Travel Team

by Mike Lupica

  The real s-word happened with about five minutes left in the game, as it turned out.

  There was 5:25 showing on the clock. Danny would remember the exact time when Mr. Ross called a time-out and put Ty and Teddy back into the game, after he’d sat the two of them for most of the second half. Danny had been out of the game since the middle of the third quarter, and had started to wonder if his dad was going to put him back in, or if he might be done for the day.

  But now his dad poked him and said, “Why don’t you go guard your buddy.”

  “Ty?”

  “I was being sarcastic,” Richie said. “Take the mouth.”

  “You heard what he’s been saying the whole game?”

  “I don’t need to hear it, I can tell just by looking at his face,” Richie said. “I’ve been playing against guys like that my whole life. The only way to shut them up is to shut them down. So go do that.”

  After the substitutions, the Vikings took the ball out. Danny picked up Teddy as soon as he got the ball in the backcourt.

  Teddy put the ball on his hip and said, “Look, it’s Stuart Little.”

  But as soon as he put the ball on the floor, Danny took it from him, picking him clean off the dribble, and taking it to the basket for a layup. Teddy didn’t even try to catch him, whining to the second ref, DeWayne, the one who looked like a dead ringer for Snoop Dogg, that Danny had fouled him.

  Teddy let Ty bring the ball up next time. Ty started the Viking offense on the left side, while Teddy ran to the right. He waited until Ty passed to Daryll Mullins in the left corner, figuring everybody was following the ball. Including Danny, who was between his man and the ball the way he’d been taught.

  As soon as he turned his head, Teddy stepped up and hit him in the neck with an elbow.

  It felt like Teddy had hit him with a bat.

  He couldn’t catch his breath for a second, dropping to his knees and holding both hands to his throat while everybody else ran up the court after Daryll Mullins made his jumper.

  “Hey!” Richie yelled to Tony, the ref closest to the play. “What was that?”

  Tony saw Danny on his knees then, but made a quick gesture with his hands over his eyes; it was his way of telling Richie he hadn’t seen what had happened. Then he blew his whistle, stopping play.

  Richie knelt down next to Danny.

  “You okay?”

  He swallowed hard, the inside of his throat feeling as if he were swallowing tacks. “I’m okay.”

  “I’m taking you out.”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey,” Richie said, putting both hands on his shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. “Just play, okay? No payback, at least for now.”

  Danny nodded.

  Two minutes to go. Vikings’ ball. Everybody on their team except Ty was goofing around now, doing whatever they wanted on offense, shooting from wherever they wanted to, making showboat passes, even though Mr. Ross kept making a show out of being pissed and telling them to run their stuff.

  Danny noticed Ty giving warning looks to Teddy a couple of times. Like he was saying, Cut the crap. But Teddy ignored him.

  Jack Harty, who hardly ever took a long outside shot, decided to fire one up from twenty feet. Danny and Teddy ended up underneath, each trying to get position to get the rebound. Ty was there, too, already having the inside position on Will.

  While everybody was looking up for the ball, Teddy gave Danny another elbow, this one in the side.

  Enough, Danny decided.

  More than enough.

  The ball had hit the back of the rim and bounced straight up in the air, as high as the top of the backboard.

  As it did, Danny got a leg in front of Teddy Moran, planted it good and solid, and, as he did, used perfect rebounding position, elbows out, to shove Teddy hard to the side, his left elbow like a roundhouse punch into Teddy’s rib cage.

  It knocked Teddy off balance, made him stumble to his left, just as Ty Ross, who had gone high up in the air when the ball had finally stopped bouncing around on the rim, was coming down with the rebound.

  Danny saw it all happening like it was super slo-mo on television.

  Or in a video game.

  Only this wasn’t fantasy ball.

  This was Ty landing on Teddy instead of the basketball floor at St. Pat’s.

