Training Camp

by Kobe Bryant

  Lab laughed and pushed him, and Peño tousled his hair and stood up, stretching.

  “You gonna start cooking more often?” Peño asked.

  Lab snorted. “If we want to live through the season, I better.”

  They went to warm up together. Peño had changed his routine. He used to shoot from the top of the key and work on driving solely from there. But he saw now that he had been limiting himself. So he took corner threes, and worked on posting up, and cut in and out before shooting to free up space. His shots didn’t all go in. Most missed. But he returned to the same spots to try again.

  Even as he worked, Peño saw Lab hitting his shots with regularity. He saw Rain come in and throw down a dunk. He knew that they were pulling ahead of him. For all his efforts, for all his growth, Peño was still being left behind. He felt a chill settle over him again. A hard truth.

  “Gather round.” Rolabi had arrived. “All but one of you have caught the orb. Why?”

  Peño shifted. He was the last one, and everyone knew it. But somehow, he didn’t feel that it was a race. He didn’t regret his decision yesterday one bit. He was strangely fine being the last.

  “Because . . . you told us to?” Vin said as they formed a semicircle.

  Rolabi turned to him. “But why? What did you find?”

  “Our fears,” Reggie murmured.

  Rolabi nodded, turning to the row of banners that hung on the north wall. “If one thing will stop you in life, it is that. To win, we must defeat our fears. For basketball . . . for everything.”

  “But . . . we did, right?” Big John asked.

  “Fear is not so easily beaten,” Rolabi said. “It will return. You must be ready. We have much to work on before the season begins. For today, we will review what we have learned so far.”

  There was a sudden scratching.

  “Twig, you know the drill,” Rolabi said, reaching into his bag.

  He began to set up another obstacle course. Kallo returned. So did the shadows. Rolabi dumped out pads and helmets. Reminders of the whole training camp soon collected on the hardwood.

  “In a line, please,” Rolabi said. “We’ll start with the free-throw circuit. We will run laps until someone hits. Once through that, we will watch the daisy for movement. We’ll work on getting past Kallo and then strap up the pads for a defensive drill. After that, we will run the Spotlight Offense in the dark with a glowing ball, and then against our shadow defenders. Following that, we will run a circuit with our weaker hands. Finally, we will shoot to end the day and solve another little puzzle.”

  “Is there going to be weird stuff happening?” Vin asked.

  Rolabi looked at him. “Weird stuff?”

  “Never mind,” Vin muttered.

  Peño started the drill. It was harder than anything he had done so far—the challenges from previous practices all came back. He tried to work with a missing hand, crawled out from beneath Kallo, fought with his annoying shadow, missed shot after shot after shot. He poured sweat. His legs burned. He pushed and pushed and finally slid to a halt. The orb was floating in front of him. Peño took a deep breath.

  “Just you and me, huh?” he said.

  “Get it, Peño!” Vin called.

  Peño made his move. But it wasn’t random this time—he predicted the orb’s reactions. He used his surroundings. He cornered it and closed in on it, and finally, with a burst of effort, he pounced on it in midair, clutching the seeping black liquid to his chest like a trophy. And then Fairwood vanished.

  He was standing on a concrete floor. Everything else was open.

  “Hello?” he called. “Professor Rolabi?”

  He turned in a slow circle. There were no walls, no ceiling, just darkness on all sides, and a chill in the air—one he knew well.

  “Peño?” a familiar voice asked.

  He whirled around and saw Rain. Sort of. Rain was older—maybe in his twenties. He was dressed in expensive clothing, with a diamond earring, gold chain, expensive watch.

  Rain lowered a cell phone from his ear. “Is that you?”

  “Yeah, of course,” Peño said, running over. “How did you get here? You look older.”

  Rain snorted. “Me? Man, I barely recognized you. How are things?”

  Peño looked down at himself. He was dressed in plain khakis and a green golf shirt, and he had a paunch sticking out over his belt. His shoes were dirty and scuffed, his watch cracked. He felt his face and found a thick mustache, a heavy brow, and bags under his eyes.

