Game (5 page)

“How did your practice go yesterday?”

“Why?”

“So do you think the United States should be more aggressive in its trade policies?” she went on. “I'll be on the phone to the president this afternoon, so if I could get your input now…”

“What were they arguing about?” I asked.

“He doesn't have any money and she won't give him any,” she said. “You know that's going to go on
until they catch up on the bills.”

“Yeah, I guess.” With my family it was always catching up on the bills or explaining to the electric company why we hadn't sent the payment in. My folks didn't mess up their money; it was just that they weren't making that much to begin with.

“I imagine I'll have to start my modeling career early to support you people.” Jocelyn licked some of the jelly off a piece of toast. “But don't worry about it. I'm big that way.”

 

I got to school a minute late, and Mr. Harrison, who was on desk duty, looked the other way as I slid past the desk and into the stairwell.

In English I sat down next to Sandy Harris, a thin, brown-skinned girl with eyes the same color as her skin and a low, kind of sexy voice. We got into another discussion about
Othello
and I noticed that a lot of the kids were saying it wasn't about race. I still wasn't going for it, and I said so.

“Iago didn't like the brother being a big-time general and he didn't like him getting over with a big-time white chick, either,” I said. “And since he was white like everybody else around at the time, he
had the power to mess with Othello.”

“Is it really the woman? Or the celebrity that Othello's achieved?” Miss Tomita asked. “We do know that Iago hoped for high office.”

“I don't know,” I said.

“And doesn't that make the play interesting?”

“So what's the answer?” I asked.

“Well, since Shakespeare isn't around to answer our questions, it depends on our interpretations, doesn't it?” Miss Tomita said.

I didn't exactly understand what she meant by that, but I could tell she was happy with it.

I could see myself as Othello, a kick-butt general who had climbed to the top and had to deal with Iago and all the other suckies around him. Desdemona, his old lady, was like a symbol of what he had achieved in his life, and Iago was messing with it. He was saying that Desdemona wasn't really happening for him, that his dream of her was messed up. I could see how that could turn a brother's head inside out.

W
hat I figured was that as long as it was me doing my thing, a black player on a black team, then it would be about me and the team. If House could get Tomas in the spotlight instead of me, it was going to be about him and Tomas. What I had to do was outplay Tomas every time I stepped on the court. He couldn't put Tomas in the headlines when my game was blowing up in all the stats.

Our next league game was against Frederick Douglass Academy. House ran down this lame rap about how this game was going to show our character and whatnot. He said that we should be
able to beat FDA if we played our game. FDA was one of those schools that never had a real big-time player but always had enough going on to mess with you if you showed weak. Every year some team waltzed over to 148th Street looking for an easy jam only to come slinking away with a loss.

FDA plays a two-one-two shallow zone most of the time. Their guards play close to the three-point line, their center plays about two feet closer to the basket than most, and their forwards are in tight, too. They cut off penetration but give up a lot of three-point shots.

House had Ernie at guard, Ruffy at center, and Sky and Tomas at forward. I thought that was lame from the get-go, because Tomas should have earned his starting position, not just had it handed to him. He hadn't dominated anybody in the one game he had played with us and wasn't kicking any butt at practice, either.

FDA was up for the game, especially on defense, but their offense was weak and the game began slowly. We were up by five after a few minutes, and I thought it was going to be easy but they hung on, and then, with the slow pace, they caught up and it
was back and forth. At the end of the first quarter it was 14–14. On offense we were trying to pick off their forwards and set up backdoor plays, but they were playing too tight to get that going. We were running into ourselves and just turning the ball over on the inside. Plus Ruffy had two fouls already.

I think FDA thought they were going to lose before the game, but when they saw they were playing us even, they began to pick up the pace.

If a team is revving up the tempo, you have to react quickly or they might get a momentum thing going on and you can't catch them. FDA ran two fast breaks in a row at the start of the second quarter, one off a rebound and the other off a turnover when Tomas held the ball too low and their guard came back and slapped it loose. The next time we came down, I saw their guards edging away from their zones, looking for another fast break. Colin was in for Ernie and called for the two-swing play. That's when both guards move to the right, the center comes out, and the right forward goes backdoor. The guard with the ball passes out to the center, who passes in to the forward, who is free because the other forward has picked his man in the low post. If the
low pick doesn't work, then the forward comes out and the right side of the zone is overloaded. Colin was going to pass out to Ruffy but got tied up and passed it to me, and I was free. The FDA forward lost his man and picked his own teammate looking for him, which left the lane open.

