by Phil Bildner
“Thanks, Coach Acevedo,” Diego said.
“Thanks for what?”
“For everything. For basketball, for Clifton United, for everything. Thanks.”
Coach Acevedo looked at me. “Did you put him up to that? Did you tell him to say something—”
“No!” I held up my hands and smiled. “I swear I didn’t!”
“Tell me to say what?” Diego said.
“Rip’s been over here saying kind things to me, and then you show up and do the same.”
Diego bobbed his head. “Your backcourt duo is in perfect sync,” he said.
“Your unstoppable backcourt duo is in perfect sync,” I added.
“Well, just like I told Rip,” Coach Acevedo said, “sweet-talking me isn’t getting you out of your up-and-backs.”
“Yo, I want to run.” Diego rested his arm on Coach Acevedo’s shoulder. “Bring on the up-and-backs. I’ve wanted this for the longest time.”
Ping Ping
Ping. Ping.
Mom reached for her cell.
“Don’t do it,” I said, pointing a sweet-potato fry.
She pulled back her hand.
Mom, Red, and I were at the kitchen counter eating dinner in our usual spots—I was closest to the cabinets, Red was next to me, Mom was facing us.
Ping. Ping.
“Don’t do it, Rip’s Mom.” Red swiveled his stool. “The use of cell phones is strictly prohibited during meal time.”
Mom raised both hands.
That was the rule. Suzanne and Mom came up with it (along with like a gazillion other rules) when Red and I finally got cell phones last Christmas. During dinner, everyone’s phone goes in the metal pail at the end of the counter.
Suzanne and Mom have a much harder time with the rule than Red and I.
“What’s your avatar?” Mom asked Red.
“Don’t try to trick him,” I said to her.
“I’m not trying to trick anyone.”
“She’s trying to get you to look at your phone,” I said. “Don’t fall for it.”
Red swiveled faster. “My avatar is a Labrador retriever puppy.”
“Just like Rip’s.”
“Mason Irving has a boxer avatar.”
“A boxer puppy.” I took a bite of my turkey burger.
“Do you change your avatar as often as Rip does?” she asked.
“Red changes his avatar more than he changes his underwear!” I answered first.
Ping. Ping.
Mom leaned in and read her screen.
“No touching, Rip’s Mom.”
“Not touching,” she said. “Just looking.”
“That’s cheating,” I said. “That’s violating the spirit of the rule, and you know it.”
“Have you decided what you’re going to name your dog, Mason Irving?” Red asked.
Mom put down her burger. “You’re getting a dog?”
“No,” I said. “Red and I … We were talking the other day and…” I grabbed the last fry off his plate. “Thanks a lot, Red.” I popped it into my mouth. “If I get a dog, I’m giving it a basketball name.”
“A basketball name?” Mom tonged more fries out of the bowl and dropped them onto Red’s plate. “Like Shaq?”
“No!” we said at the same time.
I grabbed a handful of fries from the bowl. “Maybe I’ll name it Boogie.”
“Use the tongs,” Mom said.
“Or Magic.” I picked up a single fry with the tongs and put it in my mouth. “Like this?”
Mom glared.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“If it was nothing, you wouldn’t be looking at me like that.”
“It’s … it’s nothing, Rip. We’ll talk about it later.”
“Ha!” I waved a fry. “I told you it wasn’t nothing.”
She faced Red. “What would you name your dog if you got one?”
“Oh, man!” Red grabbed the edge of the counter and swiveled faster. “If I got a dog … if I got a dog … that would be amazing. Amazing!”
“Slow down, Red,” Mom said.
Red stopped spinning but still held on to the counter. “If I got a dog, that would be … that would be the best thing ever!” He bounced on his stool. “I would name her … I would name her when I met her. She would tell me.”
“Tell you?” I poked his cheek with a fry. “You’re getting a talking dog?”
“No, Mason Irving.” He swatted my hand and squinched his face. “I would know when I met her.”
“Her.” I laughed. “Red’s getting a girl dog because he’s afraid a boy dog will pee all over him!”
Sleepover
I was lying on my back on my bed. The room was completely dark except for the plug-in nightlight next to the end table. I only used the nightlight when Red stayed over. He was on the air mattress on the floor.
“What do you think Mr. Acevedo would look like without hair?” Red asked.
“He’d look weird,” I said.
“Mr. Acevedo would definitely look weird without hair. Will you ever cut your hair, Mason Irving?”
I pulled the locks on the top of my head forward so they hung over my eyes. Up until fourth grade, I buzzed my hair. Or I should say Mom buzzed my hair.
“At some point,” I said. “I’m trying to remember what Diego looked like without hair.”
“We never saw Diego Vasquez without hair. He always wore a hat.”
“True, true.”
“I’m glad Diego Vasquez no longer has cancer.”
Cancer. I’d never heard Red say the word before. I know I never did. Not even to Mom when we were talking about Diego.
“Diego’s a beast on the court,” I said.
“U-N-S-T-O-P-P-A-B-L-E,” Red spelled.
I laughed. “You know it.”
