by Pat Conroy
THE WILLIAM AND MARY INDIANS looked descended from a race of giants when our small lineup stood beside them with Al Kroboth jumping at center, Hooper, Bridges, and Mohr, three of the leading scorers in Citadel basketball history, with their butts planted on the bench. DeBrosse and I were accustomed to being the smallest men on the floor so it was only noteworthy when one of us was actually taller than the guy we were guarding. As usual, DeBrosse pointed to the taller guard for me to chase around and he took the smaller one for himself.
I would remember this night long and well because the pattern of the season would finally emerge for me, and my long apprenticeship as a point guard would be over at last. From the William and Mary game to my final game of the season, I had figured it out at last and, by God, I knew what I was doing and woe to the man who got in my way while I was doing it. For the first time in my career, I walked out to the basketball court brimming with confidence and a euphoria about the game. I had never dared utter these words to myself in my life, my enclosed and cutoff and malignantly apprehensive life had never once allowed me to take pleasure in whatever skills I brought to the sport of basketball. But as I stood waiting for the ref to toss the ball, the writer’s voice screamed at me, “Hey, pal. Anybody noticed that you can play this fucking game? Have you noticed?”
The ball went into the air, the gifted Ron Panneton controlled the tip, and William and Mary jumped out to a 5–1 lead. Tee Hooper replaced Bill Zinsky early in the first half and our team suddenly caught fire because when Kroboth got me the ball on the wing and I took it to the other end of the court, I had DeBrosse on the left wing and the deerlike Hooper filling it on my right. It was the first time the three of us had been on the court together, and we soon discovered that we were the fastest backcourt in the Southern Conference. I played that game like there was a wind at my back. I played it reckless and proud and I drove their guards nuts trying to keep me out of the lane. They couldn’t, they simply couldn’t, and a great joy came upon me as I kept going by them, the flashy, cocksure, in-your-face point guard I had long dreamed of being.
Our big guys seemed lethargic on this night, but they fought hard under the boards and got the ball into my hands every time they pulled down a rebound. I would take off on the fly with the shouts of my teammates filling the air around me, and the roar of the Corps of Cadets lifting beneath me like a wall of pure noise. Lord, I could feel myself that night, every cell of my body ablaze, I could feel myself borne aloft with the high-geared, game-hardened energy of my bright and powerful youth. I felt charged up and well built and unstoppable. Were the boys from William and Mary better basketball players than I was? Yes, all of them, I could have said before the start of this intensely engaged game.
But now, on this night of January 29, 1967, I wanted and demanded for those William and Mary sons-of-bitches to prove it to me. If they were better, they’d stop me. If they stopped me, I’d get the ball to one of my teammates. But not many people stopped me, and no one stopped DeBrosse or Hooper either.
That night Tee Hooper played like he was delivering fire to mankind and his eyes revealed a kind of possession, almost an unleashed lunacy. It is a condition that is known in basketball circles as “being hot,” point guards being the court physicians who are supposed to diagnose this febrile yet volatile condition. In our amazing sport, wild in his lean beauty, Tee slashed through the William and Mary team and hit seven straight shots. His hands were hot, and I stoked his fire by feeding him the ball.
At one point Mel left his seat as I was bringing the ball across half-court and I heard him scream at me out of pure habit, “Don’t shoot, Conroy.” I dribbled one more time then launched the longest jump shot of my humble-pie career as a jump shooter for The Citadel. Mel howled with frustration as the shot left my hand, but I had transformed myself into a confident young man that night, had infused my spirit with the balms that unquestioning, unhesitating assurance can bring to the heart of a player. The echo of his shouted “Don’t shoot, Conroy” rang through the Armory as that shot popped through the basket thirty feet away with a sound like the net clearing its throat. The home crowd roared and the Corps rocked to their feet. Mel Thompson never told me not to shoot again. David Walker, Jack Downing, and Jim Rama were chasing me all over the court, but they were behind me much of that first half as I drove the lane again and again and led my team on fast breaks that fanned out in perfect order like they do on diagrams drawn on blackboards by famous coaches.
