Fadeaway

by E. B. Vickers

  Jake makes every layup during warm-ups.

  Big deal. So does everybody else.

  He sinks shot after shot from midrange. Never misses.

  Somebody notices.

  “J-Money,” says Kolt. “You came to play.”

  Jake smiles, grateful that this game has fixed what was broken between them, like it has so many times before. He wouldn’t want Kolt to think anything that happens after is his fault.

  They pair up for shooting warm-ups, and Jake dribbles back behind the arc. Pulls up for three and drains it. Kolt grabs the ball and fires it to Jake, who drains this one too.

  One after another, Jake sinks the threes, each one confirming and clarifying the plan in his mind. Tonight is the night. He has no doubt they’ll win, and after they win, he’ll be done. It’ll be better for everybody, really. Everywhere but the court he messes up. He takes and he takes and he takes. So he’ll give back this one last time, and then it’ll all be over. And what a way to end it.

  He must have hit a dozen threes in a row, but he just keeps going. Maybe it’s the chemicals thrumming through his veins. Maybe not.

  Most of the other guys—on both teams—have stopped to watch now. Jake’s aware of it, but that’s not to say he cares. He’s past pride or shame. He knows where the ball needs to go and how to get it there. Simple as that. The world has been stripped down to his body and the ball and the hardwood and the hoop. When that’s all there is, how can he miss?

  He continues around the arc, hitting every single shot, Kolt still feeding him. The crowd is watching, cheering. He’s almost to the baseline now and facing his own bench, and even though he’s focused on the court, not the crowd, he knows they’re all there.

  His mom and Luke.

  Daphne.

  Coach B.

  And near the back of the arena, someone else he almost recognizes.

  The ball hits Jake in the chest, but he still catches it.

  “Sorry,” Kolt says. “I thought you were ready.”

  Jake looks at Kolt, then back up to the hooded, bearded face that caught his gaze. Has he seen this man before?

  “You okay?” Kolt asks. “You gonna shoot it? Or are you posing for the statue they’re gonna make after you win this game for us?”

  It’s because he looks like Kolt, Jake realizes. That’s why the man looks so familiar.

  And then it all fits into place, as perfectly as the planks of hardwood beneath him.

  The man looks just like Kolt.

  And Jake has seen him once before.

  He almost laughs now, because the man has aged more than he should have. He looks not unlike the picture of Jesus that has stared down at Jake every Sunday of his life.

  But this is no perfect savior. This is the only person Jake knows who is like him—who has hurt everyone he loves and sold his very soul to the same monster.

  And yet, here he is. Dirty and drawn, yeah, but almost smiling. And very much alive.

  The rumor is true, then. It has to be.

  He got clean.

  Suddenly Jake feels something. Just a hint of a wonder whether there may be another way. Not to die, but to be reborn. Maybe it’s his imagination or maybe it’s the drugs, but he thinks he sees a glimpse of his salvation, his redemption, his path forward, in the man’s haunted eyes.

  “Who you looking at?” Kolt asks, following Jake’s gaze to the back of the arena. The moment Kolt turns, the man pulls down his hood and bows his head.

  “Nobody,” Jake says. All his life, he would have believed that too. That someone who struggled with addiction was basically nobody.

  He certainly believes that about himself.

  But when he looks back up at the man, time slows. The crowd disappears. Suddenly Jake sees that this person he has never really met has been shaping his life for years.

  Seven years ago, Kmart was the team leader who showed up at the championship game too high to play.

  It was benching Kmart—the team’s top scorer—and losing that game that cost Coach B his job.

  It was Coach B’s losing his job and Kmart’s showing up in the parking lot that turned Jake and Kolt into best friends the day they met.

  It was going to a hearing when Kolt couldn’t bear to—even though Kmart himself never showed up—that made Daphne notice Jake in the courtroom that first day.

  And now Jake remembers one more time when Kmart was there at a crossroads, and he’s as sure of this one as the others.

  It was Kmart who picked him up from the dirt at the construction site on that worst, most desperate day of all, when the pain was so searing, so blinding that he could barely recognize the face of the man who saved him, who spoke so soft and steady to him and Luke both.

  The noise of the crowd is still dull in Jake’s ears. All he can do is stare at Kmart. All he can see is salvation. Jake knows he’s not worthy to cry out to a perfect God for help, but the savior he is looking for is sitting here in the stands. He has felt this frightening clarity, this need to hurt himself only once before. And the same person saved him then.

  The immediate plan has not changed, he realizes. Play the game. Win the game, for Seth and Kolt and Coach B and Daphne and Luke and his mom and all the people he’s hurt. Do this one small thing for them, and then…

  When the announcer calls Jake’s name, Kmart looks straight back into his eyes, gives him one slight nod that means more than the roar of the crowd. Something sparks in Jake’s belly, and the spark gives way to something like a summer rain.

  Jake remembers this feeling.

  He thinks it might be hope.

