She's Got Next

by Melissa King

  She must have been whispering some kind of crazy spells, because as close as I was watching, I hadn’t heard. “Now listen to me,” I said to Brittany. “We don’t need that kind of hatefulness, and you’re going to stop disrespecting your teammates if you want to play on this team.”

  We kept playing. Brittany backed off Amanda, at least a little.

  Leaving the gym that night, I asked Brittany’s mom about the incident at school, and the mom was immediately angry, describing Tonya’s friend Danielle as a “little nothing,” and saying she was just like Tonya and nobody liked her. The mom sounded like a kid herself, like she’d been there and was part of the soap opera.

  “I told Brittany they were only picking on her because they were jealous. Because she has friends and people like her.”

  Something sounded off. It was a hesitation somewhere, a flicker in the eye, and I was hit with an image of the mom telling Brittany that Tonya was jealous, not because Brittany had friends, but because she was pretty. It was strange how clearly I saw it, like getting a quick scene from a cable channel you don’t subscribe to.

  I thought about Tonya. The last time I’d seen her had been the day I’d given her a ride home. Chatting away, she’d told me it was okay if I took her out of the games now, because her dad had explained things to her, telling her that I only took her out because she was one of my best players, and coaches had to make sure their stars got some rest and were able to play at the end of the game.

  You can’t blame a ten-year-old for accepting an irresistible possibility forced down her throat by parents. I’m gifted, says one, I’m beautiful, says the other, game over. Maybe that’s what made them both a little crazy, an understanding that under any circumstances, they were expected not to be ordinary.

  We’d met every team in the league, and now we were starting over, scheduled to play the team that had trounced us our first game. We had a winning record, and we were confident and faced games calmly.

  Tonya’s stepmom called me one hour before the game and told me Tonya wouldn’t be coming that day, and probably not for the rest of the season, because she’d gotten in trouble for fighting.

  It was obvious that my role in Tonya’s family drama was to be the distraught coach who found it impossible to win a game without the presence of their gifted little athlete.

  “Well,” I said lightly, “tell her to act right, so she can come back and play.” Then I laughed like it was no big deal.

  Brittany jumped up and down with happiness when she found out Tonya was gone. She smiled at everyone, apparently willing to be friends with ugly idiots again.

  As we huddled before the buzzer, I talked to them about number five, the one who had scored all the lay-ups on us the first game. I hurriedly told them to help Beth out if Five got past her, but I knew it was a tall order. In fourth grade, it was a challenge to remember to get your own man, much less keep an eye on someone else’s.

  The game was close, but late in the first half Beth was out while Five was in, and we got a little behind. I went over to Beth and gave her a politician speech again. “This is our toughest period. We’re just trying to hang in there for now. We’ll catch back up next period, when you’re back in.”

  We were down by five at halftime. I gathered the girls around and told them we had some catching up to do, but there was time. We were definitely not stalling now, and if they had a good shot, they should take it. But only a good shot, I said.

  Four minutes later, we were three behind, and four minutes after that, we were only one behind. It appeared, as long as Beth was in the game, the Ball Hawgs had the edge. Between the sixth and seventh periods, I said to the girls, “Okay, look, we’re making progress and catching up. Do you feel it?”

  I could tell they did.

  Little did I know at the time that we were playing the notorious New School, where the rich kids went. All the Ball Hawg parents knew about the New School team from the previous seasons. Their coach, a woman, practiced her girls every day in PE class. Word was, she demanded the impossible out of her players, and usually got it, and she’d even been thrown out of a few games for bad behavior. All I knew was the other team was well coached, calling plays, setting screens to shake Beth so number five could score lay-ups.

  They were seriously competent ten-year-old basketball players, but we were no slouches. Even Emily, normally so spacy and timid, was getting her share of jump balls and rebounds.

  The game stayed within a point in either direction into the last four-minute period, when number five, going for a rebound, tripped and fell to the floor with a loud thud. The gym got quiet as everyone watched to see how bad it was, then someone screamed from the bleachers: “Suck it up, Lindsey!”

