Hooper

by Geoff Herbach

  “Yeah?” Carli says. “I want to see you play Kyle Owens, too, but he’ll probably kick your ass because Khalil and Devin won’t be on the court.”

  “No. I’ll kick his ass,” I say. “He’s going to pay.”

  “Pay?” She smiles. “Farmer, I think you gotta chill and think straight.” Then she dribbles in a tight circle right around me. She bumps me with her hip. “Guard me, man. Come on,” she says.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  I AM NOT ALONE, PART II

  Again. Again. Again.

  I am me. I am in a tall Warsaw apartment building with a big window and black darkness outside. The window reflects my 76ers jersey back to me, but I am small, maybe eight years old. It is daytime, but the air has filled with this ink from an octopus. The ink has spread and blotted out all light. The ink starts to leak in through cracks in the cinder block. I back away from the window. I back away into the apartment, but the ink knows where to find me. It chases me against a wall. I scream for my dad. He does not answer. The ink envelops me. I fight, but there is nothing to fight, no substance. I am drowning. I am drowning. I am drowning.

  “Adam! Wake up!”

  “What? Huh?” I sit. I am on the couch in the living room. It is dark except for the TV. Barry is asleep on the floor. Regan is asleep on the big chair. The TV is playing an episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The bald boy’s head is glowing on the screen. Margery stands over me holding a pillow. “Did you hit me with that pillow?” I ask.

  “You were yelling, and I couldn’t hear the TV,” Margery says. “That’s rude. You’re not the only person in this room, you know.”

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. It’s late time. Just stop yelling.”

  “Okay. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay.” She pats my forehead, then goes back in front of the TV.

  Then I think.

  I think more.

  Margery is right. I am not the only one in this room. There are more people in Renata’s house, too. I can hear Professor Mike’s snores coming from down the hall. And guess what? On the other side of campus, Carli sleeps in her bed. Coach Anderson is there, too. I am not alone in Northrup.

  I feel light as a feather.

  I am not the only one here!

  “I love that bald airbender kid!” I say to Margery. “He’s so great!”

  “Shut up!” she says.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  I AM NOT ALONE, PART III

  It is Saturday morning. Barry goes to work at the stable. He seems even smaller than normal, like he is a deflating balloon. The lawyer told him and Renata that there’s not much they can do about him getting expelled. If there is documentable behavior that repeatedly violates school bullying policies, the school board is able to say good-bye to Barry. Just like that.

  Professor Mike got very angry when he heard this. “Bullying? This guy?” He pointed at Barry, who was hunched over dinner, already losing air at the table. “He’s the gentlest kid I’ve ever met!” Professor Mike is now a supporter of Barry. Maybe it was a dream when I heard him complaining to Renata at 3:17 a.m.

  Anyway, with no Barry available to give me a ride, Renata is to take me to Chaska so I can catch the bus to the game in Saint Cloud.

  I have spent the morning listening to jazz on my phone, earbuds in. Regan and Margery have been making art projects, but they hide what they’re doing whenever I come in. I find this a little annoying.

  I have turned off all notifications. If @KyOw23 makes bad tweets about me, I don’t want to know. I have also turned off my ringer and the vibration, because I don’t want to hear from Devin pleading with me to disrupt my basketball career. He is the rich guy, not me. He is the muscleman who can dunk from the free-throw line, not me. He is the big-time recruit with touch from the three-point line, not me. I have to play this game against the Owenses. I have to honor basketball, my passport.

  When the time comes to get in the car, I am very surprised that Margery and Regan are already sitting in the back seat. Both of them are wearing Philadelphia 76er T-shirts, like I like to wear.

  “Where did you get those?” I ask Margery.

  “We like them because Philadelphia was important in the Revolutionary War,” Margery says.

  “Not because of you,” Regan says.

  “What?” I ask.

  Professor Mike also climbs in the back seat with them. “Since you’re heading north, Adam, we decided to spend the day at the Mall of America,” he says.

  “Oh, okay,” I say. I slide into the front seat and pull the chair up so Professor Mike has room. My knees are in my chest, and I am more annoyed. Whatever. I put my earbuds back on and listen to Thelonious Monk, Monk’s Dream album.