  This was Ty Ross, not just the best twelve-year-old player in town but the most graceful, the one who never made a false move on the court, rolling over Teddy’s back, the ball flying out of his hands, nothing to break his fall as he landed hard on his right wrist—his shooting wrist—with a crack on the floor that sounded like a firecracker going off.

  Then Ty was rolling on the floor at St. Pat’s, cradling his right arm to his stomach, screaming in pain.

  14

  THERE WAS A SECRET PLACE IN HIS ROOM, NEXT TO HIS CLOSET, THE WALL hidden behind the poster of Jason Kidd.

  It was where Danny had been measuring himself for a long time. Where he could check the progression he had made, say, between February 26 of fourth grade to October 16 of fifth grade.

  He would use a pen, afraid pencil marks would fade over time or disappear, writing the date and the year, hoping there’d be one year where he’d see the growth spurt Dr. Korval kept promising him.

  Only the growth spurt never came.

  The lines just kept crawling their way up the wall.

  Danny Walker was fast everywhere except here.

  He would carefully untape the poster when it was time to make another entry, lay it flat on his bed, take his place next to the door frame, reach back, put the pen flat on his head and point it toward the wall, make another line. He never cheated. Not even on September 17 of this year, a couple of weeks after he started school, when he was desperate to break the fifty-five inch mark he’d hit back in July.

  Except he didn’t break the speed limit that day.

  Or on October 2.

  Or October 14.

  His mom called him a streak of light and he even thought of himself as a streak of light sometimes when he was flying up the court, but he kept moving his way up the wall like an inchworm.

  Now he took the Kidd poster down when he got back from the Vikings scrimmage, stared at all the lines and all the dates—the only progress he could see was that his penmanship was improving as he got older—and thought about measuring himself for the first time since October.

  Instead he just sat in the beanbag chair Ty had been sitting in the other day.

  Feeling smaller than ever.

  Trying to squeeze his eyes shut so that he would stop seeing Ty lying there on the floor, rocking from side to side on his back, his injured hand not leaving his stomach.

  Only closing his eyes didn’t help. He kept seeing Ty. And hearing the voice of Teddy Moran.

  “You happy now?” Teddy had said in the gym after it happened.

  This was after Mr. Ross had decided not to wait for an ambulance and to take Ty to Valley General Hospital, just outside of town on Route 37, himself. The two of them had walked slowly out of the gym, Mr. Ross with his arm around Ty’s shoulder, Ty holding his right hand in front of him with his left, the left hand shaking so bad you wondered why he even bothered.

  “You couldn’t have a real season for yourself so you had to wreck ours?” Teddy yelled at Danny when the Rosses were gone.

  In a voice the size of a penny Danny said, “It was an accident.”

  Not even sure why he was saying anything back to him.

  “He shoved me into him,” Teddy said, addressing the rest of the Vikings now, not dropping the sound of his own voice one bit. Most of the Vikings were still there, along with some of the parents who’d shown up a few minutes early for pickups. Teddy pointed right at Danny and said, “He did this to Ty.”

  “It was an accident, you moron,” Will finally said.

  “It was,” Danny said again.

  “You keep tellin
g yourself that, little man,” Teddy said to Danny. “You tried to get me and you got Ty instead. Does that make you feel big?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Danny said.

  He was going to say something else then, something that would explain what had happened, to the Vikings, to their parents, to the Warriors.

  Maybe to himself.

  Except his throat closed up suddenly, the way it had when Teddy got him in the neck with his elbow, and he started to feel his eyes fill up, and no words would come out.

  He felt his dad’s hand on his elbow.

  “I’ll run you home,” he said.

  “Nice team,” Teddy said now, to both of them.

  “Shut up, kid,” Richie said.

  Teddy’s father, Garland, was standing next to him. Garland Moran had the same pinched face as his son, same pig eyes, just an adult version. “Hey,” he said, “you can’t talk to my son like that.”

