Quicks

by Kevin Waltman

  “Wes,” I shout. He keeps on. “Come on, Wes,” I holler again. This time he recognizes my voice and stops. I jog down the hall to catch up.

  Wes waits for me to get all the way there, refusing to budge to meet me halfway. “’Sup, D,” he mumbles when I get close. I can tell by his eyes he must have smoked up at some point during the day. Or maybe that’s just the way he always looks now.

  Whatever. I press on. “Nothing’s up,” I say. “Just haven’t seen you in a long time. We got to, like, catch up.”

  Wes snorts out a laugh. “If you say so.” He turns his head and gazes down the hall, like he’s in some hurry to get to a class he’s failing.

  “Wes,” I plead. “It’s me. I’m not trying to put anything on you. I just…” I trail off. What am I supposed to say? I’ve been in this spot countless times with Wes in the last couple years. I realize it at last—the way it finally hits a team that’s down double digits with a minute left. It’s never going to turn around. There’s this distance between us, and no matter what I do it’s just going to keep getting wider.

  Wes hangs his head for a second. For all that strut and tough act, he looks so small right now he’s like a middle schooler who wandered into Marion East by mistake. When he looks back up at me, he seems on the verge of tears. He knows it too—this is it. Maybe it snuck up on both of us. “I know you’re not trying to mess with me,” he says. His voice is soft, almost a whisper. “But let’s be real, D. It’s not like we can catch up. There are too many thing that have happened.”

  “That’s what I mean, Wes,” I say. I almost reach out to put my hand on his shoulder, but his body seems so tense I feel like a touch would shoot out sparks. “You got to at least talk to somebody about what happened.”

  At that, he sneers. “I ain’t got to do a thing, D.”

  Around us, kids hustle to their classrooms. Teachers stand at their doors, ready to crack on kids who are even a millisecond late. The hallways thin out. The last bell rings. Wes and I are officially late for class, not that it matters at this point. “Why you even here, Wes?” I ask. “You’ve given up on everything else. Why even set foot in school?”

  “I still got a chance to graduate if I can kill it this semester,” he says.

  It’s infuriating. Sad too. Wes can be cynical about the guy who used to be his best friend one second, then in the next breath say something so naïve he sounds as foolish as someone still believing in Santa. Graduate? He’s missed so much time he’s got a better chance of walking on the moon. There’s no good to come from telling him that. So I nod, let it slide. “Then I guess I ought to let you get to class,” I say.

  Wes nods, but he doesn’t leave. Neither do I. It’s like we’re both waiting for something better to come of the conversation, hoping that something will save our friendship. Nothing does. Instead, we just hear the clack of Principal Markey’s heels coming down the hall. Time to split.

  We start in opposite directions. Then Wes calls back to me. “D?” I turn to face him. He’s got a smirk on his face, but it’s not anger—just resignation. That look that so many kids get around here when they see that big dead end rushing up on them. “I know you’ve been trying with me. I just want you to know that no matter what happens, I appreciate that.”

  “It’s all good,” I say. “But, Wes, you gonna be all right?”

  He laughs once—it’s a sharp sound, like a door slamming shut. “Probably not, D. But I’ll try.”

  Gibson sits beside me. By rights, it ought to be Fuller and Jones—they’re seniors—but at this point it’s pretty clear which guys are piloting our plane. Murphy sits across from us, smiling. With a few months to make it his own, he’s spruced up what used to be Bolden’s office. His desk has things scattered across it—an iPod and earbuds, a stopwatch, a whistle. A ball autographed by Magic Johnson perches on the corner. He’s got a couple posters of old school ballers from back in his day—Dominique depositing a dunk on the Celtics, Barkley back in his Sixers days. Then there’s a guy in an old Mavs uniform I don’t recognize. Neither does Gibson, and he points and asks, “Who dat?”

  Murphy cranes his neck to see, then smirks. “Dat,” he says, imitating Gibson’s fake street-speak, “is Rolando Blackman.”

  “Rolando who?” Gibson asks.

  “Blackman!” Murphy shouts. “The guy only dropped twenty a game for more than a decade. If there were any justice in the world, he’d be in the Hall of Fame!”

