by Mike Lupica
The next Friday, while waiting for his mom, Danny had even used his old hiding place on the stage while the Vikings practiced, just to see if Ty might be hanging around with them, fooling around with his left hand maybe.
He never showed up.
The next day at Twin Forks, they lost 47–22 and didn’t score a point in the fourth quarter.
On Sunday, they lost 50–20 at Morrisville.
They never had a chance in either game, no matter how much switching Richie did with the defenses, no matter how many different lineups he tried, even though he had them pressing all over the court until the end.
At one point against Morrisville, Danny said to his dad coming out of a huddle, “Uh, why are we still pressing?”
“Because it’s the kind of team we have to be.”
“Even though we’re not even close to being that team yet?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Does that make any sense?”
“To me it does.”
Then his dad gave him a push. Like: Just get out there and play. He played hard until the end, doing what he was always doing, which meant looking for Colby Danes every chance he got; the girl on the team being the only one he could pass it to and not be more scared than he was of spiders.
Danny and Will Stoddard were at the water fountain together when the Morrisville game was over. For once, Will talked in a voice only Danny could hear.
“Remember how your pop said we were going to be the team nobody wanted to play?” Will said.
Danny said, yeah, he remembered.
“Well, he was slightly off,” Will said. “We’re going to be the team everybody wants to play.”
16
THEIR NEXT PRACTICE WASN’T UNTIL TUESDAY NIGHT AT NINE.
Richie Walker, who was never late when basketball was involved, didn’t show up until ten minutes after nine. Danny had gotten them into layup lines by then, using his own official NBA ball, his Spalding, last year’s Christmas present—by mail—from his dad.
When they saw his dad come walking through the double doors, dragging his bag of balls, Will said, “Hey, Coach, we figured you finally deserted.”
Richie said, “How about we have a new policy tonight? More playing and less talking.”
Will, stung, said, “Hey, Coach, I was just saying…”
“Know something, Will? You’re always just saying.”
Danny, careful not to let his dad see him staring at him, watched him go to half-court and sit in the folding chair Ms. Perry, from the girls’ team, had left there.
Danny had seen him mad before, usually because of something that happened between him and Danny’s mom. Danny’d get sent to his room and then the yelling would start. When he was younger, before he wanted to know exactly what was making them that mad, before he would eavesdrop at the top of the stairs, before he even had music to play or headphones to wear, he would just get on his bed and put pillows over his head until it stopped.
Until it was over.
It was part of it all. Being their son. Being the son of their divorce. The part he didn’t like to dwell on very much.
Adults got mad sometimes, that was the deal. They yelled sometimes. And kids figured out pretty early that there wasn’t one blinking thing they could do about it.
There was really no point in trying, the way there was no point in trying to figure it. The way there was no point in Danny trying to figure what had pissed off his dad before he got to the gym tonight.
A few minutes after Richie arrived, he yelled from the chair that they weren’t going to start scrimmaging until they could make five straight layups with their off hands. It meant left hand for everybody on the team except Oliver Towne, who was left-handed. When they couldn’t manage that after a couple of trips through the line he said, fine, they could run some suicides, maybe that would improve their layup shooting.
Suicides: Get on the baseline. Run and touch the floor at the free throw line extended. Back to the baseline. Then run and touch the half-court line. Come back. Then to the other free throw line. And back. Finally the whole length of the court and back.
Every kid who’d ever played basketball would rather sing in the chorus or go to the dentist than run suicides.
Matt and Oliver Towne finished last.
Richie made them run another one.
While they did, Will made the mistake of saying something to Bren and Bren made the even bigger mistake of laughing.
Richie made them run another suicide, since they thought suicides were so funny.
When they were finished, Richie got out of the chair, slowly and carefully, as always. Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.
“You know why this team looked like a joke this weekend?” he said. “Because you guys treat it like a joke, that’s why.”
The Warriors were stretched out in a line in front of him. Will and Bren still had their hands on their knees from running. Richie said, “Will and Bren, look at me when I’m talking to you!” Like he’d snapped them both with a towel.
They jerked their heads up.
“The worst crime in sports isn’t losing,” Richie said. “It’s not competing. In my whole life I’ve never been associated with a team that didn’t want to compete and I’m sure not going to start now. Now go out and let me see a real team.”
Danny wanted to say, Make sure you tell us if you see it first.
There was only a half hour left for them to scrimmage, because they had to be out of the gym by ten.
Richie spent most of it yelling. Yelled, Danny thought, like every bad kid’s coach he’d ever heard, in travel or rec leagues or at summer camp. Apparently yelled so much he had to keep going to the water fountain.
One time when he did, Will whispered to Danny, “Did he, like, forget we’re twelve?”
Right before they finished, just a few minutes left, Matt Fitzgerald cut one way when Colby thought he was going to cut the other, and she threw a pass out of bounds.
“Come on, Colby!” Richie said. It was the first time he’d ever even come close to saying something in a mean voice to her. “Get your head out of…get your head in the game.”
Colby took it better than he would have. Maybe better than any of the boys in the gym would have. She didn’t look down, she didn’t look away, she didn’t try to make excuses. All she said was, “Sorry, Coach.”
“No you’re not,” he said.
Everybody else on the court had stopped now, and was looking at Richie.
So was Ali Walker, standing with her arms crossed, just inside the double doors to the gym.
Richie saw her, too.
“That’s it for tonight,” he said. “Shoot around until your parents come.”
Danny looked at his mom, still staring holes through his dad. She stayed where she was, nodding to the other parents who seemed to have showed up all at once for pickup, while Danny kept shooting free throws at one of the side baskets.
Richie made a big show of collecting the balls, as he tried to keep his distance from her. Finally, though, it was just the Walker family in the gym.
Richie said, “I didn’t know you were picking him up tonight.”
“I was on my way home from book club.”
“Well, then, see you Thursday,” he said to Danny, and slung the ball bag over his shoulder and started moving slowly, shuffling the way he did when he was tired, toward the door.
She still hadn’t moved. “Rich?” she said. “I’d like a word with you. Danny? