The dough was in a round ball and the Fat Man started slapping it flat with the palm of his hands.
“So the guy ain’t stupid, so he’s going to take his team with the points. I give him ten points and he figures maybe his team won’t win but they’ll come within ten points. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“Yeah, yeah, sure. But if you guys play like you know how this team won’t get within twenty points of you. I’m so sure you’re gonna win big, I’m gonna put a hundred and fifty bucks extra down on the game for you.”
“For me?”
“I know you don’t need the money,” the Fat Man said. “You play ball because you’re getting an education. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. You win big and I’ll consider it a personal favor, because that’s what it will be.
“Hey, you see what I’m making? It ain’t pizza. I’m beating it up too much for pizza. It’s what they call pan bread. You make a stew on top of it and you bake the whole thing. I can’t eat pizza, I got a bad gut. I swear to God, I got a bad gut.”
Gary Tech was unbeaten and the townie paper, The Dispatch, said that we were to be their first major test. A local cable company carried the game as their Wednesday Sports Special. They did a long interview before the game on their center. He was close to seven feet tall and had huge hands. We were favored to win by ten points but Larson told me that the spread had been bet down to seven points. Their forwards were six six and six seven and it didn’t look good for us. Bobby had liquor on his breath before the game and Hauser noticed it and said something to Leeds. Leeds made Bobby wash his mouth out with Scope. I guess that was how they dealt with his alcohol problem.
I couldn’t see how we were even going to stay with this team, let alone beat them. That is, I couldn’t until the game started. We got the tap. Hauser brought the ball down and passed to Neil in the corner, who scored. Then they started bringing the ball down but Hauser stole the ball at midcourt and took it in by himself and we were up by four. They brought the ball down again and this time Hauser and Mac trapped their guard, who threw it back court so we got the ball again. They didn’t have a guard on their team worth two cents. Their big man looked good, but they couldn’t get the ball up court to give him a chance at it.
Larson played like a madman for the whole first half, and by the time the half ended, we were up by fifteen points. It looked like a runaway.
In the locker room Teufel ate a cheese sandwich and Leeds went over who he was going to put in for the second half. I heard him telling Skipper and Go-Go that they would be playing the second half. Larson went up to him and talked into his ear and then Leeds went over and talked to Teufel. I didn’t know what was going on but I remembered what the Fat Man had said about running up the score.
The second half started with Go-Go, me, Larson, Hauser, and Mac on the floor. We played run-and-shoot ball like we were out in the playground or something. Their team was good when they got the ball in deep, but we didn’t let them get it in deep. When Larson wasn’t in the game, he kept yelling from the sidelines for us to “work.” We ran the score up pretty good before Teufel took Hauser and Mac out and put in Skipper and Sly. Sly was quick, even quicker than Hauser, and he stole the ball the first time he went after it. If he could have shot from the outside the way Hauser did, he would have been a great ballplayer. The way it was, though, he would get the open shot but still look to pass off. Hauser had scored sixteen points in the first half and seven in the second before he left. Sly only scored one point, on a free throw, but his game wasn’t that bad.
Juice didn’t get much play, but he did get in. Their big man gave Go-Go all he could handle and then some. We won the game ninety-two to sixty-four.
Back at Orly Hall I was lying on the bed and staring up at the ceiling while I listened to Sly and Juice lie about how many chicks they had gone to bed with, when the phone rang.
“That’s probably one of my women now,” Juice said.
Colin got the phone and said it was for me. It was the Fat Man saying that he was just calling to tell me I had a nice game.
“Who was it?” Sly asked when I’d hung up. “The White House?”
“The White House?”
“When I have a nice game, the Prez usually calls me from the White House and congratulates me,” Sly said. “He used to let his old lady do it, but then he got suspicious because she stayed on the phone so long.”
“Just some dude I met in town talking about how good a game I got,” I said.
Juice and Sly went back to their lying and I lay back down on the bed, but my hands were sweating. I asked myself, if I wasn’t doing anything wrong, how come my hands were sweating?
The Fat Man had said to run the score up and we had, but the whole team was part of it, not just me. Even Teufel and Leeds acted as if they didn’t mind us running up the score.
“I got this chick,” Juice said, “who’s so desperate for my body that I got to keep an extra set of buttons with me when I go to see her because she tears them off getting at my clothes.”
“That ain’t nothing,” Sly said. “I got these two twins, they’re nurses. While one is loving me to death, the other one is giving me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation so I don’t die completely and ruin her chance.”
I took another shower to get away from Sly and Juice. I thought about Sherry and decided to call her when I finished. I had some money, close to thirty dollars, but I had to buy my meal tickets and pay my laundry bill. I figured out how much that would be, and that I would have about three dollars left. I thought about the money the Fat Man had talked about. I could have used it, I thought, but I wasn’t going to take it.
When I got out of the shower, I called Sherry. She said she was going to be busy.
“What are you going to be doing?” I asked, more to have something to say than anything else.
