by JT Ellison
“It didn’t end well, I see.”
Alex swallowed and found his voice. “It was time to leave.”
Leafwich nodded. “That’s the weird part. The same thing happened to Lonzo Childs.”
Alex tilted his head.
“He doesn’t go to this school.”
“But the e-mail I got...”
“He never went here.” Leafwich’s eyes dimmed to a yellow. “Ha-ha.”
The room tilted for Alex just a hair. “I don’t understand.”
Leafwich shook his head. “Neither do I. But Childs’ mother called me and told me to expect you. She said that after I gave you the tour, you could go visit her and her son. But she was very specific, I had to give you the tour first.”
Alex put his hands on the arms of the chair to steady himself. This wasn’t a normal old recruiting trip.
Leafwich marched him out of the office, back into the heat. They trudged along the sidewalk, next to the browning grass and trees that seemed to wave in a nonexistent breeze. He could see kids in class though open windows. Some snuck on their cell phones, some wrote in notebooks, and some actually made eye contact with their teachers.
“None of this was here when you were here, right?”
Alex looked at him. He didn’t really want Leafwich to know about his alumni status. He was going to drop that on Childs first.
“I do my research.” Leafwich pulled a door open and let Alex step in. The AC washed over them again.
“When I was here, it was like a little brick schoolhouse. No air-conditioning. Closer to a brick oven. I hated it.”
“And when you played basketball?”
“I’m lucky we didn’t suffocate.”
“You only played suffocating defense.” Leafwich smiled.
Alex didn’t. “Uh huh.”
The hallways were spotless, save for one stray, crumpled-up piece of paper. Leafwich leaned over, picked it up, and with a smooth hook shot, he swished it into a nearby garbage can. He looked at Alex for a comment, but Alex didn’t bite.
“Why are you taking me around?”
“Because, Mr. Stepian, we need alumni like you to come back and help out. You know all about fund-raising, you’re a college coach. Shouldn’t you want to help the people who brought you here? It takes a lot to keep a building like this up.”
Alex chewed on his lip. “You know why I left this place, right?”
“Your parents and your sister died.”
Alex nodded. “They both died trying to help. My parents were trying to get people out when the floods came after the hurricane. I was just a boy. My sister, she was eighteen and she was trying to help me grow up and get into a good school. But she was gone a few years later, too.”
Leafwich licked his own lips and seemed to be searching for an answer. His face flickered green. Finally, he said, “This is a great school. The past is past. Help us out. It would be a good way to make amends.”
Alex closed his eyes for a moment and forced himself to forget what he just saw. “I would like to speak to Lonzo Childs. That’s the reason I came down here. If I’m not going to meet him here, perhaps you can tell me where to find him.”
Leafwich pushed the door of the gym open. The space was huge, and arena-like. Bleachers extended from the walls on all four sides. There was a giant scoreboard with a video system on the far wall. A gym class did jumping jacks.
Alex’s jaw dropped open.
“Impressive, right?”
Alex looked. “This is a high school, correct?”
The principal laughed. “You don’t remember me, do you? Maybe you don’t want to.”
A shiver went through Alex. He looked Leafwich up and down, hoping for his brain to signal some form of recognition. It didn’t. Alex shook his head.
“I was there that day, Alex. You owe us. You owe us all.”
Alex froze in his tracks. Despite the air-conditioning, the sweat came rushing back. He took a long gulp of air.
The principal turned on his heel and left the gym.
“Now,” he said. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll get you the address for Mr. Childs.”
Alex had to double-check the address. The further they moved away from the school and the water, the bigger the houses got. That wasn’t the problem, however. The problem was the house that matched the address didn’t look like someone lived there.
The house was a tall, brick mansion, with a wide porch and four columns holding up an overhang. It was gated, but the iron bars had started to rust over and the front gate had fallen off its hinges. The grass and two trees were overgrown. The grass was knee-high, and the branches of the trees seemed to sag under the weight of the air.
Speaking of, the air was heavier now, a lump of water in gas form, leaning on Alex’s shoulders and infecting his lungs. Like breathing through a straw. He understood why the trees could hardly stand.
The paper with the address matched the number on the brick column that used to hold up the gate. Alex stepped over the gate and onto the asphalt driveway. He walked slowly toward the front door, praying for a breeze.
When he was a kid, he lived less than ten blocks from here in a house with a shorter driveway and a basketball hoop at the end of it. When the visions came, they came above the hoop. He used those visions like a crowd trying to distract him from making the free throw. The people shouting, cursing at him, wishing him dead.
Those visions had stopped once he moved away.
In the back of his brain, a little voice told him to keep walking. Find Lonzo Childs. He hadn’t heard the voice in ages. His chest tightened and he blinked the sound away, like turning down a car radio to focus on if the brakes were working. The movement made little sense, but it worked.
Approaching the front door, his hands started shaking. Not like a caffeinated tremor, but full-on shivers. What the hell was going on? He closed them into fists and flexed the muscles in his wrist. The shaking slowed, but didn’t stop. The first time he tried to press the doorbell, he missed. On target the second time. Bells chimed like Big Ben hitting the top of the hour.
