Summer Ball (16 page)

He knew that was the way he had to approach things the rest of the way, do his best not to mess up, on or off the court, maybe even get another chance to make a hero play.

No such luck.

The very next day he was in Jeff LeBow's office. In the office and in trouble.

T
HE FIGHT STARTED WITH
L
AMAR TAKING
Z
ACH'S BALL.

Danny had found Zach shooting by himself on a half-court nobody ever used on the woods side of Gampel. A lot of guys, as usual, were at the counselors' game, but Zach wasn't interested in watching the counselors play. If he could catch part of one of Danny's games, he would, just because it was Danny, because he'd use almost any excuse to hang around with Danny during the day, even though they were bunking together at night.

The rest of the time Zach Fox just wanted to go play.

The kid who'd showed up as the unhappiest camper at Right Way was happy as long as he had his ball and enough room to dribble and shoot it.

He was more interested in playing than he was in eating or sleeping or hanging with kids his own age. Danny still wasn't sure how much Zach loved camp. But as much as he still liked to complain about being here, he couldn't hide how much he loved basketball. Clinics, practices, games, it didn't matter. He was into it now. He had ended up on what sounded like the best team in the eleven-and twelve-year-old division. He liked his coach, an assistant from Northeastern University in Boston, a lot. Since that night when Danny had heard him crying himself to sleep, he had never said another word about leaving.

Zach was pretty much having the kind of camp Danny had been hoping to have, at least before Coach Powers came into his life.

On this night, he was working on his outside shot, something he'd turned into his summer job, shooting it correctly now, not launching it the way he had before he got to Right Way, the way Danny used to.

Danny was helping him, calling out pointers, mostly feeding him the ball, feeling like he owed Zach one for the day when Zach had stood there holding up that broom.

That's when Lamar came along.

Right away, Lamar started calling Zach Frodo, asking if he was practicing for the championship of Middle Earth, ignoring Danny at first, but clearly directing his insults at both of them.

Tarik would say later that he was surprised Lamar had even seen a
Lord of the Rings
movie. “Or understood it,” Tarik said.

Zach tried to ignore Lamar, just kept shooting the ball.

But Lamar, being Lamar, wouldn't let up.

“How come you don't have those big Frodo feet?” he asked Zach. “Like you was wearin' Charlie Barkley's real sneakers, instead of those baby shoes you got on yourself?”

Now Danny said, “Leave him alone, Lamar.”

Lamar looked at him. “What are you, his lucky charm? You do look a little like that leprechaun guy on the side of the box.”

“Seriously, Lamar, you must have something better to do,” Danny said.

“Listen to the boy beat me with his little tricked-up play. You still feelin' all puffed out about that?”

“I don't get puffed out,” Danny said.

“I saw you after the game.”

Danny couldn't help himself. “I was just trying to be more like you.”

“You want to be more like me?
Grow,
little man.”

“Let it go, Lamar.”

Zach was still trying to pretend Lamar wasn't even there. So he took a couple of dribbles, shot the ball.

Big mistake.

Lamar went and got the rebound.

Looked at the ball and saw Zach's name written on it in Magic Marker.

“Your own little ball,” Lamar said.

He bounced the ball a couple of times, then said, “Oh, looky here—it needs air.”

Zach said it was fine the way it was, it had never needed air from the day he got it and could he have it back?

“No, midget,” Lamar said. “I can always tell when a ball's flat, and this one is flat.” Then he walked over to the little storage box that was at all the outdoor courts. Every box had pumps and needles inside, along with a bunch of indoor/outdoor balls.

“It's fine, really,” Zach said.

“Can't a brother try to help?” Lamar said, a pump in his hands.

He stuck the needle into Zach's ball, pumped a couple of times, then smiled at Zach as he broke the needle off, knowing it was going to be stuck inside Zach's ball for good.

Every kid in the world knew what
that
meant.

The ball was ruined.

Forever.

Only then did Lamar Parrish give Zach his ball.

Zach stepped back and whipped it right at Lamar's head, the ball either catching Lamar on the side of his head or his shoulder, Danny couldn't tell for sure from the side. But wherever it hit, it made Lamar real mad, because he grabbed Zach by his shoulders and started shaking him, hard. Zach's head bounced around like he was a bobblehead doll.

