“Ouch?”
“It would send up a good smoke signal.”
“You’re not serious!” I said.
“What’s the choice? Sit and wait while Ted gets away? It might take a couple of days for someone to find us.” Ike grinned. “Besides, if I can get that half a million back, it’s worth a lot more than a truck...”
I looked at the shiny black Blazer. The beautiful, shiny black Blazer.
“Ouch,” I said. I climbed off the box.
“Now that I think about it,” he continued, “Ted did park it on that stone patio, so we wouldn’t have to worry about a fire spreading.”
Ike was right. Much as it hurt my insides to think of that beautiful truck sending up our smoke signal, it was better than letting Ted get away.
But another thought hit me as I stared at the truck. “There’s one tiny problem, Ike. We’re in here. The truck is way out there. How do we start the fire?”
Ike frowned. “Good point,” he said. Then he sighed and settled back. “I guess it will be a long wait. Worst thing is, I drank too much coffee this morning. Already I have to...”
That was not a pleasant thought. The shed was too small and hot. And the smell of rotting grass was bad enough.
Looking around the shed for ideas, I spotted something on the shelf behind Ike. Something round. I stepped past Ike and pulled the basketball down. I tossed it into the air as I thought. Then I started spinning it on my forefinger. I spun it like a globe as I said, “If you’re really willing to burn that truck, I think I’ve got an idea.”
I stopped the grimy old basketball.
“All it’s going to take,” I said, “is the free throw of my life.”
chapter twenty-four
If the morning had seemed like a blur, Saturday afternoon ran in double fast-forward.
Less than three hours later, I was at the jail. I squirmed on an unpadded metal chair in the waiting area. By now I knew the routine. Sit and twiddle my thumbs while a guard went to get Dad. Then sit and talk about nothing for the twenty minutes they allowed us together. And drive home depressed.
But that was the old jail routine.
Today was going to be different.
Yes, I had to sit and wait like before. Yes, I only had twenty minutes to spend with Dad. But today we weren’t going to talk about nothing. And I wasn’t going home depressed.
When the guard ushered Dad into the small visiting room, I tried to look at my dad as if he were someone else. Someone who had once been my age and had once had the same fears and worries and hopes. I tried to look at Dad as if he were the scared kid that Ike had told me about on the night of a car accident, more than twenty years ago. Looking at Dad in that way helped. It was as if I suddenly saw him as a real person instead of a remote kind of king who sat in judgment of everything I did.
I needed to see him that way to say what I wanted to say.
“Hello, Jack.” Dad lowered himself into his chair as if he were an old man.
“Hi, Dad.”
“How is your mother?”
“She’s fine. Actually she’s more than fine. The doctors are taking her off the painkillers.” And, I thought, she knows about Ted and who really stole the money.
“Good. You have a safe drive here?”
“Yes, sir. No speeding tickets.”
“Good.”
I waited for him to say something else. Anything else. Anything more than questions about the weather. He didn’t.
“Dad...” I filled my lungs with air as if I were about to dive into deep dark water. Which I guess I was. I let the air out. “I know about the accident.”
“Mom’s accident?”
“No, yours. The one that hurt those two old people.”
There. I had said it. Now would he really talk to me about it?
Dad froze. “Who told you?”
“Ike,” I said. “This morning. I made him tell me.”
While we were waiting for the fire department to show up, I had convinced Ike to explain what Ted meant about the accident.
Now it was Dad’s turn to let out a long breath.
“Dad,” I said. This was way worse than the birds and the bees talk he had once given me. “Is that why you’re always so hard on me? Because you’re afraid if you give me any freedom, I might do the same kind of thing? I mean, Ike and Doc both told me you used to be pretty wild.”
Dad thought for a moment before answering. I didn’t push him.
“When I was your age I thought I knew everything.” He spoke with his eyes closed. “I didn’t listen to my parents or to the people in my church. I did stupid things. And one of those stupid things was to drink alcohol. When I had too much to drink, I got into fights.”
He kept his eyes closed. “The night of the accident, I’d had so much to drink that I can’t even remember getting into the car. When I woke up the next morning, I was in the hospital. The police told me that I had driven through a stop sign. The car that I hit...”
He stopped because his voice was so shaky. A few seconds later he started again.
“It was an old couple. Tourists from out of state. They were really hurt bad. I tried to visit them at the hospital. Their son and two daughters had flown in to be with them. And their grandchildren. There was nothing I could do to take back what I had done. The family wouldn’t even talk to me. You cannot imagine the nightmares and regrets. All because of one stupid thing I had done.”
This was my dad. A real person. I wanted to cry, thinking about the pain he hid from the world.
He opened his eyes again. “In answer to your question: Yes. Watching you grow up, I saw that you could be just like me. At least, like me before the accident. I thought the best thing I could do was to be so strict that you’d never get loose and wild and do something that would take the joy out of the rest of your life.”
If I didn’t say it now, I would never say it.
“That’s not fair, Dad. You can’t make me into a robot. I mean, even God lets us make choices.”
For a second, I thought he would get cold and distant, the way he always did when I tried to argue with him. Instead he said, “You’re right. I’m just beginning to see how bad things can turn out when you try to control everything.”
Wow. Dad had just admitted he was wrong about something.
“Controlling things like the fraud and embezzlement charges?”
This time he did become cold and distant.
“I want to know why you decided to plead guilty to those charges,” I said.
He stared at me for a long time. I wondered if he was deciding to tell me I had no right to speak to him that way.
But he didn’t get mad at me. When he finally spoke, it was in such a quiet voice that I could hardly hear him.
“Look,” he said, “I am guilty. I did steal from my best friend. Now maybe you should go.”
It nearly broke my heart. Now that I could see him as more than just my father, I realized how proud a man he was. I realized how much it would cost him to have the world think he was a thief. And how much of a sacrifice he was making for my sake.
The words came out of my mouth before I realized I was saying them out loud.
“I love you,” I said. “We never talk about our feelings, but I want you to know I love you.”
His lean face softened, and his eyes went from the dull stone of bleakness and hopelessness to something warmer, something filled with light.
“And there’s something else,” I said. “The man who really stole from Ike Bothwell has been arrested. And I know why you decided to take the blame.”
“What!”
“They let me be the one to give you the news. When I leave, you can come home with me. You’re free.”
I told him all that had happened. How the fire department had rescued us from the storage shed because of the huge smoky fire from the burning Blazer. How the police had found Ted Bothwell at the airport, about to disappear with his brother’s money.
And Dad told
me his side of the story. Six weeks earlier he had discovered a tiny accounting mistake. As he tried to unravel it, he discovered more and more mistakes. It was like tugging at one loose end and untangling a whole ball of string. At the other end, he had found Ted Bothwell.
But that had put him in a bad position. How could he break Ike’s heart by telling him his own brother had been stealing from him? So Dad had gone to Ted and promised him he would keep the secret if Ted returned all the money in two weeks.
But Ted had used those two weeks to change the computer files, to make them point to Dad as the thief. Then Ted had arranged to have Dad’s brakes messed up. Ted had wanted Dad out of the way, so Dad wouldn’t be able to fight for his own innocence.
Mom had been hurt instead, and Ted had gone to the police with his new computer files. He decided to go after Dad legally, before Dad could show the police the original accounting files.
After that, Ted had told Dad how much worse it could get for me and Mom while he was in jail. How he could arrange for me to get cut from the basketball team. How easy it would be to hurt me. How easily he could smother Mom with a pillow.
He had forced Dad to make the only real choice: Take the blame and stay in jail to protect us. Even though Dad had a set of computer files to clear himself, he wasn’t sure it was enough proof by itself. After I got cut from the team, he realized Ted might carry through on his other threats. He couldn’t risk our getting hurt.
After Dad explained this to me, I had a little news of my own. The news I had been hanging on to because it was the best of all.
“Dad,” I said, “a person has to wonder how Ted could have gotten this way. Why he was so bitter and unhappy that he could hate his own brother for being happy in life.”
“True,” Dad said. “After he’d taken the money and it looked like he might get caught, I can understand why he got desperate enough to try to kill someone to protect himself. But it looked like he had everything, so why would he steal in the first place? And from his brother...”
“I’ve learned something,” I said. “From you and from Ike. Sometimes life isn’t fair, but you just do the best you can.”
“What does that have to do with Ted?” Dad asked.
“Your car accident all those years ago,” I said. “You took the blame and moved on and did the best you could, right?”
“When the police investigated, I didn’t deny I was driving,” he said. “I lost my license for a couple of years and was sentenced to community work, which was a huge break from the judge. It was a lot better than having a criminal record. I decided after a break like that, I had to change. So, yes, I did the best I could.”
I was proud of Dad. He could have become bitter and hated himself and everyone. Instead he tried to make up for that one big mistake, even if it meant being too strict on me. I respected him for the choice he made.
“Ted, though,” I continued, “made his own big mistake and tried to run from it. He ran so much that life had no more joy.”
This was what Ike had guessed during our talk in the storage shed. Because by then Ike and I knew what I was about to tell Dad.
“His own big mistake?” Dad said.
I nodded. “Dad, all those years ago, it wasn’t you behind the steering wheel. It was Ted.”
“Not me? But what...”
“Ted was driving,” I said. “He knew you’d had so much to drink that you might not remember even getting into the car. And the car accident knocked you out. But not Ted. He pulled you over from the passenger side and put you behind the steering wheel. Then he got in on the passenger side and pretended to be unconscious. When the police got there, he let you take the blame.”
Dad finally understood. As he realized what it all meant, that he no longer had to carry the guilt for what had happened, the muscles around his eyes and mouth began to tremble.
He looked at me and tried to smile.
But he couldn’t.
I watched the tears run down his cheeks.
chapter twenty-five
With the news of Ted Bothwell’s arrest, Coach Buckley resigned. Coach knew if he didn’t, he would be fired for taking a bribe from Ted to cut me from the team. So, as my bruised knuckle healed, the Titans picked up the season with a new head coach. My dad.
