by Mike Lupica
They ate scrambled eggs, bacon, and English muffins, washed down with orange juice. Jayson shoveled in a few bites, head down, not remembering when he had ever eaten like this in the morning.
Jayson’s hand gripped the fork and squeezed, forcing himself to slow down, the feel of the metal solid in his hands. He took a deep breath and dropped the fork on his plate, the sound surprising all of them.
“Are you done already?” Mrs. Lawton asked.
“Not hungry,” Jayson said.
Mr. Lawton’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t say anything.
“All right, then. Suit yourself. The dishes go by the sink. We’ll be leaving at noon,” Mrs. Lawton said.
“Where to?”
“To buy you some new clothes. You’ll be going to school from now on at Belmont Country Day. They have a dress code.”
“I’m not going to any school where I have to wear some stupid tie.”
“No ties,” Mrs. Lawton said. “Just a collared shirt and khaki pants.”
“I don’t own any khakis.”
“Why we’re going shopping.”
“Why do I even have to go to Belmont?” he said. “Why can’t I just stay at Moreland East?”
“You don’t live on the east side anymore. You live here.”
“Everybody I know is at Moreland East,” he said.
It was settling in on him—crushing him—what this all meant. A new house and a new school also meant a new team, and a new coach. He wouldn’t be playing in the same backcourt with Tyrese anymore; he wouldn’t be dishing to Shabazz. He was going to be playing with a bunch of white-breads who came to school in their nice shirts and their nice pants.
“It will be better for you to get a fresh start,” she said.
“At a school where I won’t know anybody.”
“You’ll make new friends,” she said.
“I had all the friends I needed where I was.”
“You needed a lot more than friends. Give the school a chance like I hope you’ll give us a chance.”
“Because that’s what’s you want?”
“Because it’s what you will want.”
Jayson said, “You know why it wasn’t so bad living on my own? Because I got to decide what was best for me, or what I wanted to wear. Or who my friends were.”
“You also didn’t have anybody who cared enough about you to tell you that you didn’t have to be mad at the world all the time.”
Jayson just rolled his eyes at that one.
“We leave at noon,” Mrs. Lawton said. “Oh, and Jayson?”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever that loud noise was before, upstairs, before you came down for breakfast? Go clean it up, please.”
• • •
When it was time, they drove to the City Centre mall in the middle of Moreland and she took him into a store and bought him a few pairs of khakis, some shirts, and some socks and underwear. Then they went into Rockport and she bought him a pair of shoes that felt like sneakers when he put them on.
When she’d paid for the shoes and they were outside, he asked, “Can we be done now?”
“C’mon,” she said, “that wasn’t really torture for you, was it?”
“I felt like a tool.”
“Because you were trying on new clothes?”
“I felt like I was dressing up for Halloween,” he said.
“One more stop,” she said.
“I don’t need anything else. What I need is to go home.”
“That’s exactly what I had in mind,” Mrs. Lawton said. “We’re going to the Pines so you can pick up your things.”
When they arrived at the Pines, he told her he wanted to make it quick, didn’t want to talk to anybody. He just wanted to pack his old life into the big duffel bag Mrs. Lawton had brought with them. One duffel and one box. Jayson had asked for the box to carry his trophies.
As they left the apartment, Mrs. Lawton stopped and looked around. “I remember growing up in the area, playing with my friends by the railroad tracks. I loved my friends . . . but I couldn’t wait to get out of this town. I was going to leave and never come back.”
Jayson stopped and looked at her. “You too?” he said.
She laughed. “What, you think I liked being poor? My dad was a drunk and my mom had left us. Daddy tried, but he never knew how to see beyond his next drink. The trick was convincing myself that I could do better. Education was going to be my way out.”
“Basketball’s mine,” Jayson said. “What made you come back to Moreland?”
Mrs. Lawton smiled. “Home is a funny thing,” she said. “You never know how important it is until you leave it.”
They drove back to West Moreland in silence.
Up in Jayson’s new bedroom, Mrs. Lawton placed the clothing bags on the bed. Jayson put the box with his basketball trophies on the floor and kneeled down next to them. Back in the tiny apartment, he had wrapped each trophy carefully in T-shirts, sweatpants, whatever he could find to protect them.
As he began to unwrap them, Mrs. Lawton joined him on the floor. Jayson felt something inside him close up.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Helping,” said Mrs. Lawton, reaching for a trophy.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Show me one,” she said. “What’s that one for?”
As she reached out toward one of the T-shirt-wrapped trophies, Jayson snapped.
“I said I got this!” His eyes challenged her. “When I need your help, I’ll ask for it,” he said. “Would that be okay with you?”
“Jayson, I—”
“I earned them. Okay? Can you just back off?” Felt his eyes stinging.
“Okay,” she said. He could hear the hurt in her voice. Jayson wondered if she would get angry at him. Waited for it. Instead, Carol Lawton simply stood up and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
Jayson left the trophies in one of the drawers in his bedroom, keeping them safe—and out of sight—like always.