Then Lamar lifted him up by his T-shirt, so the two of them were eye-to-eye for a moment.

Danny'd seen enough.

“Put him down, Lamar,” he said, trying to sound calmer, more in control, than he really was.

Lamar, still holding Zach in midair even as Zach twisted and kicked his legs around, as if this took no effort on Lamar's part, laughed and said, “Right.”

“I mean it,” Danny said.

“He asked for it,” Lamar said. “You doin' the same?”

“Guess so.”

The last fight he'd gotten into, what he promised his mom and dad was the last fight he'd
ever
get into, was with a Middletown kid named Teddy (the Moron) Moran, who'd played for the other travel team in town, the Vikings, the team that had cut Danny. But Teddy was more mouth than anything else, more a threat to your ears than any other part of you.

Lamar Parrish was different. A whole lot different. A lot bigger than Teddy, a lot stronger.

A lot meaner.

“You want to pick on somebody, go back to picking on me,” Danny said, not getting any closer. He didn't want it to look like he was trying to get up in Lamar's face, but he wasn't going anywhere, either. He felt his fists clench at his sides and hoped he wouldn't have to use them.

Because if he did, Lamar was going to use
his.

Lamar put Zach down but kept a hand on him, the way you did on defense when you wanted to watch the ball and keep contact with the man you were guarding at the same time.

Zach said to Danny, “I can fight my own battles.”

It made Lamar laugh. “Right,” he said. “If you stand on the other Hobbit's shoulders, maybe.” And then, in a move so fast Danny almost missed it, Lamar took his big right hand, the one he had on Zach, and flicked it into his stomach like a jab.

Zach Fox doubled over and sat down, gasping for breath, tears in his eyes.

Lamar looked down at him and said, “What are you, a girl?”

Without thinking, Danny charged Lamar then, lowering his shoulder and grabbing him around the waist, surprising him enough that they both went down.

Lamar rolled back up on his knees first, staring down at the dirt all over tonight's Kobe jersey, the purple road version, as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Then he looked down at the blood on the back of his right hand where he must have landed.

He looked at Danny, this crazed expression in his eyes and said, “This is
so
on, little man.” Then: “Get up.”

Danny did, not knowing what else to do under the circumstances.

He had no chance against this guy. He never should have gotten him madder than he already was, but he couldn't run away. Next to him he could hear Zach still choking for air, but he was afraid now to take his eyes off Lamar.

Who took a step now, like that quick first step he had in ball, drew back his bloody hand the way tennis players did when they were getting ready to hit a backhand.

Danny froze. Just stood there frozen and closed his eyes, waiting to get backhanded right across the court.

Only the blow never came.

“Get off me!”

When Danny opened his eyes, there was Rasheed Hill behind Lamar, one arm around his waist, the other one with a pretty good choke hold around Lamar's neck.

“Get off me,” he said again, weaker this time, because now he was the one who was having trouble getting enough air.

“Never cared for him much,” Rasheed said to Danny. “Or his game.”

“'Sheed?” Lamar said in what voice he had.

“What?”

Lamar acted like he wanted to get loose, but Danny could see his heart wasn't really in it, not with the grip Rasheed had on his neck.

Lamar said, “You're takin'
his
side?”

“Yeah,” Rasheed said, “I guess I am.”

L
AMAR HAD GONE INTO
J
EFF
L
E
B
OW'S OFFICE FIRST WHILE
D
ANNY
and Zach and Rasheed waited outside. When he was finished, Jeff walked him out, to make sure there were no further incidents. It didn't stop Lamar from walking past them and saying “this ain't over” under his breath.

Now the three of them were in folding chairs set up across from Jeff's desk.

Principal's office, summer-camp version.

“Before any of you guys say anything,” Jeff said, “you might as well know Lamar's side of the story. Basically, he says that Zach started it by whipping the ball at him, Danny blindsided him with what he called a block below the waist, then Rasheed jumped him from behind before those two counselors broke it up. There you have it.”

Zach started to jump out of his chair, but Danny stuck out his arm, turning himself into a seat belt.

“Let me do the talking,” he said to Zach.

To Jeff: “You're joking, right?”