“Just like me,” Red added.
“Like you?” I propped myself up on my elbow.
“Like me, Mason Irving. That lefty pass I made to Elbows—hashtag SCtop10!”
“Dadada, dadada.” I made the SportsCenter music.
We laughed.
“I’m going to rise to the occasion, which is life,” Red said.
“You always do.”
“I’m going to rise to the occasion, which is life with Clifton United.”
I sat up. “How so?”
“I’m coming to the Jack Twyman Spring Showdown.”
“Seriously?” I clicked on the light.
“Seriously, Mason Irving.”
I tossed my purple teddy into the air, dove off my bed, and hugged Red like I’d never hugged him before.
“Boo-yah!” I shouted.
Up until this year, I never would have jumped on Red like this. But like I said, so much about Red has changed this year. Now we’ll even play-wrestle.
“Blake Daniels is coming to the Showdown!” I rolled off the air mattress and stomped my feet. “Blake Daniels is coming to the Showdown!”
“I have to come to the Jack Twyman Spring Showdown, Mason Irving.”
“Why’s that?”
“I told Coach Acevedo I’d be there.”
“You did? When?”
“Coach Acevedo put me on notice. Coach Acevedo said if and when the time comes we need a close-out play, I was the man.”
“You are the man.”
“I’m your man. That’s what I told Coach Acevedo. I have to be there, Mason Irving.”
“Blake Daniels is coming to the Showdown! Blake Daniels is coming to the Showdown!” I swatted his shoulder. “You didn’t tell me you sent Coach Acevedo a play.”
“Pacer,” Red said. “That was the name of the play the Valparaiso University Crusaders ran when they—”
“Why’d you choose a college play?” I interrupted. “You only watch NBA.”
Red reached for the Nerf ball. “I couldn’t come up with an NBA play.”
“You know everything about the NBA. You couldn’t come up with a play?”
&nb
sp; “I came up with three plays.”
“What was wrong with those?”
“I couldn’t decide which one I liked best.” Red tossed the Nerf from hand to hand. “I wanted to send Coach Acevedo the Michael Jordan play from game five of the 1989 Eastern Conference first-round series between the Chicago Bulls and the Cleveland Cavaliers. I also wanted to send Coach Acevedo the Derek Fisher play from game five of the 2004 Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs. I also wanted to send Coach Acevedo the LeBron James play from game two of the 2009 first-round series between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Orlando Magic.”
“So you chose the Pacer play instead.”
“So I chose the Pacer play instead. When the thirteenth-seeded Valparaiso University Crusaders defeated the fourth-seeded University of Mississippi Rebels, it was one of the biggest upsets in the history of the NCAA tournament. The thirteen seed beat the four seed!”
“That’s why they call it March Madness.” I clapped for the ball.
Red tossed it to me. “That’s definitely why they call it March Madness.”
“Blake Daniels is coming to the Showdown!” I squeezed the Nerf. “Blake Daniels is coming to the Showdown!”
“You should watch the video of the play,” Red said. “It’s beautiful.”
I laughed. “Beautiful?”
“Beautiful. You should watch the video.”
I pulled my laptop off my workstation, and a few moments later I’d found a slow-motion YouTube clip.
As I watched, Red stood up and flipped the air mattress onto my bed.
“With two-point-five seconds left in the game,” he said, “the Valparaiso University Crusaders needed to go the length of the court.” He pointed to the hoop over my closet. “Jamie Sykes of the Valparaiso University Crusaders had the ball out of bounds in the corner. Jamie Sykes pump-faked and fired a perfect three-quarter-court pass to Bill Jenkins. Bill Jenkins outjumped a University of Mississippi Rebels defender for the ball.” Red ran to the end of my bed and pretended to catch a pass. “Bill Jenkins tapped the ball to his teammate Bryce Drew. Bryce Drew was racing down the sideline. Bryce Drew put up a running twenty-three-footer as time expired.” Red took the shot.
It bounced off the rim.
“But Bryce Drew made the basket,” I said, tossing my laptop onto my pillow and scrambling after the Nerf.
“But Bryce Drew made the basket,” Red said. “The Valparaiso University Crusaders practiced Pacer every day at practice, but Pacer almost never worked.”
“It worked when it counted.” I dunked the ball.
“It definitely worked when it counted, Mason Irving.”
I pulled the air mattress back onto the floor and leaped onto my bed. “Blake Daniels is coming to the Showdown! Blake Daniels is coming to the Showdown!”
Red jumped up next to me.
“We’re playing basketball.” I sang the song from Xbox.
Red joined in. “We love that basketball!”
Sunday Night Bomb
I was outside on the driveway trying to spin a basketball on my finger when Mom opened the front door.
“Looking good,” she said. “You’re really getting the hang of it.”
“You should see Diego,” I said. “He can keep it going for like a minute.”
“Pretty soon so will you.” She walked up. “You had fun with Red?”
“He’s coming to the Showdown!”
“It’s wonderful, Rip. Suzanne is positively thrilled.”
I swatted the spinning ball four times before it rolled off my fingertip. “Coach Acevedo is going to be pumped.”
