Summer Ball (10 page)

He angled the chairs so they could face each other, and when they'd both sat down, said, “What can I do you for, son?”

Danny thought,
I came here on my own, and I still feel like I got called to the principal's office.

But he knew he better get to it right now before he really did wimp out.

He took a deep breath and said, “Is there any way you can put me on another team before the games start?”

Coach Powers drank some more of his iced tea and carefully put the glass down on the deck next to his chair, as if he wanted to make sure it wouldn't make a sound. Then he leaned back and folded his arms across his chest.

“And why would I want to do something like that?”

Danny had his answer ready. He'd been practicing it inside his head since he'd walked out of The House after the scrimmage, practicing it on the dock, practicing it as he walked through the woods to get here.

“We're just not a good fit, you and me, Coach,” he said. “It's all my fault, for sure, nothing on you, everybody knows what a great coach you are, what a great system you have. I just can't get it down, is all, probably because I'm not your kind of ballplayer.”

Coach Powers raised one of his eyebrows amazingly high.

“Well, there's quite a mouthful. Is that coming from you or your dad?”

“Me,” Danny said. “Me, definitely. Absolutely. I haven't even talked to my dad about this.”

“Because it sure sounds like something he said to me once, back in the day, not being my kind of ballplayer, like he was some kind of square peg trying to go into a round hole.” He shook his head slowly. “Only he was wrong, and so are you. There's no such thing as
my
kind of player. In my thinking, you're a basketball player, or you're not.”

“I'm sure you're right about that,” Danny said. “I still think we'd both be better off if I was playing for somebody else, and I was hoping you'd agree.”

He felt as if he said the last part in about one second flat.

Coach Powers sipped more lemonade. “So you get off to a bad start, and now you want to quit, is that it?”

“I guess you could say I want to quit your team,” Danny said. “But I was thinking of it more like a trade or something. You know, one of those trades that they say afterward helped both teams.”

Coach Powers leaned forward, hands on his knobby knees, and said, “It's not happening.”

“But—”

“Hush now and do something you should do a little more of if you want to improve or learn anything while you're here—which means
listen
.”

Danny, both hands on his glass now, realized how hard he was squeezing it and put it down on the deck.

“The team isn't your problem,” Coach Powers said. “And I think you're an intelligent enough young man to know that.” Now he was talking in that soft voice of his that never meant good news. “Do you want me to be honest with you, or do you want me to be one of those modern coaches who'd rather hold your hand than teach you proper basketball?”

“Be honest,” Danny said.

Wondering as soon as he said that just how much honesty he actually wanted from this guy.

“The real problem here,” the coach said, “is that since you've been here, Danny, you've gotten a look into the future.” He paused. “
Your
future.”

It was the first time Coach Powers had used his first name.

“And what you've seen, with your own eyes,” he said, “is that this sport is going to break your heart eventually.”

Cabin 7 was on a hill overlooking the lake. In the distance, over the coach's shoulder, Danny could see a couple of rowboats. From the beach, he heard somebody laugh. A small plane flew overhead. When the plane disappeared, Danny heard the first crickets of the early evening.

Danny wasn't moving, wasn't saying anything, just waiting to see where the coach was going with this.

Coach Powers said, “I was never one of those coaches telling his players only what they wanted to hear, like coaching was some kind of popularity contest.”

All I wanted to do was get off your stupid team
, Danny thought.
Now I'm going to have to hear your life story.

Or mine.

“My dad says that sports always tells you the truth,” Danny said. “Whether you always want to hear it or not.”

“Oh, is that what your dad says?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we're not here to talk about your dad. We're here to talk about you,” Ed Powers said. “I don't want you to quit my team any more than I want you to quit this camp. And I'm not telling you that you can't be a fine player in high school. But—”

He stopped now. Came to a dead stop. Coach Powers did it on the court sometimes, as if he'd lost his place or had forgotten what he wanted to say next. The kids would just stand there and wait until he remembered what he wanted to say.

Finally he said, “What I guess I'm trying to say, in a nice way, is that you're probably never going to grow enough to get to where you want to be in basketball.”

“What about travel?” Danny said.

“That's the seventh-grade world, son. I'm talking about the real world.”

Danny put his head down, almost talking to himself as he said, “I'm a good player.”

“I'm not saying you're not,” he said. “And if sports were fair, and you were even close to being the size of the other boys, I'm sure you could shine. But sports aren't fair. And the other boys aren't your size. They're not just bigger, they're a lot bigger. And you see what's happening because of that, before we even start playing real games. You saw what happened out there today.”

Coach Powers said, “I'm only telling you this for your own good.”

Danny wanted to say something back to him. Tell him how wrong he was, that the problem was what he came here to talk about, that he was just on the wrong team. But he didn't. And knew why.

Here was a famous basketball coach, one he didn't even like, putting Danny's worst fears into words.

Saying them out loud.

“Danny,” Coach Powers said, “you can learn things here. I can teach you things if you'll let me. I just can't teach you to be as big as you need to be.”

