Game (12 page)

“How you feeling?” Fletch called over to me. He was wearing the biggest smile I had ever seen on him.

“I feel good.”

M
om had floured some chicken in the morning, and when we got home, she deep-fried it and we had it along with some homemade French fries and green peas.

“Everybody was just looking at you and hanging on everything you did!” Mom said. “You don't know how proud of you I was.”

“Didn't I tell you that Drew is the man?” Jocelyn had a chicken wing in her hand as she talked. “When he came out on the court for the second half, I could see he was going to take care of business. What did you think, Pops?”

“He was okay,” Pops said.

“What you mean,
okay
?” Mom put her hands on the tops of her thighs. “You think he was just
okay
?”

“Drew, I don't know that much about ball playing,” Pops said. “But I was sitting in the stands and watching all the people watching you, and it was like…a real good feeling. You did some play and this man sitting next to me got all excited…”

Pops started tearing up.

“You okay, Pops?” Jocelyn asked.

“Yeah, I'm okay,” Pops said. “You know, I never had nothing like that in my life. People cheering. Some people cheering for the other team. What you were doing was important. I was thinking about you going to college and all, and it means a lot to me. You being my boy and all.”

“How about me?” Jocelyn asked. “I don't count because I'm a girl?”

“No, you count, honey,” Pops said. “But—you know, you're smart and everything.”

“Yo, you mean I'm not smart enough to go to college?” I put on a mean face.

Pops looked at me and started to say something,
but then he got choked up and just gave my arm a little push.

After supper I went to my room and called Ruffy. His mom said he was in the bathroom and he'd call me back. I had just hung up when Jocelyn knocked and, before I could tell her to come in, had framed herself in the doorway.

“You want me to stand here and adore you or anything?” she asked.

“Hey, you're looking pretty good today,” I said.

“Yes, I know. As soon as you go off to college, all the boys are going to be chasing me like anything,” she said. “I'm going to be like a defenseless little girl running across the ice to the promised land, and they'll be after me like those mean old hounds, sniffing out my beautiful self.”

“You know, you really ought to take some self-confidence lessons,” I said.

“If you feel as good as you look like you're feeling, you ought to put it in a bottle or something and sell it on eBay,” she said.

“I feel like going outside and telling everybody about the games.”

“So why don't you?” Jocelyn's eyebrows came
together. “They need to hear some good news in this neighborhood.”

I felt a little stupid taking the elevator downstairs just to tell somebody how good I felt, but I did anyway. There were two guys on the stoop, but I didn't know them. One of them looked sleepy, or maybe even high. Just seeing him started me coming down off my good feeling.

“Yo, Blood, I got them CDs you been looking for, man,” he said. “I got some DVDs, two smoking iPods, and a whole lot of watches. What you need today?”

“I'm good,” I said. “Don't need nothing.”

“You know I ain't selling nothing but some bargains,” the guy said. “All the latest jams…”

“No, I'm good,” I said again.

The dude nodded, and he and his boy stepped down from the stoop and started up the street. The tax-preparing place hadn't been open for a week, and the guys standing in front of it had started a small fire in a trash can. It wasn't that cold, but there was a slight chill in the air.

The two guys from the stoop stopped to talk with the others, and I watched as they showed them the
CDs and stuff they were selling.

What I wished was that they were all into playing ball and wanted to hear about how Baldwin had won the games and how well I thought I had done. But that wasn't what was going down. What they were doing was getting on with their lives, dealing with the corner business, dealing with whatever they had to sell or buy on their market to get money for whatever they needed to be doing, or thought they needed to be doing, with their lives.

In a way it was like a bunch of guys in a game. They were falling behind every minute that passed, but they had lost interest in the score. It was as if they were just a ton behind and had given up on the win. And maybe deep inside they didn't want to peep the score, maybe they knew what was happening but just didn't want to think about it anymore. I could understand that. I had played enough ball in my life, and was deep enough into my game to know I had to be in the hunt for a win or I could lose who I was. And once I lost who I was, my inner me, then all the CDs and all the iPods and all the bling in the world wasn't going to make it right.

