Travel Team

by Mike Lupica

  Richie let it go, like a bad shot that wasn’t even worth contesting. They both knew it was bull.

  “Let me put it to you another way: What kind of process do you guys have going here if a kid that good doesn’t make your team?”

  Ross took off his sunglasses, folded them, stuck them in the front of his polo-pony shirt, like it was all part of a rich-guy pose, buying time. He even cleared his throat.

  “My understanding with Danny—whom we all love, by the way—is that it just turned out to be close with him and a group of other guards and he unfortunately had a bad second night of tryouts.”

  “Who gives a sh…” Richie put his hands out in front of him, trying not to get hot. “Who cares?” he said. “Have you been watching what I’ve been watching here? Anybody who knows anything about basketball can see how good he is. And he was on travel the last two years. Now you guys take him off because he has a bad night? Because he’s too small? No kidding, Jeff, what’s up with that?”

  It was clear that the only thing Jeff Ross had heard was the part about Danny being small. “Who said he didn’t make the team because he was too small?”

  “Didn’t you tell those crackerjack, basketball-savvy talent scouts of yours that you wanted the team to get bigger this year?”

  “No, Rich, I most certainly did not. Did Danny tell you that?”

  Richie ignored him. “In sports, the best kids are supposed to make the team.”

  “The evaluators were as fair as they could be….”

  “Maybe they were fair,” Richie said. “But if they don’t know what they’re watching, they shouldn’t be picking the stinking team.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” Ross said. He put the sunglasses back on, like he was putting a mask back on. “But sports isn’t always fair. I guess you know that better than anybody.”

  Now they were getting to it, and Richie knew they weren’t just talking about the kids on the court.

  Ross said, “Here’s something else you know: Sometimes the little guys have to play a little bigger when it counts.”

  “You turned away the wrong little guy and you know it.”

  “For somebody who’s not around very often,” Ross said, “you’ve certainly taken a passionate interest in Danny’s career all of a sudden.”

  “I’m taking an interest in my kid, who just happens to be a hell of a player. That okay with you?”

  Ross said, “Not all the players in town get the chance to be you. Even when they’re related to you.”

  They were both watching the court now. As if on cue, Danny went behind his back with his own long arms—but those small hands—and dusted a fat kid who had just entered the game.

  “There used to be a rule, back in our day, where you could add a kid after the tryouts,” Richie said. “Put him on the team, Jeff.”

  “And what do I tell the other kids who didn’t make it? No, he can try out next year. That’s the system.”

  “Then the system stinks worse than the town dump.”

  Jeff Ross didn’t say anything, so Richie kept going. “So that’s the way it’s gonna be? You’re gonna get back at me through my kid?”

  “This has nothing to do with you and me, Walker. But since you’re such a concerned parent now, why not have your own damn system?”

  Dropping all pretense that they were going to be any more polite to each other now than they had been twenty years ago.

  “Maybe you should start your own team,” Ross said, trying to be sarcastic. “The Richie Walker All-Stars.”

  Richie was silent. Staring at the court. Ross started walking toward the pond, away from the game, saying, “You were always a big movie guy, Rich. But life isn’t always a movie. The little guy doesn’t always win the day. I’ll see you around.”

  “Yeah.”

  Ross left him standing there. Alone again, watching the kids playing ball.

  Watching his kid.

  Richie Walker’s all-star.

  8

  HE HAD TO BE LEAVING.

  When his dad came over for dinner, when it was an official visit to the house, scheduled in advance and not a drop-by, it almost always meant he was leaving the next day.

  At least he had stayed a whole week this time. Longer, if you counted that first night in the driveway.

  “Hold on there, Mr. Gloom and Doom,” Ali Walker said when Danny ran his theory past her. “He didn’t say anything about his travel plans.”

  “He never does, until the last possible minute.”

  “He just asked if it would be all right if the three of us had dinner. Even offered to take us out, sport. I told him to save his money, I’d whip up my famous Wasp Girl Lasagna.”

  “At least he got to see me play at the fair,” Danny said.

  She was setting the table. Resetting it, actually. That meant she was putting the forks on the outside of the napkins, knives on the inside, after Danny had once again managed to do it the other way around.

  She looked up. “You didn’t tell me you saw him at the fair.”

  “I don’t even know if he saw me see him. He was in the distance, kind of, just watching the game.”

  “Anyway,” his mom said, “if he is leaving, he’ll tell you.”

  “You don’t mind, by the way? Him coming over?”

  She was back in the kitchen, opening the oven door, checking out the famous lasagna, which was better than you got at Fierro’s in town. “He’s your father. I have never tried to keep you two apart, you know that. I told him tonight that if you guys wanted to have a boys’ night out, go for it. He said, no, I was included.”

  “He’s never not leaving when it’s one of these.”

  “Double negative,” his mom, the English teacher, said.

  “Just negative,” Danny said.

  His dad showed up at six-thirty sharp, wearing a blue buttoned-down shirt, khaki slacks, the kind of nubuck shoes kids wore with their school clothes, his hair slicked back and still wet from his shower. He was carrying a bottle of wine.