As he waited, Alex considered walking past his old home after he met Lonzo, seeing where he lived and if he could battle the demons away one more time. Grit. That’s what he preached to his team. The ability to withstand and keep getting up.
It’s what Lonzo Childs had. He could see it in the video highlights.
Alex took another deep breath and drank in the air.
The door opened, and the sight of the woman standing in front of him froze Alex to the ground.
“What is this?” Alex asked, backpedaling away from the door. “What the hell?”
The woman stepped onto the porch and held out her hand. She was tall, waiflike, and looked remarkably like Alex’s sister.
Alex’s dead sister.
“Come with me, Alex.”
He shook his head and recoiled as she reached out for him.
“I don’t understand. I don’t—”
He gasped for air and remembered that day long ago, the one that left him wanting to run from here, run from the South, run from the house where he was raised.
“Come inside, Alex. We must talk.”
“No,” he said. “Lonzo Childs. I came for Lonzo Childs.”
The woman—it couldn’t be Alicia—tilted her head at him.
“There is no Lonzo.”
The air hung over him like an anvil, and sweat poured down the back of his neck. Stars crowded the edges of his vision. And then he felt himself moving toward her as if he were floating. His hand moved, unattached to his brain, a reflex instead of a conscious action. He intertwined his fingers with hers.
She took him inside.
Alex lined up the free throw. He was guesstimating the distance, but instinct and muscle memory told him he was at the line, a small crack in the driveway the marker for his foot.
The tricky part about shooting outside was the breeze. Inside, it was a factor he never had to worry about. Crow
d noise, pressure because of the score, and tired legs? Yeah, those were problems. But he could force that out. The breeze, no, that was a different sort of factor.
Just like the voice.
He took the shot just as a gust of air passed through. The ball shanked left, just slightly, ricocheting off the rim and then the side of the house.
“Ha-ha!”
He retrieved the ball, shutting the noise out. The goblin that sat atop the backboard wasn’t real. It was just his anxiety getting to him. The worry. The fear. Of letting people down. Of not working hard enough.
That’s what his therapist told him. The one the school mandated after he caved John Samuel’s face in. He’d missed the game-winning free throw last season. One that would have sent them to the State Championships. The next day, in English class, John Samuel laughed at him. The same “Ha-ha” the goblin sent his way.
So Alex punched him. A lot. Punched him so much, the teacher had to tear him off the nearly-unconscious body.
They wanted to expel him. And if not for his sister, if not for Alicia, now eighteen and his legal guardian, begging and pleading, they would have. The therapist was the compromise.
And he’d learned from the talks. How to box it out. Keep the fear away.
But the goblin still hung around, like the breeze, throwing him off his game just a hair. The voice was always whispering that he’d never be anything, that he’d be a failure day after day. And the voice invited him to embrace it.
“Is it laughing at you again?”
Alex looked to the front door, as he dribbled the ball between his legs.
Standing there, arms crossed and a crooked grin on her face, Alicia watched him.
He nodded. “It’s nothing, though.”
“I know. You’ve gotten so much better.”
“I’m trying.”
Alicia skipped down the front steps and took the ball from Alex. She shot without hesitating and swished it.
“Sometimes it’s better to not think and just do.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Alicia retrieved the ball and swished another shot.
“No, it is exactly that easy. I line it up and let it go. You think too much. Ever since you missed that shot.”
It was Alex’s turn to get the ball now. He sprinted for it, picked it up off the first bounce, and laid it into the hoop.
“The best athletes can forget the past,” Alicia said. “That’s what you need to do.”
That was the first hint it was time to leave the South.
The door swung shut behind him, and there was a hiss of air from somewhere above. The house’s temperature was oppressive, like a sauna whose door had just been opened.
Alicia looked like she hadn’t aged a day.
“I don’t understand,” Alex said. “You’re—”
She shook her head. “No, I never was.”
“But your funeral...”
Again, the headshake. “You never attended it. Did you?”
Alex closed his eyes tightly and tried to imagine the funeral. He couldn’t find the memory. Was she right? No. He would have stayed. No matter how badly he wanted to escape, go somewhere cold and start over—he would have stayed for Alicia.
She led him down the hallway, past wooden tables and over red carpet that hadn’t been vacuumed in ages.
“Ha-ha.”
Alex’s head snapped up and he looked around. The laugh. He hadn’t heard it in so long. He looked at Alicia. She nodded.
“He’s here, too,” she said.
“I don’t understand. Why did you bring me here?” Then he rephrased. “I don’t understand how you’re even alive.”
Alicia smiled and it was like she’d never been gone. She reached out, her arm moving like it was in slow motion, gliding through air, and touched one of the wood-paneled walls. The wall slid into the panel beside it like a pocket door. That led into a smoking room, with full bookshelves and large padded chairs with wooden frames.
And in one of the chairs was the goblin.
“Welcome,” it said. It steepled its fingers, elbows resting on the arms of the chair. His index fingers touched his nose.
