Swagger (15 page)

Brindle knew it too. When we were both dressed, he came over to me and told me I'd played great. Then he stood tall and looked me in the eye. “I'm going to fight to get my starting spot back.” We bumped knuckles, each of us respecting the other guy, and then he walked back to his locker.

The stat sheet came in as I finished lacing my shoes. I'd had eight points, six assists, and only one turnover. One negative thing jumped off the page at me. The basket Levi scored in the fourth quarter was his only hoop of the game. He had no blocked shots and his rebounds were also way down.

B
ACK HOME, I E-MAILED COACH
Richter, describing both the Inglemoor game and my promotion to first team. I didn't mention Coach Knecht's fall, I guess because I wanted Richter to think I'd earned the spot. It wasn't exactly a lie—I
had
earned it. I'd actually earned it twice—with my performance against Garfield and now with the game I'd had against Inglemoor.

I slept late on Sunday and in the afternoon I met with Celia to study for the chemistry final. I knew exactly what would be on the test, but I let Celia lead the study session so she wouldn't become suspicious, which meant the time dragged. When we finally finished, we talked for a few minutes and then she stood up to go. “This really helped,” she said as she gathered together her stuff. “You're a good study partner, Jonas.”

I mumbled some sort of answer all the while feeling like one of those insects that hide under rocks. When she was gone, I vowed never to cheat again on anything.

 

Hartwell started Monday's practice with an update on Coach Knecht's condition. The old guy was improving, but he was still in the hospital. The room fell quiet for a long moment, but then we got to work.

Hartwell had written our remaining games on the white board in the locker room. “Garfield is the top team in this state, and we beat them. That's the good news. The bad news is that we've lost a bunch of games we should have won. Remember, though, it's only January. We can still win enough games to make the KingCo District tournament. Once we make the playoffs, the regular season goes out the window.” He held up his hand. “If we play separately, then we're weak like these five fingers. But if we play together”— he clenched his fingers into a fist— “we're strong.”

With that, Hartwell sent us onto the court for practice. While we warmed up, he plugged his iPod into the gym's sound system. A second later the gym filled with loud rap music. Cash looked at me, grinned, and fired off a shot; Nick did the same.

The Knecht era was over.

Once we were loose, we went straight to scrimmaging—no drills, no practicing set plays, none of that Knecht stuff. A fast up-and-down game was what Hartwell wanted, and that meant running, running, and more running.

I had gotten Levi to talk to me some before and after health class and during warm-ups, though his voice had been cheerless. And on the basketball court, he was still out of sync. Toward the end of practice, Cash threw him a great pass that should have resulted in any easy bucket. Instead, Levi fumbled it out-of-bounds. “Come on, Double D,” Cash said, getting up into his face, “you've got to make that play.” It was the first time in weeks anybody had called him “Double D.”

I expected Levi to drop his head and mutter that he was sorry—that's what he always did when he screwed up a play and somebody got on him. This time he reached out, grabbed Cash by the jersey, and yanked him forward. “Don't call me ‘Double D,'” he hissed, his eyes malicious.

DeShawn jumped in then and so did Nick, pulling them apart. As DeShawn pulled Cash away, Cash put on a show, screaming that he was ready to fight any time, any place. Levi stared him down, fists clenched. Hartwell, who'd been watching from ten rows up in the bleachers, came bounding down. “That's enough,” he said as he reached the court. “Save it for Woodinville.”

For the last twenty minutes of practice, I could feel how close Levi was to exploding. For months I'd be waiting for him to stand up against the “Double D” stuff. Now that he done it, I wasn't sure how I felt. The guy with the clenched fists and the eyes filled with hatred wasn't the Levi I'd known.

W
E BLEW OPEN THE WOODINVILLE
game in the second quarter when our defense forced four straight turnovers leading to four straight buckets. We were up six when the run started, and two minutes later we were up fourteen.

If you keep pushing the ball at a team that just wants the game to be over, your lead grows and grows. When the margin reached twenty-five early in the third quarter, I figured Hartwell would either put in the second string or tell us to back off. He did neither. “Keep running!” he said during a time-out, his voice urgent as if the game were close. “Bury these guys.” When the horn sounded ending the game, the score was 83–46.

