Bouncing Back
Page 8
That kind of anger sounded kind of scary. “So why are you going out for the school team? Did you decide you like basketball, after all?”
“No, my dad decided I like basketball. He hates baseball and football. He finally said I was going to be a basketball player if it killed me.”
It just might, I thought. “Well, don’t feel bad about being nervous,” I said. “I remember how scared I was at my first tryout.”
Stomper frowned. “What do you mean? I mean…”
“I wasn’t always in this chair. I was in a car accident a year ago. Before that, I was a pretty good shooter. Now I’m finding out that basketball is hard, but it’s easier if someone shows you stuff, so you don’t have to learn everything by yourself.”
Stomper looked like he didn’t know what to say. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hand and said, “Do you think you can actually help me make the stinking team? If I get cut, my old man will probably come down to school and yell at the coach, and I sure don’t want to make the team that way.”
Stomper was worried about how he might look to other students? That seemed so not like a bully.
I said, “Well, you’re tall, and Coach likes that. You just need to learn some basic stuff.”
“Like what?” Stomper said, sounding desperate. “I can’t learn basketball in one day. You can see I got nothing, dude.”
“You might have something,” I said. “There’s a lot more to basketball than scoring points. I saw this instructional video called Dirty Work. It’s about rebounding, defense, setting picks—the basic things you don’t get glory for, except from your coach and teammates. I can show you some of those things, so maybe Coach won’t cut you.”
He cringed when I said “cut.”
“You need to work on layups at home,” I said. “Got a hoop in your driveway?”
“Park next door,” he said. The lunch bell rang.
“Shoot a hundred layups tonight,” I said as we headed back up the ramp. “And maybe we could work after school today for an hour?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Stomper said.
DIRTY WORK
I GAVE OUR AFTER-SCHOOL SESSION A NAME: DIRTY Work. Mostly defense and rebounding basics. Fifteen minutes in and Stomper called time-out. That gave me a minute to think while he guzzled a bottle of Gatorade.
It hit me that he was actually starting to move like a real basketball player—and I was starting to sound like a real basketball coach. At least a little bit of each.
“Do you know how to box out?” I asked.
Blank stare. I tossed the ball back and forth between my hands. “That’s when the other team shoots, and instead of you going to the basket and looking up for the rebound, you forget about the ball. You find the nearest player on the other team, and you get between him and the basket so he can’t get the rebound.”
“But how can I get the rebound if my head is turned away from the basket? Won’t the ball hit me in the head?”
“Maybe, but that’s better than the other team getting the rebound. And once you’re in front of your guy and have him screened off from the basket, then you can turn and look for the ball while you keep him behind you.”
I had him push against the back of my chair.
“So when you played basketball,” he said, “you must’ve been really good.”
I shook my head. “I could shoot, but I didn’t know any of this stuff I’m showing you.”
“You learned all these tricks after you quit playing?”
“Actually I’m still playing. On a wheelchair team. That’s why I started studying this stuff, because I want to be a basketball player, not just a shooter.”
“Man, you’re like a coach already.”
I shrugged. That kind of embarrassed me.
Stomper took another slug of Gatorade and looked at me. “That car accident. Did, uh, did anyone else get hurt?”
I nodded. Tried to blink away the tears. “Yeah. I, uh, lost my mom and dad that day.”
Stomper looked at his feet.
“Show me some more stuff,” he said.
We worked for another half hour. Just three or four basic things. Including layups.
As we worked, Stomper seemed to be getting a little confidence. What had seemed like Mission: Impossible, teaching him enough basic stuff to make the team, started to seem like Mission: Maybe.
“Tell me the truth, dude,” he said as we wrapped up. “Do I have any chance of making this team?”
“Sure,” I said. “You just have to show Coach that you’re improving.”
Stomper shook his head, which sent beads of sweat flying everywhere. “I’m not sure I can remember all this stuff.”
“Only four things,” I said. “If I email you a list of the four things, will you practice ’em at home?”
He sighed. “Okay.”
“You’ve got all day Sunday,” I said.