  Kade Martin knows he shouldn’t have come. He knows this. He’s always heard that it’s smells that bring back memories, and maybe there’s some truth in that. Popcorn and sweat and rubber soles.

  But it’s the sight that really gets Martin tonight. The red-and-white uniforms rush out onto the floor, and he’s gone back in time to when he was part of it all: the whole human condition—comedy and drama and especially history—played out in thirty-two minutes on forty-two hundred square feet of hardwood.

  It’s not the same, of course. Back then, he was looking at the game from down on the court. Back then, he was the guy with the ball. Had he looked this young, though? This innocent?

  They start with layups, fluid and graceful, and he knows for certain it’s not the game that’s changed, only his perspective.

  He’s been following the team—his team, his brother—all season. It’s the only way he’s found to stay connected to his family without crossing the boundaries he’s drawn for himself. It started with the football games he watched from the hillside, but the pull of the basketball court was even stronger. So just this once, just for tonight, he wants to be inside the arena. To see if this team can make some history of its own, or if their season will end in heartbreak the way his did. To be in the same room as his family, even one as cavernous as this.

  Across the arena, his parents huddle together a few rows behind the bench. They have new Warriors gear—of course they do—but the same expectant energy as they did for his games, all those years ago. He can almost feel the crackle of their nerves from here. Hoping for the best for their son, like the other parents, but also knowing how terribly it can all turn out. Because of him.

  He watches Kolt leave the team just long enough to bound up into the stands and say something to them. His mom throws her head back with laughter; his dad shakes his head but with a smile on his face. They are knit together for one perfect second before Kolt rejoins the warm-ups, and in that second Martin knows: walking over there would tear open every wound he ever caused them. They’ve healed now, with him on the outside. And just because that’s exactly what he wanted for them doesn’t mean it can’t hurt like hell.

  So Martin tears his attention from his family and lets it se
ttle, like the rest of the crowd’s, on Jake Foster. Not only because the kid’s so damn good, but because he sees himself in Jake. Even in warm-ups, there’s a tension between the power of his play and the hunger and desperation beneath the surface.

  They’ve never formally met, but that doesn’t matter. You’d only notice it if you’d felt it yourself, and he has definitely felt it too. He knows Foster’s family has even less than his own, but the uniform is the great equalizer. You walk out on that floor with the same slick synthetic jersey as everybody else, and it doesn’t matter whether your family lives in a mansion on Evergreen Vista or a run-down apartment in Subsidy Square.

  The game is about to start, and a thrill of adrenaline rushes through him. That’s the same too. It’s not only about the outcome of the game, though. It’s the danger of being here in the first place. What if it’s all too much, and he can’t walk away again after the final buzzer? What if somebody sees him?

  And like lightning, like karma or kismet or just plain fate, Foster looks up at him, and their eyes lock. Just for a moment. Just long enough for Foster to mouth one word at him.

  Help.

  Foster looks back at him at every timeout, between every quarter, even when he’s standing at the foul line. No way should the kid be able to play this well when he’s this distracted. When he’s this high. But he’s unstoppable. Unbelievable, honestly. Pure poetry. Like MJ in the 1997 NBA finals—if Jordan had been playing through a handful of oxys instead of the flu.

  Help.

  Foster’s lips don’t form the word again, but it’s written on his face every time he looks up.

  Martin knows he should go. He can’t be pulled back into anything from his past. He won’t survive it. He knows his own weaknesses too well.

  But he can’t walk away, because when the ball’s in motion, all he sees in the Foster kid is himself. He has to stay to see the ending, because maybe if they win, things will be different for Foster. And if things are different for Foster, maybe they really can be different for him too.

  After the ceremony, Martin goes out to his truck. Blows on his hands and prays the engine will start. He doesn’t even jump when the fist pounds the glass, because he’s been expecting it. Maybe even waiting for it: the chance to pay off his greatest debt, but to pay it forward.

  “I need your help,” Foster says, the window making his words sound like he’s underwater. It’s even worse now that Martin can hear his voice, can see so clearly in his eyes that the kid is battling the same demons he did. He knows he won’t be able to drive away.

  “Get in the truck,” he barks.

  Foster climbs in, shaking from the cold and the chemicals inside him.

  “I have to…”

  “I know,” Martin growls.

  “I can’t…”

  “I know,” Martin says, a little softer this time.

  But no. Soft will sink them both.

  “If we’re doing this, we’re doing it my way, and we have to start tonight.”

  Foster nods. “Whatever you say, Kmart.”

  “If I’m going to help you, you can’t call me that.” Martin grips the steering wheel, the muscles in his hands as taut as those in his jaw. “Use that name again and I’ll kick your ass so hard you’ll have loose teeth.”

  “Then what am I supposed to call you?”

  “I don’t care,” he says. “Just not Kmart.”

  “What about…Phoenix?”

