Small Mercies: A Novel

by Eddie Joyce

  “Your night,” he’s screaming. “This is your night.”

  A throng of hands descends on the middle of the sweaty huddle and you see your own join it.

  “TEAM.”

  You rise from the bench as the huddle disperses. Your head goes dizzy from the crowd. The gym is packed. People are milling along both baselines because there’s nowhere left to sit.

  A few brazen teenagers dash across the floor as the teams break huddle, sprinting for seats their friends are trying to hold for them on the other side of the gym. You feel a hand grip your arm just before you hit the court. You know it’s Coach Whelan. His words are hot and wet, delivered straight into your left ear in an animal whisper.

  “Bobby, if you control the boards, we win this game. Control the boards, control the paint. We win. Your night. This is your night.”

  You nod at him. He releases your arm and slaps your ass onto the court. You experience a moment of uncertainty because the way you feel right now is similar to the way you feel when you’re alone with Tina. You can even feel something stirring deep in you, at the very root of you, and it’s not sexual exactly but pretty close. You experience a fleeting recurrent anxiety that this makes you abnormal somehow, maybe even gay, even though you know you’re not, you’re certainly not. Anyway, there’s no time for these thoughts because here’s your summer friend and winter enemy Ray Henderson, all six feet eight inches of him, coming toward you with a smile and his hand out for a pound.

  You give him the pound but not the smile because if you put aside the hops and the height, if you ignore the twenty points a game he scores, if you look into his heart, you know this: Ray Henderson is a bitch. If you hit him hard early, if you don’t let him run and dunk and throw your shot into the stands, if you box out and give him a few head fakes, draw a few early fouls, if you make him work, Ray Henderson will disappear. You know this. Your teammates know this. Christ, his teammates know this. You are not worried about Ray Henderson.

  But Toughie Johnson is a different story. Toughie isn’t even a summer friend because Toughie has no friends. Toughie is mad at the world. He is not nearly as talented as Ray Henderson, not even as skilled as you, but Toughie is, well, a tough fucking nut. He will push and elbow and throw his body around. He will pull your shorts and your shirt and if he could figure out a way, he’d bite you too. He’s only six two, but he’s a fucking bull and if you don’t keep him off the boards, he’ll score twenty on putbacks alone. You will start off guarding Ray tonight, but you will need to account for Toughie as well because Terry Kovak, your teammate and frontcourt mate, will need a break. Terry will do what he can, but he’s slow and he can’t jump a lick, and Toughie is a bad matchup for him, so you’ll end up guarding Toughie at some point tonight and then you’ll need to be smart. You’ll need to goad him into dumb fouls. You’ll need to slither and slide around him. You’ll need to use the two inches you have on him. You’ll need to give him more reasons to be mad at the world.

  Toughie doesn’t offer a pound to you or anyone else. He ties the white string on his maroon shorts with a menacing sneer and you’re angry now. Fuck him. Fuck Curtis. Throw the ball, ref.

  But it’s not time yet and your anger turns back to butterflies. You give perfunctory bumps to Curtis’s other players: their shooting guard Danny Lynch, their small forward Omar Owens, their point guard Delvin Freese. You know them all. You play with Owens and Freese down at Cromwell in the summer; you’ve played with Lynch at P.S. 8. Strictly a spot-up shooter. He won’t venture into the lane. And Vinny will be guarding Freese. Nothing to worry about there.

  Owens is the only one you might have to worry about. He’s inconsistent but occasionally makes electrifying forays to the basket that result in momentum-changing dunks. You might have to put him on his ass early, but you also have to be careful with your fouls. Coach Whelan has told you all week that he needs a full game out of you, that he’ll only be able to give you a thirty-second blow here or there. At best.

  You’ve finished your circle through the opposing team. There are a few awkward seconds of silent nerves, everyone’s hearts beating through their chests, muscles twitching in anticipation. The refs are making sure the clock is working. You glance at your own teammates: Kovak, Pat Keegan, Vinny Baddio, Matt Duggan. They have your back. They’re ready. They know what they need to do. They’re all nervous, stomachs churning, Duggan especially. You look at each of them with a steady gaze, watch them find strength in your certainty. You turn to Vinny, who’s standing behind you, standing where Ray will try to tip the ball because even though you’ll do your best, there’s little doubt that Ray will win the tip. Vinny is preternaturally calm. He is exactly where he wants to be. He gives you a slow, steady nod.

  You steal a glance at Coach Whelan, who shakes a fist in solidarity, exiling the nerves from your body. His faith in you is all you need. You are ready now. Your legs stop tingling. Your stomach stops flipping.

  Your hearing returns and you realize the sound in the gym is thunderous. The crowd has risen to its feet, waiting for the tip. You scan back to where you know your family is sitting. You see your mother, right hand already up at her mouth, biting her nails. You see your father next to her. He missed most of your games this year, but he’s made the last two; you’ll never tell anyone how much this means to you. You see your grandfather behind them, proud and nervous and laughing. You see Franky; he meets your gaze. You see Peter, home from college on break, excited, envious.

  You see Tina a few rows below them, straining to see over the people in front of her. Her friend Stephanie is talking into her ear and Tina is trying to ignore her, trying to focus. She is more nervous than you. You want to go to her later, tired and triumphant, and lay your head in her lap.

  You hear another sound from the buzzer. The clock has been fixed. The refs jog to their positions. One of them blows his whistle, testing, and walks slowly toward the narrow space between you and Ray Henderson, the space where he will toss the ball up and you will both leap to touch it. You put your right foot in the assigned portion of the tiny circle on your side of mid court. Ray does the same. All the slack on the court goes taut; every body in the gym tenses.

  You go deaf again as your eyes focus on the bright orange sphere that is resting in the ref’s hand. It consumes your vision, the orange blinding you, so like a fire, burning intensely; you never noticed before.

  The moment sticks: the ball cradled in the ref’s palm, all the people in your life who matter collected in one place, to support you. You at the center, the fear drained from your body. The whole game before you, your whole life before you, an uncountable number of precious moments laid out in front of this one, shadows waiting to take shape, like the kids you assume you’ll have, like souls not yet in existence.

  If you close your eyes, you can almost see them.

  Acknowledgments

  My deepest thanks to: early readers Kevin Snover, Don Steinman, Dave and Michelle Donahue, and Ann Shields for their insight and support; Patricia Smith, who gave me a chance and some much needed hope; Keith Gessen and Keith Dixon, who each gave advice and guidance at critical junctures; Clare Ferraro, Paul Slovak, Nancy Sheppard, Carolyn Coleburn and everyone at Viking; Laura Bonner at WME; my agent, Claudia Ballard, who was rightfully insistent that I make the book better and patient while I did so; Allison Lorentzen, wonderful editor and friend, who set me on the right path well before she knew it would lead back to her.

  Mom, Dad, Kris, and Kev: thank you all for your love and support.

  M, A, and K: early drafts of chapters drifted into my head while I pushed you, sleeping, in strollers.

  Martine: words cannot fully express my gratitude. Thank you for this wonderful life. All my love.

  Finally, I’d like to thank the people of Staten Island: who’s better than you?

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