  “What do you mean?” Peño whispered. “We . . . how long has it been?”

  “Must be ten years,” Rain said, shooting him a lopsided grin. “Been crazy. Two titles, as you know. Lots going on. It’s good to pop home for a bit . . . I guess.” He laughed. “Place is still a dump. No wonder Lab won’t come back here.”

  “Lab . . .” Peño said.

  Scenes started to play behind Rain as though projected on a giant screen. Lab was older too, and playing in the DBL. Peño saw him hoisting the championship trophy. He saw screaming fans. He saw his father, stooped but beaming, watching from the bleachers. Rain was there too; he and Lab were on the same team. Peño slowly backed away.

  “I wanted to play . . .” he whispered.

  “Nah,” Rain said. “You wanted to keep up. You just didn’t have it, man. We can’t all get it, right? You knew that. But we’ll see you around. Come to a game sometime. I can get you tickets.” His phone rang, and he picked it up and laughed. “What’s it like? Same old. Sad.”

  And then Rain vanished. The whole team was around him now. His family too. His mom was standing there, looking healthy again. Happy. His eyes welled. But whenever Peño moved toward them, they all slid away. Peño fell on his knees, tears streaming now.

  “Please, come back,” he whispered.

  “You aren’t pushing them away, you know.”

  Peño looked behind him and spotted Rolabi standing outside the circle of family and teammates. “Let me out of here. Please,” said Peño.

  “You brought us here,” Rolabi said calmly. “Not me. You brought them all here.”

  “I wish I didn’t. Now, how do I leave?”

  “Do you know where you are?” Rolabi asked.

  Peño looked around. He felt the chill in the air. He saw the waiting faces.

  “My fears.”

  “Very good. Your deepest fears. In this room, everything else is seeded and grown.”

  “But I don’t understand.”

  “What is your deepest fear, Carlos Juarez? Why are these people here?”

  Peño looked around at his mom and his brother and the team. He thought of them fading into the distance every time he moved toward them. He thought of saying goodbye to his mom.

  “I can’t keep up with them,” he whispered.

  “But why are you afraid?”

  Peño hesitated. “I . . . I’m afraid of being left behind.”

  The words echoed through the room and lingered. The people around him nodded, as if confirming the theory. He wasn’t good enough for any of them. He was going to be left behind.

  “She seemed like a wonderful lady. We all process loss differently.”

  “My brother . . .”

  “Lab hid from his sadness, so it began to consume him. It changed his sense of his own value. He felt worthless. He felt like he would let people down.”

  Peño nodded. “I know.”

  “And you?”

  Peño stared at the ghostly image of his mother. “That was the first time someone left me. I tried to make up for it. But I felt like it would always happen. Like I would always be left behind.”

  “And you might be.”

  “But I thought you said I was a leader,” Peño whispered.

  “You are a leader, Peño. But that doesn’t mean you must
lead from the front.”

  “I want to be a pro,” Peño managed. “I want to go with Rain and Lab.”

  “They might make it; they might not. You might make it; you might not. That isn’t the point.”

  “What is?” Peño asked.

  “Wherever you go, there you are. Your path is your own. If you race the world, you will lose. If you race your brother, you will let him down—and yourself. The same goes for Rain. Look.”

  Peño turned around. A thousand images flashed around him. He saw Rain staring at a crumpled note, tears leaking onto the paper. He saw Twig slouched in front of the bathroom mirror, dejected, and Reggie looking at old photos in the darkness of his bedroom. He saw Big John crying in his room, afraid, and Vin covering a fresh bruise with makeup, and A-Wall sleeping on the bare floor in a run-down house. He saw . . . pain.

  “If you build people up so high that you cannot see their faults, then you cannot help them.”

  Rolabi laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “Stop running after everyone, Peño. You are a leader. If you help the others get to the finish line, you won’t care if you are with them. Then, and only then, will you win your race.”