Our Friday game against the Hale Raiders figured to be tougher. Their best player, a shooting guard named Lucius Jackson, had gotten a scholarship to USC and was a cinch for all-league selection. Cash couldn't handle him alone, so we practiced a bunch of double-team rotations. Still, I could see Hartwell was worried.

At game time, though, we caught a break. Jackson had broken a team rule, and as punishment his coach benched him for the first half. When Jackson entered the game at the start of the second half, we were up ten points. The guy obviously had the tools, but sitting the first half had kept him out of the flow, or maybe he was mad at his coach over the benching. Twice he didn't hustle after loose balls, and when he loafed a third time, Hale's coach sent him to the end of the bench. Jackson never returned, and Hale never made a run at us. We won by sixteen.

In the locker room after both games, guys devoured the stat sheet, smiling as they saw their soaring numbers. When you play fast-break basketball, points come in bundles. The only player who had struggled was Levi.

I had my mom's car that night, and after the Hale game, Levi and I drove back to Tangletown. He didn't talk; instead, he stared out the window into the blackness. From the way he looked—mouth tight, brow furrowed—anyone would have thought we'd lost by fifty. A couple of times I'd say something, and he'd sit up. “What?” he'd ask, his mind somewhere else. I'd repeat whatever I'd said only to get a one-word reply. Finally I gave up and just drove.

As we neared his house, I tried one last time. “Everything okay? At home, I mean. Your parents? Your sisters? Anything going on you want to talk about?”

He wheeled on me. “Why would you ask something like that?”

“I don't know. You're getting passing grades; we're winning, but you don't seem to be enjoying anything. I know Coach Knecht is on your mind, but if something else is wrong somewhere, and you ever feel like talking about it . . .” I stopped, not sure how to say what I wanted to say. “I guess I'm just saying I'm your friend.”

“Nothing's wrong, Jonas,” he replied, the edge gone from his voice, but then he turned away from me to stare out the window again.

I was worried about Levi for Levi's sake, but I was worried about him for me, too. In his e-mails, Coach Richter stressed that team results were more important to him than individual statistics. Making the playoffs would extend our season and give me more chances to impress Richter. But the team couldn't keep winning without Levi playing like Levi—not against the tough teams that were coming up. Something besides Knecht was holding him back. If I couldn't get him turned around, that
something
—whatever it was—would hold me back, too.

O
UR SUCCESS GOT NOTICED. WHEN
I came downstairs the morning after the Hale game, my dad handed me the
Seattle Times
. “You'll want to read that article,” he said, pointing to the headline:

 

HARDING HAWKS RALLY FOR INJURED COACH

 

The story started with a description of Mr. Knecht's injury, before recapping his career. Most of the information was new to me. Knecht had been Seattle Coach of the Year three times. Twice in the 1980s Harding had played for the state title, losing both games. At the end of the article, the writer quoted Hartwell: “The team has dedicated the season to Coach Knecht. We're playing for him, one game at a time, the way he'd have us play.”

I read those last sentences twice. Nobody—not Hartwell, not Levi, not Cash—had said anything about dedicating the season to Knecht, and we definitely weren't playing Knecht's style. I didn't exactly blame Hartwell for saying what he'd said—it was what was expected. Still, it didn't sit quite right.

After beating Inglemoor and then stomping on Woodinville and Hale, I wasn't worried about Monday's game with Eastlake. They had a decent record but nothing sensational and, as the
Times
had said, we were a team on the rise.

As my mom gave me the keys to her car that morning, she wished me luck.

“We're not going to need luck this time. We can handle these guys.”

“Don't be too sure of yourself.”

“You sound like Dad,” I said, and then I was out the door.

