The Moves Make the Man (12 page)

Hey, I said, here, that's not the way you do it. I got up and walked over. Let me show you, come on.

He stopped bouncing and turned back to me. Maybe that's not good enough for your game but it's okay for mine.

Oh yeah, I said. Good old bounceball. I forgot. But I
stopped short of laughing because he was still close to getting bad. Instead I said, very sincere, What is this bounceball number, anyway?

You don't really want to know, he said.

Yes I do, I said.

No you don't.

Hey, listen, the honest man believes when I tell him I want to know. So believe, man. It's easier than believing I'm from Saturn!

He stared at me and shrugged. Okay, he said. What you do is start from somewhere outside the bulb and you—

The bulb? What's this bulb stuff?

That, he said, pointing down. That bulb shaped thing painted on the floor.

That's the key, man.

It doesn't look like a key. It looks like a bulb.

Or a keyhole, see. That's why they call it the key. But okay, you shoot from out here—

Right, you start from out here, and you shoot it at that steel thing, the fanboard—

That's the backboard, Bix.

Well, it's fan shaped isn't it? And you try not to get it into the circle because it's supposed to bounce off and you run to where you hear it hit and catch it but subtract three points for every bounce and five if it goes in the circle—

No no no, man, dig, you shoot it AT the circle, at the hoop, the basket, the hole, baby. Maybe you shoot it OFF the board first, but the point is to get it in….

He stomped his foot. I stopped. I had not seen anybody stomp their foot older than three. Bix was mad and could barely talk. I watched him for a second while he tried to get cool and talk very patiently.

Listen, he said. His voice quivered but he pretended it didn't. Do you want to know or not, about bounceball? Do you? He was red now, very close to being desperate again, so I felt horrible and said Yes, man, sure, I'm sorry, it's just—

Look. Look, he said, maybe that's what these things are called in your game but I don't know your game and I got no pals to teach me your game like you do and no time to play with people, nice kids like you who play together when it's light out and you can play the game only with teams, with buddies. Okay? I play THIS game, with the bulb and the fanboard and the circle and this old peely ball my stepfather lent me, not even gave, five years ago and you know why?

He waited so I said Why?

Because he wanted me to be a man and baseball was not a man's sport, oh no sir, baseball is for sissies and if I could not be a football player at least I could do basketball. Such a big hero game, he played it when he was a kid and he was a star, whoopee, with this very ball in his high school state championship so he hoped using it would rub off on me and I could be a big strong hero too and grow up to be a big man who marries somebody else's mother.

He was really cranked up and rolling it out, but still in control although mad as fire. Very softly I said, I saw you play baseball. You were the greatest.

Well you won't see me play baseball anymore.

He was glaring around looking everywhere but me. No sir, he said, now it's just good old bounceball for Braxton, with funny names for the things and all. Listen, he said, suddenly turning at me and pointing, looking me in the eyes so hard I wanted to start looking around now. Listen kid,
do you know what's so great about bounceball? Know why it's bounceball for Bix?

No, I said.

You play it in the dark and you play it alone. That's it.

He steamed for a second. I said, I play alone a lot too.

Yah, he sneered. You don't have to. You don't have to make up a game that pretends to make a must out of being blind, getting points for chasing a bounce down by ear and silly junk like that. You don't have to be kooky that way. You can get out with some friends and look sharp and wear the right brand of sneakers, you all have the sneakers and the moves, you all know what each other is doing.

But I like playing alone best, even when I can play with people. And anyway, I can't play with people now. I have to play in the dark too, Bix. Only I got a lantern.

He looked over at it like he had not noticed it before. I got it last night, I said. So now I can play again, even by myself.

Why can't you play other times, when there's people? he said. He looked at me all skeptical.

My momma had an accident, I said. She's laid up in bed with her head hurt, and I got to cook the meals.

His eyes went from crafty to sad for a second, and I thought he was on the verge of saying something but he did not get it out. He waited a second more and then said Oh. I'm sorry. I hope she gets okay.