Stomper shook his head. “I have to caddie for my old man. He plays golf with the mayor every Sunday.”
“Your dad plays golf with the mayor?” I said, my eyes going wide. “I mean, that’s cool that your dad and the mayor are friends.”
“Oh, yeah. My old man’s construction company remodeled the mayor’s office, and now he’s building a new room onto the mayor’s house.”
A car pulled up outside the gate. Stomper cringed. “There’s my dad now.”
A cute little dog jumped out the back window and made a beeline for Stomper.
“Hey, Petey, how you doin’, boy?” Stomper said as the dog wagged his tail and licked Stomper’s face.
Stomper’s dad got out of the car and stood by the playground gate.
“What’s going on, Roland?” he asked gruffly.
“Hi, Dad. Uh, this kid was just showing me some basketball stuff.”
“Oh?” Mr. Walkman said, like it was a joke, then he turned to me. “You’re teaching my son how to play basketball?”
“Not exactly, sir,” I said. “I used to play some ball and I was just showing Stomper—sorry, uh, Roland—a few things to help him get ready for tryouts.”
Mr. Walkman nodded again. “Yeah, well, I used to play some ball myself,” he said, “and if Roland is going to learn some ball, I think he’d be better off learning it from me.”
“Dad, he was just—”
Mr. Walkman cut him short, motioning with his head toward the car. “Let’s go. Get the dog.”
Stomper gave me a little shrug. “C’mon, Petey,” he said.
When they were in the car, I heard Mr. Walkman say, “I just had a nice talk with your coach. He says you suck.”
Stomper lowered his head.
“He didn’t use the word suck, but he says you might not make the team. Now I find you out here goofing off with some wheelchair kid? What the hell’s wrong with you?”
Stomper looked like a whipped puppy. “Sorry, Dad,” he said. “But that kid really knows some basketball things.”
“Great. Maybe you can try out for the wheelchair team.”
I felt my cheeks burn.
As the car pulled away, tires screeching, Mr. Walkman put up his hand. Was he making a gesture, or was he going to slap Stomper? Petey jumped out of Stomper’s lap, into the back seat, and disappeared.
It struck me how the infamous “Stomper” and this kid I’d been playing basketball with were two very different guys.
As I pushed back home, my phone pinged with a text from Mitch, my friend since we shared a room in the hospital after the accident.
Ever watch Laurel and Hardy?
Who?
Super old comedy movies. These two dudes, a fat guy and a skinny guy, Hi-LAR-ious. They remind me of me and you back in the hospital. You gotta check ’em out. Hope you’re good, man. Gotta go.
BYE-BYE BUCCANEERS
THAT SATURDAY EVENING AFTER PRACTICE, TROOPER started an email chain:
Trooper: We’re ordering new game jerseys. Anyone interested in changing our team name? Buccaneers is already the n
ame of an NFL team. And Hot Rod is the only player who can even spell Buccaneers.
James: How about the Waves, or the Riptide?
Jellybean: The Cruisers.
Hot Rod: The Hot Rods.
Hayley: The Palace Guards.
James: Definitely NOT the Inspirations.
Mia: LOL! Carlos, you’ll see when we travel, people always say, “You guys are an inspiration.” They mean it as a compliment, but we don’t want to be inspirations. We just want to be kids playing basketball.
Carlos: So what do you say to them?
Mia: Thanks.
Trooper: Speaking of inspiration, I don’t see any here. Maybe we should stick with Buccaneers for now.
Mia: Hey, how about the Rats?
DJ: Yeah, Captain Hook could be our mascot! I wonder how he’s doing with no more donuts from Carlos.
Carlos: Actually I stopped at the Palace on my way to practice and left half a donut by a hole in the front door.
James: How about Gym Rats?
Carlos: Rollin’ Rats?
Hot Rod: Terrible name! I vote yes!
Trooper: Seven yesses. See you in the morning, Rollin’ Rats.
“You named the team what?” Rosie said the next morning.
“No rodent talk at breakfast,” Augie said, serving me a plate of his famous huevos rancheros, with salsa that is hot but not stupid-hot.