• • •
After a while, Jayson walked downstairs. There, on the kitchen table, was the box with the sneakers he’d tried to steal inside.
“I went back and made this right with the store,” Mr. Lawton said. “I’m not saying what you did was right, we both know it was wrong. But if you needed new sneakers badly enough to do what you did, well, that says to me that you need new sneakers.”
“Nobody asked you to do this,” Jayson said.
“You’re right, nobody did,” Mr. Lawton said. “But you told Kate Moretti that you stole these because you’d grown out of the ones you had and had no way to replace them. She told me how important basketball is to you. If you’re going to play, you need shoes.”
Jayson was still staring at the box, like somehow it had followed him all the way here.
“I can’t take them,” he said.
Mr. Lawton said, “You can’t take them, or you don’t want them anymore?”
“Both.”
“May I ask why?”
“Does it matter? Just take them back.”
• • •
About an hour before dinner, Jayson put on a baggy pair of North Carolina shorts he’d found at the Goodwill store and one of Tyrese’s old Hornets T-shirts.
He stuffed his feet into his old sneakers, wanting those sneakers in the box but not allowing himself to show it. Then he went downstairs. He’d seen a hoop from his bedroom window, with a nice-looking half-court in front of it, a lane painted on it, a free-throw line, a three-point circle around the outside.
Mr. Lawton was still in the kitchen, the sneaker box still on the table. Mrs. Lawton was chopping vegetables at the counter, by the sink.
“Why’d you build a court like that?” Jayson asked.
<
br /> “It was for our son,” Mr. Lawton said.
“Isaiah,” Mrs. Lawton added. “He thought that if he spent enough time out there, he’d end up at Cameron Indoor or the Dean Dome. But that’s not the way it works, even if you grow up in Carolina loving basketball the way he did. And does. But now, he’s going to be a great doctor someday.”
Mr. Lawton smiled at that.
“So he’s in medical school now? Isaiah?”
“Actually, Isaiah is taking a little break from school right now.”
Jayson noticed that Mrs. Lawton had stopped chopping vegetables and was just staring at the cutting board. There was an uncomfortable feeling in the room now. Jayson wondered what was going on between the Lawtons and their son, but he wanted no part of it.
“So, the court,” he said. “Can I use it?”
“This is your home now,” Mr. Lawton said. “We hope you use it whenever you’d like.”
Jayson mumbled a thank-you, but didn’t move. Mr. Lawton raised his eyebrows at him.
“Is there a ball?” Jayson said.
“Ah, yes. The ball. You’ll find a couple in the garage.”
Jayson found a couple of balls on a shelf in the garage, along with some dusty basketball trophies. He picked up the more beat-up of the Spaldings, bounced it to make sure it wasn’t short on air, and headed to the court.
He walked across the lawn, spinning the ball on the index finger of his right hand, almost like it was second nature to him. When he got to the court, he saw that it was sweet, even better than it had looked from the house. No little potholes in it, no raised cracks of asphalt like you got all over the court at the Jeff.
Mr. Lawton had said it was his court now. Like he owned it or something. Fine with him. When he was by himself on the court at the Jeff, he was always worried somebody would show up and interrupt his practice or his drills, interrupt him working on his stuff.
Just one more way he was always looking over his shoulder.
Not here, though, not now, on this perfect little court in the big backyard, perfect green grass all around it, the only sound the bounce of the ball. Or the swish of hitting nothing but net.
A couple of times Jayson looked up at the house and caught Mrs. Lawton watching him from the kitchen window. But he didn’t wave, or even acknowledge her.
Instead he just turned and went back to playing ball, dribbling with both hands, going between his legs and behind his back, driving to the hoop from both sides, shooting from beyond the three-point arc, practicing shots in the lane, where he’d see how long he could hang in there before making a teardrop off the backboard or a floater.
He allowed himself to get lost in ball now, felt happy for the first time since he’d felt that man’s hand on his shoulder.
Told himself that as long as he had a ball in his hands and a court to play on, he would always be happy, could stop feeling angry at the world for a little while.
Even here.
8
JAYSON FELT LIKE A COMPLETE idiot.
He knew he looked like an idiot, in his ironed khakis and polo shirt with the little animal stitched on the front. And the brown shoes in place of his kicks.
Jayson had always hated the first day of school—part of it having to do with clothes, because most of the other kids usually showed up in new ones. But there was something else that he hated about the first day of school: pretending to act happy to be back, like he was boys with guys he didn’t even like that much. And he hated everybody talking about what they’d done during the summer, the places they’d been, even if they were from east side families without much money. At least they’d done something with their families.
Jayson? He’d been at the Jeff, like always.
Summer to him just meant more ball. In the summer, he never had to take a break from ball. He could play all day and into the night. He’d just keep on playing one game after the next, no matter whom he was playing against, no matter who was running the court. If there was no game, he’d practice, just waiting for the next game to break out. Usually the only time he left the court at the Jeff was to play in a summer-ball league somebody had started at the East Side Y for kids who weren’t traveling with AAU ball.