I went hard, and nobody even came near to me as I scored the deuce. The same dude on FDA who had lost his man took the ball out and made a weak pass that was supposed to go over my head at the foul line. I grabbed it and went right back inside, got the deuce, and was fouled. Then I nailed the free throw.

FDA came down again, their shooting guard threw up something that looked like half an alley-oop, and Ruffy got it and flung the sucker downcourt. Tomas was down with me on a two-against-one. Their center wasn't that tall but he was quick. I had the ball at the foul line as Tomas slid away toward the basket. I thought their center might switch when I faked the handoff to Tomas. He didn't and came after me as I started the shot.

All I saw was this big palm over my head. I floated the ball over him and it went in. We were up
by four and FDA called a time-out.

“That was a prayer and you know it!” The FDA player looked like he was pissed. I liked that.

“If you had a game, you would have stopped it,” I said.

During the time-out House told Ricky to go in for me. I shot him a look and he was glowering.

“What's wrong with you, man?” I asked him.

“You are,” he said. “Now sit down and watch the game. Maybe you'll learn something.”

“What you mean,
learn
something?” I asked.

House turned away.

At halftime we had managed to get up by seven, but FDA was still in the game and Ruffy had picked up another foul. We still had the win as far as I was concerned. All we needed to do was take it. But as soon as we hit the locker room at halftime, House opened up on me.

“Drew, you're playing for yourself, not the team!” he said. “We're trying to get a team effort out there, and you're going out for showtime at the Apollo. I don't need this crap and the team doesn't need it.”

I knew I wasn't going to start the second half, but I thought I would play. FDA kept the game close all
the way. Our team kept looking over at the bench, waiting for the coach to send me back in. Our guys were playing good, but they weren't playing strong. FDA got solid and had caught up with three minutes on the clock.

“Yo, House, put me in, man.” I was mad at myself for even asking him.

He didn't answer, just turned away.

With a minute to go in the game, FDA went up by five. Ernie and Colin were at guards, and FDA, smelling a chance for a win, were all over them. Ruffy got a deuce to cut it to three. We got a turnover when the refs called a three-second violation on their big man. Sky came down the sideline and threw up a jumper from just inside the three-point line and we were down by one. FDA tried to freeze the ball, but they got too careful and lost it again on a close-guarding call with ten seconds to go. We had a time-out left and House called it.

“We want to get the ball down in a hurry and set up something off the penetration,” he said. “Ruffy, your man is laying off. You come out and set a pick in the middle of the lane. Ricky brings the ball left to right and looks for the pass at the top of the key.
Colin goes in the opposite direction through the lane. Sky sets a pick for Tomas. Ricky, it's up to you to see who's free. If nobody's free, you take the shot and everybody hits the boards. On three! One! Two! Three!”

My whole body was jumping, I wanted to be in so bad. Mad and hurt at the same time, I couldn't believe that House was being so stupid. We had been running picks all day, so I knew they were looking for them. Colin inbounded the ball to Ricky and went to the far side. Ricky dribbled to the side of the key, and I knew it was taking too long. Tomas got in front of his man off the pick five feet from the hoop and Ricky fired the ball to him. But instead of taking it right up, he put the ball on the floor once, tried a fake, and then went up.

The FDA forward went up with him. He got the ball on the rise and slapped it toward midcourt. Ricky went after it, catching it just before it went out-of-bounds as the buzzer sounded. The game was over.

“Why did you pull up?” Sky was all over Tomas. “You should have gone in and jammed! If you didn't make it, the sucker would have had to foul you. Why you throwing up some
pussy
shot, man?”

Sky was right. Tomas should have taken the ball inside and attacked the rim. But it wasn't all his fault.

“We shouldn't have been behind in the first place,” I said. “I should have had that ball, and everybody knows it!”

“Watch your mouth, Drew!” House yelled at me.

“Why I got to watch my mouth?” I asked. “We shouldn't have lost this game and you know it.”

I was fuming. House took a step toward me, and Fletch stepped in front of him. I wished the sucker had stepped to me. I was ready to knock him out.