It was a night that John DeBrosse and I played like we had been born in the same crib together. I set picks the whole game that peeled his defender from John like a dog coming to the end of his rope. Slipping Johnny the ball, I gave him room for the one dribble I knew he had to have before he took his sweet and architecturally perfect jump shot. Unknown to either of us, John DeBrosse and I, lost in the wordless alchemy of our game’s fearless chivalry, its coiled undaunted valiance, its resolute beauty, found that we trusted each other. From this game on, DeBrosse could not make a move without me knowing exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it. We had achieved congruence and we became gallant and courtly as our knowledge of each other deepened with every game. We made each other fearless, and teams began to have trouble with us, starting with William and Mary on this wondrous night that rises out of my past like a starship of hallelujahs and white light. The Bulldogs led by five at the half, and Tee and I had lit it up with fourteen points each. There had been wizardry to our guard play.
In the second half Dan Mohr finally got in the game, hit the first shot of the second half, and gave us some needed size on the inside. DeBrosse cooled off in the second half until the Bulldogs required a hero.
Back and forth we played hard against each other, and there was no question that this William and Mary team was wonderful. The teams were tied eight times, and the lead changed hands on seven occasions in the sprinting, fast-moving delight of that game. Then DeBrosse lit it up with six quick points and put in two calm free throws after he stole the ball and was hammered as he tried to lay the ball in our basket. Then the clock, which had been our enemy all year, became our friend as William and Mary tried to catch up to us in the desperate last minutes of play. DeBrosse had scored twenty-three, I had put up twenty-two, and Hooper eighteen. Forty-five points from his backcourt would put a smile on any coach’s face. My Citadel team had beaten a better team than we were, and we did it going away.
I felt like a Roman candle when that buzzer went off and we had won the game, pulling away 85–77. I went into a state of exhilaration that felt like ecstasy. Before I knew what I was doing or why, I ran up into the stands where the Boo was helping his wife, Elizabeth, walk down to the floor.
“Colonel Courvoisie,” I said, “could I please have an overnight leave, sir?”
The colonel looked at me then said, “Sure. You were a star tonight. You earned it, bubba.”
I had rarely been called a star in my entire college basketball career, and I rewarded Colonel Nugent Courvoisie for making that statement by writing my first book about him and dedicating it to his wife.
After showering and putting on my dress grays, I walked out of Lesesne Gate and straight down to Rutledge Avenue where I turned south and walked toward the heart of the historic center on the coldest night of the year. I had no idea where I was walking or where I would spend the night. All I knew was that I could not bear the thought of returning to the barracks while feeling this elation, this sense of daring and swashbuckling bravado. I skipped and danced along the sidewalks. I sang Citadel fight songs out loud and must have appeared drunk to passersby and strangers. And it felt like intoxication—as though my heart had lit up with secret fires and my soul had fed on manna and sacred honey. I sparkled like a jewel on the ring finger of Charleston as I danced through its streets. I walked beneath the indrawn canopies of water oaks and mimosas in a city where I had not one person to visit or a home to walk into or a place to lay my head. But I could not let go of this bone-rattling optimism th
at had come over me since that buzzer sounded. I wanted to luxuriate in the waters of pure and free-floating human joy.
In the hushed streets near the College of Charleston I said in a whisper, “I’m going to write about you, Charleston. Listen to me. I’m going to write about you and you’re going to like what I say. You are so beautiful. You’re so beautiful. Thank you, Charleston. Thank you so much for being so beautiful.”
I found myself at the ticket counter asking the clerk when the next bus to Beaufort was. He told me it left in a couple of minutes. I bought a ticket and discovered it was near midnight. In a reverie, I rode that bus through darkness toward the town of Beaufort, the town that found me when I was fifteen years old and graciously let itself become my home. I wanted to tell my hometown that I was a college basketball star, at last.
At two in the morning, I walked down Boundary Street to Carteret. It was close to freezing as I watched the moon fingerpaint the Beaufort River with a long ribbon of silver. I was freezing and could not have cared less. I made the sign of the cross when passing by St. Peter’s Catholic Church and picked up the pace as I crossed Bay Street and skipped on to the Lady’s Island Bridge. I passed no cars and encountered no pedestrians. I was singing a Citadel fight song as loudly as I could when a voice rang out above me.