  The voice belonged to a tough-looking woman, apparently Lindsey’s mother, who ran onto the court and started telling the girl to get herself back in the game right now, but Lindsey just wailed louder. She was hurt, she was out, and as she walked past me leaving the court, I said good game, hoping she’d heard.

  We hung on to our one-point lead like a last dollar. With two minutes left, we had the ball, and I called my timeout. Let’s be quiet. Look at the score. Look at the clock. Think.

  “No bad shots,” I told them. “Let’s get in there and maintain our lead, and be very selective with your shots. Do you understand? What did I just say?”

  They did it, stalling for a minute, taking a good shot, and scoring. We won by three, and the parents swarmed, gleeful at this win in particular. Beth, wearing her usual postgame red apple face, gave me the lowdown on the New School and their coach.

  “She talks so mean to her players . . . she’s all like, ‘What are you thinking?! What are you doing?’” Beth frowned and moved her arms in the jerky motions coaches use when they ask those questions. “She yells at them all the time, and her players don’t like her. They’re all like, ‘She’s crazy,’ and ‘She needs to chill out,’ and ‘What’s her problem?’”

  I said to Beth, “Well, I yell sometimes, too.”

  She looked at me a second and said, “Oh, you don’t have it in you to be mean.”

  I guess even a ten-year-old can know the difference between assertive and aggressive, and here I was in my thirties, still figuring out how to give myself permission not to hold what was real in check. I was glad it wasn’t too late to be learning that.

  Brittany was hateful as a molting snake during the next practice, while everyone else was excited to do the one-on-one drill again. After we finished the drill and had a short break, I lined the girls up according to height to get teams and matchups for three-on-three. This was a mistake, because it meant that Brittany was guarding poor Amanda again.

  Going up the court for our first play, Brittany yelled, “I hate this! This is so stupid! I hate basketball!” She was looking at Beth when she said it, trying to get her buy-in. I was grateful when Beth hollered back, “Why’d you sign up then?”

  When they headed back down the court toward the bleachers where the parents sat, Brittany gave Amanda a sneaky shove out of bounds when I had my head turned. Beth’s mother screamed from her position in the stands, “Brittany! Don’t push people! You can’t just shove people into bleachers!”

  Have you ever dated someone who drove you insane, and then, all of a sudden, while you’re in the shower or driving or trying to work, you realize, Hey, he’s just an a-hole, it’s really not that complicated? I had a similar epiphany regarding Brittany.

  I stayed close to Brittany and Amanda, holding my whistle inches from my mouth, telling Brittany she could not touch the person she was guarding. Brittany continued to confuse the game of basketball with a wrestling beauty contest, but we avoided serious injury.

  After several more trips up and down the floor, I told them to go get a drink. I wanted to think a minute and shore up my patience.

  When they came back, I took them to the other side of the court, away from the parents, and we began working on defense. I tossed Allison the ball as I
got set to guard her, thinking about what it was that Brittany did wrong, and trying to tell them all how not to do it without singling Brittany out.

  “Look,” I said, “when we’re playing defense, we don’t have to run all around our girl like this.”

  As Allison dribbled, I played defense on her like a cat being teased by a toy.

  “All we have to do is stay between our player and the goal, okay? Don’t go all crazy, just stay in control, and watch your girl’s midsection to anticipate which way she might go. That’s it. Stay between her and the goal. Watch the belly. No running around all over the place.”

  They sat in a circle, smiling a little, relaxed and in the mood to be entertained. Except for Brittany, still bristling with defiant exile.

  “Remember what we’ve said about keeping your knees bent and one hand up? That’s what I want to see. Easy, right? Who’s got it?”

  Emily’s hand shot up, barely beating out Amanda’s.

  “Come on, Emily, and I see you, Amanda. You’ll be next.”

  Emily stood up and guarded me, perfectly. So the rest of the team would pay attention and not begin acting like a litter of hyena puppies, and to gather all the good feeling and solidarity I could, I had them watch and critique each other.

