by Allen, Jacob
“Fine,” I said. “Let me get my sneakers and gym shorts on.”
At least that was a legitimate excuse. I could get away for two, maybe three minutes before my brothers would come calling for me, perhaps even barging into my room and wrestling me.
It was just enough time to stare at that text from Samantha, thinking about how, amazingly, being with her would be much better than this.
And really, if she was serious about her text, maybe it wouldn’t just be better, relatively speaking. It would be better, period. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. It would just be… nice.
I hovered my finger over the keypad, ready to say something.
“Hey, Nickie, come on!” Clarke yelled. “You’re not going to rediscover what you call a ‘jump shot’ upstairs!”
“God fucking damnit,” I muttered to myself.
I hurried to put my shoes on, threw on a sweaty pair of shorts, and went out back to our basketball court, where Clarke and Andrew were already practicing… by dunking, something I didn’t have the height or the athleticism to do.
“Bout time you showed up,” Andrew said. “Here, we’ll even give you the ball first. You remember the rules, or do I have to explain them to you? You know, since you quit and all.”
“Fuck off,” I said.
My anger was pushing me from “trying to get away” to “willing to fight.”
“I know how to play, and I’m going to show up both of you for it.”
“Oh, shit!” Clarke said, like a hype man. “You hear that, brother? Little Nickie’s going to show us up! Maybe he can show us how they make layups in the WNBA.”
“Or maybe he can tell us what it’s like to jump high enough to touch the bottom of the net.”
The two laughed and traded a high-five. Taking the ball from Clarke’s hands, I backed up to the top of the three point line and passed it to him as hard as I could.
“Check,” I growled.
“Ohhhhh, OK, OK,” he said.
He chucked the ball back at me as hard as he could, aiming for my groin. I caught it, but he had sent the message loud and clear.
“Check.”
I started to dribble, trying to cross over Clarke, but he was just so big, it felt like I was being swallowed. I couldn’t get around him, and though I recognized that most of the world was not 6’4 like Clarke was, it was also a painful reminder that most of the college basketball world was at least 6’4, and if I stepped out onto those courts, I’d get humiliated like I currently was.
“I thought you were going to show us up!” Clarke said with a howl. “No wonder you quit, Coach Miller probably benched your ass for so much dribbling.”
Then, somehow, unexpectedly, I got by Clarke. I went for the layup.
And then, midair, I got drilled by Andrew. I don’t mean that he blocked my shot, though he did that—it was a mid-air collision, the kind an NBA player would get into a fight for doing, knocking me to the ground.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you forget basketball is a contact sport?” Andrew snickered as I rose with a couple of groans. “Or were you always this scared to go into the paint?”
I shut my mouth, determined to defend Andrew. Though he wasn’t as tall as Clarke, he was still taller than me, and on top of that, he easily had the most athleticism of anyone in the family. Andrew had him by two inches, but Clarke could jump about six inches higher and run much faster. He was like a gazelle on the court, and he made my life hell.
Finally, bored of dribbling circles around me, he put me on the deck, causing me to stumble and lose my balance as he went in for an easy dunk, Clarke laughing to the side the whole time.
I was actually quite good at basketball, at least as good as a six foot white guy with limited athleticism could be. But never had I felt so humiliated and so embarrassed in a game like this. They weren’t even playing fair, either; in a real game of 21, Clarke would have come over to defend Andrew after he got by me.
But this wasn’t a game of 21. This was a game of “Humiliate Nick Locke.” And there was only so much longer I could stand it.
“Here, we’ll let you have it back,” Andrew said, throwing me the ball. “Can you score before Clarke? I don’t think it’s ever happened, but there’s a first time for everything!”
I checked it angrily. Andrew checked it right back. I pump faked, got him in the air, and drove by him. I went up for a layup…
And again got decked from behind.
“Just as I thought,” Andrew said as the ball landed by my head. “The fucking midget can’t compete with the big boys.”
I fucking lost it. That was it. No more.
I stood up with the ball in hand, turned to Andrew, and chucked it full force. He managed to block it, but he did not block the fists that followed.
“I fucking hate you!” I roared as Andrew staggered back.
“The fuck do you think you’re doing?!?”
Clarke tried to grab me and drag me back, but I just kicked him in the groin and was right back at Andrew. I heard my father screaming at us to stop, but there was nothing that was going to hold me back now. I wasn’t just striking because of what was said today. I was striking because of what had been said over my lifetime, both from them and from others around me.
Fuck Andrew.
Fuck Clarke.
And fuck me for having to be in the same family as them.
I felt a pair of burly arms wrap around me, yank me back, and toss me backward. My father stood in the middle of the three of us, his face beet red.
“I don’t know what in the hell the problem is between the three of us,” he growled. “But we are not letting it ruin our family time. Your mother saw you first, you know. She’s crying in the living room because she feels like the three of you can never be in the same room without fighting.”
I glared at Andrew and Clarke. They looked… resentful? Bitter?
We probably weren’t done fighting. Good. I hadn’t gotten hit in the face yet. I could keep going.
