Racing the Rain (24 page)

This press is not designed to steal the ball every time, but to constantly harass a team and force it into mistakes. In this particular defense it is possible for us to overplay our opponents for the interception and still have them covered in case they break the press.

Each player must always be alert and on his toes in order to cut off an attempt to pass to his man—this pass must never be completed. The inbound pass must be a long one, at least to the back of the foul circle. Several steals, interceptions, or turnovers of any type will break down the morale of any team.

His big men had good hands and decent speed down the court. It would shock everyone in the conference next year if they came out in a full-court press. It was counter to all traditional wisdom of the game. Big teams were supposed to hang around the rim and take utmost advantage of their height. Small teams were supposed to keep you from getting the ball upcourt without a battle. They nipped at you like little terriers, biting at your ankles, trying to provoke mistakes by sheer obnoxiousness.

Cinnamon used a ruler and compass to draw several court diagrams on the page, crosshatching the areas of responsibility for each man, identified as X1 through X5. Thirty minutes later he wrote the concluding paragraph:

After we have scored, X5 must turn and run down the floor as hard and as fast as he can. He must get back in order to release X1. If this release of X1 is too slow, it gives the opposition time to find an open man.

The primary objective of this defense is to pick off the first pass, and if everyone carries out his assignment, this objective will be accomplished.

He went back over the four pages, making sure he had not left anything out. He paper-clipped the pages together, along with a note to the mimeo clerk about the number of copies he needed and when he needed them, along with a little pretend begging to get them earlier, if possible.

He was just finishing up when Dewey Stoddard stuck his large flattopped head in the door.

“Hey, Dew, what's up?” said Cinnamon.

“Denise says you have a call on line one. Someone named Doug DeAngelis from Miami Senior.”

“Okeydoke. Probably wants to schedule us. Hey, if you're going that way anyway, can you drop these off at the mimeo room?”

* * *

The article on the front page of the
Citrus City Sentinel Star
read:

CINNAMON SIGNS ON WITH STINGAREES

By Al Whitmarsh

Sentinel
Sports Staff

Jim Cinnamon, who led the Edgewater Eagles to the state semifinals this year, is heading south.

The Metro Conference Coach of the Year has been hired to lead one of the oldest and most consistently dominant basketball powerhouses in the state, Miami Senior High School, said Stingaree athletic director Douglas DeAngelis at a press conference in Miami yesterday.

“Coach Cinnamon has shown the kind of innovative and inspirational leadership in his career that we have always prized at Miami Senior, and now that Al Blanchard is stepping down after 22 years and seven state championships . . .”

Stunned, Cassidy sped through the paragraphs of boilerplate coach-speak. It was all blah blah “He'll have some pretty big shoes to fill . . .” (DeAngelis) and blah blah “Hate to leave such an outstanding group of young men . . .” (Cinnamon) and “I can't think of a better man to take over . . .” (Blanchard) and “Just too great an opportunity to pass up . . .” (Cinnamon again).

Finally, in the last paragraph, he found what he was looking for:

Edgewater principal Howard Fleming announced at the same press conference that Bob Bickerstaff, who was an all-conference guard in his college playing days at Eastern Kentucky, will take over the top hoops job. Bickerstaff is currently Edgewater's track and field coach. Fleming said that Dennis Kamrad, the current crew coach, will now assume the track and field duties as well.

Cassidy, still in a daze, went to the phone on the kitchen wall and, with the greatest of difficulty, after three tries managed to successfully dial a number he had known almost his whole life.

“Stiggs?” he said. “What is . . . I mean . . . Stiggs . . .
what the hell
?
”

S
ummer doldrums had already arrived in the hallways of Edgewater, though it was only the end of April. Everyone called it spring fever. Students strolled slack-jawed down hallways in the direction of classes they'd had the year before. They dozed in Western Civ after lunch and studied passing clouds through the windows in Trig. Shop teachers carefully chaperoned the use of any type of machine capable of removing digits. Couples made out behind opened locker doors, and other mating rituals could be seen. Who says the semitropics are seasonless?