What about you? I said.

He sized me up for a second and opened his mouth. But then all he said was I got to go now, Jerome.

Why can't you play anytime but now, Bix? But he had walked over to my lantern and was bending over looking at it.

This is a good one, he said.

I know, I said. I won it from a guy on the railroad, playing hoops. Basketball.

He looked over at me, very serious and a little shaky. Hey, Jerome, he said. I'll…Let's play a game of bounceball for it!

Well, I said, um, man…you know…

But while I was fretting and stammering and wondering how to get out of this one, he busted out laughing. Hoo boy, he said. Oh wow. You got scared but fast! You didn't dare turn me down in case I got crazy again and you sure did not want to lose this pretty lantern, no sir. Poor Jerome! He laughed on. I chuckled a bit too but mostly out of relief. He had pulled a joke and not a bad one so maybe was more okay than he had looked a while back.

He picked up the lantern.

Can I hold it?

Sure, I said.

He looked at it close up, very studious. He poked here and there like he knew his way around the thing.

Man, he said. Then he held it out at arm's length.

You know what this swivel is for? he said.

No, I said.

He nodded. And then he started very slowly moving his wrist, held out stiff-arm, the lantern swaying back and forth, back and forth, and he swung the wrist faster and the lantern swung fast too, and then after he got up enough speed he started actually whirling the wrist all the way around in a circle though you would think it would break but did not. The lantern all this time started going around smooth as could be, in a big full whizzy circle, making a whole ball of light very large and beautiful and you could have seen it for
miles. Bix whirled it and made it look easy, but you could see actually it took a lot of control and strength. He had the control, he had the strength, he was using them and he liked it. His face was lit up as much as the lantern inside that big circle of whizzing yellow. He was relaxed, concentrating, yet enjoying all the motion and colors and me being amazed out there just in the dark. On his face you could see this little closed smile, like waiting for a hot grounder in the baseball game, in action, in control. I watched and it was just like it had been during that game when I started to dig him. Only it was better now, because I knew how he had to get back to being like this from all those other ways he got to be in between, weird ways blowing him around, not always smooth and in power like he looked at his best but still he did keep coming back. I felt like I loved him right then, because he swung the light and looked happy so soon after being a mess, and it was my light he was swinging, for me. My eyes squeezed some tears, and I felt warm in the stomach and did not ever want to do anything again to hurt this kid.

After a minute he swung the lantern around slower and slower, never losing control or letting it jerk on the swing. In a few seconds he had it down to half circles and then little moves until finally stopped.

Whoo, I said. Whoo, you can sling that jessie!

He nodded, not really listening, still a little smile. He put the lantern down and looked at it with his forehead wrinkling a bit, very thoughtful.

I let him be. He stared at the light for a minute. Then his forehead went smooth and he laughed.

He looked up at me, and pointed at the lantern. Spin Light, he said. Then he laughed some more. I laughed too.

Spin Light, I said. Yeah.

We both sort of chuckled quite a bit on that one. I thought he had just given a name to my lantern, and I liked the name. Spin Light. I called it Spin Light from then on, until this very day, the lantern being the kind of thing so good you can name it like a pet. I was very impressed with him for coming up with such a name.

While I laughed and said it over and over, Yeah, Spin Light, he stopped but kept smiling and nodding and without me really noticing he slipped away and picked up his ball and started to move off.

See you Jerome, he said, cutting across the other side of the court.

Hey, I said, cooling the laugh. Hey, listen—you come here every night?

Yeah, he said, still walking with his back to me, getting further out toward where the light stopped.

Well, how about we meet? How about I meet you here tomorrow? We can, you know, shoot around, play some hoops.

I don't know how, he said, getting to the last fringe of the light and passing out into the dark. He held his hand up for a wave without turning around and disappeared.

Hey, I said. I'll teach you.

Maybe, his voice said back out of the dark. Maybe.

I listened as long as I could hear his footsteps. When they were too far away I hollered out, Hey, I'll bring Spin Light!

