The heater kicks on at Lia’s. It’s like the noise breaks our little spell. She slides away from me, running her hand down my chest and stomach as she does. Lia sighs—this sexy little sound that about gets me all revved up again. She senses it and laughs. “Cool your engines,” she says. “We got all night if you want. Dad always stays out forever on Christmas Eve.”
She’s trying to tease me, but that last line had a little touch of hurt to it. It makes me imagine her when I leave here—stranded all alone, vulnerable in a bad part of the city. Lia deserves better than that. Everyone who lives around here deserves better than that. I relax for a second, stare up at her ceiling. Above us, there’s a brown stain on the ceiling, I guess from where there used to be a leak. It’s not big, just a splotch I never noticed before, but it gives me the feeling like this place might fall down around Lia someday. I’m filled with regret for the way I’ve treated her. It’s not like I’ve done her dirty—haven’t cheated, never even raised my voice at her—but I can suddenly see why the idea of me zooming off to college without her is tough.
“Lia,” I say, “I wish you could come with me on these visits. I never meant I didn’t want you there. It’s just not the way it works, though.”
“Save it,” she says. She shimmies back into her jeans and then pulls a sweatshirt down from her closet. It’s some ancient Colts gear, frayed at the wrists and about ten sizes too big for her—and somehow it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen her in. “I’m not looking for apologies,” she tells me. “We’re past it already. Or didn’t you notice?”
I smile. There it is. More than anything else, that little edge to Lia—flirting, challenging—puts us right again. I gather my stuff to get dressed and then head to the living room where Lia’s already getting us set up on the couch with some snacks and drinks. She’s got a big blanket ready too, wearing it around her shoulders like a cape. I sit on the couch and then she nestles in beside me. At first we’re side by side, but after a couple minutes she lifts her feet up onto the couch. Then she lowers her head to my lap. I think maybe it’s go time again, but Lia senses my excitement. She shifts like she’s uncomfortable. “Rub my shoulder,” she says. “I need some attention.”
I do as I’m told while she flips around with the remote. Everything is Christmas cheer on the tube. Santas. Angels. Miracles. I don’t believe in that stuff anymore, but right now anything feels possible. All that hoops tension evaporates. Most of the time it’s hard to separate my life or who I am from what’s going down on the court, but this moment with Lia makes me wish I could do it more often. Just be a regular guy. Just be eighteen. Chill.
Lia moans real soft while I rub her. She’s acting like she’s found something interesting on the tube, but I know we’re headed back to her room soon enough. She reaches down and runs her fingernail along my leg—from the inside of my calf up to just above my knee, then back again. “That feels nice, D,” she says.
We just keep it like that for a while. Touching each other, trying to hold onto the magic. I keep biding my time, trying to figure out just the right instant to bend down and kiss her neck, try to take this back to the next level.
Instead, it’s Lia who changes it up. “I know it’s your decision,” she says. “And I know nobody takes their girl with them on visits. But would you mind just at least talking it out with me sometimes?”
“Sure,” I say. “That’s cool.” I so don’t want this conversation now. Hell, I don’t want to talk about anything ever again.
“It’s just that maybe I could help you make a decision. You never know.”
I don’t say anything to that. I just keep rubbing her. But beneath my touch I feel Lia’s shoulder tense back up. Her hand stops moving along my leg. Soon, she raises back up from my lap. She lowers the volume on the T.V.
“I mean it, Derrick,” she says. “I need that much.”
“You got it,” I say. “Whatever you want.” But I can tell it doesn’t satisfy her. And I bet she can tell I’m just trying to say whatever I can to be done with the conversation.
Christmas isn’t what it used to be. And I don’t mean we don’t get fun stuff and get all hyped about Santa and wake up at the break of dawn to rip open the presents under the tree. No. That’s been gone for years. I mean, this time nobody’s even in a good mood.
Mom and Dad sit on the couch, Grace tucked into Dad’s arm. They both look half-dead after another night where they got just a few hours of sleep. At this point, Grace’s cries don’t keep me up—I just kind of register them for a few seconds and then go right back to sleep. But Mom and Dad are hurting.