  “Tell me what you see, team. Are Emily’s knees bent?”

  They nodded and said yes here and there.

  “Is she between me and the goal? Is she fouling me?”

  They watched, evaluating Emily’s defense like professionals, and they agreed she was doing everything right.

  “All right then. Good job, Emily.”

  I touched Emily’s hand in a low-level high-five that wouldn’t make us both feel like dorks. Brittany rolled her eyes.

  “Come on, Amanda, let’s go.”

  Amanda jumped up and guarded me. I asked the team all the questions about her, and she passed their test.

  “Now, what’s she gonna do if I make the mistake of putting the ball in front of her?”

  I dribbled high and wrong in front of Amanda, and she stole it from me.

  “That’s right,” I said. “She’s gonna take it from me.” Give me five, friend.

  One by one, everyone got her turn, until Brittany was the only player left. I’d made it so easy for her to become part of the group again and be liked and accepted and learn something, to be forgiven and move on. All she had to do was try, just a little.

  But you know, I guess she might have felt like I did that time when I was in therapy, when Wanda had asked me if I was really ready to change. Or when I’d asked Tonya about having a good time that first practice and she wouldn’t just say yes like everyone else. Sometimes people just have issues, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

  Brittany stood in front of us and acted like a corpse.

  “Come on, sweetie,” I said. “Bend your knees, straighten your back, let’s go.”

  If it’s possible to play defense sarcastically, she managed it, and with all my diplomacy shunned, I had no choice but to follow through.

  “All right, team, what do you see? Are her knees bent? Are her hands up? Is she between me and the goal?”

  They waved their hands dismissively and shook their heads. Felicia held her nose and moved a hand in front of her face as if something stank. Brittany looked at them like they stank.

  A few weeks earlier, we’d worked on taking the ball out of bounds, and I’d put myself on Brittany. As she got ready to pass the ball in, I spontaneously acted like a crazed defender, jumping up and down like my feet were on fire. I just did it, without thinking about it, to be stupid and try to get everyone relaxed about being guarded. Brittany looked surprised for a second, like I’d startled her, and then she started giggling so hard I thought she might fall down. When she finally stopped laughing, her lovely face was lit with delight, and she looked at me like a baby enchanted with my peekaboo.

  How was it that now she hated me so much?

  It really was complicated, but I decided it wasn’t up to me to figure it out. Instead, later that week, I made a call to Brittany’s Springer-averse mom. Before the next game, which was our last one, Brittany approached me and said she was “sorry for having a bad attitude.” I said it was okay, and let’s just try to do better. I squeezed one of her shoulders as she hugged me around the waist and her mother looked on.

  During our warm-up, Brittany didn’t talk to anyone, and no one was talking to her. When we got in our circle for the usual lastminute stuff, I decided to try something different and change the vibe. I asked them, “Remember what we said the very first practice we had? Remember what our goal was for the season?”

  “Get the ball inside!” several of them shouted.

  “That’s our goal on offense,” I said, “but does anyone remember what we said we were gonna do the very first time we practiced?”

  “Have fun!” a few of them remembered.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Let’s try to get back to that, okay? Let’s play hard, but let’s have a good time, too, okay?”

  They were smiling. Everything felt a little better.

  We began playing, and then Brittany did something so evil and subversive, she managed to shock me some more. That little Attila the Hun in lip-gloss hollered for the pass, as always, and when she got it, she slung the ball in any direction without even looking for a teammate. She was throwing the ball away in one big “screw you”: screw you, ugly idiotic teammates . . . screw you, stupid coach . . . screw you, basketball . . . screw you, Mom.

  Beth yelled at her, understanding that Brittany couldn’t possibly play this badly without trying. She stopped passing to her, and I hastily revised my lineup to take Brittany out the next period and minimize her playing time.