  Danny had been up in his room playing last year’s NBA game on PlayStation when he heard the doorbell. When he came down the stairs he noticed that his mom had found time to change out of her school clothes, into a green, silky-looking blouse with some kind of print on it you didn’t notice at first, and khaki-colored pants of her own, her slacks looking a lot nicer than what his dad had on.

  The kind of dress-up clothes she’d wear when she went out to dinner with a friend. Male or female. Though, Danny had to say, there weren’t a lot of males in Middletown she would give the time of day to.

  It was Danny’s impression that his mom was about as interested in dating as she was in video games.

  But she’d dressed up tonight for his dad, whatever that meant. Maybe he’d ask Tess online later how much he should read into something like that.

  Danny Walker, even at twelve, was smart enough to know this about girls: They were smarter than boys already. They were smarter about all the important stuff in life that didn’t include sports, and would stay smarter from now on, which meant that he and the rest of the boys would be playing catch-up, trying to come from behind, the rest of the way.

  “You look nice,” his dad said.

  “You still clean up pretty well yourself,” his mom said.

  It was Will Stoddard’s theory that adults, even cool adults, behaved like space aliens about half the time, and now here it was right in front of Danny’s eyes: With all the rotten things his mom could say to his dad when they were alone, she still wanted to look her best when he came over.

  The three of them sat in the living room before dinner, eating cheese and crackers. His mom drank some of the wine he’d brought. His dad drank beer out of a bottle. Danny got to have a Coke. On account of, he figured, this being a special occasion.

  Whatever the occasion was.

  His mom tried to find out how things were going for his dad in that casual way she had, asking questions you were supposed to beli
eve had just popped into her head, all the time getting to the one she hoped would make you spill your guts.

  He was still living in Oakland, he said, even though his lease was about to be up. Said the Warriors had talked about him doing some work for them in community relations, but he hadn’t decided yet. He had done some scouting for them in the past, but had quit that, saying he was tired of watching people he didn’t know or care about play games he couldn’t play.

  He had thought assistant coaching might be different, taking a job at the University of San Francisco last season.

  But he had quit that, too.

  He had quit a lot of things since the accident, Danny knew.

  “So it’s back to the card shows,” Ali Walker said. “Which you love so dearly.”

  The most money he’d made the past several years was from making appearances at card and memorabilia shows.

  “It’s not so bad if you limit the conversation.”

  “Your specialty.” His mom smiling when she said it.

  “Most people are all right. Step right up and see the guy who used to be Richie Walker.”

  He drank down about half his beer in one gulp, like he was incredibly thirsty all of a sudden.

  “You’re right,” he said. “I hate it.”

  Now came one of those record-breaking, world-class silences that made you wonder if any member of the Walker family would say anything ever again.

  Until Danny said: “When are you leaving?”

  “It’s actually what I wanted to talk to you both about.”

  She clapped her hands together. “Well, let’s do it at the dinner table, before the lasagna turns into leftovers.”

  They passed the rolls and salad around. His dad remarked that her lasagna was as good as ever. She said, thank you, sir. She asked how things were at the place known in Middletown as the Inn. He said, hey, they even had cable there now.

  Finally he put down his fork and said, “Listen, I’m thinking about hanging around for a while.”

  His mom had her wineglass nearly to her lips, stopped it right there. “In Middletown?”

  “Yeah.”

  Danny thinking: Yeah!

  His mom said, “What about the fabulous card-show appearances?”

  “There’s enough of them around here,” he said. “Even though the money’s not that great for somebody like me anywhere.” He gave her a look and said, “As you know better than anybody else.”

  “We’re all right, Rich.”

  Danny couldn’t wait.

  “What are you going to do here?” he said.

  Richie Walker said, “I was thinking about coaching.”

  Danny’s mom said, “You’re going to coach a team in Middletown?”

  “Yeah, an opportunity just presented itself in the past couple of days.”

  Danny and his mom waited. Sometimes you could try to wait his dad out on something and he’d be out the door and gone and you’d still be waiting. But this time was different, Danny’d had this feeling there was something he’d been waiting to tell them since he walked in the front door.

  “To tell you the truth,” he said, “it’s an opportunity I sort of created for myself.”

  “Dad!” Danny didn’t mean it to come out as loud as it did, but there it was. “Who are you going to coach?”

  “You,” he said.

  “Me.”

  His mom said, “In the Y league?”

  Richie Walker was smiling now.

  Even with his eyes.

  “You know what this town needs even more than cable TV at the Inn?”

  Danny grabbed his arm. “What?”

  “Another seventh-grade travel team,” his dad said.

  9

  RICHIE CAME BACK FROM THE KITCHEN WITH A BRAND-NEW BEER, DRINKING IT out of the bottle this time. When he sat back down, Danny started asking questions immediately.

  Like: “How are we going to get games?”

