Shame (10 page)

“Three coons,” B. W. murmured without looking across at me. “That's a shame.” In earlier days, B. W. used to go out with a group of boys and dogs and hunt coons or possum all night long, but that was one thing, a fairer contest, maybe. He was right; this was just a sad waste.

We pulled into the parking lot and walked into the darkened gym, the jingle of my keys echoing into the vast blackness.

“I love the gym when it's like this,” I said. “When I was your age, I had my own key.”

“Students aren't supposed to have a key to the gym,” B. W. said. His face broke into a wry smile. “My dad broke the law.”

“Well,” I said, as we reached the light switches, “I guess you could say I got punished for it.” I smiled when he looked at me quizzically. “Your mom and I met here late one night after the girls and boys teams had both beat Okeene. We were feeling pretty good to start with—we'd both of us had good games that night—and this guy had bought me some booze. So after everyone left, we went down to Coach's office and sat drinking Everclear and Gatorade, and eventually we ended up making your brother.”

It had been stuffy in that office, and I recalled the smells of sweat and wintergreen from the Atomic Balm that Coach used to dispense to rub into our sore muscles. The carpet was worn and was little comfort from the concrete floor, but I don't recall that discomfort stopped us or even made us pause.

“Dad,” B. W. said after a bit. “I absolutely did not need to know that.” He seemed a little embarrassed—at least, his face was flushed—but then he was laughing. “That's how it happened? Oh, man. I thought it happened in a pickup truck.”

“Ah,” I said, “that's what everyone thinks. Now you alone know the truth.” I opened the closet and wheeled out a ball rack. I picked up a ball, felt it for pressure and texture, liked the grain, and stuck it under my arm. “I always thought Michael was going to turn into the basketball player. I mean, you'd think with a start like that—” I took the ball from under my arm and dribbled it once to complete the sentence.

B. W. fiddled around with a couple of balls, made faces at each, and finally pulled one off the bottom of the rack. “So where did you guys make me?” he asked. “I mean, if you remember. If you don't mind telling me.”

“Not in a car,” I said, thinking hard. “And not here, although you play like you've got the gym in your blood. Probably the same old boring place.”

We dribbled over to the west goal, closest to the door we'd opened. “I think it's neat,” B. W. said, raising the ball to his chest and pausing before he shot. “About how Michael got here, I mean. Have you ever told him?”

“No,” I said. I'd never told him anything about that night. I sighed. “Maybe we should have. Or maybe that would just have made him madder.” We both shot at the same time, and the balls arrived in the cylinder at the same time and crowded each other off to either side of the basket.

“Hey,” Bobby Ray said as he entered. “You boys are getting a head start.”

“You know it,” I said. “Grab a ball and join us.”

The three of us shot for about ten minutes with surprising success. Although Bobby Ray was always a streak shooter, he had a pretty shot when he was on. And when he was on, he could shoot the lights out. I remember once in the second half of a game against the Clinton Red Tornadoes in the Tornado Dome when he scored from deep outside—NBA three-point land—twelve straight times down the court. It broke their backs. They'd been up eight points, but a streak like that can take your mind off your game. They started double-teaming him, they tried to foul him when he went up, but we freed him on a couple of screens—I passed it to Bill in the post and then he would dish back out to Bobby Ray for the shot, and finally the Clinton players got so flustered and focused on him that any of the rest of us could have walked the ball up to the basket and shot, which is basically what we did the rest of the night. I've never seen anything like that game, although I knew what he was feeling, could see it in him, that sensation of being one with the flow, like a surfer maybe, completely in tune with the wave and completely in control as a result. He knew that if he shot, it would go in. It was as simple as that.

Who cared if he went one for twelve the next game against the Seiling Comets (as they used to be called)? Even the forty-seven points he later scored against Thomas that year didn't compare in my mind to that twelve for twelve, a dozen shots arcing in perfection toward the net. That game against Clinton made up for a multitude of Bobby Ray's sins, and believe me, there was a multitude.

Oz arrived precisely at three in a T-shirt and a pair of baggy blue sweats that were almost falling off his narrow hips.