The coach stood up then, his way of saying, Danny knew, that the visit and the conversation were coming to an end.

Almost over, but not quite.

Coach Powers said, “Let me leave you with one more thought I had which might sound crazy to you at first, but could be something for you to think on.”

“What?”

“Soccer.”

The word seemed to float there like one of the first fireflies of the night.

Coach Powers said, “I was only kidding that first day when I told you boys I was going to run you like soccer players. But the more I've been thinking about it, watching the way you can run, well, soccer's full of fast little guys like you.”

Danny stood now. He'd thought that Ollie Grey catching his shot that way, then the other guys laughing at him, was going to be the worst thing he heard today.

“You're telling me to…to find another sport?” he said.

Coach Powers put a hand on Danny's shoulder.

“I'm telling you to at least think about it,” he said.

D
ANNY WALKED BACK ALONG THE BEACH, STOPPING EVERY TEN
yards or so to skip another flat rock across the water. Pretending he was trying to skip a long bounce pass to somebody cutting for the basket.

Find another sport
, Coach Powers had said.

Not saying it in a mean way, the way he could get so mean on the court sometimes when you messed up.
That would almost have been better
, Danny told himself.

No, this was much worse, definitely.

He meant this.

His idea of finally being nice was telling Danny in a nice way that he couldn't play.

Danny reached down, found a smooth, flat rock, a perfect skipping rock, the kind you could bounce across the smooth surface of the water five or six times. But he threw it too hard, way too hard, so it dove into Coffee Lake and disappeared like a gull diving into the ocean back in Middletown.

Back home.

This sport will break your heart eventually,
Coach Powers had said.

Danny was back at the dock by now. It was starting to get dark, and he noticed the lights from what he was pretty sure was the girls' camp across the lake, the summer homes on both sides of it.

What if Coach Powers was right?

What if he was somebody telling him the truth, somebody not afraid to hurt little Danny Walker's feelings?

What if he was an adult who didn't think it was his job to make Danny go through life feeling special?

Okay, here was another what-if:

What if Ollie Grey wasn't even one of the best big guys in camp? What if there were guys a lot better than him? What was going to happen when Danny went up against them? Reach for the sky, his mom had always told him. Well, how had reaching for the sky worked out for him today, in front of what felt like the whole stupid camp?

When Danny had walked out of the gym, he'd briefly imagined himself as somebody who'd just been gotten good on
Punk'd
, imagined somebody running up and telling him it had been some kind of prank they'd pulled on him, that it was all just a big joke.

Only there were no television cameras, because the joke was on him.

He'd never quit anything in his life. He'd thought about it a couple of times. He'd never done it. He hadn't even quit piano that year his mom had made him take it.

But he was sure of something now.

He needed a ticket out of here.

 

He didn't have the whole plan worked out yet. Just the start of one. And the start of it was acting like he never wanted to leave Right Way, like he was a kid trying to make a team.

That's how hard he tried at every single clinic.

When a ball would bounce away from one of the coaches, Danny would sprint after it. When they'd ask for a volunteer to get back on defense for a three-on-two drill, his arm shot straight up in the air.

When they needed somebody to feed a shooter, he volunteered to do that, too.

At one point Tarik got with him on a water break.

“Yo,” Tarik said. “What kind of energy drink you got going for you today, that gnarly Red Bull?”

This was halfway through the defensive clinic.

“It's definitely more than Cocoa Puffs,” Will said. “Nobody gets that much of a chocolate buzz.”

Danny said to both of them, “You know what the great coaches say, right? You can't coach effort.”

Tarik staggered back then, looking to the sky, saying, “Kill me now, Lord. He's done turned into Coach Ed.”

In the afternoon, at practice with the Celtics, Danny was the same way he'd been at the clinics. Back home his dad would call him Charlie Hustle sometimes, explaining that that had been Pete Rose's nickname when he was a great hitter, before he gambled himself out of baseball, back when he was the kind of ballplayer all little guys wanted to be. Danny was Charlie Hustle today at Coach Powers's practice, diving for loose balls, playing defense as if his life depended on it, calling out switches louder than anybody on the team, making sure everybody on the second team ran every play exactly the way Coach wanted them to, being the first to give a high-five or a bump-fist when Tarik or Will or Alex would make a shot.

Let Coach Powers figure out if this was the old Danny Walker or the new one.

 

It happened about halfway through the scrimmage, with Nick Pinto and a buddy of his from Georgetown reffing, first team against the second team.

Danny had been guarding Cole Duncan to start. Will was on Rasheed, even though that was the world's worst possible matchup for Will; he didn't have the foot speed to keep up with somebody as quick with the ball as Rasheed Hill was. It was why the only time Danny had let Will get near Rasheed in the travel finals was on a double-team.

Now Rasheed was torching Will, both ends of the court, acting almost bored as he did. It was almost as if Coach Powers wanted to make Rasheed look even better than he usually did, and Will to look even worse.