“Are you drunk, son?” the bridge tender demanded.
I laughed and said, “No, sir. I’m happy. I scored twenty-two points against William and Mary tonight. I was terrific. I was just terrific.”
I had never said anything like that in my entire life, and the words surprised me. Then I said something to the poor man that embarrassed me then and embarrasses me now. I said, “Sir, I’m going to put you into a book one day.”
He looked at me as though I had lost my mind. “You better get on home, boy.”
“I’m going to put you in a book,” I repeated. In 1995, I made good on that pledge when I placed a bridge tender in a scene in Beach Music.
I was walking toward the house of W. B. “King Tut” and Sarah Ellen Harper on Sunset Bluff. I did not want the evening to end just yet. I needed time to memorize what happiness felt like because I had experienced so little of it. Looking up into the night sky, I saw the Milky Way. I instantly thought of God and how I was afraid I was losing my faith in Him and the immensity of the fear and cowardice I felt when I thought of facing the world without Him. I was receiving the Eucharist every day of my life and fighting this war with faithlessness with every cell of my body, but I could feel the withdrawal taking place without my consent.
On the causeway to Lady’s Island I prayed out loud, “O Lord. Please hear me. I thank you for this year. I thank you from my heart. I needed to be a decent basketball player in college, Lord. I don’t know why. But I needed it. We both know I’m no good, but we sure are fooling some people. Aren’t we, Lord? I’m sorry about Tee Hooper and I’m sorry about the Green Weenies. They’re great guys and they deserve more playing time, Lord. Thank you for tonight. Thank you for giving me the William and Mary game, Lord. Thank you for the river and the stars and every house in Beaufort. . . .”
I prayed my way to the Harper house on Sunset Bluff and found the key they hid under a loose brick in case I came in unexpectedly. King Tut and Sarah Ellen Harper, parents of my best friend in high school in Beaufort, loved me fiercely as a son in the years I needed it most. When I awoke the next morning, I could smell coffee and bacon cooking in the kitchen downstairs. I went down to the kitchen and shouted, “Good morning, Maw. Good morning, Paw,” my nicknames for each of them.
Sarah Ellen ran to me squealing and hugged me hard. “It’s not every day we get to have a college basketball star stay in our house.”
Paw Harper looked up from his morning paper. “You showed William and Mary a thing or two last night.”
I glowed from their love of me and their great, striking generosity to my boyhood. That May they presented me with a graduation present Sarah Ellen had bought at the bookshop on Bay Street. It was a Roget’s thesaurus, and it sits by my left elbow as I write these words. Here is the inscription written in Sarah Ellen’s distinct script: “For Patrick, Our budding young author, with best wishes for great success, and much love. Maw, Paw, and Bruce Harper.”
Each morning, before I work, I read those sweet words. They give me courage.
LESS THAN A MONTH LATER William and Mary would dismantle my team when we met them at their diminutive and claustrophobic home court in Blow Gym. It was the worst place to play basketball in America and I felt like someone had put me in a straitjacket every time I went there. Because my father had once played at Blow Gym for the Marines at Quantico, he and the family were coming down for the game. Against a fierce zone I put in two of the longest jump shots I had ever taken as a college guard to open the game. Then I saw my family enter the gymnasium late just after that second shot went in. Something bruised my spirit when I realized I had taken those shots because I wanted my family to see the kind of player I had become and they had missed the display’s initial fanfare. The headline in the News and Courier said, “William and Mary Bombs Cadets 91–57.” I have never played on a team anywhere that got beaten worse than we did. I hate writing a single thing about it or remembering that chickenhearted game at all. It made me sick to my stomach to watch my father’s snide face as my team got taken apart. Kroboth had fourteen, I had eleven, and no one else even came close to scoring in double figures.
Again, my father called me out of a cringing, silent locker room. Again he put his hand on my chest and pushed me back against the wall. No handshake or “How you doing, son, it’s great to see you,” from the Colonel.