  Peño felt his eyes well up with new tears. “I won’t play in the DBL, will I?”

  “I don’t know. But if that is your only goal in life, then you have forgotten to live.” Rolabi turned Peño to face him. “Be a great baller, Peño,” he said quietly. “Be a better person.”

  Peño nodded. “I think we can go.”

  “I agree.”

  Peño was suddenly back in the gym, surrounded by his teammates. The obstacle course was gone, and Rolabi was standing in front of them.

  Lab stepped over and gave Peño props. “Good, bro?”

  “All good, man.”

  “So the building is alive . . .” Reggie was saying.

  Twig grinned. “I don’t know. It did try to eat us.”

  The team burst into laughter.

  “Twig telling jokes,” Peño said, shaking his head. “What’s next?”

  He started beatboxing.

  Everyone cheered and closed in on Peño, shaking his shoulders and jumping madly.

  Rolabi picked up his purse and headed for the doors.

  “I thought you said we still have a puzzle to solve?” Rain called after him.

  “You do,” Rolabi said. “One for each of you. And by the way, welcome to the Badgers.”

  While everyone cheered, Peño thought about the puzzle as he went to change his shoes. What else was there? Around him, players fell into easy conversation, and Peño noticed that Cash was talking, and that Twig and Reggie were together on the far bench. For once, the Badgers looked like a real team.

  He couldn’t wait for the season to start.

  As they each finished getting changed, the players waited for one another. Peño sat on the bench until his brother was done—unsurprisingly, Lab was last to be ready—and then they all stood up together and started for the doors.

  A question of Rolabi’s arose in Peño’s mind: Where was the place he was most afraid to be? Peño knew the answer now: Last. Exactly where he had been, the last one to catch the orb. The place where he could easily be left behind.

  But maybe Rolabi was right. Last was where Peño was supposed to be. He could lead the team from there. After all, someone had to push.

  As the team came to the doors, Rain stepped out first and held one open. Peño waited, letting everyone else go through. He checked over Fairwood, smiled, and flicked off the lights.

  He walked out last of all—only when he was sure that no one was left behind.

  LAB STOOD ON the threshold for a moment, uncertain. He sensed something in there. A feeling. He had been in Fairwood a million times, of course. He knew every inch, every stain and dent and stink. But this was different. A shift in the air. Salt instead of sour. Crisp cold instead of humid must.

  Lab’s eyes adjusted to the lighting, and the gym took form. Waiting nets. The silhouette of his brother breathing it in with arms splayed. Lab scanned the gym, looking for changes, but other than Reggie and Twig, it was empty. He was imagining things, or daydreaming, maybe. Of course he was; it was early, and he was tired, and he hadn’t slept much last night, as usual.

  Lab sighed and followed his brother inside. “It’s so early,” he said, rubbing his sleep-crusted eyes.

  Lab wasn’t a morning person. That had always been Peño’s specialty—he woke Lab up; he packed his duffel bag; he made his breakfast. He basically did everything that she used to do. She. Even the pronoun made his stomach turn. It was all he could manage even in the privacy of his own thoughts. No name. No relation. Just a she. The word brought flashes. Smells. Soil from her attempted gardens. Her cinnamon candles burning from the living room—she made them herself to “sweeten up the place.” He pushed them away. He did that daily—compacting and hiding the memories. Hourly. Sometimes by the minute. He pushed the memories back and back, and where they went, he didn’t know and didn’t care. Lab just hoped he never found them again.

  “It’s ball time,” Peño said, basically skipping to the bench. “It’s never too early.”

  “Debatable,” Lab said.

  “It’s going to be a big year, Lab. Things are going to change.”

  “You mean you’re going to grow?” Lab asked.

  “Shut up.”

  They plopped onto the home bench, and Lab glanced at Reggie and Twig. They were always the first ones to arrive in the morning: a bench player and a bust.

  “Reggie,” Peño said, giving him props. “What up, brother?”

