Segal, Jerry

by One On One (V1. 0) [Lit]

  Janet sighed, rose, and put his opened text before him. “Just start studying. When you come to something you don’t understand, ask me.”

  For a second, she had an impulse to apologize for insulting him. But four semesters of tutoring jocks compelled her otherwise. Flippantly, she said, “This is study period, not play period. And, um, that high-school color-jacket. Do you have to wear it indoors on a warm day like this? I’ve heard of security blankets for infants, but really, Henry—a big boy like you? The world won’t stop turning if you take that jacket off.”

  She went to the desk behind him and began to type.

  He sat frozen, furious. Should he walk out? If he did, would the coach be angry? Or would they get him another tutor, one who would understand what his priorities were and why he had come to Western U.?

  Janet stopped typing and crossed the room in search of a book. As she leaned across the bed to take it from a shelf, Henry was treated to a sensational view of her behind, shapely in the tight jeans.

  She straightened, turned, and saw his steady eyes on her.

  “What are you looking at!” Angrily, she hit the book with her open palm. “Shit! You think because the athletic department gives me two-fifty an hour to tutor you animals, you can sit there studying my ass? Forget it! You’ve got no chance with me, Jack!”

  They glared at each other. Henry’s impulse was to grab her and shake her until she screamed, until her superiority disintegrated into fear. But though he knew he could not match words or wits with her, he tried.

  “I’m not an animal!” he snarled. “And I wasn’t studyin‘ your—. Look, I didn’t do nothin’ to you. I just came here to learn!”

  She laughed cruelly. “I’ve never met a jock yet who had brains enough to learn anything beyond the coach’s playbook and junior-high-school sex.”

  Suddenly the anger left her face. Touching the open textbook on the table before him, she said simply, “Read.”

  She went back to her desk and resumed typing.

  Henry sat immobile for a moment. I hate that stuck-up bitch, he thought. I’ll show her! Goddammit-to-hell, I’ll show her!

  His eyes focused on the page before him. His body tensed. As if it were an enemy, he attacked the text.

  An hour later, when Janet announced, “Time’s up,” he rose, gathered his books and left with only a nod.

  She called after him, “See you next week, Henry,” in a tone that was both friendly and patronizing. She had used that tone many times in the past after being forced to put a jock-stud in his place before she could continue as his tutor. It had always worked. Questioning the jock’s intellect, usually on valid grounds, effectively castrated him. Then she could earn her two-fifty an hour in peace. She needed the money badly. She was only a junior now and she planned on a doctorate, which would take another several years after she graduated.

  From her doorway, she watched Henry walk stiffly down the stairs and out of sight. Well, she thought, no more trouble from him. She smiled to herself. Too bad; he was kind of cute.

  * * *

  IV

  At the cafeteria, he asked for Chris.

  “You Henry?” the manager asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Chris told me all about you. Great kid. Best dishwasher I ever had. I been here twelve years, and Chris is the only washer I ever had who can keep up during the dinner rush hour.” The manager pointed. “You just go right through those big doors and on into the kitchen back there. You’ll see him.”

  “Thanks.”

  In the kitchen, Henry watched his friend wield a soapy sponge in a sinkful of dirty dishes. No hands ever washed dishes with more joy and energy.

  Chris’ hair, only medium long back home in Elroy, now covered his ears and the top of his shirt collar, and the stubble of a mustache dirtied his sweaty upper lip. His white uniform was limp with the perspiration brought on by the enthusiastic tempo of his dishwashing.

  After a moment, Henry moved closer. “Hey, Chris-sie,” he said gently.

  Chris’ smile was born of honest pleasure. “Henry! Oh, man, it’s good to see ya!”

  “How ya doin‘?”

  “Swimmin’ly.” Chris made swimming motions with his hands in the sink. “Get it? Swimmin’ly?”

  “I got it. Now, how do we get rid of it?” Henry was only half joking as he stared at the sink full of dirty dishes.

  “Get rid of it? I don’t want to get rid of it. I love it, man!”

  “This?”

  “Everything, Henry! My job! School! California!” Chris grinned. “California women!”