He laughed and then I waited but nothing else came so I guess he was gone. I got my ball and the lantern and walked back through the woods. I felt peculiar and great, full of something I knew and something I did not. But I was glad I had him again.

And now it is only since I got his notebook that I know what was so weird and neat and secret and funny about him looking at the lantern like he did, and puzzling at it and then laughing and saying what he said. I could not know back then, I thought it was just a name, but now I see it right here in his book, on the page after Phil Rizzuto talking about the way to play short, here is what Bix wrote at the bottom of the page after covering the whole thing with those words, he wrote:

 

I WILL PLAY MY GAME BENEATH THE SPIN LIGHT.

It took six weeks.

We started with dribbling. I could have started him on shooting or jumping or the rules or whatever else, almost so complicated once you think about it all and where to pick your point that nobody with a lick of sense would try to teach somebody basketball. The thing is, you can't do it all at once, no more nor you can just sit down and write a book like this all at once either. You have to go day by day in pieces. So with hoops, which piece do you pick first?

I picked dribbling. I picked it because in basketball dribbling is like walking in any other sport except hockey where they skate. What I mean is, you cannot move in hoops when you got the ball unless you dribble. Now, no baseball coach would try to teach a kid how to drag bunt unless the kid could walk first. So what good of me to tell Bix about jump shots until he could move to the place he wanted to shoot from at all?

Bix truly did not know anything about basketball. His bounceball game also did nothing to get him doing anything with the ball the right way. He bounced wrong, threw it at
the hoop wrong, rebounded it wrong, did not know how this ball moved at all because he never saw it in bounceball, only in the dark.

That first night, the one after I found him, he showed up, wearing desert boots and khaki long pants and the old turtleneck sweater. I asked could he do this or that thing, and he just shrugged. I was worried at first he was not really interested but I knew it might just be a state he had to get sparked out of. So I asked him to show me how he dribbled. He said No, why bother? Just show him and he would do it right, why waste time doing it wrong. So I did.

I went through it all pretty quick but detailed. I explained about how you only touch the ball with the fingertips and you dribble from the wrist, not the elbow. I told him how you are supposed to feel like the ball is not really ever out of your hand control, like when it is bouncing on the floor you still have a hold on it, but very light indeed at all times.

He nodded and took the ball and held it in his hands several different ways. He looked at his fingers, how they splayed out, then tightening them up so his palm was not touching the ball anymore. Then he held the ball under one arm and stood there bending his other wrist back and forth and looking at it. All this before putting the ball on the court.

But when he finally did put it down he knew what he was doing. That ball snapped down and back on a string. You can tell by the way the ball spins on the way down compared to the way up, and how hard it hits compared to the arm motion, whether somebody can move it right. Bix could, very soon. I told him he was quick. He shrugged.

Next we started moving with the dribble, walking at first, very slow, always making sure the ball was where we knew
it was. Then a couple of nights later we got into crouching, getting low, which you have to do else you want the ball stolen every time. A few nights after that we started picking up speed, moving faster, more sudden. Bix was not in a hurry to learn, though you could see he wanted to pick it up quick as he could, but not move on until he had the thing we were doing. Most people rush and they miss things, but he knew inside him how to make sure every step was right before taking the next. That is how I like it too. We were right for each other that way, teaching and learning.

By the end of the next week Bix was low and darting here and there with three speeds he could shift into and out of all quickly. He could go with both hands, too, for I knew it would be best if he started out doing the left equal with the right. You have to dribble both ways someday. I wish someone had told me when I started, for to ignore the left is easy and you have to come back for it later anyway.

At first when Bix came every night he was all bland and shruggy and not particularly eager. But by now I knew this was just a state he could move out of, and what got him moving was the ball. He was one of those people, you put any ball in their hand and they figure out the best way to use it. He got alert when he touched it and he started to care. Man, he was good so fast. Things grew in him soon as he took them in. He did not just copy you, either, trying to make his body do things your body's way. Instead he got the sense of what you did and figured out how his own motion could make the same sense his way. Bix was not going to be a fake Jerome on the court. He was Bix, and already there were things he did by himself I knew I could not do. They belonged to that shortstop dude. His personality was going to come through whatever kind of ball it was.