  At first he thinks Jake’s trying to be poetic or symbolic about rising from the ashes or some shit like that. But then he follows the kid’s gaze to the PHOENIX LUBE AND TIRE sticker on the windshield, reminding him to change his oil two thousand miles ago.

  “Okay,” he says, because it’s sure as hell better than Kmart. He lets his own gaze drift to the stream of people still coming from the gym doors in the distance: high school sweethearts and old-timers and young kids with stars in their eyes and dreams of state championships.

  “You’ll have to cut ties with everybody you know,” he says.

  Foster swallows. Tries to make a joke. “Good thing I never knew you.”

  “By the time this is over,” Martin says, “you’ll wish that was still true.” He fishes a scrap of paper from the floor of the truck and scrawls a list on it. “Pack everything on here, nothing extra. Be watching for me at midnight. If you’re not there, I’ll drive away, and you can keep heading down this path you’re on. But if you come out, that’s like signing a contract. Next time you get in this truck, there’s no going back.”

  Foster nods. Climbs out and runs away before Martin can change his mind.

  This could be the end for either of them.

  Or it could be the beginning.

  Jake took more pills after the game.

  Too many too many too many.

  But not all of them. He empties the first-aid tin into the toilet. Flushes. Ditches the tin in the trash can outside.

  The pills have brought the whole world into focus. He has a little more time before the crash, and he’s got to use every minute of it.

  So he grabs his backpack. Kmart said not to bring much, and this is his first chance to prove that he’s willing to do whatever it takes, whatever Kmart asks. (Including not calling him or probably even thinking of him as Kmart. Phoenix, he reminds himself.) So he only packs a few clothes and a toothbrush before searching his mom’s medicine cabinet for the things on the list.

  Gauze and bandages.

  Antiseptic.

  Imodium.

  Sleeping pills.

  Blood-pressure pills. (Jake feels an undeserved flush of pride as he drops these into his backpack. Phoenix will probably be surprised he could get them.)

  There are other ways to get clean. He knows this—but he also knows his mom can’t afford any of them. He can’t afford any of them, and he’s not sure they work anyway. So he takes a permanent marker, thick and black, and explains all of this to her, page after page, in the note that he writes: how he’s got to go off the grid for a while, but he’ll be in touch when he can. How she shouldn’t worry, but he knows she will. How she’s got to trust him and not get the police involved. How he promises he’ll write to her when he’s clean, but not before then. How he’s sorry for this, just like he’s sorry for everything else.

  He cries when he writes this part. He is sorry for absolutely everything. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that will be one of Phoenix’s twelve steps or something. He almost laughs, then he almost doubts this whole idea.

  But no. Jake Foster is a man of faith, and his faith was never stronger than in that arena tonight.

  He looks at the marker in his hand. He will get through this, and it’s that word that will carry him through. So he writes it in thick black letters down the length of his arm.

  FAITH.

  There’s a little space left in the backpack, so he grabs a few granola bars and Gatorades. It almost makes it feel like just another bus trip instead of a step into the unknown.

  Later, he will look inside the backpack and wonder what happened to the granola bars and the Gatorades. He will look at the unmarked skin of his arm and realize that he must have imagined it.

  He will not realize that the marker was real but he never uncapped it, that there was no note left for his mother at all.

  I know sometimes

  I ask too many questions

  and it’s annoying,

  distracting,

  exhausting.

  So I follow Daphne and Kolt as they sprint to the truck

  and I don’t ask

  Is Kmart bad after all?

  Is Jake in trouble?

  Is Jake in danger?

  Is he getting ready to run?

  Is he getting ready to die?

  I keep my questions inside

&nb
sp; while Kolt runs into his house

  and comes back out with no lightsaber, no blaster,

  only an envelope.

  “He still gets mail,

  and sometimes my parents forward it.

  They think I don’t know.”

  I’m not sure what any of this means

  until

  he points to an address crossed out

  and a new one next to it

  written in blue pen.

  “Same town as the receipt.

  Go there,” he says.

  “We should be there in less than an hour.”

  Even if that’s true,

  it will feel like forever.

  We go back to my house

  to switch to Daphne’s car

  because Jake’s truck

  is sketchy on fast roads

  (and sometimes on slow roads).

  I make them wait

  while I put Jake’s key in the ashtray—

  and because the mail reminded me:

  Jake has mail too.

  Daphne’s car can go fast

  but not fast enough.

  Before we’re even out of town,

  lights flash behind us,

  red blue red blue red blue.

  Daphne and Kolt just look at each other

  and we go faster.

  “They’re not coming for us,”

  Kolt says,

  but even I can tell

  he’s not sure about that.

  This is not good.

  When the cops come, you pull over.

  The sirens chirp, just once.

  Daphne drives faster.

  This is really, really, really not good.

  “Maybe we should…,” I start to say,

  until

  at the edge of town

  the cop cars turn down some side road

  and we are alone again.

  We all breathe out together.