Bouncing Back

by Scott Ostler

  “It’s way different,” I said, thinking of every embarrassing airball I shot that morning. Not to mention all the dribbling disasters. And how awkward I’d felt. “I didn’t score a single point. And the one good play I made was just lucky.”

  “You’re definitely right about it being different,” Rosie said with a twinkle in her eye. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you make the winning assist.”

  A noisy group burst into the restaurant. Six boys, about my age, with their parents. The kids were wearing basketball uniforms with DIABLOS on the front, talking and laughing like they were still fired up from a game. I remembered that feeling.

  The parents sat in the booth behind us. Augie smiled at one of the moms and said, “Must have been a big win.”

  “I wish,” the woman said. “Actually, we lost. It was close, though. And still a great game.”

  Augie reached over and arranged my pancake’s whipped cream back to “smile.”

  Back home, I checked my phone. Two texts.

  Hey, Carlos. It’s Mia. Don’t worry, I’m not a stalker! Trooper put your phone number on the team phone tree. Thanks for the assist. Me and the other Buccaneers hope you come to our game tomorrow. The games are more fun than practices.

  I texted back, Thanks.

  The other text was from my old best friend, Edgar Johnson. Everyone calls him Easy E, or just Easy. Edgar was a terrible shooter, but he did the dirty work—rebounding, defense. Funny we called him Easy, because he played harder than anyone. I hadn’t seen him since I moved to the Bay Area from Los Angeles after the accident, but we texted all the time.

  The other guys texted me now and then, but it’s hard to stay close, considering what happened to me, and considering that I now lived four hundred miles away. But Easy, somehow he made it seem like we were still teammates and buddies, like nothing had changed.

  How was your first practice??

  Hard. I sucked. For real.

  First time always sucks, man, what did you expect? Ever seen a baby bird learning to fly?

  I paused, thinking.

  I crashed out of the nest. Except for one decent pass.

  You? A PASS? For real?

  Very funny. How’s the team doing?

  We won today. The Ramblers are 2-0, can you believe it? We only won two games all last season.

  Wow, you guys really miss me

  LOL. Winning’s fun, Hoop, but you know it’s not just about winning. You’re going to keep ballin’, right?

  Don’t know. Not sure this is my sport.

  Seriously? Cooper the Hooper IS basketball. The guys are all rooting for you. We have faith.

  Tell ’em thanks, Easy. Tell ’em I miss ’em.

  SEVENTH WHEEL

  THE REF’S WHISTLE WAS SO LOUD IT HURT MY EARS. IT echoed off the walls of the Palace.

  “Traveling!”

  The ref gave a few extra arm rolls on his traveling signal, like I was really traveling. Way to rub it in.

  “Red ball,” he shouted. That was them. We were gold.

  I had decided to see what a wheelchair game felt like. What did I have to lose, except my pride? Besides, I figured I could use something to take my mind off going back to school Monday, which I was dreading. I was having trouble in a couple of classes, and getting very tired of a major jerk named Stomper.

  In the back of my mind, I still saw myself as a basketball player. I had been terrible in practice the day before, but maybe the team jersey would be like magic and the game would be as easy for me as it used to be.

  Well, I did look good in my jersey, gold. Number 7, a cool number. But it was not magic.

  Coach sent me in halfway through the first quarter. Within three minutes, I got called twice for traveling and fumbled a pass, which went right through my hands and straight to the guy guarding me. He took it down the court and scored.

  At this rate, I’d set a new world record for turnovers. After the second travel, Trooper subbed me out.

  I looked at the scoreboard. Some of the bulbs were burned out, but the score was clear. Visitors 12, Home 3. Home was us, the Buccaneers. Visitors were the Lodi Lions, and either they were a great team or I was making them look like one.

  I headed toward the far end of our bench area, as far from the coach as I could get, so he would forget about me. Maybe I could even quietly slip right out of the gym.

  But Trooper called my name and waved for me to put my chair right next to his. He held out his hand for a five. Surprised, I gave him a weak tap.

  “Sorry, Coach.”