His personality maybe, but not those wild moods. Those numbers did not operate on him the way they did in outside places. He still got fierce or cool or even a little crazy but this time it was all only in things he did with the basketball. His moods were turned into pure hoops now. They never blacked out his basic cool either—he concentrated and he was always in control. The spells were like flavors on his whole motion, the way ice cream is always sweet and cold and good beneath the chocolate or maple or even crummy butter brickle.

There was nothing but basketball and him and me inside that flash thrown by Spin Light out in the middle of black above and around, warm enough from our motion and no wind through the trees though it was getting colder and darker as winter came on. We did not really talk at all. We had no words to say so much as motions shown and motions repeated, and I guess we knew how away out there across the dark and through the woods that's all everybody else had, words yakked and words yakked back, television and talk talk talk and more television. We got so we just nodded to each other when we both arrived, and then we moved right into the game. This was not cold or unfriendly though if you asked me long before was that how I wanted to be with my best buddy? I would have said probably not. I would have said it sounded pretty strange, and maybe it was, but it was not bad strange.

Only one time did I get fidgety with the mouth, uncomfortable in all that quiet. We were taking a break after some drills and I sat there thinking the quiet seemed okay but I couldn't figure out WHY it seemed okay, and then this made me start thinking that my liking Bix so much was the same, it seemed okay but when I stopped to think I couldn't figure
out why. So I spoke up and said Bix, do you like me enough to be best friends?

He was lying back with his sweat shirt over his face and did not bother to move it, only barked out a laugh and said Jerome please do not turn into a goddam shrink or a female.

What is a shrink, I asked.

It is an asshole that thinks he is a doctor because he can sweet talk people instead of making them well.

I think maybe my brother Mo is aiming to be a shrink, I said, but he is not an asshole.

Then he will be a lousy shrink, said Bix.

I let that pass and we sat on in the quiet for a minute and then I said again, Well, Bix, are we best friends?

He moaned underneath his sweat shirt and waved one of his hands. Look, Jerome, he said. Do I have to ask you if you like your lantern? I have never seen you sit down and look your lantern square in the eye and say Lantern, I am certainly quite fond of you. But do I doubt you like that thing? No. Because I see you spend time with it, I see you pick it up and put it down, I see you USE it. And I can guess without any stupid words that you LOVE that piece of metal and glass. Am I right?

Yes, but—

And here I am every night out on this nowheresville court dinking around with a ball and a hoop but most of all dinking around with YOU. And that doesn't tell you anything about being friends?

Not like words, I said.

Jesus! he shouted, slamming his hand into the ground. What is this huge big deal about words? Why would anyone ask such a stupid question as Do you like me? I am out here for hours with you, I believe you when you tell me to spread
my fingers for the dribble, I believe you when you tell me to bend at the knees though it feels better bending at the waist, I do everything I hear you say. All this talking crap is stupid stupid stupid, it's for shrinks and females and let me tell you one thing I KNOW, it can drive people CRAZY.

I sat staring across the court at Spin Light. In a minute Bix's voice came from behind me, very clear and soft, and I knew he had sat up and taken his shirt off his face and was looking at me.

Now, he said, do you want to ask how come I know these things, how come I know about shrinks and people going crazy?

Before I could think about it, because normally I would jump to ask just such a question, but this time I said, No. No, I don't need to ask anything, Bix.

And then his arms were around me from behind, very tight, and I did not think or ask anything but only noticed after a minute that he wasn't breathing and then I noticed even more that I wasn't breathing, namely because I couldn't on account of his squeeze, and soon I felt dizzy and was about to bust out of his grip when he let go. I gulped in some air and spun around but he was clean gone.

