Play Makers

by Mike Lupica

  “You just annoy him as much as you possibly can,” Sam said. “Pretend you’re Coop.”

  “I’m standing right here!” Coop said.

  They heard the whistle, broke the huddle. Sam said to Ben, “Go win the game.”

  The one-four bothered Robbie Burnett as much as Coach Wright — and Sam — hoped it would. Ben bothered him most of all.

  Plan B McBain.

  He felt like the point guard of the defense now. Not fixed on Chase Braggs today, or what had happened to Sam. Fixed on beating Parkerville.

  Game tied again with four minutes left, Robbie’s only points in the quarter on free throws. Ben went up for a jumper, saw Coop break open underneath, threw him a bullet pass, Coop made the layup.

  Rams, 52–50. First lead of the game.

  Robbie sold a great fake on a dribble-drive, stepped back, made a three.

  Parkerville by a point now.

  It was where they were when Coach Wright called a time-out, one minute and one second showing on the clock.

  Sam grabbed Ben and said, “You know if it comes down to it, Robbie will try to do it all by himself.”

  “Yeah.”

  “If he does, overplay his right hand even more than you have been,” Sam said. “I always did.”

  “Yeah, you did. You just did it much taller than I can.”

  “You got this,” Sam said. “Make me look good.”

  “Trying, dude. Trying.”

  Last minute, close game. Ben thinking: Every game like this was different, every sport. But one thing never changed.

  You got the chance to write the ending you wanted, every single time.

  Rams ball, side out. Robbie walked past Sam, didn’t make a big show of it, just put out a fist so Ben could tap it. Ben said in a quiet voice, “We gotta stop playing games like this.”

  And heard Robbie say, “Why?”

  Forty-five seconds left now.

  There was a thirty-five-second shot clock in their league, mostly so bad teams couldn’t try to hold the ball all day against good teams. Ben just wanted to make sure that if the Rams got back up a point and the Patriots answered with a basket of their own, the Rams would still have the ball last and with enough time to set up a solid last shot.

  Except.

  Except Robbie had circled back and was guarding Ben now.

  Parkerville had gone to their own Plan B.

  Ben threw it in to Shawn who gave it right back to Ben. Now he was the one who couldn’t get around Robbie. He couldn’t worry about the clock now, or the last shot. Just the shot they needed to get the lead back.

  He passed it to Shawn, Shawn passed it right back, ran behind the pass to set a screen. Now Ben was past Robbie, on the fly. A lot happened then. Coop’s man came up to put himself between Ben and the basket. But Darrelle’s guy scrambled in from the wing to cover Coop.

  Ben kept his eyes locked on Coop, but he knew Darrelle had to be open, with the kind of space he needed. He was a good outside shooter, but he needed time to get his shot off. All the time in the world after Ben threw him a perfect, waist-high bounce pass.

  Darrelle buried the jumper like a champion.

  Rams back up a point.

  Yeah, it was basketball season now, all right. All the season you could ever want. Thirty seconds left. The Patriots cleared out the right side for Robbie. And as much as Ben had bothered him down the stretch, as well as Sam’s defense had looked, Robbie Burnett still looked as big as ever.

  Ben was alone with him on the right side, watching Robbie eye’s go to the clock over the basket. Ben gave a quick look to the shot clock at the other end.

  Fifteen seconds now.

  “Overplay,” Sam had said.

  Ben did.

  But Robbie crossed over, crossed Ben up at the same time, going hard left for the first time the whole quarter.

  Ten seconds.

  Nine.

  Robbie heading for the basket, Ben chasing, Coop coming up to give help, MJ scrambling to cover up on Coop’s guy.

  Six seconds.

  But Ben knew Sam had been right, Robbie wasn’t passing, he was going to try to make some kind of hero play, the kind he made an awful lot in football, win the game by himself.

  Coop slid to his right just slightly, overplaying Robbie himself now, forcing him left. Again.

  Ben looked up.

  Three seconds.