  “You ought to try it once in a while,” Richie said. “It might teach him some manners.”

  Then father and son began walking out of the gym, but not before Teddy hit Danny with one more sucker punch.

  “He actually told me you were his friend, Walker.”

  Danny didn’t turn around, kept walking toward the front doors. Wanting to run.

  Now he felt as if Teddy’s words had chased him all the way to his room. He got out of the beanbag chair, that move taking as much effort as his dad usually showed getting out of a chair, took a pen off his desk, put a mark about an inch above the floorboard, and the date.

  You’re as big as you think you are, his mom always told him.

  You’re as big as you feel.

  He was in his room the next afternoon, lying there on his bed and listening to the Jets game on the radio instead of watching it downstairs, content to stay here by himself until it was time to go to high school.

  “Hey there,” his mom said, standing in the doorway. “It’s my solitary man.”

  “Huh?”

  “Another old song.”

  Danny turned down the volume on the radio when it was clear she was staying. That she was there for a Mom Talk.

  “I just got off the phone with Lily Ross,” she said.

  He waited.

  “It turns out he only broke one bone in the wrist,” she said. “So that’s pretty good news, right?”

  “Wow,” he said, “a broken arm. That’s great news, Mom!”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “Your father thought it could have been much worse just because of the way he landed and the pain you guys said he was in. The doctor told Lily that some Jets quarterback had a wrist injury in about the same spot a few years ago—”

  “—not some quarterback. Chad Pennington—”

  “—and broke four bones and had some ligament damage.”

  “They operated on him that time. Did they operate on Ty?”

  Ali Walker nodded. “To put a pin in there. He’ll be in a cast for a while.”

  Danny sat up on the bed. “How long?”

  “They’d only be guessing.”

  “Okay, what was Mrs. Ross’s best guess?”

  “She didn’t talk about how long he’d be in the cast, just that the whole healing process was going to take at least three months, probably closer to four.”

  November. December. January.

  Back in February.

  Maybe.

  The official Tri-Valley League season, Danny knew, started the first week of January and lasted until the middle of February. The tournament was the last week of February.

  So if Ty was lucky, he could get a game or two in before the tournament.

  “So he’ll be able to play again this season?” Danny said.

  His mom said, “She didn’t say that. The doctor reminded her that they just needed to keep their fingers crossed. And that if everything went well, he might be able to play again this season, as long as he is convinced—this is Dr. Marshall, the orthopedic surgeon, talking—that there is no chance of Ty reinjuring himself.”

  Danny let himself dead-fall back on his pillow, staring up at the Stockton poster.

  “He might be able to play.”

  “If not, he’ll be ready for baseball.”

  “Yippee.”

  “Might be able to play is better than won’t be able to play.”

  Danny said, “You think I could maybe call him?”

  Ali Walker didn’t say anything.

  Danny raised his head back up off the pillow, repeated himself as if she hadn’t heard him the first time. “Mom? You think I could call Ty?”

  “Maybe you ought to wait a couple of days. Lily said he doesn’t want to talk to anybody right now. Including his own parents.”

  “You think it would be all right to e-mail him?”

  There was another pause, not as long as the one before, and she said, “Why don’t you just wait on that, too.”

  Danny said, “He blames me, doesn’t he?”

  “Honey, I think he’s just hurting in general.” She came over and sat on the end of the bed. “And you’re hurting.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You want to talk about this?”

  “No,” he said. “But I can see you do.”

  “I thought it might be better if you just talked it out a little instead of sitting up here and brooding about it.”

  “Actually, I’ve been partying.”

  “It was an accident,” she said.

  “How much did that help Dad?” Danny said.

  “He learned the hard way,” she said. “Accidents happen in life. Sometimes they just happen, and nobody’s to blame.”

  “Somebody was to blame this time,” Danny said.