  The other team had two short guards who made all their points. After a few periods, I took Felicia and Amanda off them and put Emily and Beth on them instead. On the first timeout after the switch, Emily kept her girl under control, and Beth got all over the star point guard, forcing a turnover. We went down and scored, and I felt bad for what I was about to do.

  From the sidelines, I said, as quietly as I could, “Beth . . . what you’re doing up there, it’s working . . . keep it up.”

  I had the ruthless job of telling Beth to shut down that hardworking guard, and all I could do in the name of decency was remain somewhat somber about it. I tried not to make it too obvious, what was going on and how unseemly it was, a grown woman going in for the kill like that, and that made the process kosher, if no less ugly.

  Beth nodded. She got another steal, and the guard began to crumble. During an eight-point run, every time we went down on defense, I’d say, “Do it again, Beth, do it again.”

  We won by twelve, and when the final buzzer sounded, Brittany jumped up and down, enjoying the victory she’d tried to sabotage. I watched our season end and felt a little sick at seeing the short guard walk off with her head down. But you know, that’s the way basketball is. It’s just gonna break your heart sometimes.

  Overtime

  YEARS HAVE GONE BY. Whole Saturday afternoons lost on a court are reality only in my memory. And here’s the big news: I have a son. His name is Jackson, he’s two, and he’s funny and nice and I think you’d like him.

  Now I take Jackson to the playground, and we’ll watch a game. I squat down beside him on the sidelines, and his chubby waist strains lightly against my arms. He wants in, and I want in, too, but we settle for watching. He reaches impossibly for the ball. I laugh at the jokes, whisper my uhhh-huhh and there you go and other quiet approvals, sometimes shake my head a little and think, You better take that.

  I play when I can, but the court no longer pulls me. Like an old lover you’ve gotten over as much as you’re going to, the game is bittersweet to me now, not urgent.

  Maybe it’s true that, what’s important to you, like any person in this whole world, can only love you imperfectly. I’m trying to get better at all the different kinds of love, learning to navigate
them a little more skillfully, sometimes like a snarl of city highways, and sometimes like a long dirt road without a sign for miles. I know I’m succeeding when I feel that old clarity that was always there when the game was good, those blessed moments pulled from the chaos when you see what matters and nothing else.

  I guess it’s just as well that things begin to leave you behind and what you have left is the memory, existing in your mind-as-time-machine, hauled out and relived like the swish of a perfect shot. After years on the court, so many players occupy my brain in the broad, blurry regions of type. The up-and-coming serious shorties. Overweight guys with the energy-efficient grace of dancing elephants. Prissy tennis pros. Trash talkers. Old guys with their patented shots. Ladies’ men. Squint-eyed racists. Shirtless college boys. Glowering girls, and girls who get into games with smiles.

  That’s where most players go, but then there are a few who exist in esoteric folds and creases with unexpected associates. Beth—blond, white, southern—slides along a goofy groove with black, urban Rolando, both reveling in their ridiculous antics and ability to make friends. My favorite ref is somewhere else, working peacefully beside the good teacher dude at Westwood Park, the one who pushed you but not too far. One says little and one never stops talking, yet both make it their business to teach.

  And in a place of comfort and hope, David and his mom still play together. He forever feels taller when she looks at him, even though I know, back in Chicago, he has gotten old enough to slump and scowl and give her trouble. Nearby, Felicia’s mother Patty still shows me there’s a time to hug and a time to turn away, and a California family forever kicks a ball in the park.

  Little homeless Xavier has a place, too, in a pool of sorrow deeper than ever now that I know something about all a child needs. I didn’t help him. I hope somebody did.

  I still feel, sometimes, the old desire to dive into forgetting. I still crave, now and again, to be free, flying, with no one to stop me. But that dream comes less often now as I take more seriously the possibility that we’re all in charge of creating a reality. Like everyone, I have something to teach. Just by navigating those roads, someone will see, someone will learn. Maybe that’s how it always was, on all those Saturday afternoons lost on the court, as I looked for what I didn’t know I needed, and watched people, and never really thought too much about how someone might be watching me back.