Then he cuts us loose. We’re under orders not to tell anyone until the other players hear in person from him. The three of us walk together down the halls. Right now they’re empty, but any second that bell will ring and the whole school will spill out. Noise. Clamor. Chaos.
“Well, what do you guys think?” Fuller asks.
“I think it’s some bullshit,” Jones says. He’s a hulking 6’8", but when he acts this way his face sags into a mope. It makes him look soft, not menacing. “My senior year.”
“Our senior year,” I remind him. But I don’t say anything else. Truth is, I’m as sad as I am angry. But ballers aren’t gonna sit around and cry for the dearly departed. Next man up.
“Whatever,” Jones says. “I spent all summer banging weights and this is what I get.” He storms off, leaving Fuller and me standing under that big red sign: We Are the Hornets. Our Strength is in the Hive.
Then the bell rings and everyone swarms out around us.
Those slogans are flat-out lies.
There’s no time to sulk. After school, it was just a quick Catch you later to Lia, and then I hopped in my car to trek here: the doctor’s office. One last check-in before the season starts. Lia offered. My parents offered. Hell, even Jayson offered. But I didn’t want company on this one. Some things you have to do solo. If I get a bad report now, I don’t want to have to face anyone to talk about it.
Hanging in the waiting room about kills me. It’s worse than watching another player step to the line with the game in the balance. Nothing you can do but hope. Thing is, I should be more confident. The knee doesn’t give me any problems anymore. Not even tightness after workouts. But I don’t get to turn it loose without the doctor’s say-so.
“Bowen. Derrick.” I look up to see a nurse with a clipboard. She looks around, then sees me rising. She motions me to follow.
First things first. She gets me on the scales. “One-ninety-two,” she mutters to herself and writes it down. It’s a little more than I’ve weighed in the past, but no surprise. The one thing I could do while injured was add some bulk. If there’s any extra fat, it’ll burn off with a week or two of practice. Then she has me stand straight to measure my height. I’m not even really paying attention—just hoping to get this over with and get a green light from the doc—but when she reads it off I ask her to repeat herself.
“Six-four,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me. It’s like she thinks I called her a liar or something. Then she relents. “Okay. Six-four-and-a-half. That better?”
I nod, but she’s misreading me. I didn’t think she was cheating me of an inch. It’s just that I topped out at 6’3" before freshman year and haven’t grown a millimeter since. No wonder my kicks have felt tight. But, hey, I’ll take it. An extra inch and a half? That’s another board per game. Another bucket or two among the bigs. Maybe a dozen more blocks over the course of a year.
Provided I get to wear a uni at all.
After that, she ushers me to a smaller room and tells me the doctor will be right with me. Right. That means I sit there in silence for half an hour. I thumb through an SI and a SLAM, but even they can’t distract me. I look at pictures on the wall, some signed photos of semi-famous athletes this doctor’s put back between the lines.
Finally, the door swooshes open and in he comes. He’s young, thin. His skin is honey-colored, but it’s impossible to figure out what ethnicity he is. He speaks in a clipped but cheery tone—the kind of thing that usually bothers me, but he’s been a pretty steadying force through this whole journey with my knee.
“How we doing today, Derrick?” he asks. He extends his hand.
I rise, shake his hand. “I guess how I’m doing depends on what you tell me.”
No more small talk then. He knows I need him to get down to business. He measures the circumference of my leg and writes it down. He quizzes me on my workouts. Any swelling? Soreness? Am I hitting full speed running? Any problems after downhill running?
It’s a little weird. I mean, I know what the right answers are. But I try to be honest with myself and the doctor—the last thing anyone wants is another injury. So I give him the truth. I haven’t had any soreness or swelling in over a month. Everything feels good. Except one thing. “I hit top speed,” I tell him, “but I don’t feel like I get there as fast as I used to.”
The doctor nods. Then he frowns a little and scans a chart in front of him. He flips a page. Then another. It’s like he’s on the beach, browsing some summer read while I’m in deep water in need of saving.
