Hooper

by Geoff Herbach

  Devin Mitchell is the best player I have ever seen in person.

  And the three of us? We reach what Khalil calls the flow. I’ve never had this with other players. I’m not me, but part of a larger animal. We’re like the Owens family of Marshall, Minnesota. We’re like a three-headed Dwight playing jazz in the post. But I like what a Somali boy says after we beat him and his friends, 11–2. “You dudes never stop. It’s like chasing the ocean!”

  Like chasing the ocean. That’s good to imagine.

  Also impossible to do.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  COOKED IN A HOT TUB

  We sit on benches in the lobby area. Khalil packs up his bag. He has to go babysit his little brother, Lonnie, so his mom can go to work. “Man, we are going to kill the Pride Saturday. We could take them, just the three of us,” Khalil says.

  Devin leans back against the wall, dabbing his face with a towel. “I think I’m going to stay, Farmer,” Devin says. “Not ready to go home yet. Want to hit the weights?” Devin has said so few words directly to me. He still doesn’t look at me.

  “I’m not a good lifter. Only did it once with Carli,” I say.

  “Man, you are so raw!” Khalil says.

  “Like a little baby,” Devin says. “I can show you some stuff, though.”

  Before he leaves, Khalil finds me on Twitter. “I’m your first follower, bro!” He says this like he’s shocked.

  “I’m a little baby,” I say.

  Then Devin and I go to the weights area upstairs.

  Upstairs we find people of every color on the earth. It’s like my neighborhood back in Philly. Here there are black grandmas next to Mexican dudes next to white moms in yoga pants, like Renata wears, next to Vietnamese teen boys next to girls with Muslim scarves on their heads and dudes who must be speaking Arabic. Devin and I go to the free-weight section, and I have a big knot stuck in my throat. I love this. All of us up here are striving to improve.

  “What are you doing, dude?” Devin asks.

  I realize I am stuck in one spot, staring out into the treadmills and weight machines. “I like all these people,” I say.

  Devin giggles. This is not the deep laugh of a giant man, but more like a little kid. “What?”

  “They’re good people,” I say. “They’re trying hard.”

  He smiles and shakes his head. “You are odd,” he says.

  I nod. “It’s hard to be me.”

  He giggles again and puts his hand on his forehead. “I’m trying not to like you,” he says.

  “What? Why?” I ask.

  “It’s not about you, man . . .” He takes a big breath. “Let’s just do some lunges, all right?”

  “Okay,” I say, but I would like to know why he shouldn’t like me. Instead, I follow him to a place where we put weight on a bar. I copy what he does, load plates.

  For the next forty-five minutes we do more than lunging. We pull and squat and clean and jerk (this sounds disgusting, but is really more painful) and curl and press. Pretty soon I feel like my whole body has become soft rubber. I am sweating and dizzy.

  Devin is able to lift almost twice as much weight as I can for every exercise. How do I compete with that? If he doesn’t like me, he can break me in half. But during the workout, he has been nice. He has given me good instructions. He has laughed at my jokes and kept me from dropping a weight on my head.

  During my last set of bench presses, Tasha Tolliver and Carli come up. Devin helps me guide the bar back onto the rack. I sit up and I think I might die. I am so tired, really.

  “How about the hot tub, y’all?” Tasha asks.

  “I gotta ice,” Devin says.

  “Come on, they don’t got ice baths here, boy,” Tasha says.

  “Unless you dudes get something we don’t,” Carli says.

  “Nah. I’d have to go home to do it,” Devin says.

  “Well, we don’t want that!” Tasha says.

  I borrow a pair of shorts from Devin. They are big on my butt. Carli and Tasha have both brought swimsuits. We are the only people in a large bubbling hot tub that sits in the shadow of a two-story water slide and next to a kids’ wading pool.

  I don’t like sitting in hot tubs very much. I’ve only been in one before. When we moved to Minnesota last summer, we stayed in a hotel in Northrup for two days. There was a hot tub. I thought I was being cooked in a soup. How is that relaxing?

  But Tasha and Carli are big, powerful, beautiful girls and I want Devin to like me, so I decide, even if I feel like I’m being made into soup, there is no place in the world I would rather be.

  They all talk Minnesota basketball and about people I don’t know and then they talk about recruiting. Tasha has made official visits to Iowa, Iowa State, and someplace called Butler. Devin has visited only Duke and Kentucky, because they’re the only schools he thought he was interested in. “I’m going to check out Howard and Harvard now, though.”

  “Dude, you are not going to go to one of those schools,” Tasha says.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Harvard doesn’t even give athletic scholarships.”

  “They play good basketball and the coach is black,” Devin says. “And I could get the best education in the country.”

  “So you going to play that system they do at Harvard?” Tasha says.

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “You can play tough D, limit possessions? Maybe you average nine points a game?”

  “Why is that bad if the team wins?” I ask.

  “Duh, because,” Carli says.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Because Devin could be a top-ten NBA pick in two years,” Carli says.

  “There’s more to life than basketball,” Devin says.

  “No,” I say.

  “So much more. Why do I want to go to some school that just wants to use me up for basketball?” Devin asks. “You think Kentucky cares about my education?”

  “Go get your Harvard degree after you leave the NBA, dude!” Tasha shouts.

  There is a moment when no one says anything, but we all just look at the water.

  Then Tasha talks. “Just like Khalil always says, you too rich to even see what you got.”

  Devin shakes his head. He glares at Tasha, then climbs out of the hot tub.

  “Aw, come on, man,” Tasha says.

  “I’m out,” Devin says. “Keep the shorts, Farmer.” He wraps in a towel and walks away.

  I’m not sure what to do, so I stay in my spot. Nobody says anything for a couple of minutes. Carli pulls out her ponytail and shakes her head, so her shiny hair falls on her muscular shoulders. I try not to stare, but I do. She smiles at me and sinks down deep into the tub.

  “Shit,” Tasha whispers. Then she turns the bubbles up high. “Devin Mitchell gets on my last nerve,” she says.

  When there are a lot of bubbles, Carli puts her foot in my lap.

  “Just need to straighten out my knee,” she says.

  I nod. I hold on to her foot with my hand. I am happier than ever. There is nothing else, not basketball, not Devin . . .

  But Tasha’s brain is still with Devin. “You know what? He might really go to, like, Howard University, right?”

  “No way,” Carli says.

  “His dad wanted him at Duke since he was in middle school. Devin has to do everything his dad says or else, okay? He gets grounded, stuck in that house by himself weeks at a time, just for being home late from school. But when he’s eighteen, he’s free. He can go where he wants. If Howard pays, why shouldn’t he go where he wants to be? His daddy can suck it.”

  “I like his dad,” I say.

  “You wouldn’t if you were his kid,” Carli says. “Devin can barely have friends. Definitely no girlfriend. He can’t go anywhere after dark by himself, right, Tash?”

  “Uh-huh.” Tasha nods. “And he had to stop playing baseball, because his dad said he messed around too much in the dugout and practice got in the way of his basketball development. Devin lo
ves baseball!”

  “Why?” I ask. “Why is his dad so mean?”

  “Well, I don’t think he’s mean,” Carli says.

  “No way. Daddy’s scared!” Tasha says.

  “Of what? Devin is the toughest-looking boy I ever saw,” I say.

  “Yeah. Exactly, dude. You got it,” Tasha says. “Devin looks like a big man, even if he just a kid. People are scared of him, and these cops don’t play. He could end up shot.”

  “Jesus. Really?” Carli says. “I mean, I thought his dad was strict just to keep Devin out of trouble.”

  “Devin Mitchell wouldn’t get in no trouble,” Tasha says. “But trouble is looking for him. Trouble is out looking for all black kids right now.”