  15

  THE WEEK AFTER THANKSGIVING, RICHIE WALKER STOPPED BY THE HOUSE, saying that the Port Madison Pacers had dropped out of the Tri-Valley at the last second. It turned out only seven kids showed up for their original tryouts, and then three of them decided they wanted to play hockey instead. When they had a second tryout, only two more seventh graders showed up, at which point the Port Madison Basketball Association surrendered.

  Richie Walker said he’d just gotten a call from the league telling him that, and also telling him the Warriors could take Port Madison’s place as the Tri-Valley’s eighth team.

  “I had the check ready, the paperwork, the insurance forms,” he said, sounding pretty proud of himself. “I had already scheduled some games I hadn’t told you about yet, against some other Tri-Valley teams. They said I could pick up the rest I needed from Port Madison, use as much of their league schedule as I wanted. And a few nonleague games before Christmas if I wanted them.”

  “Do we play the Vikings?” Danny said.

  “No,” his dad said. “We just needed twelve official league games. We can play the six teams besides them twice, and that’s enough.” He looked at Danny and said, “I didn’t see any point.”

  “But we could see them in the play-offs, right? Doesn’t everybody make the play-offs?”

  “Eight teams, three rounds, like you’re starting with the quarterfinals. Yeah, if it falls right, we could play ’em in the play-offs. Depending on what our record is. And theirs. They’ll be pretty good even without Ty, I figure.”

  “I can figure what our record’s gonna be.”

  Richie grabbed him by the arm, turning him slightly. The grip on his arm wasn’t enough to hurt. Just enough to let Danny know his dad meant business.

  He said, “I want you to stop feeling so sorry for yourself. I mean it. Grow up, for Chrissakes.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “—Yeah, you were. You’re feeling sorry for yourself today, you’ve been feeling sorry for yourself at practice, you’ve been feeling sorry for yourself since you got cut from the Vikings. And I want you to snap out of it. Or.”

  It was like he’d come to a stop sign.

  “Or what?” Danny said, feeling some anger of his own now. “You’re gonna quit? And leave?”r />
  Richie looked down, and realized he still had Danny by the arm, let him go.

  “I’m not quitting on you this time,” his dad said. “All I’m asking is that you don’t quit on me.”

  “I’m just being honest about the team,” Danny said. “Aren’t you the one who always says you are what your record says you are in sports?”

  “It’s an old Bill Parcells line,” his dad said. “But we don’t have a record yet.”

  “Right.”

  “You gotta trust me on something,” Richie said. “We’re gonna get better as we go. Swear to God.”

  “Oh, like you’ve got a master plan.”

  “I gave up on plans a long time ago,” he said. The sad look came back then. “It’s like your mom says. You want to make God laugh? Tell Him about your plans.”

  They both had calmed down now. Sat there talking their common language, basketball, Richie telling him he was going to press more, and feature Colby more, and that he’d even told Matt’s dad that he was willing to work with him alone a couple of times a week.

  “I was on a team once they said made magic around here,” Richie Walker said. “It’s time to make some again.”

  In the two weeks after the Warriors-Vikings scrimmage, Danny had left one message on the Rosses’ answering machine, using Will’s cell during recess one day even though it was against the rules at St. Pat’s; he wanted to do it during school because he knew Mr. Ross would be at the bank and Mrs. Ross would probably be doing her volunteer work at the hospital.

  Ty hadn’t called back.

  A couple of nights later, Danny tried e-mail.

  And instant-messaging, when he saw that Ty was online.

  He got zip in response.

  On Thursday after school, he and Will had gone into town just to goof around. When they had gone past Runyon’s, Danny had seen his dad at the end of the bar, a glass of beer in front of him, staring up at what must have been a rerun of a college basketball game played the night before, since it was only five-thirty in the afternoon.

  Ty was back at school, Danny knew that. But he hadn’t seen him at the Candy Kitchen on weekends. Hadn’t run into him at the Middletown-Morrisville football game the weekend after Thanksgiving, even though he was hoping he would.