  Trooper looked at me like he didn’t know what I was talking about. “Did you travel on purpose?”

  I shook my head.

  “We’ve got a lot of goals out here, Carlos. Perfection is not one of them. And just to be clear, I didn’t take you out because of turnovers. It was time to get Hot Rod back in. We’ve only got seven players—I like to keep everyone fresh. Also, that was a great pick you set for Hayley.”

  I hung my head, but Trooper pointed at the court and said quietly, “The game’s out there, not down on the floor.”

  I looked up just in time to see the Lions score, thanks to my gift of a turnover. Their number 6 guy, really quick, dribbled around Hot Rod and drove in for a wide-open layup. That hurt, because it was on me.

  Worse, when the quarter ended and we huddled up, Trooper was all over James because he didn’t pick up Hot Rod’s man when he beat Hot Rod. After my turnover.

  “James,” Trooper said, “on that last play…”

  James nodded. He didn’t look down, he looked straight at Coach, who continued—but not yelling, not foaming at the mouth like I’ve seen some coaches do.

  “Where was the weak-side help, James?” Trooper demanded. “You needed to leave your man and pick up Hot Rod’s man. When you go to sleep like that, our defense falls apart. If you’re tired—”

  James shook his head. “I’m not tired, Coach.”

  “Good, then let’s play some team defense, guys. And everyone, we need more movement on offense. Not just moving the ball around, but moving yourselves around. We look like a homework study group out there. Come on, we only get to play once a week. So let’s play! Whaddaya say? Hands in.”

  My mind was spinning. I made three turnovers, got confused on defense, passed up an open shot, and Coach didn’t say anything bad to me, but he jumped on James, our star player, for one mental mistake.

  Back when I was the star, any time I messed up, the coach got on me pretty good. I didn’t mind. He could call me out and correct me as much as he wanted to, as long as he let me keep shooting. A couple of guys on our team could barely dribble the ball, they made a lot of mistakes, but Coach never got on them, as long as they hustled.

  Now that’s who I was: the kid who is so bad that the coach doesn’t even yell at him.

  The Buccaneers looked a little peppier opening the second quarter. Lodi hit two buckets, but we matched them with a rebound put-back by James and a pass interception by Mia that she flipped to DJ for a layup.

  The Lodi coach called time-out. Trooper looked at me. “Carlos, go in for Hayley. Her man likes to shoot outside, so play him tight. If he gets around you, you’ll have help.”

  I swallowed, my mouth dry, but nodded. Trooper clapped his hands once and said, “Play hard. That’s all I ask. Keep doing that. And have fun.”

  As I rolled onto the court, one of the Lodi kids pointed up at a broken windowpane high above one of the baskets. A big piece of cardboard was taped over the hole. “The ancient Colosseum in Rome is in better shape than this place,” he said to his teammate, and they laughed.

  That made me mad. I was the new guy, not even on the team, and I knew that the Palace was a dump. But who were they to make fun of our gym? Trooper had told Rosie and me that four years earlier, there hadn’t been any wheelchair basketball for kids below high-school age in our city, or even in our entire county, because there just weren’t any gyms available.

  But the peopl
e at BARD—which stands for Bay Arts and Recreation for Disabled—heard about the Earl C. Combs Armory, which was being used by the city to store old construction equipment. That PALACE neon sign over the door was left over from the seventies, when the armory was turned into a concert hall named the Punk Palace, but somebody stole the first word in the sign.

  BARD got permission to use the armory. Trooper found an old wooden court in a warehouse three hundred miles away, trucked it back to Bay City, and pieced it together at the Palace. They turned the old tin can of a building into the home gym of the Bay City Buccaneers.

  Suddenly James was next to me. He had also heard the comment about our crummy gym.

  “This place may not be pretty,” he said to the two Lions, “but you guys aren’t exactly the Golden State Warriors.”

  One of the kids shot back, “Scoreboard,” shorthand for you can say what you want, but we’re winning the game. Not very original, but there it was: Visitors 18, Home, 7.