  “I dunno, man,” Gibson says. He’s sporting a little grin now, egging Murphy on. “Looks like they ought to keep him out just on account of that nasty mustache.”

  Murphy almost has to gasp for air he’s so worked up. “You make four All-Star games and you can look any damn way you want!” Then he kind of mutters to himself. “Crackin’ on a baller because he had a mustache. Kids don’t know nothin’.”

  I smile. Watching Murphy go off like this reminds me of a bus ride sophomore year, when he about fell out because Coach Bolden started talking up Larry Bird. Good times. I’d like to get back to that kind of vibe. Which, I remind myself, is why we’re here. “Coach,” I say, “Gibson and I wanted to talk to you about the team.”

  Murphy smiles, right back to his cheery demeanor. “Well, I figured you two were here for something other than a lesson on old school NBA.”

  Then he waits for us to put it on him. Suddenly, Gibson doesn’t have a thing to say. It’s one thing to bellyache about a coach behind his back. Another entirely to step up and say it to his face. Thing is, I feel it too. In a way, Murphy’s optimism just makes it harder. It’s like he’s so upbeat, he thinks the next word’s going to be another ray of sunshine. I almost hate to break the news to him that the season’s going sour, even though it shouldn’t be news at all. But it’s my senior year. I’m not letting it crater just to spare Murphy’s feelings. Time to rip off the Band-Aid. “Coach, we don’t have much time left in this season,” I say. “And I don’t want to waste any of it.”

  “I hear you,” he says.

  I shake my head. “I don’t think you do,” I say. “I mean, with all due respect, you jumped us harder about Rolando freakin’ Blackman than you did about getting run by a team like Guerin.”

  Murphy offers me a real patient smile. He takes a breath and fiddles with the stuff on his desk, acting like all of a sudden he really needs to reorganize. “I know you’re used to how Coach Bolden ran things,” he says. “But I can’t be him.”

  “I know that, but—” Murphy raises a hand to cut me off.

  “Derrick, wait a second. I know you can take that kind of yelling, but some of the young guys can’t. And I couldn’t come out guns blazing on a guy like Jones. I have to let him know I’m on his side first. Do you see where I’m coming from?”

  I’m about to answer, but Gibson beats me to it. “I feel you, Coach. But I’m new here and I figured if I half-assed things I’d get called on it. You don’t have to act like a maniac, but you’ve got to yell sometimes. When you don’t, it’s like you don’t care if we win or lose. This ain’t intramurals, y’know I mean?”

  I want to chime in too, but I realize that Gibson’s said precisely what I’ve been feeling all season long.

  Murphy’s smile is gone. Very deliberately, he picks up that iPod and winds the earbud cords around it. But this time it’s like he’s doing that instead of strangling us. “I am well aware that this is not intramurals,” he says. Then there’s silence. He just stares at us. He might not have that old evil eye that Bolden did, but it’s pretty clear we’ve struck a nerve. It feels like an eternity passes before he speaks again. “You got anything else to say?”

  We both shake our heads.

  Murphy points to the door. “Then I’ll see you at practice tonight.”

  Murpy bides his time. He lets us get through warm-ups, then some walk-throughs against Pike’s defensive sets. We run some inside-out drills, letting our bigs work on where to look when Pike doubles the post. Murphy lets us go through some help-and-r
ecover drills even though they’re kind of disastrous—Gibson keeps breaking down the defense so bad he either scores or nobody can get back to the shooters.

  But when we start running fives, Murphy strikes. First trip down I take a quick one—not a bad look at all, a little pull-up from fifteen. It catches back iron and spins off, then Murpy’s whistle pierces the air. He thumps his heel on the floor and yells. “What the hell, Derrick? One touch? We get one pass out of that possession and you jack one up?”

  I bite my tongue. This—Murphy lacing into me after one missed shot—isn’t what I had in mind when we met with him this morning. But fine. If this is what it takes to pump some life back into our team, I’ll take it. “I hear you, Coach,” I say.