From that night on we did not talk anymore again, at least not about being buddies and such. As much as basketball was lessons for Bix I thought the quiet was lessons for me, and I came to let myself believe he was right about the way those things happened between us, and I let go of a lot of my questions. Maybe I should have hung onto a few, but it was much easier to believe out there in that light in the clearing in the woods with us moving chest to chest in the middle, that we had things happening between us we did not need to think or talk out. It was trust and curiosity I guess,
but mostly it had no name, just digging the way each other could do things, the way your legs could slash or how clever your wrists were, digging yourself as much as you dug the other because you felt him watching and liking everything. Nothing was not noticed. Nothing did not count. Lots of people would say this was nothing to come to love a person over, this silent basketball stuff. You are only supposed to love people over big deals, not just the way he twists with a ball in his hands and watches while you do it a little differently. But I started to think these people were wrong. Anything that could get your heart to where Bix and I were must count as much as anything else. Or at least I thought so then.

In about six weeks Bix had gone from one thing to the next and covered most all I could think of in basketball fundamentals. We went from dribbling to reverses and simple switchovers, all just still dealing with motion and direction, nothing too tricky. Then we studied on angles, which you have to know, cutting the right path to the basket or away from it, getting the drive so your man cannot possibly cover the shot without fouling you bad, staying in position after a reverse so you still have the option of cutting back the way you came and fooling everybody. Such a sense of angles is important, you got to know where you are on the floor and where you can get to if you choose.

After angles we got into shooting, for if you move as well as Bix now you want to pay it off by putting that ball in the hole. First we did lay-ups. Lay-ups were the most natural shot for him to get first, coming off two weeks of nothing but motion. The lay-up makes you connect very clearly how your motion leads to the basket. If you start with jumpers maybe you don't see that every shot you take comes from
how you moved before you went up and what position you set up for yourself, but in a lay-up you cannot fail to see this, because you choose your path and you take your body all the way along it, and you get there and you actually almost touch the basket, making the connection all the way. So, lay-ups, left and right, and reverses both ways off the baseline. Then the running hook off the drive, from five and then from eight feet out but no farther because the ball gets too much speed and kicks off the board too hard.

After the running shot the short jump shot, and then through the basic types of jumpers. The fadeaway, the lean. For some reason I did not try the hesitation yet. Bix saw the shots and he did them. He could jump like a monkey and his wrists were good once he was up in the air. He kept control of the ball and forgot about everything but wrist and fingers once the rest of his body did its part to get him clear. That is the hardest thing to do, to concentrate on the last parts to make the shot happen, forgetting the lower body, because people who cannot get to your shot will still have your lower body to get and will kick your legs or shove your waist but by then you have to be alive nowhere but the hands and the eye.

After basic shooting we got into the whole other half of the game which is defense. Now, if you are a good hoops player you figure out right away that you can learn a lot about D just by watching yourself on O. You know your feet and how motion starts and stops on offense. You know the angles a shooter chooses. So, when your job is all of a sudden to stop a shooter and hurt his motion, you can flip things around and you know a lot already. The best player always teaches himself things from his own game, like you turn a neat trick on offense, coming up with a very sharp
shot, but even while shooting, in the back of your mind something is thinking This shot could be stopped if the defense man cut later and jumped from the side instead of squared off, or whatever. Only the very smartest hoops player will be this quick and open to flip back and forth so naturally. I do it, always have, and Bix did it too, from the start. He used everything he had learned on O to teach him things on D. So really all I needed to do most of the time was give him plain tips, like Never cross your legs over in a step because then your man can cut back on you and you cannot move without you break your knee, or If you want to block a shot do not jump exactly when the shooter does which you want to do by reaction, but wait and go up half a second later so you peak just after he pauses to pop it, and SMACK you get the sucker clean.

And finally Bix was all set with everything he needed but moves. He had the fundamentals, which is what coaches call them, meaning shooting, dribbling, defense, general head play and basic special techniques like the reach-around steal or behind-the-back dribble. But he still had no moves.