  Thelonious takes me away from the drama. He puts me in a different world. The album runs the whole time we are in the car and keeps me from worrying about Regan and Margery when they kick and punch each other near Belle Plaine. It keeps me from worrying about Barry or Khalil or even Devin. I visualize shooting shots, like soft birds flying from my hands, over the top of an outstretched Kyle Owens. I visualize leaping in the air, cramming Kyle Owens’s shot back in his ugly face. The Monk album ends just as Renata pulls into the parking lot of Chaska High School.

  She drives to where the small Fury bus is parked. There is also a school bus to carry the 14, 15, and 16U boys’ teams to Saint Cloud. The 17U team gets to go on the nice one that has video screens hanging from the ceiling.

  When I pull out my earbuds, Margery is marveling at how nice the high school is. “It looks like a spaceship,” she says. This is true.

  Then I stop paying attention to her, because to our left I see Devin Mitchell climb out of a Cadillac that is parked in the lot. I think this is his dad’s car. Devin has come to the game. He wears headphones. He doesn’t say a word to whoever drove him, but slams the door and walks to the bus. His face is not the kind of face I want to talk to. I am sure he doesn’t want to talk to me, or probably anyone.

  I get out of the car, say thanks, give the girls a wave.

  “We’ll pick you up,” Renata says.

  “Bye-bye, Mr. Basketballs!” Regan says.

  “Bye-bye, Hooper the Dragon!” Margery says.

  “Uh-huh,” I say. Then I go to the bus.

  Devin is sitting in the last row. He looks up when I climb on board. He motions me back. When I get there, he says, “Pops says Khalil isn’t my business. He says he won’t let me go to Saundra’s birthday party if I don’t ‘get my head on straight’ and play this game. My head is fine, but I’m not going to do that to my sister.”

  I nod.

  “By the way, thanks for hanging up on me,” he says. “I won’t forget that.”

  I nod. My heart sinks into my guts. “Sorry,” I whisper.

  He puts his headphones on again. I walk back to the middle and slide into a chair. Coach Cliff and Mr. Doig climb on the bus. Rashid, Charlie, Trey, and Marques all sit around me. They listen to their own music. There are no players in back near Devin.

  I lean and look out the window. Renata, Professor Mike, and the girls are already gone.

  On the bus ride, Coach Cliff sits and stares forward. He looks unhappy to me. Mr. Doig is doing the coaching. He shows a video about the San Antonio Spurs basketball team. Mr. Doig’s voice comes from his big nose. I don’t like it. “Many Spurs players are foreigners, like Adam. Some are four-year college players. Some are one-and-done street players, but they all fall in line with this system that wins championships. See that?” Mr. Doig says, pointing at the screen. “Look familiar? That’s the motion action we use in our sets.”

  I’m the foreigner. Who are the four-year college players? I wonder. Who are the street players on this bus? Maybe Devin will be a one-and-done NBA guy, but he’s no street player. Also, I lived in America before I learned basketball. Maybe I’m not really a foreigner? I don’t like Mr. Doig with his names.

  The Spurs run very good offense, though. The ball fires aro
und from dude to dude. Tim Duncan, who is almost seven feet tall, and is now retired from the NBA, was a very good passer. I see that. So what? I’m a dude who hangs up on his friend when he is upset. That’s who I am. A selfish guy, Adam Reed.

  I put in my earbuds, turn on Dave Brubeck, rest my forehead on the window, and shut my eyes. The drive to Saint Cloud is just about an hour, and I don’t want to watch people who are better people than me playing basketball.

  At some point, Rashid sits down in the chair next to mine. He taps my shoulder, and I open my eyes. “Mr. Doig just said you’re playing Khalil’s spot, okay?”

  “Point,” I say.

  “Running the show,” Rashid says. “Make sure I get it down in the post so I can posterize Kyle Owens’s ass.” He smiles.

  “Yeah, okay. Good,” I say.

  You’d think I’d want to be the one to posterize Kyle Owens, but there’s something wrong with me. I shut my eyes again.

  Rashid stays in the seat next to me, and I fall asleep, only to awake when the bus makes a sharp turn and my head bounces off of Rashid’s shoulder.

  “We’re here,” he says.