“Well, if you three want to fight like a bunch of spoiled babies, then you can go ahead and do it right here,” my father said. “No one is coming inside until you make peace. And it better be real peace. I don’t want any of this half-assed handshake nonsense. Understood?”
He didn’t wait for us to nod. He shook his head, said, “stupid boys,” and headed back to the house.
I looked at Clarke first. He was slumped underneath the post of the first basket. He was still trying to catch himself from my kick to his groin. I looked over at Andrew. He had sat down on the ground, his head in his hands. He looked pissed.
But not as pissed as I was.
I stood there, for once towering over my two brothers, glaring at the both of them. I hoped they sensed all of the anger I had for them. I hoped they realized just how much they had fucked me over.
But for the longest time, they didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. Someone looking at us from afar might have thought that we were a bunch of statues, just stuck in place in some sort of dramatic structure. I was starting to sweat not from playing basketball but from the sun overhead.
No matter. I’d stare these clowns down and wait until they broke before I said a word. I’d wait—
“You don’t like him either, huh?”
Andrew didn’t even look at me when he spoke.
“Who the fuck are you talking about?”
“Who do you think I’m talking about?” Andrew said, nodding in the direction of the house.
I recoiled in surprise.
“I thought you loved the old man.”
Both Andrew and Clarke laughed at that.
“Do you really think we’re happy with our scholarships? Do you really think we’re happy where we are?”
“Uhh… yeah?”
Why wouldn’t they be?
“I’m sure that gets you laid a lot,” I said.
“Yes, because Vanderbilt is a school known for worshiping their athletes,” Clarke said, rolling hi
s eyes. “Let me tell you what it’s like. Imagine that you put in years upon years of work into something. You get to college, and the time commitment is so great that you can’t do anything else. When it’s actual season, there’s only time to party on Saturday nights, and if you give a shit, you don’t. If you don’t give a shit, then the attitude becomes infectious.”
“You think it’s all great,” Andrew continued. “But in reality, it’s like having a job. Whoever came up with the idea that we’re student-athletes is laughable. We’re athletes with who study, that’s what we really are. And do you know what our reward is?”
“A big fat invite to nowhere professional,” Clarke said with a sigh. “But don’t tell that to Dad.”
“He still thinks we can make the NFL.”
“He still thinks we can be better than Jerry Rice.”
“He still thinks we can be the greatest of all time.”
All three of us laughed at that. I couldn’t remember the last time that had ever happened.
“We mocked you for quitting the basketball team to save face,” Clarke said.
“But we’re actually kind of jealous,” Andrew said.
I shook my head.
“I quit because I wanted to focus on football,” I said. “Don’t turn it into me doing it because of some noble removal from the world of athletics.”
“Still, you’re doing what you want to do, not what Dad wants you to do,” Andrew said. “Nick, if you have any sense of self-respect, you’ll go somewhere where there are no athletic expectations. I know we just said Vanderbilt doesn’t have those, but we’re in the SEC, bro. We always have expectations.”
I actually came closer and sat between them. Was I really hearing this right? Were my brothers actually saying they hated their lives as athletes?
“At this point, we might as well finish our careers out,” Clarke said. “But we’re ready to get out. We’re ready to live on our own terms. It’s going to be hard, seeing as how you never have time for a summer internship. But…”
He couldn’t finish his sentence. That was another first.
I guess my brothers didn’t have as much control as I thought they did. I guess they weren’t cool shit as much as I’d figured. I guess I wasn’t the outcast, the weirdo in the family; in some ways, it almost sounded like they envied my ability to walk away from the game.
Maybe I did need to use it to get into an Ivy League school. I definitely was more than willing now, though, to drop the facade of going to big leagues. I didn’t have to explain myself to Dad. Well, maybe I did for a bit, but if I had my brothers’ support in getting away…
The only caveat in all of this, of course, was that there was a decent chance I’d wind up at the same school as Samantha, Harvard. But did that even need to be a factor? And given what she had texted me this morning, was that even going to be as tense an issue as I had once feared it would be?
“Go live your own life, man,” Andrew said. “Whatever the fuck you want to do, Nick, go do it. We’re always going to give you shit, we’re your brothers. But we’re sorry if we pushed you too far.”
“Yeah, sorry, man,” Clarke said.
I need to be saying that a little more, I think.
“I’m sorry too,” I said. “Sorry for chucking the ball at your head.”
“Hey, it wasn’t all bad,” Andrew said. “You got more strength in that arm than I thought. You sure you don’t want to play quarterback?”
“And that groin kick, shit, I’m still feeling it,” Clarke said. “I may have a few more fuck yous later, but right now, I’m more impressed than angry.”
“Hahaha, I’ll try not to kill your future kids next time.”
We didn’t go inside for several minutes. If our father bothered to look at us, he probably would have wondered why we were laughing when we were just about to kill each other. He also probably wondered why we were laughing but not coming to him.