He looks up at me again. He smiles, but I can tell there’s something lurking behind it—the way a parent might smile right before they drop the hammer on you, like I hate to do this to you, but your ass is grounded.
“What you’re experiencing is normal,” he says. “I could count on one hand the number of athletes I’ve had who felt they had the same power. For most of them, it takes at least a full year from their injury. And yours was in”—he double-checks his chart—“late January. So, like I said, totally normal. You’ll get that power back as your knee returns to form.” Then he taps his temple with his finger a few times. “But some of it’s in here, too. Tearing your ACL isn’t like stubbing a toe, Derrick. Sometimes our mind holds us back a little longer until we feel safe.” I stare at him, still waiting on the verdict. I didn’t come to the doctor for some psychology lesson. He must sense it because he waves his hand in the air, as if to say Forget all that nonsense. “You’re good to go, Derrick.”
“For real?” As badly as I want to believe it, the thought almost scares me somehow. Like any second, a camera crew’s going to pop out and let me know the doc was punking me.
“You check out,” he says. “Every test up and down the line. We’re going to want a brace on you for a good while longer, but you can resume full basketball activities.”
“Right away?”
“Derrick, as far as I’m concerned, if there’s a court on the other side of that door, you can start a pick-up game.”
3.
First, the kicks. Fresh out of the box. I went to Ty’s Tower to buy them this weekend. My mom forked over the cash, but this time—more than all the times in the past—it seemed to cause her physical pain to hand that stack to me just so I could put something on my feet. But you don’t tell a musical phenom to go buy a used instrument, and you don’t tell a baller to skimp on kicks.
Now I have to deal with Wes at Ty’s Tower. We don’t hang too much anymore. Last year, he got himself tangled up with some for real bad people. He’s still paying off some debt he owes those guys, scrubbing floors at the same seedy bar where Uncle Kid works. It’s not the kind of place that puts him in contact with good influences. Hell, it’s illegal for him to even be working there, but they can just give him some cash off the books and he works cheap. So after all that, I keep pretty clear of my boy, even if he does still live right up the street. Still, the guy’s the biggest sneakerhead I know. It would just feel like a betrayal if I bought my senior kicks without him as wing man.
First thing I do is point to the LeBron XIIIs. Used to be I’d rock the D Roses, but after his sexual assault case my mom said she’d cut off my feet if I put his shoes on. But here, I get all told from Wes instead. “Gotta step up your sneaker game for senior year,” he says. He practically begs me until I try on some Hyperdunks and some Melos. Even some funky Brandblack Raptors. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he says. “Some real flavor.” As he points to the shoes, I see fresh ink on his arms—namely a dollar sign on the inside of his wrist. Tats don’t come cheap, I know, and I shudder to think about where he’s getting that extra flow. But I don’t press it. Not now.
In the end I come right back to the LeBrons. “Come on, D,” Wes pleads. But I’m not here for anything new, other than a jump in size for proper fit.
Wes knows it too. The whole time he was pointing out other shoes, he knew it. Him changing my mind isn’t the point. The two of us hanging a little is. It’ll never be
like when we were pups again. Too much has changed. And it’ll be a long time before I can trust him again. When it all went down last year, I had to put myself on the line for him—and I damn near got popped doing it.
We head out to the street. Wes immediately digs a pack of smokes from his pocket and starts packing them. Then he sees me watching him and tucks them back away. Not that I care. He’s smoked a lot more than a few Marlboros in his day. But anything like that is just this little reminder that we’ve hit different paths in our lives.
“How’s work?” I ask.
He laughs. There’s no joy in it—it’s the laugh of someone bitter. “I mop puke off the floor three days a week,” he says. “And every dime I get goes to JaQuentin Peggs.”
JaQuentin. That was the guy. I still seem him around now and then, and every time he just looks more dangerous. “Well,” I say, but I just let it trail off.
“Yeah, I know,” Wes says. “Nobody’s fault but mine.” But the way he says it sounds like he’s accusing someone else.