  “I’m glad I’m not black,” I say.

  Both the girls’ mouths drop open. They stare at me. “You still can’t say shit like that,” Tasha says.

  “Seriously, Adam. That sounded terrible.”

  “Why? I don’t want trouble looking for me,” I say. “I have enough trouble, okay? Trouble finds me a lot. I don’t want to get shot, too.”

  “Well, you think Devin does?” Tasha says.

  “He probably wishes he was white,” I say.

  “That he does not, dude. Not at all.” Tasha stands and climbs out of the hot tub. She grabs her towel and dries.

  “Farmer’s Polish. He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” Carli says.

  “I do, too,” I say, because what does me being Polish have to do with it?

  “See, he do,” Tasha says. She walks out of the pool area.

  Carli leans back and shuts her eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to make her pissed,” I say.

  “Just shut up for a few seconds, okay?” Carli says. She presses her toes into the inside of my thigh, and I do shut up.

  THIRTY-SIX

  BAD VERSION OF ME

  I wasn’t trying to be racist or anything. As I dress, I replace black with Polish. “I’m glad I’m not Polish,” somebody could say because Poles are unlucky, or maybe they think Poles are dumb, or Poles are poor, or drunk, or whatever the reason. The thing is, whatever the reason, they’d be wrong, because Poles are not one thing, but many different things, so it’s a stereotype. I can imagine if I heard someone say those things, I would get mad. But those things are simply opinions. Isn’t it a fact that black guys get shot by the cops? I see the news Renata has on. That’s not a stereotype, is it? Black guys get shot.

  “That’s why I’m glad I’m not black,” I say to Carli when we meet in the lobby. “Black is nothing wrong. My favorite basketball players are all black. I just don’t want to get shot.”

  There is a black kid in the lobby, probably waiting for his mom, maybe ten years old, staring at me when I say this.

  Carli rolls her eyes at me. She rolls up her swimsuit in a towel. Then she says, “I think the response Tasha and other actual human beings look for in this situation is more about how Devin walking around worried he’s going to get shot just because he’s a black guy is totally unacceptable . . .”

  That makes me think. “Oh,” I say. “Okay. I see.”

  The kid is still staring at me.

  “It’s like you’re lost in your own world,” Carli says.

  “I have problems.” I nod. “Will you text Tasha that I am stupid but understand?”

  “I saw her in the locker room. She’s not going to hold it against you, dude, because she’s nice and knows you’re just trying to figure shit out. But I would think, since you know that an apology is needed, that you’d be the one to do it yourself, right?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Good,” Carli says.

  “Yes, Mother,” I say.

  “Ha-ha,” Carli says.

  The kid is still staring like I am from outer space. “You’re good at basketball,” he finally says. “I watched you play.”

  “Thank you. Okay,” I say. I don’t say anything more. We leave the Y.

  But I’m thinking. Even before we are out of the Minneapolis suburbs, I turn to Carli, who has been quiet, just listening to the pop music on the radio, not even singing along, and I say, “It’s like how Kase Kinshaw makes shit of me just because I’m from a different country. That’s totally unacceptable.”

  “Kase doesn’t care that you’re from a different country. He just doesn’t like it that you’re better at sports than him.”

  “No. He calls me a refugee.”

  “He makes dumb jokes, that’s all.”

  “No, he doesn’t make jokes.”

  “I know he can be a dick, but he’s not a bad guy, I swear. I’ve known him my whole life. We’re buddies.”

  “He punched Barry Roland.”

  “What? Is Barry Roland Polish, too?”

  “No.”

  “So I guess Kase doesn’t pick on him because he’s Polish?”

  “Are you joking?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Of course Barry isn’t Polish. Barry is just another victim of Kase Kinshaw.”

  “Barry is not the best example to use here. Sorry.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “You don’t even know the story of the dog,” she says.

  “What dog?” I say.