The shock of Jim Cinnamon's announced departure was almost matched by Jim Cinnamon's actual departure. He had said he was eager to get started in Miami, and everyone agreed that it was such an awkward situation that it would probably be best if he'd just go ahead and go. The bastard.

Bob Bickerstaff wasted no time in calling for a team powwow. For privacy's sake and the lack of any better place—the football team had the varsity locker room for spring practice—it was held after fifth period in the tiny weight room at the end of the gymnasium. Everyone sat around on different kinds of apparatus and benches, moody and subdued. Cassidy lounged on a stack of evil-smelling wrestling mats.

Finally, Stiggs got bored waiting for Bickerstaff to show up and began entertaining everyone with his imitation of Dewey Stoddard giving a pregame talk.

“These Riviera boys are not only big and quick, but they're also very, uh . . . quick!” For a prop, he held up and pretended to be reading from an upside-down clipboard.

Bickerstaff looked mildly perplexed at the guffaws as he entered but quickly surmised that the culprit was Stiggs, who was just taking his seat, carrying, for some reason, the weight room workout clipboard. Bickerstaff took off his ever-present Red Sox cap and ran a hand through his red crew cut.

“Boys, I know the events of the past few days have come as a real big surprise. They have been real upsetting for a lot of us. Coach Cinnamon has been a force to be reckoned with at Edgewater for the past five years, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that he will be greatly missed . . .”

Negative rumbling in the ranks indicated that he did not speak for everyone.

“. . . and that we certainly wish him all the best in his new, uh, endeavor.”

More rumbling. Rather than all the best, some apparently wished him all the worst. Some wished him to be stranded in the Everglades on his way south, to be found weeks later, his rib cage providing refuge for pollywogs. Aw, who were they kidding? They loved the guy. They just couldn't believe he would up and abandon them like that, particularly after the amazing season they'd had. Miami Senior was a '50s-era juggernaut; their old coach still thought the two-handed set shot was just swell. They hadn't even made it out of their group last season.

“Some of you only know me as the track coach or possibly a driver's ed instructor,” Bickerstaff said. “Some of you know me from Glenridge. Well, I just want you to know that I've seen most of your games—home games, anyway—and I understand what kind of spirit and pride this team has, and what kind of success you achieved this past season. I don't intend to come in here and upset the apple cart. Or as Coach Stoddard says, ‘I won't kill the goose that laid the deviled egg.' ”

That got a good laugh. A Dewey reference was always good for a tension breaker.

The mood proceeded to lighten considerably, particularly as Bickerstaff praised the team's accomplishments and pledged to keep things “on an even keel.” He said that what he most highly prized was “hustle and teamwork” and that as far as he was concerned the secret to success in basketball as well as in life was “just plain hard work.”

No one was about to quarrel with the kind of good old American Calvinist boilerplate that had been drummed into them since they had first set foot on a court or playing field years ago as larval athletes. Everyone seemed fully in accord, except Cassidy, who was thinking to himself,
How about just putting the ball in the hole? Surely they still award two points for that?

But generally speaking, the meeting broke up in good spirits, everyone now carrying the mimeographed “suggested” workout program for the summer. (Cassidy glanced at the pitiful amount of jogging proposed and sighed audibly.)

He was afraid that Bickerstaff had heard him, because the coach asked him to linger after the rest of the rowdies had filed out with their general end-of-the-school-year good spirits restored.

Bickerstaff came and sat beside him on the pile of wrestling mats.

“Look, Quenton, I know we've had our differences in the past. I certainly acknowledge my share of the responsibility and I'm hoping you can acknowledge yours. I'm hoping we can put all that behind us now and work together at making this the best basketball team in the state.”

Cassidy was unaware of exactly what kind responsibility he might bear for finding himself injured while on Bickerstaff's track team, but he nonetheless replied with a snappy, “Yes, sir!”

“Okay, good! That's the spirit! That's exactly what I wanted to hear! Now, I have a few things I wanted to go over with you . . .”

And Bickerstaff then proceeded to explain precisely how he planned to kill the goose that laid the deviled egg.