“I think House was betting on the game,” Ricky called out.

“That had better be a joke,” House barked at him.

“You see anybody laughing?” Ricky asked.

“We could have won with me in there!” I said. “And everybody here knows that!”

“I don't know it!” House was shouting. “And I'm the coach.”

“Well, you're the only one who don't know it,” Ruffy said.

“Look, I can replace this whole team if I have to,” House said.

“With dudes who like to lose, I guess,” Ruffy said.

House told Ruffy to meet him in his office in the morning. Ruffy said no and he meant it.

 

Outside, it was cold and there was a light rain. I watched some of the FDA players laughing and joking as they walked down the street. Just the way they were feeling good, I was feeling bad.

Ruffy hailed a gypsy cab because he had to go see his brother's lawyer. As he got into the cab, I told him I'd call him later.

“Hey, Drew, which way you going?” It was Tomas.

“Down the way,” I said, nodding downtown.

“Can I walk with you?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

We walked down the hill without talking. I knew he wanted me to let him off the hook about losing the game, but he didn't know how to say it.

“I don't like losing,” he said finally.

“Nobody does.”

“Why didn't you play the second half?” he asked.

“House has his game going and he's the coach,” I said. “Anything I do is counterfeit, I guess.”

“I wish you had played,” he said.

“Yeah, well, that's the way it goes,” I said.

I didn't want to deal with Tomas. I didn't trust him. Maybe he was just coming over to see what I was thinking. I imagined him calling House and telling him what I said.

“You think I lost the game?” he asked.

“The team lost the game,” I said. “The coach, everybody. You did your part, too.”

“You know I want to play basketball the same as you.” Tomas spoke softly. “In Europe a lot of boys want to come to America and play ball. We see the American players with their big cars and big houses and they're all smiling when they look at you on television. We want to wear the same clothes and get money to wear the different brands. We want that, too. There's no difference in what is in my heart and what is in your heart.”

“Yeah, but you came over here and you're starting on the team,” I said. “If I went to your school, would I be starting?”

“Sure you would.” He grinned. “Everybody in Europe thinks that black people are like gods. They think you don't jump—you fly.”

“In my case it's true,” I said.

“Drew, I'm sorry we lost.”

“Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow,” I said.

Tomas left me at the corner with a little wave.

Going home, I was thinking about Tomas, what he said about things not being different between his life and mine. Maybe they had a high opinion of black ballplayers in Prague, but we were in America, and what I had to deal with was where I was. Just like my man Othello had to deal with where he was.

What I was wondering was whether or not House would let us go on losing games to make his point.

I
got all the numbers you asked for,” Jocelyn said when I got home. She was drying her nails.

“What numbers?”

“About who's going to win basketball games,” she said. “The teams with the highest percentage of their baskets on layups win more times than teams with the lowest percentage of their baskets on layups.”

“Yeah, but who's scoring the layups?” I asked. “It could be the guards.”

“It doesn't matter,” Jocelyn said. “The percentages always work out. I checked it out with the
NBA, and they agree with me.”

“You called the NBA?”

“I might even apply for a job with them over the summer,” she said. “Although as cute as I am, I could be a distraction to their players.”

“What did you say, girl?” Mom had come into the kitchen in her housecoat. “As
cute
as you are?”

“Mama, you know I'm fine.” Jocelyn flashed Mom a smile over her shoulder.

“Well, nobody is going to accuse you of being too modest, that's for sure,” Mom said.

“Actually, I see my beauty as a handicap, a burden I have to tolerate and which threatens to cover up my great intellect,” Jocelyn said.

“Did you tell Drew that Ruffy called?” Mom was peeling onions.

“What did he say?” I asked.

“They have some pretrial stuff going on tomorrow, and he wants you to go down there with him to the court,” Jocelyn said. “He said his mama can't make it because she has to go to a doctor's appointment. She's probably stressed out. I told him you probably wouldn't go to court since your picture was put up in the post office.”

“Yo, I think I should go,” I said. “I can tell them I'm a relative.”

“Will you be missing anything important in school?” Mom asked.

“Nothing I can't make up,” I said.

“You know, I feel so bad about Tony,” Mama said, ignoring Mouth Almighty. “I always loved that boy.”

