“Hey, Coach, is that your chiropractor?” the big guy asked.
They laughed.
“No, this is Frank Snake Church. He’s going to run a little bit with you guys.”
Wearing black jeans, a black T-shirt, and white basketball shoes, Frank looked like a coffee-shop waiter.
“Hey, Coach, is he going to run in his street clothes?”
“He can talk,” Coach said. “Ask him.”
“Yo, old-timer,” said the point guard. “Is this one of those Make-A-Wish things? Are we your dying request?”
They laughed.
“Yes,” Frank said.
They stopped laughing.
“Shit, man,” the point guard said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean no harm. What you got, the cancer?”
“No, I’m not dying. It’s for my father and mother. They’re dead, and I’m trying to remember them.”
Uncomfortable, the players shuffled their feet and looked to their coach for guidance.
“Frank, are you okay?” asked the coach, wishing he hadn’t let this nostalgic stunt go so far.
“I want to be honest with all of you,” Frank said. “I’m a little crazy. Basketball has made me a little crazy. And that’s probably a little scary to you guys. I know you all grew up with tons of crazy, and you’re playing ball to get away from it. But I don’t mean to harm anybody. I’m a good man, I think, and I want to be a better man. The thing is, I don’t think I was a good son when my mother and father were alive, so I want to be a good son now that they’re dead. I think I can do that by playing ball with you guys. By playing on this team.”
“You think you’re good enough to make the team?” the point guard asked. He tried to hide his smile.
Frank smiled and laughed. “Hey, I know I’m a fat old man, but that just means your feelings are going to be really hurt when a fat old man kicks your ass.”
The players and Coach laughed.
“Old man,” the point guard said. “I didn’t know they trash-talked in your day. Man, what did they do it with? Cave paintings?”
“Just give me the ball and we’ll run,” Frank said.
The point guard tossed the ball to Frank.
“Check it in,” Frank said and tossed it back.
“All right,” said the point guard. “I’ll take the bench, and you can have the other starters. Make it fair that way.”
“One of you has to sit.”
“I’ll sit,” the big guy said and stood with his coach.
“We got our teams,” the point guard said and tossed the ball back to Frank. “Check.”
Frank dribbled the ball to the top of the key, turned, and discovered the point guard five feet away from him.
“Are you going to guard me?” Frank asked.
“Do I need to guard you?” the point guard asked.
“I don’t want no charity,” Frank said.
“I’ll guard you when you prove I need to guard you.”
“All right, guard this,” Frank said and shot a jumper that missed the rim and backboard by three feet.
“Man oh man, I don’t need to guard you,” the point guard said. “Gravity is going to take care of you.”
The point guard took the inbound pass and dribbled downcourt. Frank tried to stay in front of the little guard, but he was too quick. He burned past Frank, tossed a lazy pass to a forward, and pointed at Frank when the forward dunked the ball.
“Were you guarding me?” he asked Frank. “I just want to be sure you know you’re guarding me. I’m your man. Do you understand that? Do you understand the basic principles of defense?”
Frank didn’t respond. Twice up and down the court, he was already breathing hard and needed to conserve his energy.
Frank set a back pick for his center, intending to free him for a shot, but Frank was knocked over instead and hit the ground hard. By the time Frank got to his feet, the point guard had stolen the ball and raced down the court for an easy layup.
“Hey, Coach,” the point guard shouted as he ran by Frank. “It’s only four on five out here. We need another player. Oh, wait! There is another player out here. I just didn’t see him until right now.”
“Shut up,” Frank said.
“Oh, am I getting to you?” The point guard turned to jaw with his teammates, and Frank broke for the hoop. He caught a bounce pass, stepped past a forward, and hit a five-footer.
“Two for Snake Church,” said Coach from the sidelines.
“That’s the only hoop you’re getting,” the point guard said and hurried the ball down the court. He spun and went for the crossover dribble, but Frank reached in and knocked the ball away. One of Frank’s teammates picked up the loose ball and tossed it back to Frank.
“Come on, come on, come on,” the point guard shouted in Frank’s ear as he ran alongside him.
Frank was slower than the young man, but he was stronger, so he dug an elbow into the kid’s ribs, pushed him away, and rose up for a thirty-foot jumper, an impossible shot. And bang, he nailed it!
“Three points!” shouted Coach.
“You fouled me twice,” the point guard said as he brought the ball back toward Frank.
“Call it, then.”
“No, man, I don’t need it,” the point guard said and spun past Frank and drove down the middle of the key. Frank was fooled, but he dove after the point guard, hit the ball from behind, and sent it skidding toward one of his teammates, a big guard, who raced down the court for an easy layup.
“What’s the score?” the point guard shouted out. He was angry now.
“Five to four, for Snake Church.”
“What are we playing to?” Frank asked. He struggled for oxygen. Lactic acid burned holes in his thighs.
“Eleven,” said the point guard.
Frank hoped he could make it that far.
“All right, all right, you can play ball for an old man,” the point guard said. “But you ain’t touching the rock again. It’s all over for you.”
He feinted left, feinted right, and Frank got his feet all twisted up and fell down again as the point guard raced by him and missed a ten-foot jumper. As his forward grabbed the rebound, Frank staggered to his feet and ran down the court on the slowest fast break in the history of basketball. He caught a pass just inside the half-court line and was too tired to dribble any farther, so he launched a thirty-five-foot set shot.
“Three!” shouted the coach, suddenly loving this sport more than he had ever loved it before. “That’s eight to four, another three and Frank wins.”
“I can’t believe this,” the point guard said. He’d been humiliated, and he sought revenge. He barreled into Frank, sending him staggering back, and pulled up for his own three-pointer. Good! Eight to seven!