It was simple. Clarke and Andrew had, somehow, someway, freed me of the familial tension of following in their footsteps. In fact, I think they would have been more pissed if I traced their steps than if I made my own.
I guess we’d find out the answer in about a week and a half, when college decisions were finally announced.
17
Samantha
One Year Ago
I received the email telling me that I had gotten my SAT scores.
In the grand scheme of things, I suppose this didn’t mean that much. No one would care about what I’d scored on the SATs when I got to college, never mind when I got to the real world.
But for right now, it meant everything. It meant the difference between getting to hang out with my friends this weekend for a trip to Chicago, or staying in and having to study for tests that wouldn’t even be taken for another couple of weeks.
My parents, apparently, had decided that I was not taking school seriously enough. Despite my insistence that I was, despite my pleas to let me have a little bit of freedom, they had instead doubled down on their work for me. Apparently, they never believed in the word “burnout.”
The deal was simple. If my SATs came back with a score of at least 1560, I could go to Chicago. Anything less, and I was destined to spend the rest of my spring studying for my senior year.
I liked studying and I liked learning, but that wasn’t education. That was torture.
My mouse hovered over the link to reveal my fate. It would have been so easy and simple to just click out and lie. It would have been so nice to have just said I got a 1560 or something similar and move on.
But the damn truth was, I was desperate to know too. I was desperate to get into Harvard. The bullying my friends had begun to experience—that I had avoided only by being so far removed from the rest of the school that no one cared to pay attention to me—was getting awful. I had to get out of Providence Prep.
I clicked on the link. My eyes scanned the screen.
1570.
800 on the math, 770 on the verbal.
Most kids would have celebrated, would have thrust their fists in the air in celebration. Me? I just breathed a sigh of relief.
I went downstairs to find my parents in their study.
“1570,” I said.
They turned, nodded, and turned back to their screen.
“You can go to Chicago,” my mother said. “Just remember what the real cause for celebration is.”
Getting to start my own life somewhere else.
You think it’s Harvard. It may be. But it’s also getting out on my own.
* * *
Present Day
It wasn’t exactly a novel breakthrough to state that time flew by when things were going great, but the degree to which that was true seemed unfortunately pronounced at this very moment.
It was 7:50 p.m. on March 31st. I had about ten minutes before all of the colleges would reveal online if I had gotten in or not. It was going to be the most hellacious ten minutes of my life.
There was nothing else I was doing right now. The girls had started a text thread to discuss where everyone had gotten in, but I couldn’t follow. I couldn’t do any homework. Cruelly, my history teacher had scheduled a test the next afternoon, but there was no way that I was going to study for it right now. I suppose I could have studied for it while in Wilmington, but that wasn’t something I wanted to do.
And it wasn’t something I didn’t do. I spent the week in Wilmington getting much tanner, worrying as little as I could about school, and feeling even closer than ever to Emily and Jackie. I felt surer than ever about the relationships they were in now, and I also felt somewhat sure that if Nick and I wound up alone or out, I’d be more open.
But in the two days back at school, he and I had not even locked eyes, let alone made conversation. That didn’t seem to be built off of any animosity any longer, though he never did respond to my text message. That hurt, but I’d eavesdropped later that Nick was aware of it and wasn’t sure how to respond to it.
; 7:51 came. I had all the tabs open for all my schools—Vanderbilt, Duke, Yale, and Harvard. I’d already gotten word from Knoxville that they would give me a full ride and put me in the honors program if I enrolled there. As nice as that was, my parents weren’t hurting for money, and a degree from Duke was going to carry more weight than the honors program at Knoxville. Knoxville was literally the “if everything else goes to shit, if my suspension has banned me from any decent school, then I will go there, but otherwise, no way.”
I wondered how I would celebrate, but then I wondered if that was just jinxing myself. The only thing I told myself was that I would check those schools in the order of the tabs opened. Harvard was the dream, and thus Harvard would get saved for last. If Harvard said no, at least it would hopefully come on the heels of three other schools saying yes.
7:52. I went downstairs, grabbed a glass of water, and drank it. My fingers were so fidgety, I nearly dropped the entire glass.
7:53. I went to the bathroom. I was doing the math in my head to see if I had enough time. Given that I got back at 7:54, I found the question slightly ludicrous. Apparently, nerves had a way of making people act very, very stupidly.
7:55.
7:56.
7:57. Three minutes to go. Three minutes until I learned my future.
Maybe I wasn’t going to go to Harvard. Maybe I was just going to go to Duke. That wasn’t so bad. I’d made a pitstop there with Emily and Jackie on the way home, exploring the Duke Gardens. If the worst that happened to me was that the next four years of my life were spent studying at Duke, there were much worse things in life. Granted, I wasn’t big on the sports culture there, but the academics were so strong that I didn’t care.
7:58.
OK, I would care quite a bit if I didn’t get into Harvard. I’d spent my entire life since I knew about Harvard chasing it. To not get in…
I literally felt like I was going to vomit. People said that a lot when they actually weren’t anywhere close to throwing up, but right now, I really thought I was going to. I tried my damndest not to.