The Eastlake game was part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Hoops celebration at KeyArena, which had been home to the Sonics when they played in Seattle. I thought I'd feel an extra burst of adrenaline when I stepped onto the same court where Michael Jordan and other great NBA stars had played, but it didn't happen. Our game was the first of the day, with a tip-off time of ten in the morning. When the horn sounded and we took the court, over fifteen thousand seats were empty. I felt like we were playing in a warehouse. The hour didn't feel right, either; ten was way too early to do anything other than shoot around.

We jumped out to an early lead. A couple of times I thought we'd get our fast break going and deliver a knockout blow, but Eastlake hung tough, mainly because of their depth. The Eastlake coach also had his team play fast, but he ran ten players out against us, and those ten split the minutes evenly. Hartwell used seven, and our subs only spotted us a minute or two. The Eastlake players' legs stayed fresh while ours grew heavy.

Coach Knecht would have had us walk the ball down, milk the clock, and rest a little on offense so we'd be strong on defense—but Hartwell told us to keep running. We did, but our increasing fatigue made our execution sloppy. Eastlake took advantage, chipping away at our lead. At halftime the game was tied.

During the break, we caught our breath and came out strong in the third quarter, jumping out to a decent lead. Again the Eastlake coach substituted freely, always shuffling rested players onto the court. Hartwell, who had no faith in our bench guys, made even fewer substitutions, but he kept telling us to run every chance we had.

By the end of the third quarter, I was so winded I was leaning over and sucking in air, my hands on my knees, as Hartwell barked instructions. I looked around the huddle and saw Levi, Cash, and DeShawn bent over too. Nick had dropped to a knee. It would have been good coaching to give us a couple of minutes of rest, but Hartwell sent the entire first team onto the court to start the final quarter. “Gut it out,” he screamed. “You can't let yourself be tired, not now.”

That mind-over-matter talk sounds good, but midway through the fourth quarter, we hit the wall—all of us. Once your legs go rubbery, your shots come up short, and you stop blocking out on rebounds. You don't move your feet, which makes you foul-prone. Eastlake gnawed into our lead like a dog working on a bone.

When we most needed some breaks, calls started going against us. If one of us plowed into an Eastlake player, it was a charge, and they got the ball. But if their guy smacked into us, the ref called a blocking foul and they shot free throws.

The worst call came at the worst time. We were up by a single point with thirty seconds to play when Eastlake's forward missed a jumper. In the fight for the rebound, an Eastlake guy tipped the ball out-of-bounds, but the ref saw it the other way, giving the ball back to Eastlake. On the inbound play, their center flashed into the key, took the pass, and banked in an eight-footer over Levi that gave Eastlake the lead.

We had twenty seconds left, and we were down one. Score a hoop and we'd pull out a victory. Hartwell called time and drew up a play straight out of Knecht's playbook. We were to go into a weave, have Nick set a screen, and then have Cash come off the screen for a jump shot.

It worked: Cash flashed open; I hit him in rhythm. He got a good look at the hoop, released, and missed short—those tired legs again. Then we finally caught a break—the rebound came straight to Levi. He dribbled once, gathered himself, gave a shoulder fake, and rose for what should have been the winning basket. But as he left his feet, an Eastlake guard slapped at the ball. He was a little guy, and he shouldn't have been able to knock the ball out of Levi's strong hands, but the ball came loose and rolled toward the sideline. I dived for it, and so did everybody else. While we fumbled it around, the horn sounded, ending the game.

In the locker room afterward, I knew why we lost, knew it in the weariness I felt. They'd come at us in droves, and they'd worn us down. But the stat sheet revealed a second reason: Levi. He'd managed only three points and three rebounds. Had we gotten anything close to a normal game from him, we would have won easily.

A
T THE START OF ENGLISH
class on Tuesday, the phone rang in Mrs. Miller's classroom. The interruption came just as we'd begun discussing a poem by Robert Frost, her favorite writer. When she hung up the telephone, she scowled and told me to report to Coach Hartwell's office. “If this is about basketball, then I don't like it one bit. You get yourself back here as soon as you can.”

My new basketball shoes squeaked loudly as I walked alone down the empty hallways. When I reached Hartwell's office, I tapped lightly. “Come in, Jonas,” he said as he opened the door. “This will just take a couple of minutes.”