My father looked at me with pure, undistilled hatred which I do not understand to this day. “I just wanted to tell you that you were shit. You were pure shit.”
“I agree with you a hundred percent, sir.” Despite agreeing with him, I did not know I was angry until I heard my voice.
“Your team is shit,” my father said.
“They sure were tonight, sir.”
“Your coach is shit,” Dad said.
“He didn’t get much help tonight from his players, sir,” I said. “Can I go say hey to Mom and the kids, sir?”
“Negative. We got to get back to D.C.,” he said, then turned his back and walked away from me.
Then the voice, the one I had been hearing at times during the year, the writer’s voice, the one born during this season, this year—it spoke aloud for the first time and for the first time I knew it was my voice and mine to keep and to use and to wield in any way I so chose.
It said—I said, “Hey, Dad?”
My father turned and looked back at me.
“When I get home for Easter, let’s go to the gym at Quantico.”
“Why?”
“I want to play one-on-one with you.”
“Why? Think you could take me?”
“No, Dad. You don’t understand. I’m not only going to take you, I’m not going to let you score. Every time you put the ball on the floor I’m going to take it away from you, every single time.”
My father stared at me and I stared back. I think I was born into the world again and given back to myself at that very moment.
Easter came and went that glorious year and never once did my father mention the gym at Quantico.
CHAPTER 23
VMI
BEFORE THE ROAD TRIP TO PLAY VMI IN LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA, RAT came up to me in the mess hall at the noon meal and whispered, “Mel wants to see you at 1500 hours in his office, Pat.”
This was never good news. I avoided even accidental encounters with my coach with the instincts of a cat burglar. Not once in my four-year basketball career had I walked through the front door of the Armory which led me directly past Mel’s office. In my sophomore and junior years, I received not a single summons for an audience with my coach, but in the midst of this season, Mel would periodically require my thoughts on the gradual dissolution of what we both thought had the making
s of a good basketball team. I feared setting off his hair-trigger temper, and I also dreaded making some unforeseen mistake of judgment that would bring him out of his chair, screaming in anger.
“Hey, Mrs. Johnson,” I said to his pretty secretary, “I hear Attila the Hun wants to see me.”
“Hush,” she said, putting her finger to her lips. “He’ll hear you.”
I opened his door and came upon the familiar scene of Mel discussing basketball with Ed “Little Mel” Thompson. Motioning me to sit down on the couch, Mel finished his story, and I could not help but notice how much Ed hero-worshiped the head coach. Again I could study what a good guy Mel could be if you were lucky enough not to play on his team.
Finally, he turned his attention to me, his unnamed captain. He fixed me with his Ahab-like gaze for a moment before surprising me by asking, “You think you’re a pretty smart guy, don’t you, Conroy?”
I did not answer at first, but thought he was still boiling over the fact that more than half his team had been on the dean’s list and that a couple of us had made Gold Stars.
“About average, Coach,” I answered.
Mel looked over at Ed and snickered. “He thinks he’s fooling us. We’re your coaches. We know a lot more about this team than you’d expect. As a ballplayer one of your faults is that you think too much out on the court. An athlete reacts. They don’t think. All instinct. Get it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“He said he gets it, Ed,” Mel said to his assistant. “Do you think he gets it?”
“I’m not sure he gets it,” Ed said sadly.
“Do you remember the short story you wrote about me in The Shako, Conroy? Remember how mad I was? I called you into this office and ripped you a new asshole. Right?”
“Coach, I told you then and I tell you now. That wasn’t you. I made that guy up.”
In the previous issue of The Shako, I had published my third short story written during my time as a cadet. The previous summer I had come under the touchstone influence of a young novelist named John Updike when my mother handed me a copy of Rabbit, Run. Until I read about Rabbit Angstrom, I did not know that basketball could make a guest appearance into the palace of fiction. Nor did I know that my sport could also take a shy bow among the backlit colonnades of poetry until I tracked down Mr. Updike’s wonderful poem “Ex Basketball Player.”