Uncle Kid? Last year he was throwing around all his ill-gotten dough, fixing me up with choice Pacer tickets. This year he’s fidgeting, embarrassed that all he could afford were some gift certificates for me and Jayson. Plus, he still can’t look me in the eye. I tried when I saw him this morning. Gave him a Sorry, man and a Merry Christmas. But he just said Yeah and shuffled past me to get a cup of coffee.
At least Jayson isn’t in a bad mood. He’s just kind of neutral. He organizes his small stack of gifts in the corner. Then, when nobody seems up for anything else, he reaches for the remote on the table. “Shhhh,” Mom and Dad both say in unison. When Jayson looks their way, they both point to Grace sleeping. “Well, do you mind if I just chill in my room then?” he whispers.
Dad waves him on in permission. Which means I’m stuck out here with everyone else. Sure, I could go back too. But I don’t want to crowd him on Christmas morning. I head for the kitchen. Instead of a big Christmas feast like some people have, we’ve got a cooling pot of coffee and some donuts Kid bought yesterday. In the fridge, there are fixings for turkey sandwiches. That’s about it. I close the fridge again and grab a donut. I sit at the kitchen table. It seems wrong somehow. All of it. I guess maybe when I make it to The L I’ll be styling all the time. Serious blow-outs on holidays. A personal chef instead of stale donuts. But who am I kidding? I’m back to being bumped from the point guard spot at Marion East—just like I was a freshman again. If I can’t even run the one-spot here, then how am I ever gonna make it to the NBA? Even if the schools offering me still take me as a two-guard, I’m too small—even at 6’4"—to run at two in The League.
I look out the window and see some Christmas snow falling. It starts to stick on the roof of the house next door. Their curtains are drawn, but I bet behind there, things are better. I’ve never thought that about any other house on the block before. But here? Kid’s still icing me out. So are my teammates. My parents are too sleep-deprived to even notice. Even my girlfriend is cold on me more often than not. This is not the way a big-time baller is supposed to live.
And there’s the answer—maybe I’m not the big-time baller I thought I was.
I plop the half-eaten donut on the table. I decide to head back to my room after all. As I pass through the living room, Mom and Dad and Kid look up at me briefly. But before I’m even past them, their eyes lower again, returning to their silent thoughts.
When I open the door to the room, Jayson startles. He’s back at the closet, but on my side. He spins around and crosses to his bed, where he’s got his gifts spread out.
“What you doing over there?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says, trying to shrug it off. “I’d lost one of my shirts and thought it might be on your side.” A lie, I know. Jayson is so adamant about things staying on the right side that he’d throw a fit if a piece of lint from one of my sweatshirts dropped on his half of the closet.
“Jayson,” I say, softening my voice so I don’t sound angry. “Christmas morning seems like a funeral out in our living room, so can we at least be cool with each other?”
Jayson looks like he’s going to keep on with his charade, but then he smiles. “Yeah, D. That’s no joke of a Christmas out there. Straight out of a movie. I bet they about to bust out the carols any second.” He laughs a little, shakes his head at the idea.
But in the end, I still need an answe
r for why he was in my stuff. I point back to the closet. “Come on, Jayson. Just tell me.”
His gaze drifts back toward the closet too. Then he hops up on his bed. He wads his sheets and pillows—already in a messy tangle—between him and the wall so he can recline on them. “Honestly, D, I was going through all your old letters from colleges.”
“Why you doing that?” I ask.
Jayson shakes his head, like it’s ridiculous I don’t know. He stares at me, as earnest as my little brother ever gets. “Man, I know I act like I don’t care sometimes. I know I get all twisted up about the attention you get. All that. It’s just show. Sometimes when I can’t sleep because Grace is crying I lie here and dream about where you’ll end up. So I was just going through that old stack, thinking about the possibilities.”