  The bus pulls into a giant parking lot next to a large coliseum with big parking lots all around. There are several buses like ours parked in big lines. There are teams of basketball players in warm-ups walking in packs. There are white vans with the logo of TV stations from Minneapolis painted on the side.

  “Why is the TV here?” I ask.

  “Devin and Khalil never get to play against the Owens boys, except in AAU. News covered this game last year, too. We only won by a bucket, so it’s important,” Rashid says.

  “Except no Khalil,” I say.

  “We got a farmer and we got me!” Rashid says. Then he shifts his attention out the window past my head. He points. “Hey, Adam Sobieski. Those kids got a sign with your name on it.”

  And then I see a strange sight. I almost can’t believe it is real. Two little girls with hair cut short at their chin and big brown eyes hold giant poster board signs. They jump up and down and shout! One sign has a dragon. The other has these words:

  WELCOME TO SAINT CLOUD

  ADAM

  HOOPER

  SOBIESKI!

  YOUR BIGGEST FANS EVER!!

  It’s Margery and Regan. Professor Mike and Renata stand behind them. They are smiling and waving at me.

  “They drove fast,” I whisper.

  “That’s cool!” Rashid says. “I like their 76ers shirts. That’s what you wear all the time!”

  “Yeah,” I say. And I think I might cry because I am so happy.

  I am not alone anywhere.

  FIFTY-NINE

  DEVIN IS NOT ALONE

  We are let off behind a fenced area, so I can’t hug these girls I like so much, but I wave at Regan and Margery before we go in. I can’t even believe Renata is at a basketball game. The only one she’s seen was my first in Philly, when I was pretty bad. I leapt and had my legs taken out from under me and landed on my side hard. She said she couldn’t handle it, not the crowd, not the noise, not the violence. That game was in an elementary school gym with kids playing and about twenty people in the stands. This will be different.

  The whole game is different from the other AAU games we have played. There are other courts and other teams warming up, as there were before, but our court is on the side and has bleachers pulled out on one sideline. There are lots of people already sitting in the stands. Tasha and Carli are already here, as is her dad. Renata, the professor, and the girls come in and find chairs. There’s a long, tall kid sitting in the front row, too. He’s wearing a red T-shirt I recognize. It says “Fear the Cob” on it and has a picture of a big yellow corncob.

  Rashid and I warm up. He sees me looking at the kid.

  “You know him?” Rashid asks. “He’s from down by you, right?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “I think he’s from Wauzeka. I saw him on the bench at a game. Wauzeka is in my conference.”

  “Yeah, man. Ben Kowalski. That farmer boy is in seventh grade. He was at the Tommies Baller camp last summer. Best pure shooter I ever saw. Heard he scored like thirty a game for their jayvee, but they wouldn’t move him up because he’s a little fragile.”

  I stare at this skinny Ben Kowalski. He has a Polish last name, I’m sure. I thought he looked like he could be my little brother last time I saw him. He smiles and waves at me. He’s still a little kid. I remember how he cheered when I dunked against his team. Here he is again.

  “He plays on the Heat 16U. Maybe we’ll get a chance to see him later. Fun to watch,” Rashid says.

  Fear the Cob.

  It’s all coming around, like a big circle. When I played Wauzeka back in February, I already had basketball, didn’t I? I’ve gotten much better in a few months, but even then I could jump and jam and I was on my way.

  What didn’t I have the last time I saw Ben Kowalski in his “Fear the Cob” T-shirt? I had no Carli. I had no Khalil or Devin or Rashid or Tasha. I had no visits to Minneapolis to go against old guys who play basketball like jazz musicians or to sit in a big church, as part of the Mitchells’ big family, to watch Saundra play the same classical song that put me on a chair next to Renata in Poland when I was a kid. There wasn’t even any Professor Mike when I saw this “Fear the Cob” boy. Margery and Regan were two weird little girls who sat in trees. I have so much more now.

  I bounce a pass to Rashid. I watch Devin bounce a pass to Trey.

  I look up in the stands and see Carli, who told me I had to talk. I look and see Renata, who protected me so I could find basketball and Barry. Wow. Renata has made my life possible. Carli has taught me how to have friends just by being who she is. Barry is my brother. Khalil was becoming my brother. Devin was becoming my brother.