“Get in here, Scarecrow,” Bobby Ray growled and passed him the ball as soon as he got on the court. “Let's see your shot.”

“I'm not warm yet,” Oz protested. His first shot from about twelve feet missed everything. He flushed beet red and ran after his miss, which B. W. had retrieved.

“Here you go, Mr. Osborne,” he said.

“So are we gonna practice or not?” Bobby Ray asked. “Time is money.” Bobby Ray sometimes gave me the sense that, while he might have failed over and over again, at least he got there in a hurry.

“No Phillip?” Oz asked.

“I don't think so,” I told him. “That's why I brought B. W.” It seemed like a valid excuse; no use airing any more of our laundry in public than we had to.

“Of course he won't be here,” Bobby Ray said. “Jailbird wouldn't dare be seen in public, and I don't blame him.”

“That's our teammate you're talking about, Bobby Ray,” Oz said, his usual quiet voice tinged with an edge.

“John?” called a voice from the hall to the girls' locker room. Carla Briggs walked out onto the court in abbreviated red shorts and one of those black sports bras. I had seen women jogging and playing sports in them, but they were probably a violation of our community decency standards. “What are you boys doing up here?”

“Practicing for the big game,” Bobby Ray said, pulling a ball from the rack and walking across to present it to her. I didn't blame him; she did look fine. All of us—except for Oz, so happily married that he had already turned back to our goal—had spent a moment gaping.

“I was just going to shoot around some,” she called over to me. “Will that bother you guys?”

“We'll try to keep our minds on the job,” I said, before Bobby Ray could say something less tasteful.

“Well,” Bobby Ray said loudly as he arrived back under our basket, “are we going to practice or not?”

“We are practicing,” Oz said. “I haven't had much of a chance to shoot lately.” His next shot slanted off the backboard and in, and although I don't think he'd planned it—he smiled sheepishly at me when I complimented him—he ran down the ball with new vigor.

“When we've had a few minutes to get warm and shoot,” I said, “we'll play some two-on-two. Then we'll work on our wind. Maybe run some.”

This apparently satisfied Bobby Ray, although I could tell from B. W.'s quick glance that he had no intention of participating in the running portion of our program on his day of rest and wanted to make sure I knew that. I did.

We chose up for two-on-two, Oz and me against B. W. and Bobby Ray. The first game lasted for maybe fifteen minutes, and we only played half-court, bringing the ball back out to the top of the key at each change of possession. B. W. and I played tolerably well, but our teammates were not only not at the top of their games, they were not even the masters of their own bodies. They lost the ball dribbling, passed over our heads, or imagined we were cutting in directions that we had never had intentions of cutting and threw the ball out of bounds. The one bright moment for the old folks was when B. W. pulled up to shoot, gave Oz his standard head fake, and Oz stood like a block of salt and blocked his shot without leaving his feet. Bobby Ray doubled over laughing and told B. W., panting as he clutched the hem of his shorts, “Kid, when you're as old as we are, you don't go for fakes. Takes too much energy.”

We broke for a few minutes to get a drink, and I wandered down to the other end of the court, where Carla stood sinking free throws.

“You guys stink,” she said, smiling in commiseration before making another, and I could only smile back.

“Don't I know it. But what do you expect from a bunch of old men?” I passed the ball back out to her at the line.

“B. W.'s not old—” she began. Then at the far end of the court, the outside door swung open with a bang, and Phillip One Horse stepped hesitantly into the gym wearing a pair of faded jeans, a jean jacket, and his own pair of ancient Converse high-tops. Phillip looked left and right before sighting me at the far end of the court, but he didn't move from the spot just inside the door. Bobby Ray stopped dribbling, picked up the ball, and likewise just stood there.

No one made a move to welcome Phillip; I think for a moment none of us could quite believe he existed.

But there he stood, his head down, eyes darting from neutral corner to neutral corner, until I realized that if nothing more happened, if nobody said anything, he would disappear out the door and back down the road, probably for good. I stirred myself into action and called his name.