The strange thing was that everybody was feeling
the same thing, that there was a huge game going on, and that the game was going to decide who was a winner and who lost. But so many of the brothers on the corner didn't have a play. They were out buying their uniforms, their gold chains, and the fancy clothes like they were real players, but they knew better. Even when they angled into their best gangster lean, it was just a pose. There was never going to be a jump ball. I could feel for them because they were just like me in most ways, thinking that everybody should have a number, everybody should have the same playing time, and knowing it wasn't going to happen.

I thought about Tony. I wondered—when he was sitting in his room at night, in the darkness and alone with his thoughts, did he think he still had a win? I wondered if he thought back to the time when he was playing ball and thought about what might have been. People checking out Tony, the lawyers, the police, all figured he had just blown his chance. The game had been on the line and he had been all by himself and blown the layup. But for most of the people in the hood it wasn't like that at all. It was about the mystery of the game and not figuring out
the rules until it was too late to cop the W and too late for the big comeback.

 

When we got to the arena the next day for the final playoff game, I was about as nervous as I could get. To make it worse, there was a television crew there and a whole section of photographers. Tomas's mother had come, and she stood up and waved to me. Across from the television cameras there was a big banner that spelled out L-A-N-E.

Everybody knew Franklin K. Lane High School. Little kids in Brooklyn who wanted to play ball would hang around their school yard to show off their stuff. You had to play good team ball to stay with their squad, and you always had to look over your shoulder to see who was sneaking up on your position. I had even thought of going there, but Ruffy didn't want to play in Brooklyn and both of us had wanted to play at the same school that Tony had done his thing in.

“There aren't any dragons on their team,” House said. “Nobody who's going to eat us up. But every player on their team has talent, and we're going to have to play both ways—offense and defense—if
we're going to walk away with the championship. Nobody brought us here but our own efforts. Hard work and talent got us here, and it can take us to the next level. So let's get it done!”

When the teams came out, the refs had us all shake hands. The dude I was up against had fat clammy hands. He was younger than me, but he was big.

Ernie got the tap, brought the ball up to the midcourt line, and got double-teamed right away. I came over, got a jump pass, and made a quick move to the basket. My man stayed with me as I passed the key, but he didn't react when I dished the ball in to Ruffy deep. Ruffy took the ball up, got away with a push-off, and made the deuce.

Their point guard brought the ball down really fast, and our guys were hustling to get back. My man ran me into a pick, but I recovered and got to him. The ball came in to the man who had picked me, and he made an easy two.

We brought the ball down again, with them stopping the ball really high. We ran a play along the baseline with Ruffy trying to pick Tomas's man, but their center slowed Tomas down with an elbow and then stole the pass when Ernie tried to hit Ruffy
again. Okay, they were sharp.

The Lane players were flat-out good. They played like they were going to business. All they needed were some attaché cases.

At the quarter they were ahead 19–14. Fletch said they had used nine guys in the first quarter.

“They're outhustling us on offense,” House said. “They're bringing the ball down faster than any team we've faced. On defense they're solid, but nothing special. We need to tighten up our defense and keep them off the boards.”

I hadn't thought much about the boards, but we were only getting one shot most of the time.

Ernie hit a trey to start the second quarter, and when they got a backcourt violation, he hit another one. We were up by a point, but they came back and started the same routine.

“Come on, let's get it going! Let's get it going!” Abdul had come in to give Sky a breather and was trying to pump things up.

I remembered the last game. I wanted to take it on my shoulders, but I didn't want to showboat or nothing. I went after my man hard on D, ragging him wherever he went. I pushed him when I caught
him standing still, and talked to him whenever he got the ball.

“Give it up, fool! Give it up!”

He looked at me like I was crazy, and one of their players, a forward, told me to keep my mouth shut.

“Why don't you come and shut it?”