  The Minne-Kota Stars arrive just then. Holy cats, they are so tall. Three are giant blond kids from South Dakota who Carli mentioned and Rashid texted me about during the week. I recognize them. Several boys look like Owenses, but I’m not sure. At first I don’t see Kyle. Really, I half expect Kase Kinshaw to jog onto the court, because he and Kyle have become one guy in my head, but I am off base with this expectation. Kyle Owens is the last guy on the court. I remember him, of course. He looks nothing like Kase. Kyle Owens has floppy brown hair, not a short buzz. He is about my height and skinny and not filled with muscles like Kase. He is also bouncy and happy looking. He sees me, smiles, jogs over, and says, “We are such dicks on Twitter, dude! I’m just joking, okay? Don’t kill me on the court. I already told Joe that if he cheap-shots you like he did during our playoff game, I’m going to bench myself!”

  “Ha-ha,” I say. “No worries. I want to play basketball, not have a hockey match out here!”

  “Good. I like my teeth!” Kyle Owen says.

  I think Carli would like my joke. I look into the stands. She waves at me because she’s seen me talking to Kyle. I continue to pass the ball back and forth with Rashid. Kyle is not the kid of my nightmares. But then something else. He stretches nearby.

  “What’s up with Khalil Williams?” Kyle asks. “Why’d he go to jail?”

  I catch the ball and turn to Kyle. “No. He didn’t go to jail. He’s probably not in trouble, really, but . . . but . . .” I don’t know what to call Mr. Doig. A coach? An owner? “This Fury board member guy is not letting him play.”

  “That sucks, man,” Kyle says. “Khalil is cool. I was surprised when I heard about his gang thing.”

  “Gang thing?” I say. “That’s not true.”

  “No way, man,” Rashid says, because he’s heard. “He didn’t go to jail. He’s not in any gang. That’s stupid.”

  Kyle nods. “Someone said it on Facebook,” he says. “I guess nobody should believe that source, huh? Anyway, I played against Khalil a lot, and he’s about the happiest guy on the court, right? I love that guy.”

  “Me too,” I say.

  I look at Rashid. He shakes his head. We must be thinking the same thing.
How would that message get started? Khalil in a gang? Khalil, who tries to keep away from all trouble? He was in his house. His brother was scared. That’s all that happened.

  Just then Coach Cliff blows the whistle. We move into our shooting warm-ups. For just a moment, Devin and I meet up at the back of a line.

  “Kyle Owens heard Khalil was in jail because of being in a gang,” I say.

  Devin freezes in place, puts his hands on either side of his head, squeezes, then looks up into the stands. His dad, mom, Saundra, and several other friends have just climbed up and taken seats. Devin is almost groaning. Only I can hear. “If Mr. Doig just . . . if he just supported Khalil instead of punishing him . . .”

  It’s my turn to take a layup. I go, but I can’t do it. I miss.

  Carli makes a face at me.

  Through all of warm-ups, I don’t hit a single shot. Hard life is creeping onto the court. Before, never. Before the court was what made me forget all about it.

  There is a real buzzer here. It sounds. The Fury jog over to our bench. Mr. Doig hugs a clipboard and stares over his glasses at us. Coach Cliff talks quietly. “Do what we do. Farmer has point. Devin, I want you to jump, but you’re in the two. Trey, Charlie, you guys keep moving, keep moving the ball. Don’t think any on that side can stay with Rashid down in the post. Keep that in mind. And remember, yeah, they’re the Owenses, but we’re the Fury. We got this.”

  The buzzer blows again. Me, Rashid, Trey, and Charlie jump from our chairs and jog onto the court. Devin sits for a second, then stands, too. He walks to the court. He and Kyle Owens bump fists. Then Devin says, “No.”

  The ref gets into position for the jump. One of the tall blond South Dakota boys goes to the center circle. Devin should jump, but he’s shaking his head. He stands ten feet away. Kyle is next to him, looking confused. The ref blows his whistle, but Devin doesn’t move. He stares up at his parents in the stands.

  The ref blows his whistle again. “Come on, Eight,” he says to Devin, referring to the number on his jersey. “Let’s get this show on the road.”