“No,” Alex said. “This isn’t happening. How did we get here? I forgot all of this. Alicia, you told me to forget. You said the best forgot.”
The goblin laughed again. It wore a suit, and the knot of his tie bobbed against its throat as he cackled.
“Maybe,” it finally said, the words coming out of its mouth like white noise static, “it’s time you join me. Join Alicia.”
Alex stepped back, but the pocket door slammed shut behind him. Alicia stood off to the side.
“Don’t you remember?” she asked.
The fog swirled around his mind and it came back to him. Like it always did.
The van wheeled around the corner, rubber burning on the asphalt. The drop of sweat fell from his eyebrow. He lined up the free throw.
Alicia walked toward the curb to grab the empty garbage can.
The goblin sat on the backboard and said, “Choose.”
Alex blinked himself back to the present. The goblin pointed toward a table. There was paper and a pen.
“That’s your letter of intent,” the goblin said.
Alex blinked.
“Sign it,” Alicia said. “Join us. I miss you.”
A National Letter of Intent was what a recruit signed when they decided to join a university. It bound them to the school they wanted to attend. It helped get them their scholarship.
“What is this?” Alex asked.
“Consider this our recruitment of you. We want you back. You owe us.” The goblin cackled.
Alex closed his eyes. “Back?”
“I tried to get you that first time. I asked you to choose and you took your shot. You didn’t join Alicia. She came with me, and you ended up with your life. You ran from me, didn’t you? Left here and went north. Got away as far as you can. To where I couldn’t reach you. But I can get others to do my work for me. Send e-mails.”
The table sizzled. It was an odd sound, like it was being fried. But as far as Alex could tell, it wasn’t on fire. It just shook—on its own, it shook. The pen rattled against the top of the table and suddenly turned his way, the tip pointed at his chest. He could pick it up and sign the paper in one sweeping motion. No hesitation.
Why did he want to?
The realization washed over him.
He turned to Alicia.
“Is this all in my head?” he asked.
The goblin leaned forward, its mouth curling into a grin.
Alicia asked, “What do you mean?”
“You really are dead, Alicia. Long dead. But you just told me you weren’t.”
“I needed you to follow me.” Alicia looked toward the goblin, then back to Alex. “We summoned you here with promises of making your dreams come true. I miss you. Mom and Dad miss you, too. Come with us, Alex, and let’s start over. Mom and Dad are there, too. You can free all of us. Just sign.”
Alex opened and closed his hand. The pen was calling to him. He wanted it. He wanted to sign it. But not without more answers.
He turned toward the goblin. It raised its eyebrows.
“Why me?” He pointed to Alicia. “Why us?”
The white-static voice of the goblin hurt his ears. “Your parents. They died as they tried to help the victims of the floods. Do you remember? They tried to drag those children out of the flood. I couldn’t have that. So they drowned. And Alicia, she took care of you after. Kept you alive. Fed you. Tried to give you a life. And she failed after I intervened.”
The goblin shook its head, the pointy green chin going back and forth.
“You took your shot, too. And a good one. You moved to New Jersey. Started recruiting those kids from Camden and Paterson. ‘The bad neighborhoods,’ you called them. Tried to give them good lives. Tried to save them, right? Like you couldn’t save your parents and Alicia.”
Alex felt bile bur
n at the back of his throat.
“But you failed without my help, actually. You just weren’t good enough. The kids you helped, you thought that was great. But you couldn’t help more. Because you didn’t win. Lonzo Childs was your savior, right?”
The room was so hot. The walls started to drip with water.
“And now you came down here. That’s all it took, some trickery by me. It’s so much easier to fool people these days. Don’t you think? With technology, they fall for anything. In the old days, I had to turn into a snake.”
Alex’s eyes went wide.
The goblin said, “Sign it and we can fix all this. You can be mine and the world will be right. But it has to be you. You have to choose. The fewer people trying to help all the time makes my job easier. Tips the scales.”
Alicia looked at Alex and smiled. He thought of Mom and Dad. He could barely envision them, just a silhouette of Dad with his arm around Mom. He wanted to know what they looked like again.
He reached out and picked up the pen.
“Good,” Alicia said.
He signed.
The goblin cackled.
Alex finished signing. Put the pen down. Closed his eyes.
He heard thunder.
Alex lined up the free throw. He opened his eyes. He was here again and didn’t know how. But he knew what he had to do.
Alicia stepped off the porch as he released the ball. Swish.
“Good one. Eyes on the prize.”
Alicia walked toward the garbage can on the curb. Alex went and got the ball. He felt the bumpy rubber against his hands.
And then he heard the van round the corner. He looked toward Alicia. He’d never seen this before. She was always to his back.
He looked away for an instant, toward the basket. The goblin was sitting on the rim now. His fingers were steepled again.
“I will follow you forever,” he said. “You’ll try to forget, but you can’t. You have another chance now. You signed. Remember that. You signed.”
Alex looked toward Alicia.
“Choose.”
Alex dropped the basketball and ran toward Alicia. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the van. The brakes squealed.