It shocks me a little, the notion of Jayson spending that much head-time on where I might go to school. It’s almost sweet. But instead of telling him that I just say, “Some of those possibilities have dried up, I guess. And who knows. If I can’t run point, maybe the schools I’m visiting will pull their offers. I’ll wind up taking some scholly from, like, Valparaiso.”
Jayson pops up on his bed now, suddenly angry. “Don’t say that, D!” he shouts.
I hold my hands out to my sides. “Why not? It’s the truth. You think schools won’t pull out? Why you think that mail slowed way the hell down after I tore up my knee last year?”
Jayson squinches up his face and shakes his head. “I know that, man. I know this game’s a dirty business. I’m not dumb. I mean don’t say that stuff about you not being able to do whatever you want to do. You want to ball out, then ball out.”
“It’s not that easy,” I say. Now my voice is rising in anger too. “I don’t get to decide the lineups. I don’t get to magically make my knee better. I don’t get to wave a wand and get my quicks and burst back.”
“That’s excuses,” Jayson says.
I reach down and roll up my pant leg. Real slow and methodical. Then I raise my knee toward Jayson. I run my finger up and down the scar from my surgery. “Tell me how that’s some excuse I’m making up.”
Jayson doesn’t even pause to look. “You know what my theatre teacher says?”
“Oh, this will be good.”
“He says that the way you make it happen on stage is to actually believe. The real actors aren’t even acting. They believe, D.”
I can’t take it anymore. I practically scream at him, “And what’s that got to do with my shitty senior season?”
He screams right back. “The court’s a stage too, D! You know that! And you have to believe.”
Then silence. Except for one thing. Through the door, down the hall, around the corner to the living room. It starts as one muffled cry, then escalates. It’s the biggest of Grace’s cries. The one where it seems like she’s bawling so hard she can’t even catch her breath. It comes in waves—wha-wha-wha-wha-whaaaaaaaaaa.
I sneer at Jayson, shooting blame at him.
“Don’t put that on me,” he says.
I cross to the closet and grab my coat. Time to make some kind of escape. Where to, I have no idea. But somewhere I don’t have to hear my little brother lecture me on Christmas morning. Somewhere I can ignore the fact that he might be talking sense.
17.
It’s Christmas break here at Clemson too, but the place is pretty amped. That’s because Duke’s on the slate tonight. I sensed the coaches kind of wanted me here for a more winnable ACC game—maybe Georgia Tech or Wake—but I figure I might as well see the place when it’s hype.
Their arena’s just been remodeled, and it’s looking shiny as a new coin. The place gets packed pretty quick. Even the student section is filled with kids coming back early to campus to heckle the Dukies.
Beside me, my dad yawns. He checks his phone for a text from Mom. All trip long, she’s been hitting him up with Gracie news—some of it about cute things she’s done, but mostly guilt trip texts about blow-out diapers and long crying jags. Now his phone must be clear because he shoves it back in his pocket and turns to me. “What do you think?” he asks. He sounds bored, but I know it’s just the fatigue hanging over him.
“I think a place like this just needs a jolt of D-Bow to set it right,” I say.
He smiles. Almost laughs. For him, maybe it’s just good to see some of my old cockiness come through for a second. He thinks about what to say, but all he offers is, “Eh, maybe.” But he’s not sold. He knows for all the energy in this arena, Duke’s still strutting between the lines as a fifteen-point favorite. So maybe he thinks I’m talking that way because we’re right behind the Clemson bench, so close to the action that I can hear the coaches talk up the players. They’re doing a sales job, too—trying to talk their boys up a bit. It’s not brash, not anything to get them over-hyped, but they keep telling the players they can get this one. I know how that goes. Underdogs can get themselves all worked up for an upset, but sometimes a little doubt creeps in right at tip.
The truth is, I don’t care too much about the outcome of this game. Would I love to see them hammer Duke? Hell, yes. I’d root for a prison team over those guys. But even if they lose, all it means is I can step in next year and lift them up.