“Wanna grab a Coke somewhere?” I ask. For some reason, I don’t want my time with Wes to be over yet. Truth is, I miss the kid, even if I know I’m better off without him dragging me down.
“Nah,” he says. “I’m tired. I think I’m gonna hit it.”
Around me, the locker room’s humming. Every last player in Marion East is full of themselves. Talking trash. Yapping about dropping twenty a game. Going undefeated. It’s this way in every locker room in the state right now. Soon enough, the season will come along and knock some woof out of people. But today? Everyone’s still perfect.
Across from me, Darryl Gibson sits in his locker, headphones on. He bobs his head in silence, the only guy in the locker room not running game. He feels me checking him and looks up. He lowers the headphones down around his neck. “’Sup, Derrick,” he says.
I shrug. “What’s up with you?”
He shakes his head. Nothing. That’s been the sum total of our exchanges in school. But what is there to say? We both want the same thing and only one can have it. I check him now. He keeps a sneer on his face like he’s some banger ready to tear it up. Even has a little ink—a “D” on fire on the inside of his right forearm. “I know you’re not used to seeing white point guards around here,” he says, “but you don’t have to eye me like I’m some animal in the zoo.”
Around us, a few guys quiet down. Of course, everybody has been wondering about it to themselves—how it’s going to go down between me and Gibson.
“Ain’t about white, black, or green,” I tell him. “It’s about who’s got the orange in their hands and what they do with it. And you’re the back-up point guard.”
That gets a reaction from guys. The underclassmen all laugh—a little too hard maybe, trying to get on my good side. But Jones, my fellow senior, bellows across the room. “Know the truth when you hear it, Gibson.” It’s the first thing I’ve heard come out of his mouth since our meeting with Murphy.
Then Josh Reynolds, a wiry junior who’s set as our two-guard, bounces over. He sways and struts, then tells us, “Don’t matter who’s bringing the rock up the court. Just find me when I pop open.” Then he goes through an elaborate, slow-motion charade of his jumper. He fades back as he does it, then nods his head as if he’s seen the rock find bottom. “Wet,” he says. “All day every day.” Then he cups his hands by his mouth and mimics a crowd roar, like he’s just sunk a game-winner. It’s all play. The stuff that kids do from the first time they touch leather. Gibson and I both laugh, then check each other and serious up again.
I’ve got my eye on Reynolds though. He’s always been flaky. He bailed on us halfway through the first practice his freshman year, then had to beg forgiveness to get back on the team. And even last year when he slid into the rotation he was the kind of guy you had to keep calm. Quick to take a shot. Quick to panic. And already this year he seems even jumpier, like there’s an itch all over his skin. I’ll have to manage that mania, I can tell. I’ve learned that a point guard’s job is more than just driving and dishing—it’s also massaging egos and pep-talking and squashing tension.
But enough of that. The locker room door swings open. Murphy stands there, whistle draped over his neck. His eyes gleam with energy—maybe what we’ll miss in Bolden’s wisdom will be made up for by Murphy’s enthusiasm. He pounds his fist on the heavy door—thump thump thump—and smiles at us. “What the hell you boys waiting for?” he shouts. “Season starts now!”
No joke. Time to hit the hardwood.
Early on, Murphy sticks to Bolden’s old practice script. Namely, he runs us till our lungs burn and our legs go wobbly. I don’t care. It feels good. The thunder of kicks on the hardwood and a real sweat soaking through my shirt. I didn’t know how much a person could come to miss wind sprints.
I don’t ease up, either. Not now. And when I get a glimpse of Jones slowing down at the end of one, I don’t let it slide. “Come on, big man,” I say. It’s cool and off to the side. No need to call him out for the freshmen to hear. Still, he squinches up his face like he doesn’t want to hear it. “Naw, let’s do it, Jones,” I say. “Senior year. Make it count.” That at least coaxes a fist bump from him before Murphy lines us up and blows his whistle. Off again.