My aunt noticed me poking at my eggs and said, “Ball game butterflies, right?”
I gave her a scowl. I didn’t want Rosie and Augie to think I was weak or anything.
“Ah, that takes me back, Carlos,” Rosie said with a sigh. “When I played, sometimes I would throw up before games.”
“You got that nervous?” I asked. “But you were a star.”
“Everybody gets nervous, carnalito. It took me a long time to see that. My teammates didn’t seem nervous, so I thought something was wrong with me. I tried to fake being all cool.”
“Did you pull it off?”
“The barfing kind of blew my cover. And my teammates noticed that when I got sick just before a game, I played well. They told me my barfing calmed the team down.”
“Charming,” Augie said. “No wonder I fell in love with you.”
“Carlos,” Rosie said, “are you nervous about today’s game?”
I shrugged.
“Are you nervous when you do homework?” she asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “Bored, sometimes.”
“You could stay home and do homework,” Rosie said with a wink.
I got the point. But I was still nervous. It was my first road trip with the Buccaneers—I mean, the Rollin’ Rats.
When we all met at the supermarket parking lot, everybody was in good spirits—the players, parents, some brothers and sisters. My teammates sure didn’t seem nervous.
“I just love road trips!” said Mia, peeking out of her white hoodie.
We were caravanning to the game. Two large vans for the players, DJ’s dad driving a big pickup truck with all the chairs and equipment, then four cars with parents and families. Rosie and Augie were in their van, and James’s parents were riding with them.
The teams we play are all regional teams, drawing players from surrounding cities and counties, so every road game was a fairly long trip. The three-hour drive to Fresno made the game seem like even more of a big deal, which made me even more nervous.
Before we left, Trooper gave us an update. No new word from city hall on the Palace, so we’d keep practicing outdoors. With no home gym, it looked like we’d have to cancel our last two home games.
“Let’s roll, Rats,” Trooper said. “And please enjoy the scenery.”
“We have to,” Jellybean said. “You won’t let us use our phones.”
Trooper gave a thin smile and said, “We are one team with seven people. We are not seven one-person teams. You might have to actually communicate with your teammates in the car. That skill will be useful someday, and you will thank me. When you do thank me, don’t do it by text.”
The parents laughed, the kids not so much.
As we headed to the vans, DJ muttered, “I don’t like the math. Five weeks left in our regular season counting today. Three games counting this one, all on the road, and we’ll have to win at least one to qualify for State. That won’t be easy if we don’t get back into the Palace.”
“Zen,” said Hot Rod. “Forget the Palace right now. Today we gotta take care of the Central Valley Cougars.”
We split up—James, Jellybean, and DJ in one van; Hayley, Hot Rod, and me in Trooper’s van.
“Pick a van, Mia,” Trooper said.
“I’ll ride with you, Coach,” she said. “As long as you checked Carlos for squirt guns. He’s very dangerous.” She gave me a look of fake fear. I was glad my skin is dark enough that most people can’t tell when I’m blushing. We pulled out of the parking lot past Rosie and Augie and they waved. When I came to live with them, Rosie had a bright yellow Volkswagen convertible. She traded it in for a used minivan with a wheelchair ramp. Augie joked that he was glad because he was tired of guys whistling at Rosie in her cute little convertible.
I know they had to make a lot of sacrifices, but they always put a positive spin on stuff. They didn’t expect any kind of payback, but I hoped I could make them proud of me. I thought how cool it would be if I could do okay in basketball, since it was their idea for me to play.
But I still wasn’t sure how I was fitting in with my new team and with the new Flow offense. Trooper must have been reading my mind. As we pulled onto the freeway, he glanced over his shoulder and said, “Carlos, I like the way you’ve been moving the ball in practice. When you get in today, I want you to keep the ball moving and keep your teammates moving.” He snap-snap-snapped his fingers.
I gulped. I still felt like the new kid who was mostly trying not to mess things up while I figured out how to play. Now Coach was saying he expected me to actually help the team. That was a whole new kind of pressure. My stomach flipped.