I also want a place I can get better. That can happen at Clemson. It’s one thing for some McDonald’s All-American to go to a place like North Carolina for a year and then bolt to the NBA. Half the time, they’re no better walking out of Chapel Hill than they were walking in. But I’ve seen the kids at Clemson. They improve. Like K.J. McDaniels—guy went from a four-point per game freshman to a lottery pick. Or Rod Hall. By the time he was a senior he was one of the best points in the ACC. I get a few years learning the ropes from these coaches, there’s no ceiling on me.
I don’t walk through any of that with Dad. He’s too tired to hear it probably. It’s also just something I want to hold back for me. I’ll talk academics, campuses, all that with my parents—but things I feel, which in the end is what it comes down to, I can’t ever really explain to anyone else.
By the time I’m done thinking all that through, it’s tip. The ball goes up, and right out of the gate Duke does what Duke does. It doesn’t get ugly, but all the energy’s out of the arena by the second T.V. timeout. So what, I think. Maybe next year this time Duke will come to Clemson and get an eyeful of something new.
Mom doesn’t want to hear it. She’s been against Clemson from the get-go. Even more dead-set against Alabama, where I’m visiting in a month. She knows better than to think that racism starts when you head south across the Ohio River. One glance around our neighborhood can teach you that it’s not like black people have it easy up here. But she has this built-in distrust of those southern states that won’t fade easy.
In the end, I just told her that I wanted to at least keep Clemson on my list. That even if it didn’t have all those banners hanging in the arena like Indiana did, I liked what was happening at Clemson enough to keep considering it.
Grace was asleep in Mom’s arms, so she didn’t do much more than huff at the notion. But now, in our room, Jayson lays into me.
“Your boys got run by Duke,” he says. He’s right. Clemson fought like crazy, but they still lost by sixteen.
I shrug. “They stayed with them for awhile,” I say. “Would’ve had a chance if the refs didn’t hand things to Duke like they always do.”
Jayson laughs. “Oh, here it comes. Whining about the refs. That’s what it’s going to be like if you go to Clemson.” I wad up a dirty shirt and throw it at him. He dodges. Then he gets a little more serious. “For real, D? You’re thinking about a school in South Carolina?”
“Yes, for real,” I say. We’ve got practice in an hour—our last tune-up before the season starts ripping at us again—and I’m in no mood for distractions.
Jayson doesn’t exactly care. “Everyone got the rebel flag on their t-shirts? Rocking mullets?” He laughs as he says it, but there’s a touch of sincerity there.
I sigh. “I didn’t see a single rebel flag on campus, Jayson. They all but banned them, I think. And if you think there are more mullets in South Carolina than there are in southern Indiana, you crazy.”
He lays back on his bed. He picks up a script for a school play, thumbs through a couple pages. A few times he focuses on the page and mouths some words he’s trying to memorize. Meanwhile I’m just chilling. Trying to clear a little head space before diving back into hoops.
“It’s just, you know, Clemson’s a long ways off,” Jayson says. That script lies beside him now, and he’s sitting up again. “I mean, what, I’ll get to see you play just a few times a year?”
This is a legitimate point. Forget the state Clemson’s in—that distance matters. As things have grown more crazy around here—Dad getting sick my sophomore year, Kid getting in trouble again last year, Gracie arriving now—I’ve suited up a few times without my family in the stands. But if I go to Clemson? That would suddenly be the norm. Guys do it. All the time. And, I mean, if the dream comes true—I make it to The League—I’ve got no say in where I go. So if the Blazers draft me it’s either move everyone to Portland or just have them watch me on T.V. Part of growing up, I guess.
“I know, man,” I say. “But even Marquette and Michigan are a few hours away. It’s not like you’ll be in the stands every game there, either.”
Jayson smirks. “D, I’m not sweating that. I just want you to go someplace where I can visit you and hook up with college girls.” I roll my eyes, but Jayson leans forward to double down on his nonsense. “For real, now. Those southern girls as fine as I hear? I need to know it, D.”
I play it straight. “Christmas break, Jayson. Students were gone. Nothing but the band in the stands.”
Jayson sulks at my response. Then he cocks his head and squints at me sideways. “Level with me, D. You saw some specimens, didn’t you?”
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