Mom held out her hands. I scooped up the ball and flipped it to her. She started spinning it on her finger.
“One day, you’ll be as good as me,” she said, smacking the ball and spinning it faster.
“Go, Mom!”
“I still got it,” she said, smiling.
Mom played varsity basketball in high school, and up until a couple years ago, she played in a co-ed league with some of her educator friends. But she decided to stop after some of the other players started twisting ankles and tweaking muscles, trying to do things they used to do when they were younger. Mom didn’t want to be next.
She handed me back the ball and picked a piece of lint out of my hair. “Honey, I hate to do this to you now,” she said.
“Do what?” I got the ball going again.
“It’s a Sunday Night Bomb.”
What’s a Sunday Night Bomb?
A Sunday Night Bomb is when you wait until eight o’clock Sunday night to tell Mom you need to bring something to the school party tomorrow, and you went with her to Trader Joe’s twice over the weekend but didn’t say anything either time.
A Sunday Night Bomb is when you wait until eight o’clock Sunday night to tell Mom you need a poster board for your science project and that the printer is out of ink, and you were at Staples with her that afternoon.
A Sunday Night Bomb is when you wait until eight o’clock Sunday night to tell Mom you need permission slips, waivers, and medical forms filled out for basketball, and those permission slips, waivers, and medical forms have been sitting in your gym bag for a week.
I’m the king of Sunday Night Bombs.
“Are you going to tell me?” I asked.
“Honey, your father’s back in town.”
This time it wasn’t the ball that wobbled.
“He’d like to see you.”
Detonation
“Knock, knock,” Mom said, pushing open my door.
I was on my bedroom floor with my knees to my chest and my arms wrapped around my legs.
“Can I come in?”
My answer didn’t matter. She sat down in the chair by my workstation and rolled closer.
“I waited to tell you because I didn’t want to ruin your weekend,” she said.
I pulled my legs in tighter and rocked back and forth.
“Honey, no matter when I told you, it was going to be the wrong—”
“When did you find out?”
“Tuesday. I knew he was—”
“Tuesday?”
“The day we went to Perky’s.”
“You waited until now to tell me?”
She reached back for the pencil by my printer. “Like I started to say, no matter when I told you—”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“I probably should’ve told you—”
“Probably?”
“He texted while you were at practice.” She strummed the pencil against her leg. “We stopped at Perky’s on the way home because I wanted Dana’s advice.”
“You told Dana before you told me?”
“Honey, don’t even. That’s not what this is about, and you know it. This is about David.”
I winced at the sound of his name.
My father left when I was in first grade. His company moved to the other side of the planet. He was offered a job he couldn’t pass up. So he says.
When he first moved away, we Skyped or FaceTimed two or three times a week. Then it became two or three times a month. Then it became even less than that. After what happened in third grade, I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.
“When?” I asked.
“When what?”
I let out a puff. “When does he want to see me?”
“He wants to see you play in the Showdown.”
“No!” I banged my shoulders into the mattress behind me.
“Honey, before you—”
“No! He can’t. If he’s going, I’m not.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do. If he’s going, I’m not. I don’t care.”
“What about Red?”
“I don’t care.”
“I know you don’t mean that.”
“Yes, I do.” I rammed my elbow into the mattress. “He can’t come to the Showdown.”
“Honey, this is a good way
for you two to finally—”
“No!” I rammed it again.
And again.
And again.
“Rip, enough,” she said firmly. “Enough.”
I slammed it once more and let out a harder puff.
“We need to talk about this,” she said.
“No, we don’t.” I folded my arms tightly across my chest.
“It’s time we start dealing with this situation. We decided several months ago that—”
“You decided. I didn’t.”
Right around New Year’s, Mom began making a huge deal about how this was a big year for me. I was graduating from RJE and starting middle school, and she expected to see even more growing up from me. She made a point of saying even more because I already was behaving more grown-up, and she knew it. But she also made a point of saying when it came to my father, I needed to stop kicking the can down the road, as she put it. She said I needed to start taking steps toward reconnecting with him.
“I’m going to be with my team,” I said.
“He understands that, Rip. He wants to see you play ball and—”
“No way.” I smacked the carpet.
“Honey, it’s been almost two whole years since you last saw him. Who knows? You may decide you want to spend some time with him.”
“No, I won’t.”
My brain flashed back to The Wizard of Oz, the RJE school play in third grade. That was the last time I saw him. The whole class were Munchkins. He was supposed to come see me in it. He got there in time to see the Wicked Witch of the West melt. He left when the cast went out for ice cream afterward.
“Was this why you were looking at me like that at dinner?” I asked.
She nodded. “But I wasn’t going to say anything in front of Red.” She brushed her knuckles along my cheek.
I leaned away. “I don’t want him there.”
“It’s time we start dealing with this.”
“You said that already.” I smacked the carpet again. “He ruins everything.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“You’re defending him?”
“He doesn’t need to be defended, Rip. Your father and I are on the same page about this. We have been ever since we found out he was being transferred back later this year.”