fan backboards, not square. He’d found the place a few years back and hadn’t told anyone. At night, when nights were silent, or empty, or on special nights—state title nights, his father’s birthday, the day of Weston’s death—he’d come here alone.

  “It’s perfect,” Drake said.

  “Quaker school,” Shale said. “Not a soul here at night.”

  Drake parked the Jeep so the wide beams captured both hoops. He motioned toward them. In the sky the snow was big and endless. “Snow,” Drake whispered. “So much of it.”

  “Elevation,” said Shale. “We’ll need more lift.”

  “Greater arc,” said Drake.

  They stepped from the
car and walked to the center of the court, each with a ball in his hands. Using their feet they swept a small circle clear. The wind was bending the snow slightly, making it flow in bright sheets to the ground. Drake and Shale stood side by side, in opposite directions. Shale faced the far hoop, Drake the near one. Good distance, Shale thought, good depth.

  “Together?” he said.

  “Yes,” said Drake.

  They stepped into the jumper and let it go.

  THE FOLLOW-THROUGH is like the neck of a swan. There is grace in the world despite such deeply held suspicions. Two basketballs on a fine arc as they ascend, then fall, entering the light.

  “Oooh,” Drake says and Shale hears the swish of Drake’s ball, followed by his own swish, two loud pops of sound, and they watch as the fine powder hangs in the air below each net, crystalline and slow, almost without motion. There is time to turn and see both hoops, and Shale opens and turns, and Drake turns too. A field of light, Shale thinks. They are standing in the snow like brothers, the big lights of the Jeep making everything immortal. Below each basket a fine-pointed field descends, sparkling and pale, and the evening snow mixes with it and carries it downward to the ground, and gone.

  Drake yells and Shale smiles despite himself, and Drake grabs Shale and hugs him, and when they step apart, Drake tilts his head like a wolf and howls, and they laugh and slap each other on the back before they stand together and look out. They stare at Shale’s hoop, then Drake’s, then back to Shale’s again. Clear, clean nets move in the wind. A small tower of snow stands atop each rim, high and white, undisturbed.

  Beneath the fear, Shale thinks, people reside in places of sacredness to which others are invited. He has thought this out, sanctuaries attended by the architecture of what people lend to one another and raised by slight motions and larger movements that build and break away and result in things that surpass what we imagine. Inside him are the memories of players he knew as a boy, the stories of basketball legends. The geography of such stories shaped the way he spoke or grew quiet, and shaped his understanding of things that began in fine lines and continued until all the lines were gathered and woven to a greater image. That image, circular, airborne, became the outline and the body of his hope: basketball. Long ago, on that state championship night, every hope had come to pass, Shale watching miles of car lights, Weston in one of those cars, alive, following Shale home.