“Okay,” I said, trying to sound confident. “I’ll try, Coach.”
We settled in for the ride. With no phones, we were forced to talk among ourselves. We discussed our new team name, and I asked Hot Rod, “Speaking of names, how did you get your nickname?”
“Desperation,” Hot Rod said. “Harold is the worst name ever. Hal is even worse. I read about an old NBA player named Hot Rod Hundley, and I asked Coach if I could be Hot Rod.”
“I told him we could take that nickname for a test drive,” Trooper said, “although I’m pretty sure there’s never been an English poet named Hot Rod.”
Mia turned to me. “Have you ever had a nickname, Carlos?”
I smiled, thinking back. “One day when I was about two, my mom combed my hair really nice. My dad said, ‘Man, you look slick!’ From then on, he called me Slick.”
I didn’t mention that now, whenever I combed my hair, I thought about that nickname, and about how it often came with a hug, and how it made me so sad looking in the mirror to comb my hair that sometimes I just kind of patted it into place without looking.
But a soft smile spread across Mia’s face. “Slick. I like it,” she said, and we were all quiet for a while.
Finally Hot Rod said, “I wonder how our new offense will work. The Cougars are a pretty good team. I hope they get as tired as I got yesterday. I thought this Flow offense was supposed to be easy.”
“No,” Mia clarified. “It’s supposed to look easy.”
I saw Trooper smile.
Four minutes into the first quarter against the Cougars, Trooper was not smiling when he called time-out.
We had committed some turnovers and screwed up on defense to give the Cougars a couple of easy layups, and we were down 6–0. At least I wasn’t screwing things up. Yet. I was still on the bench, keeping my butterflies company.
The Cougars had a kid with really long arms—they called him Spider—who played the middle of their zone defense and ke
pt intercepting or deflecting our passes. When Trooper called time, the Cougars rolled off the floor yelling and high-fiving.
“We’re really wearing them down, Carlos,” Jellybean whispered sarcastically as he came off the floor.
Trooper looked calm.
“Mia,” he said, “you tried to throw that last pass all the way across the paint, and it got picked off. James, you tried to bounce a pass through traffic.” He leaned forward, his eyebrows knitting together. “Guys, this new offense is built on simple passes, a lot of them. Those simple passes will lead to spectacular baskets. If we stop trying to make long passes across the key, that Spider guy won’t be able to break up every play.”
Trooper looked around the huddle.
“We came a long way to play this game,” he said. “We’re not going home after four minutes. Carlos, check in for Jellybean. Beans, you’re doing fine, I want to keep everyone fresh.”
I reported in at the scorer’s table and as I rolled onto the court, Trooper called my name. I looked back and he snap-snap-snapped his fingers and winked. I nodded and faked a smile.
I brought the ball up and when I crossed midcourt I passed to Hayley on the left wing. Her man was on her, so she passed right back to me, and I swung the ball the other way to James. Away from the ball, Mia set a pick on Hayley’s man, and as Hayley cut around the pick toward the hoop, James hit her with a pass. She took one dribble, but Spider picked her up. That left James open, so Hayley flipped the ball back to him for an open ten-footer.
Swish.
Wow. Five quick, simple passes and a beautiful hoop. An old habit: I never looked at the bench when I was in a game because I didn’t want the coach to think I needed a rest. But now I glanced over at Trooper. He nodded. My stomach felt fine.
The Cougars missed a shot, Hayley rebounded, we got back fast and tried the same play, but Spider picked off my second pass and took it down for a layup. As he came back on defense, he smirked at me.
Our Flow offense so far was four basic plays, with a couple of different options for each. Trooper said there were a hundred things we could do on those plays. I called for play Number Three. I was supposed to pass to James, but he was covered, so we all just started moving and cutting and screening, making it up as we went. James wound up on the left wing with the ball, defended by Spider. James passed to me, ten feet away. I was open and about to shoot, but Spider was hustling toward me. One rule of our Flow offense: Don’t pass up a good open shot unless a teammate has a better shot.