  Early in the third quarter, Mia hit me with a pass on the baseline and I was wide open from ten feet. One of the Lodi players started to come out to guard me, but his teammate yelled, “Let him go. Dude can’t shoot.”

  My face got hot. I had been a feared shooter. Usually got double-teamed, but I’d shoot anyway. I had been taller than most of the kids and I could pretty much shoot from anywhere, and I did.

  For a split second, I was Cooper the Hooper again. Wide open from ten feet, here it goes, make ’em pay.

  Airball, two feet short of the rim. James anticipated my miss, swooped in from the opposite side, caught the ball in the air, and spun it up off the backboard and in, a reverse layup.

  I don’t know what was more embarrassing—the airball or all the turnovers. At least the airball got lost in all the cheering for James’s basket. Maybe it looked like I passed him the ball on purpose.

  My aunt and uncle were doing their part in the stands, cheering and yelling encouragement at everyone. My mom and dad had been like that, always at my games, but they had been kind of quiet. My dad was British, grew up in London and didn’t know much about basketball, although he tried to learn. Mom had always been quieter than her big sister, Rosie, but she was super supportive of everything I did. She never missed a game.

  One of my old teammates was raised by a single mother who worked full-time and couldn’t come to games. He told me once that he was jealous; he thought it was awesome my parents came to every single one of our games and cared so much.

  It was, but I had kind of taken that awesomeness for granted. Hey, everyone was cheering for me. Shoot, Carlos! It didn’t feel like a big deal at the time. Now, I’d give anything to have my mom and dad in the stands, watching quietly.

  At least I had my aunt and uncle. Augie was supposed to work that morning, but he changed his shift so he could come to the game. Rosie’s enthusiasm got our cheering section fired up. A couple of times she started to get on the refs, but Augie drowned her out by yelling something positive.

  We fought hard, but Lodi wore us down. They had eleven players, all of them pretty good. We had seven players—six of them pretty good.

  Near the end of the game, James blocked a shot and the ball was rolling across the floor. I leaned over to try to scoop it up, but leaned so far I dumped my chair on its side. While sprawled on the court, I slapped the ball to Hot Rod, who picked it up and flipped it downcourt to Hayley for a layup. Another awkward move that turned out okay.

  Just play hard.

  We did play hard, but we still lost big, 39–22, a serious beatdown.

  “Not looking good for State,” Hot Rod grumbled as he helped me back into my chair and we rolled off the floor.

  I had heard the Buccaneers talking about the State tournament, in San Diego. It was nine weeks away, and to qualify for State, the Buccaneers would have to finish with a .500 or better record, in the top three of our six-team league. They were 8–6 after the loss.

  State was the Buccaneers’ goal, but they’d have to beat teams like Lodi to get there.

  I knew one place the team needed to improve. In the second half, I had two more turnovers. Hey, at least I was team leader in something.

  “Sorry, man,” I said to James as we wheeled off the court. “My turnovers really cost us.…”

  James put up his hand and frowned. “Uh-uh. That’s another Trooper rule: no apologies. Every loss is a team loss. Besides, Carlos, I know you can play. I see the way you move on the court. We’ll get there. As a team.”

  Somehow, coming from James, that didn’t sound corny.

  As the Lodi guys whooped and high-fived, Trooper huddled us up. He went around the circle, pointing out things everyone did well.

  “Carlos, love the hustle on the dive-save there at the end. You showed us another level of effort we can all aim for.”

  Trooper told us we were going to have to dig in harder at practice. “Also,” Trooper said, “I’ve got something new I want us to try. Something that will make basketball a lot harder, but a lot easier. Not to be mysterious, but we’ll start working on it at practice next Saturday. Do as much conditioning as you can on your own. You’re going to need it. But most important, kick some butt in your classes. We need everyone to stay eligible. Even though you study alone, it’s a team activity.”

  I shrank down a little lower in my chair, thinking of my struggles in algebra.

  On our way to the car, Rosie said, “Nice dive out there, Carlito. I think that gave your team a lift.”