T
he rest of the school year consisted of that series of anticlimaxes everyone associates with generally winding things up: senior day, graduation practice, yearbook mania. The popular kids would sit on the concrete benches outside classrooms beside a stack of yearbooks, exuding exasperation at the enormity of their burden. Oh, and would you sign mine, too? It's around here somewhere; I think Sandra has it now and Phil is next. Can you get it from him?

The wallflowers searched the passing crowd for people they wouldn't be too embarrassed to ask. Being generally shy with people he didn't know well, Cassidy had a foot in both camps. He was nonetheless assured many times in yearbookese as to his ace personality and limitless future. Stiggs and Randleman took up several pages each, both recounting numerous childhood adventures and silly exploits from basketball road trips, the majority of which seemed to involve water balloons and/or shaving cream.

The three of them triple-dated to the prom, Randleman driving his mother's Volkswagen minibus, whose boxy interior nonetheless could barely contain the elongated tibias and femurs of half its occupants, nor the plastic hoops, bows, sashes, and acres of pastel crinoline of the other half.

Their arrival at the dance attracted a small hooting crowd that was more than entertained by the circuslike aspects of their unloading. The boys had to exit in sections, stepping backward onto the curb while unfolding like jackknives, while the girls popped out one at a time, each suspended in the door momentarily by the compression of her superstructure, springing free suddenly like an orange seed squeezed between wet fingers.

Cassidy of course took the radiant Maria, as it was becoming more and more ridiculous to continue pleading palship. Maybe it had started out that way, Cassidy wasn't sure. Somewhere in the middle of a drive-in showing of
Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte
, everything had changed. He sometimes intuited that despite what he had been occasionally led to believe, in this particular relationship, he was nowhere near in charge.

Randleman took the dark and beautiful Ruthie Lawrence, one of the tiniest girls in school, who somehow managed to still look diminutive, relatively speaking, in her pale lavender wedding cake of a dress. She and Randleman slow dancing to “Red Roses for a Blue Lady” looked like Paul Bunyan swaying in place with a shin guard made out of a kewpie doll.

Stiggs went with Jerri Frazier, a blond cheerleader he had been dating since halfway through basketball season and about whom he refused to make any locker room comment whatsoever, leading many to speculate that perhaps they had gone most of the way or something like it. This relationship was considered anomalous, as the cheerleaders had been pronounced “solipsistic and frivolous.” Cassidy had discovered the wonders of
Roget's Thesaurus
. Besides, they mostly preferred football players anyway. Jerri, a serious, gray-eyed senior, was an exception. She had set her cap for Stiggs early on and the poor dope never knew what hit him.

Dinner at Ronnie's restaurant had been hilarious and nearly irrelevant from a nutritional point of view. Everyone was too excited by what Cassidy called “good old whatever it is” to eat much of anything. On the way to the dance, though Randleman recused himself, the rest of them had a few swigs of Mogen David concord grape wine that Stiggs had filched from what his parents thought was their secret stash. Cassidy was pleasantly surprised to find that an adult alcoholic libation could actually taste almost as good as the kind of beverage he was used to, to wit, Nehi Grape Soda.

They danced beneath the glittering mirror ball. They danced to the Beatles, the Stones, Herman's Hermits. They went out to the hibiscus-scented patio overlooking Lake Formosa, where boys shed their jackets in the humidity and danced to Del Shannon and Petula Clark. They even waxed nostalgic when someone put on some oldies like Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline, and the Big Bopper. Nothing, Cassidy thought, will secure your place in the teen pantheon like plunging to a fiery death in a private plane.

All too soon they were playing “Good Night Irene” by Screamin' Jay Hawkins, and then it was beachward ho, where the junior and senior classes of Edgewater High School were tradition-bound on prom night to exchange their tuxes and crinolines for surfing baggies and polka-dot bikinis and sleep in the itchy sand of Florida's Gold Coast, where, by a time-honored calculus of multiplying a certain quantity of alcohol by a maximum dose of sleep deprivation, followed by a lot of salty romping in the blazing tropical sun, they might eventually achieve the most sustainable teenage high possible without schedule one narcotics.