“Why?”
“Is it a secret?”
“No,” Sherry said.
“So?”
“So what?”
“So what are you going to be doing?”
There was a long pause on the other end as I waited for Sherry to say something. I was sitting on Colin’s bed. He was sitting near the window shining his shoes. From where I was sitting I could see something sticking out from under my pillow.
“I’m going out with a guy I used to date,” Sherry said.
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that,” I said. “You make it sound like a big deal.”
“Wow, you’re really okay,” Sherry said. “I really thought you’d go into a big thing about Bill.”
“Bill?”
“Bill Williams,” Sherry said. “His mother belongs to the same sorority that my mother belongs to, that kind of thing. He asked me last week if I would go out with him and I didn’t know that … you know.”
“Yeah, no big thing,” I said. “Have a nice time. Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Sure.”
I let her hang up the phone and then I slammed the receiver down. I was really steamed. I felt like running up to Sherry’s room and going upside her head.
“What’s the matter?” Colin asked.
“You know Sherry, right?”
“Yeah, that’s that fine black girl who’s got your head facing in the wrong direction.”
“She ain’t got my head facing in no wrong direction,” I said. “She’s just a jive chickie I’m thinking about getting next to.”
“That’s why you slammed the phone down?” Colin looked up at me, then down at the shoe between his legs. He started buffing the shoe carefully with a shine rag. “Everybody is impressed by Sherry. She was here during the summer taking a few credits. Larson tried to hit on her, a couple of guys from the football team, they all made a play.”
“Yeah?”
“And they all went away saying she wasn’t anything because they couldn’t get to first base. Everybody knows you dated her.”
“Yeah, but now she’s supposed t
o be going out with somebody who asked her for a date a week ago.”
“You and her something special now?”
“Told you she wasn’t nothing special,” I said.
“Because I’m just waiting for the right time to make my move,” Colin said.
“Lame as you are?” I said. “You don’t stand a chance.”
“Well, you didn’t make it,” Colin said.
“No, but we got this understanding, see …”
“You, Sherry, and this guy she’s going out with?”
“Shut up, man.” I threw Juice’s pillow at Colin and he ducked it easily.
“I’m going out with this waitress in town,” Colin said, slipping into his shoes.
“She good-looking?”
“Nope.”
“She got money?”
“Nope.”
“What she got, a nice personality?”
“Nope.”
“Then why you going out with her?”
“She brings the Danish,” Colin said.
I lay down on my bed and watched Colin laughing at me. He checked his watch, gave me the “thumbs up” sign, and split.
When he had left I looked under the pillow and got the envelope. I opened it and saw three new fifty-dollar bills. I figured the Fat Man must had given it to Larson to put there. I took a deep breath and pushed the money back up under the pillow.
My stomach started cramping and I had to go to the bathroom. I sat on the john a while and I noticed that my hands were sweating. I tried to think of what the Fat Man had said to me about betting on the game, and doing him a personal favor. I thought about it until my head began to ache. Then I began to check myself out. Here I was, sweating bullets in a john thousands of miles from home trying to figure out if I was cool or if I wasn’t. I didn’t need this mess. I didn’t need it at all.
I got myself together and decided I was going to burn the money. I went and locked the door and looked around for some matches. I was still scared. I didn’t have any matches and I looked into Colin’s drawer. He had some matches. As I reached for them I noticed something else. It was the announcement for the service they held for Ray. There was an address at the bottom, and I knew it was where his wife was staying.
I took an envelope that didn’t have the school’s name printed on it, addressed it, put a piece of plain paper around the fifty-dollar bills, and sealed them in the envelope. I bought a stamp from a machine on the first floor and took the envelope all the way across campus to mail.
“Eddie’s mother called,” Ann said. “It seems that Eddie’s father was paying for his sessions here. Now he doesn’t want Eddie coming here anymore.”
“How come?”
“Because he came over to the center last week and saw some of the handicapped children playing in the gym. He said that he doesn’t want his child treated as some kind of ‘freak.’ ”
“You go along with that?” I asked.
“No, but more important, the doctors said that he’s shown the first real progress in years since he’s been working with you. You’ve been the only thing that brings him out of his shell.”
“What his mama say?”
“She agrees with us, she wants him to come, but Eddie …”
“He don’t want to do nothing against what his father says, right?”
“You got it.”
“Crap!”
“It doesn’t mean that you’re out of a job,” Ann said. “You can keep coming over and help keep the equipment in order. And you can always work out with me. I could use some mat work.”
“I bet you could,” I said, “but right now I’ve got to figure out something for Eddie.”
I had a half an idea which I wasn’t sure would work and I started out the door when Ann called me back. I turned to see what she wanted and saw her sitting on the desk, legs crossed.
“Don’t forget me,” she said, smiling.
“I won’t,” I said.
Mrs. Brignole was playing cards with friends when I reached the house. They looked at me as if they weren’t sure if they should put their hands up or make a break for the door.