Dad made a great coach. He knew about basketball because he had played it himself. More importantly, something about being in jail had changed him. He was able to accept other people’s mistakes better. My guess was that two things had happened. Because he no longer had to face the guilt of the past, he could be easier on himself. And his time in jail had taught him that he couldn’t control everything in life. Now he was more accepting of the good and the bad things that happened around him.
So he coached us, asking us to do our best, but smiling when we made mistakes and yelling encouragement. We played without fear of failure, which is the best way to do anything.
At the end of the season, we had a shot at the state championship, which was good news. But even better was the fact that Mom was out of the hospital and in the stands as we played the game that could clinch our spot in the play-offs.
From center court, I picked her out easily in the huge crowd. She was in the stands, halfway up, behind our bench. With her dark hair pulled back, and a big pretty smile on her face, she looked like her high school photos. Anyone seeing her would have a hard time guessing that a car accident had almost killed her. Except for the cane she used when she walked, she had completely recovered. Doc Tremblay said that in less than a month she would be able to get rid of the cane.
Dad was at the bench, wearing jeans and a golf T-shirt, looking relaxed. That was good. If he was relaxed, the team was relaxed. And we needed that. We were playing the Cougars, from a high school in Indianapolis, and nobody expected us to win.
But somehow, we kept it close. Every time they scored, we came right down the court and found a way to make a basket. Tip-ins, long shots, rebounds. We did whatever it took.
My own game felt great. By the time we reached the fourth quarter, I’d ripped their defenders a dozen times. I worked on spins, fake spins, pump fakes and up-and-unders, moving and moving and moving. When my defender finally committed one way, I would break to the other, finishing with fadeaway jumpers, short jump hooks or an occasional dunk.
As the lights on the electronic scoreboard showed the clock ticking down on the fourth quarter, the noise in the gym pounded louder and louder. With less than a minute to go, we were on the losing end of a 79–78 score. The good news was we had the ball.
We moved the ball slowly down the court. To everyone, it was obvious what we wanted to do. Run the clock down and shoot in the final few seconds. If we sank our basket, the Cougars wouldn’t have enough time to get back up the court and score. If we missed the basket, we’d have to take our chances on getting the rebound.
The roaring of the crowd made it impossible for us to talk to each other. It didn’t matter. We knew the play. We were going to pass it around the outside until the final ten seconds. The ball would come to me and I would drive for a lay-up.
Was I scared?
Yes.
But like Dad had told us again and again during practice, all we could do was try our best. The results were far less important than the effort.
And I was ready to do my best. After all the hours of practice, all the running drills, all the shooting drills, there was nothing more I could have done to prepare for this final ten seconds.
I took the pass. Five Cougars blocked my way to the basket.
I fake-pumped like I was going for a shot from the top of the circle. It drew one of their defenders into the air. I ducked my shoulder and dribbled around him.
I wasn’t thinking now. I was letting my body play. I half spun one way, spun back the other, jumped and faded back to shoot. As the ball left my hand, another defender slapped my arm.
I watched with horror as the ball hit the rim and shot sideways.
I’d missed.
No time left on the clock. And I’d missed.
I had been so focused on the shot that it took me a second to realize everyone had stopped moving. The ref had blown his whistle.
It took another second for it to sink in. He’d called a foul.
The Cougars were ahead 79–78, and I had two free throws. Sink one and we tied, forcing overtime. Sink both and we won.
Players lined both sides of the key.
I took the ball from the referee.
Cougar fans behind the basket waved their arms and yelled, trying to distract me. They thought I would choke with the play-offs on the line.
What they didn’t know, though, was that I had faced a far more important free throw months earlier. The throw from the storage shed.
We’d had only one chance at starting the fire to bring us rescue. Ike Bothwell had cut a small piece off the top of the basketball. Then we’d stuffed it with rags and poured lawn mower oil on them. He’d lit the rags so they burned like a long-lasting torch. And, like a referee at the free-throw line, he had handed me the basketball, flames and oily smoke rising from the opening.
All I had was the one shot. Standing on my tiptoes on top of the box beneath the window, I aimed through the opening. My target was the Blazer’s open sunroof, barely wider than a basket. And the Blazer was at least thirty feet away. If I missed, Ike and I might be stuck in the storage shed so long that we could die of thirst. And Ted would surely have escaped with the money my dad had been accused of stealing.
Worse, I had to make the shot with my left hand because of the splint on my right. I was glad I’d blown off some anger at Tom’s house, practicing with my off hand.
Was it pressure? Does McDonald’s have a goofy clown?
No other free throw would seem frightening after that. The burning basketball had left my fingertips, spinning too quickly for the rags to fall out. It had landed dead center in the open sunroof, falling onto the leather seats inside. Within minutes, the fire had spread, sending thick black smoke high into the sky. And not too much later, we’d heard the sound of sirens. The sound of freedom.
Knowing I had made that shot, the most important one of my life, I relaxed. This was just a game, just two simple free throws to get us into the play-offs.
Titan Clash Page 8