  “Okay,” Murphy says, satisfied. “It’s not a terrible shot, but you can get that whenever you want it. Make the defense work a little.” Murphy’s voice has come back down to a respectable decibel-level, and it seems like everything’s going to smooth right back out. But there’s a mumbling from near the rim, then a laugh—Xavier, talking nonsense to Jones. Murphy’s on Xavier in a flash. “What’s the big joke?” he asks, his voice still even.

  Xavier smirks. He doesn’t seem to realize he’s dealing with a different Murphy tonight. “Just thought it was about time someone called out the great All-Stater for being a flick.”

  Murphy flat out cracks. “What the fuck do you know about it, Xavier?!” he screams. He closes the ground between them in three swift strides, getting right up in our freshman big man’s grill. Xavier’s got a couple inches on him, but all of a sudden you can remember that Murphy must have been a bit of a beast back in the day. “You know why Derrick’s got a chance to be All-State?”

  Xavier doesn’t answer. He looks away, smirk still on his face, like this is all some big game. He even looks at my Uncle Kid like he expects some sympathy, but Kid just returns a stony stare. The rest of the gym is quiet as the grave.

  “I asked you a question!” Murphy shouts.

  Xavier rotates his head back toward Murphy now, looking a little indignant. “I guess because Derrick’s so talented,” he says, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Murphy’s eyes bug, but he starts out in an even tone. “Talent? Aw, that’s part of it. But everyone in this gym is talented.” He scans the whole team now, trying to make a larger point. “Derrick’s not getting Big Ten offers just on talent. He’s getting those things because when he was a freshman”—and here he turns back to Xavier, his voice rising in volume with each word—“he stayed after practice every day to work on his game instead of spending the whole season being a lazy dumbass!”

  All that attitude in Xavier’s face just drains out. Just like that, he goes to looking like any other scared freshman. He deserves this long overdue lecture, but all of a sudden I feel bad for him. It’s never easy getting called out. And Murphy’s not done.

  “I’ve spent months trying to pump you up,” he says. “Calling you X-Man, giving you your props every time you so much as make a gimme. I do that because you could be a real load for us. But instead you want to fuck around! You want to just play like we’re in some church league. Well, this is big boy basketball, Xavier. And if you don’t step up and work at it, you’re gonna get left in the dust. All that line I ran after last game? The second best thing is losing because it meant you were out there competing? Well, that’s only true if you’ve actually busted your ass. Otherwise, losing just means you got your damn teeth kicked in again.”

  As Murphy’s hollered at him, Xavier’s head has slowly lowered, so now his chin’s almost on his chest. I realize, too late, that maybe Murphy’s going too far—like he’s been storing all this up since November and he just can’t stop himself. Kid must realize it too, because he steps toward Xavier, offering a consoling hand on his shoulder. No dice. Our big freshman spins away. He walks off the court, heading for the locker room.

  Now Murphy, his chest still heaving and his eyes still blazing, looks my way. He doesn’t have to say a word for me to know what he means—I’m the one who wanted this, so I better step up. I know from experience not to wait. When I was a sophomore, I let Reynolds huff off in practice, and we almost lost him for good. And as much as I’ve bristled at Xavier’s attitude, I know deep down we can’t afford to lose him—he’s the most gifted big man we’ve got.

  I hustle over to meet Xavier just before he hits the locker room door. He doesn’t want any part of what I’m bringing. “Out the way, D,” he mutters. He reaches past me for the door.

  I get up in his chest. Not rough—I don’t want to start static again—but enough to knock him off his course. “Come on, Xavier. You don’t want to do this.”

  “Hell I don’t, D,” he says. “I don’t need that shit.” He points angrily back toward the court, toward Murphy. But at least he’s not headed for the locker room anymore. He’s standing there, waiting for me to respond.

  “Yeah, you do need it, man,” I say. Xavier rolls his eyes and starts for the locker room again. I grab him by the elbow and he stops. “Listen, Xavier. You leave now you’re walking out on your future. I know you don’t want to hear it. But it’s the truth. You walk out the doors to this gym and the world outside will kick your ass.”