  His dad said, “I’ll call the Tri-Valley League and see if they’ve got room for one more team. If not, I’ll get phone numbers for coaches and call them on my own. It’s seventh-grade ball, after all. We’re not trying to join the Big East.”

  They were all sitting around the coffee table, Danny and his dad on the floor, his mom on the couch, his dad showing them the to-do list he’d been scribbling on Runyon’s napkins.

  Ali said, “But won’t they have their schedules set?”

  “There’s still a month to go before the season starts. I’m hoping they’ll try to work something out, on account of…”

  “On account of,” she said, “you’re Richie Walker.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “What’s left of him, anyway.”

  Danny said, “Even if we come up with enough players, where are we going to practice? Everybody was saying at the fair that because of what happened to the Springs gym, there’s not enough practice time for anybody.”

  His mom said, “I can help at St. Pat’s. But you may have to practice at some weird hours. Maybe after homework instead of before, as long as all the parents are willing.”

  Richie said, “What do they charge?”

  “I don’t honestly know. But I’ll ask.”

  Danny said, “You think we can really get into the league?”

  Richie said, “If we don’t, we’ll be one of those independent teams, like they have in minor-league baseball. You know, where all the bad boys go when they come out of drug rehab and nobody will give them a job.”

  His dad held up a couple of his napkins and said, “Hey, I don’t have all the answers here, least not yet.”

  Danny said, “But if we don’t get into the league, how do we get into the tournament?”

  Richie said he might have one more beer. Ali said, “Why don’t I go make up a quick pot of coffee instead,” not even asking if he wanted coffee.

  She came back five minutes later with two mugs, handing Richie one, saying, “Milk, two sugars,” as she did. They all sat down on the living-room floor, like they were unwrapping some kind of Christmas present.

  On the kind of Christmas morning, Danny thought, they’d never had.

  “Listen,” his dad said, “all we are right now is the Middletown Cocktail Napkins and you’re already worried about making the tournament?” Giving Danny a shove to let him know he was playing. “If we pull this thing off,” Richie said, “maybe it’ll be enough for us to win the championship of all the kids who got told they weren’t good enough.”

  Danny said, “But all the good players are taken.”

  “No,” Richie Walker said, “they’re not.”

  Danny looked up at the standing grandfather clock that belonged to some grandparent and saw that it was past ten o’clock now. Past bedtime. His mom hadn’t said anything about that, at least not yet.

  Maybe because she was getting into it about the Middletown Cocktail Napkins the way the boys were.

  It had turned into another night Danny didn’t want to end.

  Now she was the one who said, “I know there are still good players out there, present company certainly included. But Danny’s right: Are there enough so it doesn’t turn out to be Danny and the Bad News Bears?”

  Danny started ticking off names on his fingers: “There’s me. Bren. Will.”

  Richie: “Can Will play?”

  Danny: “He can make an open shot. And he can defend almost as well as he can talk.”

  Richie: “Could he start with you in the backcourt?”

  Danny: “Bren’s better.”

  He saw his mother’s head going back and forth like she was watching a tennis match. A grin on her face, even though it was basketball talk, which she said usually was about as riveting for her as interest rates at the bank.

  Just not tonight.

  Danny said, “The only really big guy left is Matt Fitzgerald. He’s already wearing size thirteen kicks. But he needs to be coached.”

  His dad said, “You know what I say.”

  The three of t
hem at once, as if they’d rehearsed it, said, “You can’t teach tall.”

  When they stopped laughing, Danny said, “That’s only four guys.”

  “We don’t need to come up with a whole list of possibles tonight,” his dad said. “Over the next day or so, try to think of all those fabulous bubble guys Jeff Ross talked about. Or maybe some kids who didn’t try out. All we need is ten, tops. And we could play with eight.”

  “I’ll ask around,” Danny said.

  Ali said, “I don’t want to throw cold water on this. But leagues cost money, Rich. Teams like this cost money, and not just for the gym.”

  He shrugged, held up a napkin. “I’ve got some thoughts on that. Hell, everybody’s got a salary cap these days. Ours might just have to be a little lower than everybody else’s.”

  He started to get up. And for a moment, it was as if he had forgotten how many busted parts he still had. He got halfway up before making a face, then started the whole process again, this time putting a hand on the coffee table to steady himself, then taking it much more slowly from there.

  Danny wanted to help him, just wasn’t sure how.

  “Sweet dreams, kiddo,” he said to Danny.

  Danny thinking: You can say that again.

  The two of them were still outside, standing next to his car.

  Danny had snuck down the stairs once they were outside, gone out the back door, got behind where the garbage cans were, and eavesdropped on his parents like he was on a stakeout.

  His mom was saying, “You can’t start this and not follow through.”

  “You mean like my jobs.”

  “I mean with everything.”

  “I can do this.”

  “No,” she said. “Now you have to do this.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I can do this, I have to do this. I will do this.”

  “Because if you don’t, you really will break this boy’s heart this time.”

  Small silence.

  “Hell, Ali, this is about his heart.”

  “You know you’re not going to get any help from the Association. Thinking outside the box in this town can get you arrested.”