  Robbie Burnett stumbled slightly then, his right foot on top of Coop’s, but knew he had to put something up, or lose the game, even if he was still dribbling with his left hand.

  Everything about the shot looked wrong, Robbie shooting it off his wrong foot, almost from his hip, Coop nearly getting a hand on it.

  Everything looked wrong until Ben saw the ball come off Robbie’s left hand with perfect rotation on it, saw the ball hit the middle of the square above the basket almost dead center, saw the ball fall through the rim as if Robbie had called “backboard” in a game of H-O-R-S-E.

  Ben had made the right play. They all had.

  Whole game came out wrong, for the Rams, anyway.

  By a point.

  Ben’s dad had told him a story one time, when they were watching the Packers play in a near blizzard, about this famous field goal some old Giants kicker had made one time. It was a long one, but because the snow that day was totally covering the yardage lines by the end of that game, no one was sure how far it was.

  Still: When the kicker came off the field, one of his coaches said, “You know you can’t kick it that far.”

  Ben felt that way about Robbie Burnett’s shot: The guy had to know there was no way he could have made a shot like that to win a game.

  But then again, Robbie felt that way after Ben threw the pass to Sam to win the football championship.

  Maybe that was why, right after the ball went through the basket, Robbie turned around to find Ben. And smiled. And Ben smiled back.

  Robbie came walking over to him, shaking his head, and the two of them did one of those lean-in, half hugs.

  Ben spoke first.

  “A lefty bank shot? Really?”

  Robbie said, “That Hail Mary to Sam? Really?”

  Sometimes in sports you ended up on the exact same page, even if only one of you got the ending he wanted.

  There was a lot going on around them. But it was just Robbie and Ben at the top of the key. Robbie’s teammates knowing enough to give them room, give them a minute.

  “That was an awesome game of basketball, no lie,” Ben said.

  “Back at you.”

  “Maybe we’ll see you guys in another championship game,” Ben said, even if that was such a mad crazy idea right now, the Rams being 0–2 and Ben sure that somewhere Chase Braggs and Darby were going to 2–0.

  “Fine by me,” Robbie said and then he went to celebrate with his guys, because that is what you did after you won a game the way the Parkerville Patriots just had.

  Sam was coming for Ben now, Ben not surprised at how well Sam could move on his crutches, like learning to get around on them was just one more thing he was going to make look easy, the way he did with sports.

  “I was the one who had the brilliant idea to force him left,” Sam said.

  “I made the right play,” Ben said. “Coop made the right play. Robbie just made a better one.” Ben lifted his shoulders, let them drop, said, “Great players make great plays. You do it all the time.”

  “So do you.”

  “Came up one play short today.”

  Sam shook his head now. “Lefty. He looked like he was bowling the ball at the hoop.”

  “Nearly fell on his face.”

  “Coop hanging all over him and somehow not fouling him.”

  “Like John McEnroe says,” Ben said. “You cannot be serious.”

  Coach Wright was waving the Rams over to the bench now, telling them there wasn’t much to say, other than this: That they’d play a great game, shouldn’t hang their heads, should be proud of the way they ca
me back, they just got beat, it happened in sports.

  “Don’t let a loss like this crush you,” Coach said. “That’s an order.” And went across the court to talk to the Parkerville coach, Mr. Crockett.

  Ben didn’t need Coach to tell him. He didn’t feel crushed. Disappointed, yeah. Still shocked the ball had gone in. Knowing that with an 0–2 record things just got harder in a league that had Chase and Robbie and where they didn’t have Sam.

  Mostly he felt proud of his team today, is what he felt, sitting where he’d sat listening to Coach. They’d given all they had and it wasn’t enough.

  “What?” Sam said.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Maybe not to me,” Sam said. “But I can always tell when there’s a lot of talking going on inside your head.”

  “You want to know what I was really just thinking?” Ben said. “How cool it was to play that game.”

  “But we lost. And I know you’re the worst loser in the world, even if you don’t always show it to the rest of the world.”

  “I know,” Ben said.