It made Danny determined to get Will some open looks. So when Coach Powers motioned for Danny to call something himself coming out of a time-out, Danny told his guys they were going to run “Louisville,” a play that actually gave Danny some freedom with the ball. He was supposed to try to beat his man off the dribble, get to the middle, draw the defense to him, then turn and kick the ball out to Will beyond the three-point line.

It all worked to perfection. Except that Will Stoddard, who loved to shoot, who only played to shoot, whose only real basketball skill was shooting, decided to pass up the open shot and get closer, as if that would somehow make the shot more of a sure thing.

Bad idea.

Rasheed, who had switched over on Danny, switched back now and took the ball away like he was taking Will's lunch.

Took it and started the other way, with only Danny close enough to chase the play.

Ben Coltrane came flying out from under the basket on those long legs of his, filling the left lane, so Rasheed stayed on the right.

Two on one.

Danny was at their free throw line. Rasheed was about twenty-five feet from the basket now. Danny decided to force the action, maybe force a mistake.

Cover Rasheed or cover Ben.

He took a quick step toward Ben, and that made Rasheed slow up just slightly. As soon as Danny saw that, he moved back to his left, set himself to take the charge.

Taking a charge from Rasheed Hill, now there was something new and different.

Only this time it was different.

This time he wasn't just trying to draw a foul.

This time it wasn't one of those things that happened in the heat of the moment—you saw the guy coming, you reacted because that wasn't only the best way to stop him, it was the best way to get the ball back.

This time it was something Danny had been planning all day, just waiting for the right moment. One of the television guys had called him a magician when he and the Warriors finally made it to North Carolina for the semifinals that time. Called him the smallest basketball magician in America. Said it was the same with Danny Walker as it had been with his father, that sometimes he was so quick it was as if he made himself disappear along with the ball.

Yeah, that's me
, Danny thought, right before he got it again from Rasheed. Master of illusion.

Trying to make himself really disappear this time.

From this camp.

There was no knee to the chest this time, just because there wasn't enough time for Rasheed to elevate that quickly, or enough room between them. What Rasheed really should have done was pass the ball to Ben as he avoided Danny. Ben was so open he could have headed the ball through the basket.

Danny braced himself and Rasheed hit him ten times harder than he had the other day. Both of them went down this time, Danny landing on the court and Rasheed landing on him.

“Come on, man,” Rasheed said, rolling over and off Danny and then getting to his feet. “Is that flop all you got?”

Then Rasheed saw what everybody else on the court saw, Danny rolling around on the ground, holding his right knee.

Holding what he'd decided was his only ticket out of here.

 

“Stop wiggling around. You'll only make it worse,” Rasheed said.

Coach Powers told him the same thing and went to get a towel for Danny to rest his head on. Then Tarik was there, kneeling next to him, saying, “Listen to the man,” then getting close to his ear and whispering, “for once.”

Danny lay back down. He saw Will standing next to Tarik, just staring at Danny, not saying anything. For once.

To both of them Danny said, “My knee's killing me.”

“Maybe it's just one of those stingers,” Tarik said. “Yeah, I'll bet that's exactly what it is.”

“No,” Danny said, wincing as he tried to bend his leg. “I did something bad to it.”

Coach Powers was back, with the towel and a cold bottle of water from the ice bucket. “The doctor's on his way. Don't even try to bend that leg till he gets here.”

Then he shooed the rest of the players away. “You boys go take a water break now,” he said, like he'd forgotten to be tough for a couple of minutes. “It might be the last one I give you for the rest of the day.”

Danny closed his eyes, still feeling sick. When he opened them, Rasheed Hill was hunched down next to him.

“Wasn't a dirty play,” he said.

Danny said, “Wasn't even a charge. My feet were still moving when you ran into me.”

Rasheed said, “Just so's we're straight,” as if he wasn't leaving the area until they settled this. “The other day, when I knocked you down? In my mind? We were even after that, for the flop in the finals.”

Danny put his hand out. Rasheed grabbed it and pulled him up into a sitting position. “I hear you,” Danny said.

“This today was different,” Rasheed said. “I thought you were going over to cover Train.” It was their nickname for Ben Coltrane.

“We're good,” Danny said. “It wasn't your fault, it was mine.”

Rasheed walked away.

Longest conversation we've ever had
, Danny thought.

Dr. Fred Bradley, who looked young enough to be a counselor, was one of the Celtics' team doctors. He gently probed around Danny's right knee, remarking on how it was swelled up already, asking if this hurt or that hurt. Danny cried out in pain when he touched the swollen place on the outside of the knee.

“Let's get you back to the infirmary so we can take a picture of this,” Dr. Bradley said.

He helped Danny up, told him to see how much pressure he could put on the injured leg. Danny said it hurt a lot, but they didn't need a stretcher or anything.

Danny said to Will and Tarik, “I'll check you guys later.”

Tarik said, “Word.”

Will, standing next to Nick Pinto, didn't say anything.

With Dr. Bradley at his side, Danny limped away from the court. As he did, he heard the rest of the Celtics begin to applaud.

It only made Danny feel sicker.