  “Ready to go,” Reggie said. “Same old.”

  Same old is right, Lab mused. He stared miserably at the scratched, worn-out court. He’d shoveled down some cornmeal mush that morning, and it was sitting in his stomach like a brick.

  He pulled out his kicks. They smelled worse than Fairwood. He’d left his bag in the closet since last season ended, and something was growing in there. Peño looked at them, and his fingers twitched.

  “Don’t touch my shoes,” Lab said.

  “Dad saved up for like six months to get us those—”

  “They still work fine.”

  Peño scowled. “They smell like two dead cats.”

  “You got problems.”

  Lab laced them up, yawning and stretching out his calves. His dad had worked a long time for the shoes. He worked a long time for everything, made little, and didn’t complain. His dad was a digger at a sprawling gravel pit in the south end—the former industrial district. He had always worked long hours, but now that she was gone, his shifts were longer. Twelve hours . . . fourteen . . . twenty. Sometimes he barely slept.

  Lab watched his dad sometimes when he passed out on the couch. He looked a lot like Peño—short and strong—but with cheeks leathered by the sun and hard, calloused hands. It made Lab’s heart ache, watching as he slept with his clothes on, still dirty, and then woke and went back to work. All that, and still the family struggled. Lab looked down at his own hands. Soft and slender and barely worked.

  I could be helping, he thought with a familiar pang of guilt.

  His dad would never allow it. Peño and Lab had almost flunked out of school—and in the Bottom, there were no second chances. Their dad had been enraged. Lab had never seen him so furious. He said that he worked so they could go to school and play ball and leave this place.

  And then take him with me, Lab thought. He deserves that. He deserves everything.

  The gym doors swung open, and Lab looked up and sighed. Jerome and Big John strolled in, which meant it was about to get loud. Big John was the noisiest person Lab had ever met: he was like an obnoxious radio DJ who never took a break.

  “What up, boys!” he called, his voice echoing around Fairwood like a foghorn.

 
The doors opened again, and sunlight burst through. A billion specks of dust spiraled in the glare. It was like sitting in a snow globe or beneath a clear night sky. Lab watched the sparkles dance around, smiling despite himself at the Bottom’s only true star-scape.

  “The Rain Maker!” Big John called, putting a pudgy hand to his mouth.

  Peño grabbed his ball and stepped out on the court, dribbling through his legs with dizzying speed. Lab’s brother had good handles, there was no doubt, but his shot was a different story.

  “You got a rhyme for the season yet?” Jerome asked.

  Lab groaned. Peño considered himself an amateur rapper, but he was awful. Deep down, Lab knew it was probably more than that. Peño had taken the habit up after it had happened. She used to sing every day, leaving for work, gathered around the table, putting them both to bed. Maybe Peño thought the house was too quiet. Maybe he really did just take to music like she did.

  But for Lab, it was only another reminder. He couldn’t bring himself to cheer Peño on.

  “You ain’t ready for it,” Peño said.

  “No, we aren’t,” Lab said.

  “Pugh, pugh, che,” Big John said, “pugh, pugh, che, pugh, che, pugh, che—”

  “Stop,” Lab moaned.

  Jerome started dribbling, trying to stay in rhythm with Big John’s beat.

  Lab rubbed his temples. “I should have stayed in bed.”

  Peño just grinned and started rapping, throwing out yet another subpar verse—including a flubbed rhyme for Badgers. Lab snorted and shook his head. Peño had been working on that word for two years to no avail.

  “Another classic,” he called after him.

  A tinge of guilt arrived. He didn’t need to be a jerk about it. Why did it make him angry sometimes—just because of the memories? A small part of him wondered if it was jealousy.

  Peño got her love for music. He got a part of her. What did Lab get?

  Lab stood up, swinging his arms to loosen up, chasing the thoughts away. Now that he was here and sort of awake, he was ready for some ball. There was no better sound in the world than the swish of the net. Peño threw him a pass, and Lab took a quick jumper. Clank.