“It’s comeback time, baby,” the point guard said as he shadowed Frank down the court. Frank could barely move. His arms and legs burned with pain. His back ached. He figured he’d torn a muscle near his spine. His lungs felt like two sacks of rocks. But he was happy! He was joyous! He caught a bounce pass from a teammate and faced the point guard.
“No, no, no, old man, you’re not winning this game on me.”
Smiling, Frank head-faked, dribbled right, planted for a jumper, and screamed in pain as his knee exploded. He’d never felt pain this terrible. He grabbed his leg and rolled on the floor.
Coach ran over and held him down. “Don’t move, don’t move,” he said.
“It hurts, it hurts,” Frank said.
“I know,” Coach said. “Just let me look at it.”
As the players circled around them, Coach examined Frank’s knee.
“Is it bad?” Frank asked. He wanted to scream from the pain.
“Really bad,” Coach said. “It’s over. It’s over for this.”
Frank rolled onto his face and screamed. He pounded the floor like a drum and sang:
Mother, Father, way, ya, hi, yo, good-bye, good-bye. Mother, Father, way, ya, hi, yo, good-bye, good-bye. Mother, Father, way, ya, hi, yo, good-bye, good-bye. Mother, Father, way, ya, hi, yo, good-bye, good-bye. Mother, Father, way, ya, hi, yo, good-bye, good-bye.
Coach and the players stared at Frank. What could they say?
“Hey, old man,” the point guard said. “That was a good run.”
Yes, it was, Frank thought, and he wondered what he was going to do next. He wondered if this pain would ever subside. He wondered if he’d ever step onto a basketball court again.
“I’m going to call an ambulance,” Coach said. “Get him in the training room.”
As Coach ran toward his office, the point guard and the big guy picked up Frank and carried him across the gym.
“You’re going to be okay,” the point guard said. “You hear me, old man? You’re going to be fine.”
“I know it,” Frank said. “I know.”
THE LONE RANGER AND TONTO FISTFIGHT IN HEAVEN
Too hot to sleep so I walked down to the Third Avenue 7-Eleven for a Creamsicle and the company of a graveyard-shift cashier. I know that game. I worked graveyard for a Seattle 7-Eleven and got robbed once too often. The last time the bastard locked me in the cooler. He even took my money and basketball shoes.
The graveyard-shift worker in the Third Avenue 7-Eleven looked like they all do. Acne scars and a bad haircut, work pants that showed off his white socks, and those cheap black shoes that have no support. My arches still ache from my year at the Seattle 7-Eleven.
“Hello,” he asked when I walked into his store. “How you doing?’
I gave him a half-wave as I headed back to the freezer. He looked me over so he could describe me to the police later. I knew the look. One of my old girlfriends said I started to look at her that way, too. She left me not long after that. No, I left her and don’t blame her for anything. That’s how it happened. When one person starts to look at another like a criminal, then the love is over. It’s logical.
“I don’t trust you,” she said to me. “You get too angry.”
She was white and I lived with her in Seattle. Some nights we fought so bad that I would just get in my car and drive all night, only stop to fill up on gas. In fact, I worked the graveyard shift to spend as much time away from her as possible. But I learned all about Seattle that way, driving its back ways and dirty alleys.
Sometimes, though, I would forget where I was and get lost. I’d drive for hours, searching for something familiar. Seems like I’d spent my whole life that way, looking for anything I recognized. Once, I ended up in a nice residential neighborhood and somebody must have been worried because the police showed up and pulled me over.
“What are you doing out here?” the police officer asked me as he looked over my license and registration.
“I’m lost.”
“Well, where are you supposed to be?” he asked me, and I knew there were plenty of places I wanted to be, but none where I was supposed to be.
“I got in a fight with my girlfriend,” I said. “I was just driving around, blowing off steam, you know?”
“Well, you should be more careful where you drive,” the officer said. “You’re making people nervous. You don’t fit the profile of the neighborhood.”
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t really fit the profile of the country but I knew it would just get me into trouble.
“Can I help you?” the 7-Eleven clerk asked me loudly, searching for some response that would reassure him that I wasn’t an armed robber. He knew this dark skin and long, black hair of mine was dangerous. I had potential.
“Just getting a Creamsicle,” I said after a long interval. It was a sick twist to pull on the guy, but it was late and I was bored. I grabbed my Creamsicle and walked back to the counter slowly, scanned the aisles for effect. I wanted to whistle low and menacingly but I never learned to whistle.
“Pretty hot out tonight?” he asked, that old rhetorical weather bullshit question designed to put us both at ease.
“Hot enough to make you go crazy,” I said and smiled. He swallowed hard like a white man does in those situations. I looked him over. Same old green, red, and white 7-Eleven jacket and thick glasses. But he wasn’t ugly, just misplaced and marked by loneliness. If he wasn’t working there that night, he’d be at home alone, flipping through channels and wishing he could afford HBO or Showtime.
“Will this be all?” he asked me, in that company effort to make me do some impulse shopping. Like adding a clause onto a treaty.
We’ll take Washington and Oregon and you get six pine trees and a brand-new Chrysler Cordoba
. I knew how to make and break promises.
“No,” I said and paused. “Give me a Cherry Slushie, too.”
“What size?” he asked, relieved.
“Large,” I said, and he turned his back to me to make the drink. He realized his mistake but it was too late. He stiffened, ready for the gunshot or the blow behind the ear. When it didn’t come, he turned back to me.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “What size did you say.”
“Small,” I said and changed the story.
“But I thought you said large.”
“If you knew I wanted a large, then why did you ask me again?” I asked him and laughed. He looked at me, couldn’t decide if I was giving him serious shit or just goofing. There was something about him I liked, even if it was three in the morning and he was white.