“Everybody loved him,” Jocelyn said. “He still messed up. I was talking to Bianca, and she said that Tony's mother is so upset, she can't sleep or anything. That's why she can't go to court to find out what's going on. Tony's mother said when she went to see him downtown and saw him in his prison clothes, she just broke down on the spot. She's the one we need to feel sorry for.”

“A lot of our young men mess up, Jocelyn,” Mom said. “But if we don't support them, who's going to raise the next generation of black children?”

“I'm waiting for the UFOs to land so I can marry a Martian,” Jocelyn said. “And I hope he has some money when he gets here.”

 

I thought Jocelyn could have shown a little more feeling for Tony than she did, but she was right.
Tony had messed up. But for some reason, it didn't sound like such a big deal. It was almost like—Hey, that's the way we live in the hood, and getting caught is just part of the routine. Mom okayed me going to the pretrial, and I met Ruffy at the corner of 145th, down from the bus garage. We took the 3 train downtown. Ruffy was wearing his suit, and he had brought a pad to take notes. The train got crowded at 96th Street and stayed that way until we reached 14th.

I had my fake ID saying I was nineteen, but we didn't even need it. Ruffy had the name of the judge, and we found the right courtroom on the seventh floor.

The courtroom was nearly empty except for people at the three tables in the front. Tony, in his orange jumpsuit, sat with his lawyer at one of them.

A policewoman was talking when Ruffy and I got there. She was saying that she had checked in the guns when they were brought into the police station.

“And are those the weapons lying on the desk in front of the clerk?” A tall, thin man in a brown suit
pointed to the guns.

Before the woman could answer, Tony's lawyer started objecting, but the judge held up his hand and said that he would let the guns be brought in as evidence. Then the woman said she would have to see the tags, and she was shown the tags and then she said they were the same weapons that she had checked in.

Tony looked back and saw Ruffy and me sitting there. Ruffy nodded and Tony nodded back. The judge looked over to where we sat, and so did one of the officers in the front of the room. We weren't sitting too near the front and nobody looked nervous.

The case went on. It wasn't like television. Nobody seemed excited. In fact, it looked like everybody was bored. I tried to check out the other two defendants, but they mostly kept their heads down.

Ruffy and I didn't speak while the hearing was going on, but when there was a break, he asked me if I knew them.

“No,” I said.

“That's Norman and Little G,” Ruffy said. “Remember them from Marcus Garvey Park?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Norman and Little G used to play ball with the older guys, but neither one of them really had any serious game. Norman had got a girl pregnant and tried to make her get rid of it, and the girl had been crippled. That was all I knew about him except that both he and Little G were losers nobody liked and everybody was half afraid of because they were always into something dangerous.

At noon the hearing ended for the day. After Tony had been taken away, his lawyer came over to us and said he was glad we could make it.

“When the actual trial starts, we want the jury to see that Tony has a family. That way they're more likely to think of him as a human being rather than just a felon,” he said. “Is your mother coming tomorrow?”

“I think so,” Ruffy said.

“It'll help if she can make it,” the lawyer said.

We went into the hallway, and Ruffy called his mom to tell her the hearing was over for the day. I looked at everybody wandering around in the hall. Mostly young black men I figured were on trial or going to see them except for a fine-looking Latina
sister in handcuffs. I gave her a smile and she looked away. It wasn't smiling time.

We got on the elevator, and there was an older brother already in the car. He had real wide shoulders but he kept them hunched forward. He was leaning over and trying to catch his breath. I thought he might be having a heart attack.

“Yo, you okay?” I asked.

“Not guilty,” he said, looking up at me. “I'm walking, man. I'm walking.”

“Yeah, that's all good,” I said.

When we left the building, the guy stopped and took a deep breath. I didn't know what had happened with him, but I could see he was glad to be free and out in the world.

The court scene got me down. I thought about what Jocelyn had said, that Tony had messed up even though people loved him. Maybe being loved wasn't enough; maybe there was something else you needed not to get in trouble. Then I thought about the older guy in the elevator. He was walking out of the building, but it must have been a close call because he was still shaking.

“That guy was still trying to catch his breath,” I said to Ruffy as we started walking uptown.

“So am I,” Ruffy said.

I looked at him and he wasn't smiling.