  “That’s great, Chris.” Frowning, Henry went on. “I been tryin‘ to get over and see you, but seems like—”

  “Hey, just stop, okay? I know you’re busy as hell. I can dig it, man. I can dig it.”

  “How come you’re talkin‘ like that?” Henry said sharply. “ ’I can dig it.‘ You sound like a cruddy hippie.”

  Chris only grinned.

  Henry continued his assault. “And how come you’re growin‘ a mustache? You need a shave, Chrissie. And how come you’re letting your hair grow so long? Your folks know you’re growin’ long hair?”

  Chris ‘began scrubbing dishes again. “My life’s changed, man,” he said soberly. “Naw, my folks don’t know about my hair or mustache or the way I talk. You see, Henry—my folks’re back home. And I’m here. On my own. Free.”

  Henry frowned again. “You like where you’re livin‘? If you don’t—I mean, I ain’t seen it—but if you don’t, I can help you get somethin’ else.”

  “Henry, I live in a really neat house. Man, everybody is everybody’s friend. Hey, let’s talk about you. How’s basketball?”

  Henry ignored the question. Motioning toward the sink, he asked, “How much they pay you to do that?”

  “Buck and a quarter an hour.” Chris smiled. “Thanks to you, man, that’s all I need. Food and clothes money. And I eat here a lot for free. Scholarship pays for everything else. Hey, how’s your job?”

  “It’s okay.”

  Henry studied the perspiration on Chris’ face.

  The doors to the kitchen opened and a student waitress carrying a stack of pamphlets approached them. She was pretty—appealing, sexy.

  “Hi, Christopher!” the girl said. “Here’re the flyers. Hand them out tomorrow morning between classes in front of the library.”

  “Gotcha, beautiful,” beamed Chris. “Ain’t she purty, Henry?” To the girl he said, “Hey, my hands are wet, honey bunch. Would you put ‘em over there?”

  “Anything you say!” The girl kissed Chris on his wet cheek, more than just a sisterly smack, put the pamphlets on the counter and left.

  “I’m handin‘ those flyers out for a guy who’s runnin’ for congress,” Chris explained. “He said some things that kind of switched me on.”

  “Man, you’re into everything.”

  “Damn right!” Chris bubbled. “Hey, you know what? You ought to come with me to the next meetin‘ of—”

  “No thanks,” Henry interrupted. “You know I don’t go in for that—stuff.” He had almost said “shit.”

  “Yeah,” Chris sighed. “You just play basketball.”

  They looked at each other.

  “That’s right, I just play basketball,” Henry said.

  They were silent for a moment, and then they turned away from each other. Henry was the first to speak.

  “Chris, I, uh, gotta get back to my, uh, job.”

  Chris’ grin was tinged with sadness. “See you around.”

  “Yeah. See you around.”

  Henry headed for the football field. In another hour the sprinklers would turn themselves off and his toil for the day would be done.

  In the kitchen, Chris plunged happily back to his dishwashing. In another hour he would be finished here. Then a couple of hours of studying, a rap session, a meeting, a little love-making, a little more studying, a little more love-making, a little more studying…


  Chris began to sing as he worked.

  * * *

  V

  In his early years at Western, Moreland Smith discovered that one of the perils connected with winning national titles was the constant loss of assistant coaches. Other colleges would hire them away, reasoning that an assistant to a perennial coach-of-the-year like Smith would know the master’s secrets; or, better still, might even be an integral factor in the master’s winning formula. The reasoning was false, but the steady departure of assistants was nevertheless a nuisance. Smith thought about the problem and came up with a solution. He found a man who had no virtues whatsoever that would motivate another college to steal him. He found Phillips.

  Phillips had no concept of basketball strategy, no imagination, no ability to project beyond that day’s workout and Smith’s standing orders. Phillips had no leadership qualities that did not stem from brute power; the boys obeyed him because he relayed Smith’s orders. His cloddishness was a known fact everywhere. At parties there was always a drift away from wherever he happened to be; his idea of humor was a full-throated series of racial and outhouse stories from the hill country. He was a woman-chaser. Somewhere off-campus, Phillips had a wife and children, but he was often seen around the university with adolescent females of the big-breasted, dimwitted variety.