  Looked over at Sam and said, “Weird, huh?”

  Totally.

  Ben not knowing at the time that things were about to get even more weird before the day was over.

  “You want me to do what?” Ben said to Lily.

  The two of them out on the old swings, out near the basketball court at McBain Field, Lily having been waiting for Ben when he got home from the game, having had a sleepover at her friend Molly’s house the night before.

  “I want you to go to the movies tomorrow,” she said, “even though you’re acting as if I asked you to clean your room.”

  “You’re not just asking me to go to a movie,” he said. “You’re asking me to go to a movie with Chase Braggs. And I would rather clean my room, and yours, than do that.”

  “You’re just being silly,” Lily said. “And it’s not you just going to a movie with Chase. You’re going with me, and Molly, and Jeb. And Chase.”

  Jeb Arcelus. Molly’s brother. Chase’s teammate on the Darby team. Molly being the one who’d first given Lily the intel on the new hoops hotshot in Darby.

  “And, by the way,” Lily said, “I thought we had agreed that you were no longer going to treat Chase like some sort of swamp thingy.”

  Somehow Lily had known as much about the game as if she’d watched it herself. Ben wasn’t surprised. Hardly anything about Lily Wyatt surprised him. He would actually have been surprised if she didn’t have all the important intel of the day.

  But they had stopped swinging as soon as Lily had told him about her big movie plan for tomorrow afternoon, a new vampire movie having just opened at the Palace Theater on Main Street.

  The plan that included Chase Braggs.

  “You know I’ve chilled on that guy,” Ben said. “But that doesn’t mean I want to hang out with him. And I don’t even like vampire movies.”

  “You’ll be hanging around with me,” Lily said. “And other people will get to feel cool hanging around with us.”

  Yeah, Ben thought, really cool.

  “Sounds like you’ve already been hanging around with him,” Ben said.

  Lily recoiled, like she’d seen a snake appear in the dirt in front of them. “Oooh,” she said, “him. Swamp Thing.”

  “Go ahead,” Ben said, “have your little fun. But you were hanging out with him. And shouldn’t he have had a game today?”

  “Something about their gym, they had to play in the morning,” Lily said. “When the game was over, Jeb and Chase came back to their house, is all. I wouldn’t call it hanging out.”

  “I would.”

  “Molly was the one who actually came up with the movie plan,” Lily said.

  “Oh, so you’re throwing her under the bus.”

  “For making a plan to go to a movie?”

  “And Chase Braggs was cool with going to that movie with me?”

  “I didn’t say he was cool,” Lily said, “just that he’d feel cool hanging with us.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Lily smiled. “He was fine with it.”

  “Are you gonna ask Sam and Shawn and Coop to come, too?”

  Lily said, “I just wanted to run it by the leader of the pack first. Who I know, in his heart of hearts, wants to go to the movies tomorrow with me.”

  Then she pushed back and pushed off and was swinging again, hair flying, looking happy.

  Being Lily.

  Ben stayed where he was. Knowing — in his heart of hearts — he was in a bad spot. He didn’t want to hang with Chase Braggs in ten million years, that was for sure. And he wanted to hang out with Chase and Lily even less, whether there’d be other guys along for the ride or not.

  On her way by, Lily said, “Well?”

  She had him and she knew it.

  Stopped swinging again.

  “Do I ever say no to you?”

  “Um, that would be a no from me.”

  “Because I know and you know that if I said I didn’t want to go you’d call me a wimp,” he said. “Or a big baby.”

  “Big Ben McBain?” It was something only she called him. “A big baby? Never.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “C’mon, it’ll be fun.”

  “Fine. I’ll do it,” he said.

  She made a motion like she was pulling a chain toward her and said, “Yes!” Completely happy with herself, having gotten what she wanted, which she usually did.

  Another part of being Lily.

  “And you’re saying yes because you know I’m right, and it will be fun,” she said.

  She was wrong.

  Ben was only saying yes because he really did know there was no way in the world he could say no.