“Do I look like I'm joking?”

“Mr. LeBow,” Danny said, “that is, like, a total screaming
Liar, Liar
–like lie.”

Zach couldn't restrain himself any longer, even if he did manage to stay in his chair. “He took my favorite ball away from me, one I brought from home, broke the needle in it on purpose—”

“He says it was an accident,” Jeff said.

“—then he punched me in the stomach,” Zach said, face red. “That's when Danny charged him.”

“Listen, I know that Lamar can be a pain in the butt sometimes,” Jeff said. “But he's the one with the bruised hand, and he's the one who was in the choke hold when my guys came by.”

Now Rasheed spoke. “One he had coming to him.”

“Three of you, one of him,” Jeff LeBow said. “Just doing the math makes you guys look bad.”

“Mr. LeBow,” Danny said. “Do you think Zach or I would go looking for a fight with somebody Lamar's size?”

“Happens like this all the time in games,” Rasheed said. “Guy hits you with a cheap shot, only the ref doesn't see that one. All he sees is when you go back at him.”

“Then they make the only call they can,” Jeff said.

Rasheed stood up now, pointed casually at Danny. “What he said happened, did. Do what you gotta do. I already did.”

Then he walked out of the office.

The regular season at Right Way lasted fourteen games. There were eight teams in their league, so you played the other seven twice. The play-offs started the middle of the last week, which is when other college coaches and prep coaches from around the country showed up to scout.

Danny, Zach and Rasheed were suspended for two games each. In a short season like this, they all knew it was a lot.

Lamar got nothing. In the end, it was their word against his. Rasheed didn't help matters by saying if he wasn't worried about breaking his hand, he wouldn't have just grabbed Lamar when he wound up to hit Danny, he would have dropped him.

In addition to getting the two games, Danny, Zach and Rasheed got two days of helping clean out the bathrooms in the bunkhouses while the afternoon games were going on.

“I don't even like going into those bathrooms when I
have
to,” Zach said.

“It could've been worse,” Danny said. “They could've kicked us out.”

“Nothing's worse than cleaning toilets,” Zach said. “Nothing.”

It was the next morning before breakfast; they'd just been told their punishment in Jeff LeBow's office. He said they could participate in the morning clinics but weren't allowed to practice with their teams in the afternoon.

“That's when we'll be polishing toilets 'stead of our games,” Rasheed said.

“I'm doing the showers,” Zach said.

He went off to breakfast. Rasheed said he wasn't hungry, he was going to shoot around a little before clinics started. Danny asked if he wanted company, sure Rasheed would say no.

But to his surprise, Rasheed said, “Come along, if you want.” Then he said he wanted to use the bad court by the parking lots. That way nobody would bother them.

Danny smiled, told him there was no such thing as a bad court as long as the rims had nets.

“Maybe in Middletown,” Rasheed said. “Try coming to Baltimore sometime. Might change your mind.”

The two of them cut around the main building, grabbed a ball somebody had left lying in the grass. Danny and the kid at camp he thought hated his guts the most.

When they got to the bad court they played some H-O-R-S-E, then a game of Around the World, then 21. When they got tired of games, they did something else Danny thought they'd never do.

Talked.

 

Rasheed said that most people never got past the way he looked, the hair and the tats. That's what he called them. Tats. Said that even though he was a kid, people looked at him and thought he was just like Allen Iverson. Or maybe some gangsta rapper who could play himself some ball.

“Do the tattoos hurt as much as guys say?” Danny said. “When you get them, I mean?”

Rasheed said you get used to it. He said his mom finally said he could get a few, but the deal was, he had to get As in school. Rasheed said he thought that was a fair trade. Danny pointed to one on his upper right arm that said “Artis” and asked who that was.

“My dad. He died when I was eight.”

“Oh,” Danny said, not knowing what else to say.

“He got shot.”

Now Danny
really
didn't know what to say. He was afraid that if he asked how, he might find out something about Rasheed's dad he didn't want to know. Or be asking Rasheed to tell something he really didn't want to tell.

“Wasn't what you think,” Rasheed said, as if he'd seen something on Danny's face. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, is all. Coming home from work one night when some guys from a couple blocks up decided to rob a liquor store and started shooting.”