  Because of the man’s virtues, however, Smith ignored his crudeness. He was a drill-sergeant extraordinaire, a single-minded, narrow-minded, tough-minded philistine of unquestioning loyalty.

  Six years earlier, Phillips had been coach of a junior college team in the hills of eastern Tennessee. A scout had reported to Moreland Smith, verbatim, Phillips’ first speech of the year to his newly gathered players: “Awright, you turkey turds, I don’t believe in pep talks. I teach basketball, not bullshit. Don’t fuck with me. I’m tougher’n any of you. So make sure your asses are wound up tight durin‘ practice, else I’ll be handin’ you your lazy balls for dinner. Cocksuckers who won’t put out in practice lay down like yella fairies durin‘ games. On my team, you’re gonna hustle and go, you sum-bitches, ev’ry minute.”

  With one exception, Smith agreed with the essence of Phillips’ reported oration, although his own expression of the same thoughts was infinitely more eloquent. And therein lay the exception. Smith did believe in a certain amount of what Phillips called bullshit—Virgil, Shakespeare, Donne, the Scriptures, Santayana.

  ==========

  The first team meeting of the season was held in early October in a small classroom across the hall from the gym. Henry and his teammates listened in awe as Smith, standing on the elevated lecturer’s platform, concluded his greetings.

  “Gentlemen,” Smith said, “excellence is not achieved through talent alone. Excellence requires Resolution! Desire!

  “And, as Shakespeare said, ‘Let not the native hue of your resolution be sicklied o’er by the pale cast of excessive thought.’ In other words, gentlemen, when you’re told to do something, don’t think about it. Just DO it! The moment you’re told to do it. This club is not a democracy. We don’t debate about or vote on anything.”

  Smith impaled the boys with his gaze.

  “This year, here at Western, I am giving you the opportunity to do what is almost unique in college basket-ball annals. You have the ability, the talent, to go through this season—-undefeated. But, do you have the desire? Do you have the mental toughness and intestinal fortitude to make the supreme sacrifice? To ignore all else in your lives—family, girlfriends, weaknesses of the spirit and flesh—and dedicate yourselves to the task at hand? If you do not, I don’t want you here! Get out! Now! There is the door! Go back to the slums and ghettos and hicktowns that spawned you. Go back to mediocrity and the company of ordinary men.

  “But if you have dreams, and if you are men enough to make them come true—this is your chance for greatness! Go and catch a falling star! Make your dreams come true! You can do it! You can do it!”

  Finished with his speech, Smith stood before the squad, a messiah staring at the back wall of the room, seeing into worlds they could soon enter if they only dared. His words echoed in Henry’s head, seared themselves on his mind.

  Phillips rose suddenly from his seat in the first row and growled at the squad, “All right, you turkies, let’s GO!”

  A deep-throated rumble, like the beginning of a mastiff’s growl, emanated from the boys and rose to become a bloodcurdling roar. The room exploded into activity. Shouting, “All rightl! Let’s go! Let’s get ‘em! What’d’ya say! Let’s go’t Let’s GO!” Henry and his teammates stormed from the room toward the gym.

  ==========

  There were about twenty men on the varsity squad. With the exception of Henry and three other freshmen, all the players had been on the previous year’s national championship squad. Despite their seasoning, however, all the returning men—including one Ail-American and two all-conference selections—knew that they would have to battle for a starting position.

  In the gym, the squad ran several laps in single file, clapping their hands and shouting encouragement to themselves.

  Smith nodded, and Phillips’ whistle shrilled. “Guards line up here,” he shouted. “Forwards and centers over yonder.”

  Eight guards, including Henry, lined up shoulder to shoulder. Smith, a general inspecting his troops, walked along the line.

  “I want this man’s legs built up,” he said to Phillips, who took notes on the clipboard. “Put this man on a weight-lifting program. This fellow’s got a belly since last spring; see that he loses it.”