  Because no way in this world he was going to let Chase Braggs go to a movie with Lily without him.

  Ever since he’d tried to make his attitude adjustment about Chase, he’d only been thinking about basketball, that it really wasn’t just him against Chase, that basketball was a five-man game, that it was never just one-on-one.

  So why did a trip to the movies on a Sunday afternoon feel exactly like that now?

  Like he was competing with Chase all over again?

  At first Sam and Coop and Shawn said forget it, no way they were going to the movies with a guy from another team, especially that guy, they’d rather have some teeth pulled than hang out with Chase Braggs.

  They were all in Ben’s basement, having finished playing video games for the moment, switching back and forth between college basketball games. It was a sleepover Saturday night, this time at Ben’s, two guys sleeping on couches, two on blow-up mattresses.

  Shawn was the first to change his mind, saying that he’d provide Ben with backup.

  “That’s it, I’m in,” Shawn said.

  “Get out,” Coop said. “You don’t want to go any more than we do.”

  “But Ben would do the same for any one of us,” Shawn said.

  “And I already told Lily I would go,” Ben said.

  “I get that,” Coop said. “What I don’t get is why.”

  There was a chair in front of Sam, a couple of pillows on it, Sam’s ankle propped up on the pillows. He looked at Coop and said, “How dense are you?”

  Coop grinned. “On a good day or a bad one?”

  Sam said, “He’s going because he’s not gonna let Chase go to the movies with Lily alone.”

  “She won’t be alone with him,” Ben said.

  “In your brain she will,” Sam said.

  “And you still won’t go with me?”

  “Too much weirdness, too little fun,” Sam said. “And I don’t like dopey vampire movies any more than you do.”

  Shawn said, “Wouldn’t us not going be a violation of the Cooper Manley Bro Code?”

  Lots of guys had some kind of bro code. Coop’s Bro Code — for the Core Four plus Shawn — just seemed to be the one with the most rules to it, Coop constantly
revising it, depending on the situation.

  “Shawn’s right!” Ben said. “Hadn’t even thought of that. Definite violation of the Bro Code.”

  He looked at Coop now, who had slumped back in his chair, frowning, deep in thought. Or as deep as he ever got.

  “Right, Coop?” Ben said.

  Coop held up a finger now, like a great idea had just come to him, and said, “The Bro Code does not apply to a total non-bro like Chase Braggs-A-Lot.”

  Coop turned to Sam and said, “Help a brother out here. Or bro.”

  “I would,” Sam said, “except for the fact that you’re pretty much beyond help.”

  “Why don’t you all just help me?” Ben said.

  Coop said, “What I really don’t get is that you’re actually going to miss a Packers game to go to a movie with the hated Chase?”

  “I don’t hate him,” Ben said. “I just want to beat him.”

  “Do you want to beat him in a game,” Sam said, grinning, “or give him a beatdown because he likes Lily?”

  “Who said he likes Lily?” Ben said.

  “Or,” Sam said, “is this all because you think Lily might actually like him?”

  Ben knew Sam was right. And that Sam probably knew that Ben knew he was right. So there was no reason for Ben to pretend that he wasn’t. Or that it wasn’t true. Because it was.

  That was exactly what he was worried about.

  Now Sam said, “Okay, I’m in, too.”

  “Same,” Coop said.

  He shifted position with his ankle a little bit, Ben seeing him make a face as he did, and said, “Plus, this might be the first time in history that there’s a better show in the seats than there is on the screen.”

  “The more I think about it,” Coop said, “the more I can’t wait till tomorrow.”

  Ben sighing again, thinking:

  Tomorrow’s a long day already.

  Chase didn’t try to sit next to Lily once they were inside the theater, staying at the other end of the row with Jeb and Molly Arcelus.

  But now he was right next to Lily at the big round table in the back room at Pinocchio’s Pizza, getting to the seat before Ben could do anything about it. Like he’d spotted an opening on the basketball court and didn’t hesitate making his move.

  Yeah, Ben said to himself.