“I'm so sorry,” Danny said, picturing it like some scene from a movie.

Rasheed said, “My mom says that's the big cause of death where we live, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

They sat on a rock above the court, Rasheed telling Danny that basketball was going to be a way out of the neighborhood for him and his mom.

“Do people still call it the 'hood?” Danny said.

Rasheed almost smiled. “Only saltines from the suburbs.”

“Saltines?”

“Little white guys from Middletown, USA.”

“Hey,” Danny said, “I didn't call it the 'hood, I was just sayin'.”

Rasheed said he'd had chances to move, like to the school Lamar went off to, but that his mom had a good job working at a bakery, and she wanted him to go to Dunbar High, where his big brother had gone.

“That's where Sam Cassell went,” Danny said.

“You know that?”

“Even saltines know stuff,” Danny said.

Rasheed Hill turned and gave Danny some fist to bump.

“Your mom sounds cool,” Danny said, thinking this was something else they had in common besides ball, cool moms.

“She's the one first told me that coming from a single-parent home wasn't some kind of death sentence,” Rasheed said.

Danny wanted to say he'd been in a single-parent home for a long time when his dad was away but knew that he'd sound plain old stupid if he tried to compare his situation, his life, to Rasheed's. So he just fell back on the same thing he always did. “You want to shoot some more?”

“I'm good just chilling.” Rasheed shook his head. “You believe we got two games and Lamar got nothin'?”

“You know,” Danny said, “the first night I met you guys, I thought you and him were tight.”

“That's what he wanted people to think, that me and him are boys. But we never were, even back in Baltimore. He just got with me that night walking back from dinner. I shouldn't have let him diss you down like that.”

Now he really smiled. It caught Danny off balance, how happy it made him look.

“But I was still mad at you because you flopped,” he said.

“Didn't flop,” Danny said.

“You say.”

“Because I didn't.”

Rasheed put his thumbs together, stuck up his index fingers. The universal sign for “whatever.”

“Now who's acting like a saltine?” Danny said. “But this isn't a whatever. If I say I didn't flop, I didn't.” He stood up, fired up all of a sudden. “We gotta be clear on this if we're gonna be friends. If it's about basketball and I say something, you have to believe me. I got position, he made the call, I took the hit. If the ref had called it the other way, I would've had to accept it. Okay?”

Rasheed gave him that sleepy look and then said, “Okay.”

They bumped fists again.

“Maybe,” Rasheed said, “we're more alike than anybody'd ever think.”

In the distance, they could hear the sound of Jeff LeBow talking into his bullhorn. At this time of the morning, it usually meant he was telling guys coming out of breakfast they had five minutes to get to their first clinic.

Danny got up, grabbed the ball from where it sat at Rasheed's feet, went out onto the bad court, bounced the ball between his legs, reached behind his back and caught it, bounced it through again without looking down.

Rasheed motioned for the ball. He spun it on his right index finger, rolled it down his arm, bent over so it rolled on his shoulders behind his head. The ball seemed to defy gravity as it went up his left arm until Rasheed was spinning it on the index finger of his left hand.

Danny felt like he was at the Globetrotters.

Finally Rasheed flipped the ball into the air, headed it into the air like a soccer player, watched along with Danny as it hit the backboard just right and went through the net, like he'd been practicing this shot his whole life.

“Let's get out of here,” Rasheed said. “We're in enough trouble, we don't want to be late for clinics.”

“I still owe you one for Lamar,” Danny said as they cut back across the parking lot.

“Just play good when you get the chance,” he said. “No way Lamar Parrish is gonna win the championship of this place.”

“I don't play enough to make a difference.”

“Not yet.”

“Well, you must know something I don't.”

“Not about basketball I don't,” Rasheed said. He stopped and gave Danny the kind of shove guys gave each other sometimes. A good shove. “It comes to ball, you're just like me.”

This time Danny knew what to say.

“Thank you.”

“We're boys now,” Rasheed said, and something about the way he said it let Danny know the conversation was over.

They walked across one parking lot, then another, Danny dribbling the ball for a while, then handing it to Rasheed, letting him dribble it, back and forth that way until they were back in the middle of the morning action at Right Way.

Him and Rasheed.

Boys now.