“Oh, hello, Lonnie.” She got up and started to introduce me to the other women around the small bridge table. They forced smiles to their faces which died quickly as I nodded to each. I saw Eddie through the doorway sitting in the next room. He was sitting in a chair facing the window, slowly rocking. “What … what can I do for you? I guess you’ve been to the center?”
“I was having a little trouble with my jump shot,” I said. “I thought that since Eddie has seen it a lot, maybe he would go with me out back and watch me shoot it a few times to see if he could see what I was doing wrong?”
She took a deep breath, smoothed her dress down in front of her, and then walked into the room where Eddie still sat. I followed her.
“Eddie, Lonnie has been having a little trouble with his … with what?”
“My jump shot,” I said.
“Right, his jump shot. And he wonders if he went out back if you would watch him shoot it and see what he was doing wrong.”
Eddie didn’t answer. Then he shrugged one shoulder. He shrugged it again and then looked up at me. There was a smile. Not a big one, but just a little smile. The cat was glad to see me.
He got up and walked out to the backyard.
“Lonnie,” June Brignole whispered to me. “I can’t pay you.”
“You know anything about math?”
“I used to teach it,” she said. “If you need help …”
“Maybe we can talk about it later,” I said. I went out back with Eddie and we began playing. I thought about his mother helping with me my math. In a way, I didn’t want her or anyone else to know how much help I needed, but in another way it was a big relief. If I was going to stay at Montclare, I had to get on with filling in some gaps. Math would be as good a place as any to start.
Teufel put us through twice-a-day practices for the next week. One practice we would run through plays and the other we would scrimmage and have pass drills. They were hard, but I worked them with everything I had. What I was thinking was that I wanted another year at Montclare. I think the shock of the place was wearing off a little and I wanted to take another look at it.
One day we stopped practice so a photographer could take pictures of all the players. First they took a team picture, then they took pictures of the guys in a light scrimmage, and finally they posed each of the guys. They had me standing on a high stool with the ball over the basket like I was just about ready to dunk. Then they had me posing as if I was dribbling, only they had a special ball with tape on it that I could put my finger through and hold it still so the picture wouldn’t blur. They said that they were going to hand out the pictures to the press. Teufel told the photographer not to give us copies, because it might go to our heads. Then he had us run laps around the gym.
I met Sly after practice. His moms had sent him a record player, and I helped him carry it up to the room. He put on a side and I fell across the bed. I was feeling cool and looking at the schedule, trying to figure out how many games we could win and what tournaments we might get into after the season when Colin came in. He had a container of coffee with him. When he saw me on the bed he put his fingers on his lips and beckoned for me to come with him. I thought he was up to something, because he was a real clown. It was kind of funny, because he looked so serious, yet he would get in on any joke we pulled. He didn’t say a word until we got out into the hallway.
“C’mon, man, let’s take a walk,” he said.
“What’s up?”
“Let’s walk for a while first.”
He was looking serious and I figured it probably wasn’t a joke but I wasn’t a hundred percent. We went out of Orly Hall and across the grounds until we reached Monument Field, where they held parades for the ROTC and things like that.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Two guys came over to me and started asking me questions about
fixing games,” Colin said. “They asked me if I had heard any rumors about games being fixed or points being shaved.”
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“About two days ago,” Colin said. “They asked a lot of questions about you, too.”
“Me? Like what?”
“Did you spend a lot of money, did you fly home much, that kind of thing,” Colin said. “I saw them talking to Teufel. Leeds, too.”
“Nobody talked to me about anything,” I said.
“The way they were asking the questions,” Colin said, “they seemed to be fishing around.”
“Wait a minute.” We were in the middle of the field. “Who are you talking about?”
“I don’t know who these guys were,” Colin said. He took his glasses off and wiped them off on his shirt. “At first they came up to me and started asking me stuff like what the point spread was for the game we have this weekend. I told them I didn’t know. Then they told me that I did know. ‘You’re playing in the game and you don’t even know the point spread?’ this guy says to me. So I told him to go take a walk. Then Leeds comes up to me and tells me to tell these guys anything I know. They asked me if I had heard anybody talking about the point spread. Did I see anything funny going on in the games? Did I know some guy called the Fat Man? I said I didn’t.
“Then they started asking me questions about you. How much money you had. Did you use drugs, that kind of thing. I told him that you didn’t use anything, you were usually broke. Then they told me not to talk to you or anybody about the conversation. I’ve been imagining they’ve bugged everything from the gym to my jock shorts. I swear to God, it scared the hell out of me. I don’t think anybody’s shaving points in our games. I told them that. Then they asked me why we ran the score up in the last game. It was a regular third degree.”
Panic. My testicles shriveled up into a tight little knot and my stomach did flip-flops. All the while Colin was talking to me the only thing I could do was to listen for my name. I couldn’t even make sense out of what he was saying.
The Outside Shot Page 12