  In the presence of the full squad, Henry was painfully aware that he looked like a midget in the company of giants. At five-foot eleven, he was five inches shorter than the next smallest player.

  As the coaches moved away, he realized that Tom was standing next to him. “Hey, man,” Henry said under his breath. “What are you doin‘ in this line? Don’t tell me you’re a guard!”

  “Yeah, I’m a guard.” Tom grinned down at him.

  “A six-six guard? Hell, where I come from, some teams don’t have centers as big as you.”

  Tom laughed. “I was the smallest man on my high-school team. Tallest was seven-four.”

  Henry forced himself to look at the guard to his right, a black player named Floyd. Floyd was as tall as Tom.

  God! thought Henry. He swallowed hard. For the first time, doubt grabbed his innards.

  ==========

  Supervised by Phillips, the squad labored for two weeks under a harsh regimen of exercises and drills designed not only to get the boys into top condition— thereby saving them from the agonies of pulled hamstrings and charley-horses—but also to cull those boys too weak-hearted to endure the endless hours of pulling, lifting, propelling, pressing, shoving and forcing an army of muscle-building machines.

  Henry did well those first two weeks. Spirited, determined, speedy, fantastically well-coordinated, he drew pleased grunts from Phillips and, from his command post on the catwalk that circled the practice gym, More-land Smith smiled his approval. On press day, Smith put his confidence in Henry on record for the whole sports world.

  The reporters, each with a press kit that included a bio and an in-action photo of each player, gathered before the squad. They took notes as Smith introduced each man. Pencils flew. Camera bulbs flashed.

  The coach had been typically reserved when he introduced each boy, especially the stand-outs from the previous year’s team. He had learned long ago that college boys were often harmed by too-lavish public praise. But when Smith came to Henry, he put his arm around the boy’s shoulder and beamed.

  “And here, gentlemen,” he told the reporters, “is someone you’ll be hearing a lot about. To paraphrase Edmund Spenser, ‘He blesseth us with his two happy hands.’ This young man is a fine ballhandler, among other things. Meet Henry Steele of Elroy, Texas.”

  The reporters found Henry’s photo and bio in their press kits. Photographers maneuvered for a good picture-taking angle.

 
“You’d better get a good look at him right now while he’s standing still,” Smith purred, “because when he gets going, he’s nothing but a blur. Off the record, gentlemen, we’re expecting big things of Henry.”

  Flashbulbs popped. Posing, grinning from ear to ear, warmed by the patriarchal weight of Smith’s arm on his shoulder, Henry was truly in paradise.

  * * *

  VI

  By mid-October, the squad had been cut to fourteen men; the frills, the exercises, the calisthenics had become secondary to the actual playing of basketball itself. Now Moreland Smith came down from his catwalk -and took a close-up role in the practice sessions. From the very first one, Henry’s paradise began to change inexorably into hell.

  ==========

  It began well enough.

  For almost an hour, Smith stood in foul territory just behind the basket and watched as Phillips fed each boy, in rum, a bounce pass from the baseline. When the boy received the ball, he would execute whatever maneuver Smith had called for. Stop, jump and shoot. Or, drive for a lay-up. Or, pass off to the man behind you.

  By the end of that first hour, Smith and Phillips took Henry’s effortless skills for granted. Although the other players, all amazingly talented, equalled Henry’s performance most of the time, none matched his clean, machine-like precision. Henry’s shots went in every time, almost always without touching the rim. The other players slam-dunked so hard that the backboard shook and the rim quivered for half a minute afterward, or they flew through the air like huge birds to put in reverse lay-ups and other breathtaking shots. Henry took nervous note of his teammates’ skills; they were doing things with a basketball he had never seen before outside a televised pro game. Characteristically, he became even more like an automaton. Fake. Dribble. Jump. Shoot. No matter how upset, he could maneuver under the basket in his sleep. But inwardly, Henry trembled.

  ==========

  Phillips’ whistle blew. “Okay, you peckerwoods,” he barked, “now we’re gonna see who can play ball! Line up on this baseline here! Count off by ones, startin‘ at this end.”