He recoiled at the sudden sound, his shoulders jerking, his head rising. I advanced quickly toward him with long strides to cut off his escape. “Hey, Phillip,” I said when I got closer. “It's good to see you.”

Oz followed when he saw me stretch out my hand and saw Phillip slowly take it. “Thanks for coming,” Oz said, and knowing the difficulty of that utterance, Phillip gravely inclined his head to him.

“Am I too late?” he asked me quietly, and I could catch a whiff of something that smelled like bourbon when he spoke.

“No,” I said. “No, you're not. We're just taking a break. We were playing some two-on-two. B. W. can take a rest and you can get right into things if you want.”

“Could I maybe see a ball for a second?” he asked. “It's been a long time.” He pulled off his jacket. Underneath he was wearing a ragged tank top that advertised Winston Lights.

“Bobby Ray,” I called. “Ball.” But he'd turned back to shoot, and so B. W. passed me his.

I walked over to Bobby Ray while Phillip took the ball and ran his hands across the leather cover. I could see now that Bobby Ray's turning away from Phillip was intentional; his total indifference to Phillip's amazing presence flew in the face of our involvement. Oz saw it too, and he followed me over, leaving Phillip and B. W. standing quietly on the far sideline—as though those two could stand any other way but quietly.

“We're going to add Phillip and play some more two-on-two,” I said when I was close enough for Bobby Ray to hear me. “B. W. is going to sit out.”

“I'm not playing with that convict,” Bobby Ray said, his back still to us, although his voice was loud enough to carry.

“For Pete's sake, Bobby Ray—” Oz said, and was about to say something undeaconlike, but I jumped in.

“Okay,” I said. “We'll go three-on-three. Oz and I'll pick up Phillip, and we'll ask Carla to join you.”

Bobby Ray got ready to protest again, either because he didn't want Phillip on the court at all or because of the indignity of sharing the court with a girl. Assuming it was the latter and feeling my guts knot at his stubbornness, I said, “Carla can beat you four games out of five, Bobby Ray, and you know it. I think she'll be good enough to play on your team.” And I turned my back on him to walk back over to Phillip, who was taking a few tentative dribbles as B. W. stood by.

“Phillip, you're with us. We'll take it slow.” Then I invited Carla over, introduced her to Phillip, and suggested they guard each other. I thought that might make it a little harder for Bobby Ray to communicate his distaste to Phillip.

B. W. took the ball out, and I dropped back a little, conceding the outside shot for the moment because I knew B. W. would try to involve the others and also because if I played him too close he'd be past me in a flash and into the lane. He passed across to Bobby Ray, who tried to dribble around Oz and lost the ball. Phillip picked it up and fired it out to me, and I nodded my approval. He had always had a nose for the ball, and even if he wasn't in any kind of condition to play—his tank top flapped on his skinny frame—he still had good basketball instincts.

I passed it down to Oz, who passed it over to Phillip, and the ball slipped through his hands and out of bounds, to Bobby Ray's barely suppressed snort of amusement. Phillip turned to look at him with genuine puzzlement and then gave his attention back to Carla, who was bringing the ball in.

Unlike B. W., who knew this wasn't his practice and had generous instincts in any case, Carla was a scorer, pure and simple, and in her college days she had been a shooting guard. She drove the lane, and Phillip gave way and let her take it in, to the accompaniment of another snort from Bobby Ray.

Phillip stiffened, took a deep breath, and I wanted to be on another planet.

I passed down to Oz and went to set a pick on Carla so Phillip could roll free. Oz bounced him a pass, which he was juggling as he stepped toward the basket, and then Bobby Ray came across the lane and body-checked him into next week with only the barest attempt to look as though he were going for the ball.

“You stupid—” I started, getting ready to say something undeaconlike myself, and caught myself, seeing B. W.'s jaw drop.

“For Pete's sake, Bobby Ray,” Oz said again.

Bobby Ray stepped forward to look down on Phillip, who was getting up slowly, without looking at him.

“That's enough of that,” I said, shoving Bobby Ray backward, and I'm afraid I got up in his face, even after all I'd told B. W. about losing his temper on the court.