  There was that my team again.

  “Yeah, but the traveling, the turnovers…”

  “That’s technical stuff, you can work on that,” Rosie said. “The important thing is the fire. You’ve got to bring the fire. You know what? Toward the end of the game, it looked like you were starting to forget that you’re the new guy. You were sticking your nose in there and playing basketball.”

  I brightened up a little. “Thanks,” I said. I didn’t tell my aunt, but there had been a couple of times out there when it did feel like basketball—not a new, confusing sport that I sucked at, but just… basketball.

  “Did you have fun?” Rosie asked.

  I frowned.

  “Bad question from Rosie,” she said. “I’ve almost forgotten how much it hurts to lose.”

  Then she said, “You know, Augie and I were sitting with James’s parents. Very nice people. Do you know how many wheelchair basketball games James has played?”

  I shook my head.

  “More than seventy-five. How many have you played?”

  I shrugged. Rosie held up one finger.

  Still, I knew how I’d played, and that we’d lost. By Trooper’s rule, I couldn’t take the blame for the loss, but like that Lodi guy said, Scoreboard. I thought of that expression—if you’re tagging along with a buddy and his girlfriend, and it’s kind of awkward, you feel like the “third wheel.”

  On the Buccaneers, I was the seventh wheel.

  “By the way, Carlos,” Augie said as we got into the van. “A guy at work is having a picnic at the lake on Saturday and he invited us. We could even do some fishing. It’s up to you.”

  Ever since I was little, when my parents and I visited Rosie and Augie, my uncle and I would go fishing.

  I opened my mouth, ready to say yes to a day of a lot of fish and no airballs.

  Just then Trooper rolled by us on the sidewalk and called out, “Thanks for coming, Rosie and Augie. We love that support. Rosie, we need you to give whistling lessons to the other parents. And Carlos, we are really happy that you played some ball with us. I’m an old basketball junkie, but I really think you can find something here that you can’t find anywhere else. Will we see you at practice next Saturday?”

  I looked at Augie, thinking of the fishing—something I was good at. He motioned to me, like, Your call.

  I turned back to Trooper. “Sure, Coach. Count me in.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Augie wink at Rosie.

  In the car, my phone pinged. A text f
rom Mitch, a kid I met in the hospital after the accident and still kept in touch with. We had watched a lot of movies together and he helped me laugh through some hard times.

  Carlos, como esta? That’s Spanish. I just got back from wheelchair track practice. Tried the 400 meters. Only fell twice. Coach said he’ll have to time me with a calendar. Wussup? Did you go to that basketball practice?

  Yeah. We just had a game. I only fell once. That was my highlight.

  So forget about that NBA career. Just be that same cool guy you were back in the hospital. I never told you how much you helped me back then.

  Thanks, Mitch. I still think of you when I watch “The Benchwarmers.”

  Keep hoopin’ brother.

  ME AND STOMPER

  THE NEXT DAY, THE CROWDED, NOISY HALLWAY BEFORE first period suddenly got quiet. I knew what that meant.

  You don’t have to see Stomper to know he’s around. You can feel his presence, like the creepy killer in a horror movie. He should have his own scary music. The quiet meant that Old Stomper was in the house, no doubt in a cranky mood, so everyone was trying to stay out of his path and not attract his attention.

  Too late. “Get outta the fast lane, dude. I’m late for class,” Stomper growled as he rushed past me, bumping my chair.

  A girl glared at Stomper. He laughed at her and said, “It’s cool. Me and him are buds.”

  Buds? Me and Stomper? That gave me chills.

  I was the new kid at Bayview Middle School, the stranger, and being the new kid is never easy. I was also fairly new to the wheelchair thing, and I was learning that it’s hard to make friends when you’re down here and the rest of the world is up there. You fly under the radar. Kids see you, but they don’t see you.

  I get it. Back before the accident, I never tried to make friends with kids in wheelchairs, or even talk to ’em. They lived in their world and I lived in mine. Now I was pretty much the invisible kid—to everyone except the legendary Roland Walkman.