  “God. Can we not talk about this?” she asks. “I’m not a spokesperson for Kase Kinshaw, okay?”

  “I’m not a spokesperson for Barry, either . . .” And then I think for a moment and get a shock of lightning in my veins. Oh shit, Barry Roland. He was on his way over to my house this morning! “Oh shit, oh shit!” I say.

  I reach down and pull my phone out of my pocket. It never rings. It never buzzes. I am not used to it, so I never look at it. There, on the front screen, are several notifications:

  First, two texts, Khalil sending over his number and Devin’s number.

  Second, a notification from Twitter that I have forty-one new followers. Khalil has retweeted out my only message, Kyle Owens is not so great . . .

  Third, and worst, a Renata voice mail. When I tap in my code, I find there are a bunch of older texts and voice mails from her. They are asking again and again, WHERE ARE YOU? BARRY CAN’T FIND YOU.

  “Uh-oh,” I say. “I was supposed to hang out with Barry Roland, but I just left with you and didn’t tell anyone.”

  “This morning? You didn’t tell your mom?” Carli asks.

  “She wasn’t home.”

  “That’s why you have a phone. For texting!” she says.

  “Oh no,” I say. “No.”

  “Sorry, dude,” Carli says.

  I fall into despair.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  HOOPER THE DRAGON

  Renata is waiting for me when I come in the door. She is standing, not sitting. Her arms are folded over her chest. “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “I went to Minneapolis with Carli Anderson to play basketball.”

  “I know,” she says. “I spoke to Ted Anderson, because I thought you might be with her.”

  “I made the problem,” I say. “I got excited and forgot to tell anyone. That’s not Carli’s fault.”

  “I’m not upset with Carli Anderson, Adam, I’m upset with you.”

  “I should have told you what was happening.”

  Renata closes her eyes tight. She walks across the living room and plunges backward on the couch. “Yes. You should’ve told me, but I’m not the injured party here. I would’ve been fine. I would’ve told you yes, go to Minneapolis. I would’ve been happy for you to pursue what you love with people who are as passionate about basketball as you are.”

  “Okay?” I say. “We’re okay? I made a mistake and you forgive me?”

  Renata sighs. “What about Barry?” she asks. “What are you going to do about Barry?”

  “I’ll call him and apologize, because it was just . . . it was an accident.”

  “Your priorities are changing, Adam. Maybe you better tell him that you won’t be available to spend time with him like before. Basketball is mor
e important.”

  “Basketball is more important than Barry? He’s a . . . he’s a person.”

  Renata sits forward. “Think about this, okay? Would you choose practicing basketball over spending time with Barry?” she asks.

  I don’t say anything, but of course I know the answer.

  Barry left so many messages on the home answering machine. I only listen to a few.

  10:32 a.m. “Did you fall down in the house, dude?”

  10:44 a.m. “Are you dead, because you’re not answering the door or the phone?”

  11:33 a.m. “I found out you just left without telling me, so that’s not a good friend thing to do, Adam? I wouldn’t do that to you?”

  It is too sad. I lie down on the floor and fall asleep.

  Maybe a half hour later, Regan and Margery come busting in from outside. There is no knocking anymore. My home is now their home, it seems. Margery holds on to a large poster-size piece of paper, which is rolled up into a tube.

  “Want to see what we made at art camp?” Regan asks.

  I do not. But they unroll it on the living room floor next to me.

  Hooper the Dragon. Giant. Green covered in glitter. Shooting out flames from its mouth. Wearing a number thirty-four jersey. A basketball in one claw. Hugging a little brown-haired child in the other arm.

  “This is my favorite picture of all time,” I say.

  @PolishHooper suddenly has 112 followers. @KyOw23 has written: @PolishHooper is a bad head case with no true skills. Runs and jumps. That is all.

  Hooper the Dragon will burn you, Owens!

  That’s what I think.

  I am okay with my new life.