  Xavier stares at me, considering it. Deep down he knows it’s true. Anyone who goes to Marion East knows it’s the truth—these are the easy years, even if they’re a lot harder than we’d like them to be. I lower my voice now, try that same patient tone my parents use when the dust has finally settled after an argument. “Look, man. Between those lines on the court? You get second chances. All you got to do is walk back over there and jump in. Ain’t a soul gonna think less of you. That’s what teammates are for. We screw up and then we man up. But you walk the other way—?” I let my voice just trail off. He gets it.

  Hesitantly, he takes a step back toward the court. I run ahead of him, give him a “Let’s go now” like we’re hustling back on D during a game. When I look back, Xavier’s got his head down, legs churning. Atta boy.

  Murphy’s at least got the sense to let everyone shoot free throws. Let those raw nerves settle a bit. I trot over to the goal Gibson’s shooting at, rebound for him while he works on his form. He smiles at me. “Well, we got our fireworks,” he says.

  I raise my eyebrows. “Damn,” I say. “I thought maybe he’d get mad and have us run sprints or something. I didn’t think we’d get that kind of show.”

  Gibson and I laugh a little, but we keep it quiet. We don’t want to set off Murphy again. Kid must have been eavesdropping because now he strolls over.

  “For real?” he asks. “You two asked Murphy to jack people up?”

  Gibson and I glance at each other, then nod to answer Kid.

  Kid shakes his head. “Aww, you guys don’t even know,” he says. “I played with Murphy for one year back in the day. Man was an animal. Fight you soon as look at you. This whole mellow thing he’s got going? He had to work on that for years if he was ever gonna coach. You can’t throw down at mid-court when you’re supposed to be in charge of teenagers.” Kid laughs to himself, then adds, “Now you two knuckleheads went and let the tiger out the cage.”

  Kid starts off again, but I follow him. I catch him at the hash mark, a safe distance from any of the buckets. Nobody can hear us, so it probably just seems like we’re talking strategy for the Pike game Friday.

  “Look, Kid,” I say.

  That’s all it takes. He smiles at me, pulls me in for a quick hug and pound. “Don’t even go through it, D,” he says. “We’re family, man. Always will be.”

  “But that thing I said?”

  He holds his hand up, stopping me again. “It hurt, but only because it was the truth. But, D, it’s not like you told me something I didn’t know. And it’s not like I’m gonna hold my mistakes against you.” Then he leans it toward me. “Listen, Derrick. We’re good. We don’t need to go through some big apology scene. You my boy, got it?”

  We bump fists, and I feel a weight
come off my shoulders. Being on the wrong side of Kid was a killer. He was always the guy—taking me to the park, working with me on my game, talking me down from bad losses. It’s good to be back on the same page with him. Then I glance around the rest of the gym. I might be back in stride with Kid, but I don’t know which direction the rest of these guys are going to head.

  23.

  For once, there’s quiet at home. Kid’s got Gracie again, so everyone’s chilling. And I need it—Murphy hasn’t let up all week. The man is a tornado now.

  When I step in the room, Jayson raises his eyebrows from his play just for a second. He just nods at me, then goes back to it. I start prepping my bag for tonight—kicks and sweats and headphones. Then I lean back on my bed, trying to picture how it will go. This is a big one—Pike. They grabbed the Sectional championship last year when I was hurt. Then they went on and cruised through Regionals, only to get cut up by that Evansville Harrison machine at State.

  But titles don’t matter right now. What matters is they’ve got two studs—two more guys who were slotted above me by the Star way back when. Devin Drew and Scout Thurmond. Drew’s their point. For real. Not a great shooter, but good enough. And he can match any guard in the state—except maybe Kernantz—quicks for quicks. Then Thurmond—a young guy, but big and rangy. At 6’6”, he’s got the height to bang it out down low. Sometimes he does just that—snatching 9 boards a game doesn’t happen by luck—but he loves to work on the perimeter. Loves to use that height to rise over people with his smooth J.

  I feel like it ought to be me checking Drew. But I know Murphy’s sticking with Gibson at the point now. I’ll get a few looks against Thurmond, but he slots more at the three spot, meaning Fuller’s the one with his hands full there. All I can do, I remind myself, is take care of my job—which means flat owning the match-up at the two. That doesn’t mean I’ve got to drop 40. But I’ve got to shut my man down and cause enough nightmares on our end to open things up for everyone else.