In his mind, all school had ever been was time away from the court.
Now, taking the short ride to Belmont Country Day with Mrs. Lawton, it was like he was starting the school year all over again. She’d told him they had to get there early so he could meet the headmaster, the Lawtons having set up the meeting the day before.
So they met the headmaster, Mr. Rubin, and then he introduced Jayson and Mrs. Lawton to the head of the middle school, whose name Jayson forgot as soon as he heard it. The head of the middle school was the one who gave them a quick tour of the building and then showed Jayson where his locker was located.
Jayson kept thinking that usually, at this time of the morning, he’d be waking up at the Pines, wondering if there was still enough milk for his cereal. Or if he had any cereal left.
He’d brought his basketball stuff—and his old sneakers—with him in the new gym bag Mrs. Lawton had bought for him when they’d gone shopping. He knew he’d be meeting his coach and his teammates at practice. On Sunday, Mr. Lawton had gotten the names of the other kids on the team from the school. Jayson thought he recognized some of the names from rec ball.
All day Sunday, and even on the ride to school, it had begun to set in, hard, that a new life also meant a new team. He’d been picturing all the guys at Belmont Country Day wearing their own khakis even on the basketball court. He’d already started thinking of it as Belmont Khaki Day.
But he would worry about that later. For now his thing was getting through the school day, going to smaller classes than he was used to at Moreland East Middle, maybe a dozen kids to a class, some of the same kids moving with him from math to English to history.
The teachers all made him stand and introduce himself to the class, making him feel like some sort of trained monkey. When it was time for lunch, he stopped at his locker and dropped off his history book. The kid next to him, a light-skinned black kid he recognized from English, said, “You know where you’re going from here?”
Jayson shrugged.
The kid put out his fist. Jayson had no choice but to give the boy a fist bump.
“I’m Bryan Campbell,” he said.
“Jayson Barnes.”
“I know; I played against you in rec last year.”
Jayson took a better look at Bryan now and thought he remembered playing against him once or twice.
“Oh yeah,” Jayson said. “You were on the Spurs.”
Bryan nodded. “Yeah, too bad we didn’t make the playoffs.”
Jayson wasn’t surprised. The only one who could really ball on the team had been their center.
“I remember you had a big white kid who could really play,” Jayson said.
“Cameron Speeth,” Bryan said. “He goes here, too. You’ll meet him later. Everyone on the team knew you were coming today.”
“How’d they find out?”
“Facebook.”
Jayson wondered if that meant people knew from Facebook that he was a thief who’d landed in foster care. But if Bryan Campbell knew, he wasn’t saying anything about it.
Jayson moved the conversation back to the team. “I guess I gotta try out for the team or something after school.”
“Nah,” Bryan said. “Coach has seen you play.”
Jayson was surprised to hear that. He knew he deserved to be on any team in the county, but it seemed pretty weak for a coach to just let a kid walk on without trying out.
“You’ll meet Coach and the rest of the team at practice,” Bryan said. “C’mon, let’s go eat.”
Jayson followed him down the hall, telling himself there were just three more hours or so until basketball.
He could smell the food as they approached the open cafeteria doors, and he said, “Guys on the team must be chafed, adding a guy after everybody’s been picked.”
Bryan stopped and gave him a look. “Did you want to win at your old school?”
“Of course.”
“Well, we want to win just as bad. Before you got here today, we figured that Moreland East Middle was the best team in the league—now we are.”
Bryan laughed. “No pressure, though.”
• • •
Bryan didn’t ask Jayson if he wanted to have lunch with him, he just led him to the back of the line, handed him a tray, and told him how much he was going to love the food here.
“We even have pizza today,” Bryan said. “Monday is pizza day.”
They did have pizza. Hot pizza. Second time in a couple of days for Jayson. After months of being hungry, surviving mostly on peanut butter sandwiches, it felt weird to have hot food all the time.
“Let’s go sit over by the window,” Bryan said after they’d made their way through the line.
Jayson had piled his plate with food, but Bryan didn’t make any comments about it.
Jayson followed him toward some empty seats at the end of a table mostly filled with girls.
“Do we gotta sit by the window?” Jayson said.
“What, you afraid of girls?”
Jayson felt the heat rising. “You joking?”
Bryan saw the look in Jayson’s eyes and kept quiet.
Thing was, though, Jayson did get nervous around girls.
He didn’t talk much to them, didn’t understand them, never spent any time with them outside of school. Bottom line? He didn’t understand girls any better than he understood how life had let him end up living with foster parents.
Put him on a court, even with bigger kids, and no worries, he was fine. That didn’t scare him. He didn’t scare very easily, not even when he’d been living alone, having to survive on his own. He hadn’t even been scared when he had to steal—until he got caught.
Girls were a different story.