The next time I got the ball, he came up on me too close and I brought the ball between my legs, faked putting it through his, and when he took a half step back, I made a move toward the basket. I got a step on him, but the other guard cut me off. I moved between them, and when my man tried to recover with a lunge in front, I dished it out to Ernie.

Ernie got tied up by their forward and moved the pill outside to set it up again. We had penetrated, but we hadn't scored. I knew it was going to be a long game.

When we stepped up our game, we were playing them just about even. We took away the little bump-and-run pick they were using and hustled back on defense fast enough to keep them from setting up easy plays. They had only one fast break the whole second quarter. But at the end of the half they were still ahead, 36–29.

“Right now it's anybody's game,” House was saying in the locker room. “Whoever wants it the most is going to get it. How much you guys want it? How much you guys want it?”

We all said we wanted it more than Lane did, and we meant it. Seven points can disappear in a heartbeat, and I knew it and everybody on both teams knew it.

We came out and started our warm-ups for the second half. When a television reporter started talking to the two coaches, I went over to where Fletch was standing.

“What you thinking?” I asked him.

“They're not turning the ball over,” he said. “We got to take it on defense and get the ball inside more on offense. Their guards keep double-teaming the ball, and that boy on you is holding you so tight, I thought he was part of your jersey.”

The third quarter was all them. They didn't do anything special, but they made plays and all we could get were a few humbles and some lucky bounces. At the end of the quarter they were up by nine.

“Tomas, can you do anything inside, man?” I asked him as we went out for the last quarter.

“Get me the ball,” he said.

He didn't say it with a lot of confidence, but I saw that me and Ernie weren't killing their guards. House wanted to win too bad to bring Colin in, and Ricky was too small to deal with their big guards. Sky's man was tall, and he had this little twelve-foot jumper that he hit anytime Sky gave him an inch. Sky could keep him away from that shot, but he was keeping Sky off the boards. Tomas couldn't jump with their forwards, so that left all the rebounding to Ruffy and whatever came out to me and Ernie.

“If you get the trey, take it,” House called to me.

It had worked the day before, but the man holding me wasn't giving up squat.

Lane hardly ever made mistakes, but they started the fourth quarter with a weak turnover when their two guard carried the ball. On our possession I made a nice move at the top of the key and hit Tomas sliding across the lane. He got the ball and went up in one motion, made the deuce, and got the foul.

Tomas made the foul shot. Lane brought the ball down slowly, which surprised me. I thought they might be thinking about sitting on their lead, even though it was down some. They weren't. What they did was
spread their offense, bring out the new forward, and try to isolate him on Tomas. The forward they were using was shorter than Tomas, but he handled the ball well. He made a move on Tomas, spun around him, and walked the ball inside. The refs didn't whistle the carry and the play made Tomas look bad.

“Drew! Drew! Twenty-three switch! Twenty-three switch!” House was screaming from the sideline.

We turned it over and fell back on defense. I switched defensive assignments with Tomas, who was our number 23, and he came out and took the young guard.

The forward I had mouthed off to told the new guy to burn me. He put the ball on the floor, threw a shoulder fake, and then made a quick move to go around me. But he was going too wide, and I stayed with him. I was on him when he went up, and when he let the ball go rim high, I pinned it against the boards, then knocked it out toward Sky. When Sky went coast to coast and slammed, everybody on our bench was on their feet.

The Lane coach, a short little brown-skinned dude, ran halfway up the floor calling the next play. They brought the ball down again, gave it to the
same forward—who threw a jive fake inside that couldn't have fooled a Barbie doll—and came across the center.

“Pick left!” Ruffy called it.

I knew it was coming and slammed an elbow into the dark body to my left. It was the same pick-and-run play they had made in the first quarter, where the guy who set the pick took the contact and then peeled to the basket. When I saw Sky pick up my man, I moved with the other forward as he reached for the ball. He should have gone straight up, but he bounced the ball once and dipped his knees. I knew he wanted to slam and I went up with him, reaching over his head and putting my fingers on the top of the ball before he started his dunk.