The only thing gnawing at me is Gibson. We finish neck and neck pretty much every time, but I have to make up ground in the second half of the sprint. It’s like he’s to the free throw line before Murphy’s finished blowing his whistle. Just zip. Gone. That burst I’ve heard about is real. And he knows it. There’s no talk between us, but every once in a while I’ll see him glance over at the end to see if he’s outpaced me.
Finally, it happens. The annual ritual. A freshman bows out. This time it’s another big—Xavier Green—who can’t hack it. He stumbles on one sprint, then on the next he doesn’t go. Just stands there on the baseline sucking wind while the rest of us rattle it off. I don’t really know Xavier, but his big brother Moose was our beast in the post for my first two years. I was hoping maybe Xavier would bring that same kind of heat to the floor. But one look at him, doubled over gasping, and the only thing I can tell is that he hasn’t arrived at the first practice in playing shape any more than Moose used to.
Murphy, hands on his hips, walks over to Xavier. This is it, I think. This is where Murphy lays down the law. Under Coach Bolden, it was a rite of passage—first one to cave on the sprints got chewed out mercilessly.
Off to the side, I hear Reynolds laugh a little. Two years ago, he was the one who got the earful from Coach so I’m sure he loves watching it happen to some other poor freshman.
Murphy puts his hand on Xavier’s back. “You okay there, X-Man?” he asks.
Xavier, still unable to stand up straight, just nods a few times. But then he holds up a hand to say he needs a second.
Murphy nods, understanding. He turns to the rest of us and says we did a good job. “Now let’s start drills. Bigs down here with X-Man. Perimeter players on the other end.”
We stand there for a second, dazed. “For real?” Reynolds whispers. I know where he’s coming from. It’s like Murphy just walked on Coach Bolden’s grave. I don’t care who Xavier’s older brother was, kid dies on a sprint he’s supposed to get jumped. And this X-Man business? Excuse me if I pass on the nicknames for someone who hasn’t scored a single high school bucket yet.
“Come on, let’s go!” Murphy shouts. But even then there’s no anger. He sounds like the same old Assistant Murphy, encouraging and cajoling. Not like a head coach at all.
Then, there’s drills. Two ends of the floor. One coach. I know this one’s not Murphy’s fault—he probably hasn’t had time to scrounge up an assistant yet—but it makes him look unprepared. The guy knows hoops, but if knowing hoops was all it took, then my Uncle Kid would be the next Coach K.
Sure enough, when Murphy strolls down to us and turns his back on the bigs, it’s a mess. He starts us in a weave drill, but behind him the big guys are just gaming the s
ystem. First it’s Xavier acting the fool, chucking up twenty-footers instead of working his post moves. And, after a minute, they’re all into it, even Jones who should know better.
Murphy must see me looking past him, because he stops our drill and wheels around. Just as he turns, Xavier is launching a hook shot from the hash mark.
“Hey, come on,” Murphy yells. “Let’s be grown-ups, aight? Work the way I showed you.” But there’s no heat, no old-fashioned Bolden bite. So they nod at Murphy and act all sorry, but in another minute it’s back to the same-old.
I try to focus on our drills, but when I hear laughing from the other end, that tears it. I stop mid-weave. I let a pass from Reynolds just sail toward the sideline. I take three big steps to mid-court. “Hey, Xavier,” I yell. He turns, a big goofy grin on his face. I used to like that grin on his older brother, but at least I knew he would bust ass when the time came. “This is a practice for men who want to play basketball. Not kindergarten. You might think you can come here and just fuck around all day, but don’t expect to be getting minutes when the season rolls around.”
“Okay,” he says. He rolls his eyes a little bit and gives a whatever shrug.
“Hey!” I yell and start marching toward him.
That’s when Murphy cuts me off. He grabs me by the elbow and gets in my ear. “Easy,” he says. “You don’t have to be the coach, too. Let me handle this.”
I stare at him for a second, but he doesn’t blink. He still doesn’t seem angry, and that lack of anger infuriates me. Hell, I don’t know what practice is without somebody screaming. “Fine,” I say, and I turn back to our end of the court.
Quicks Page 2
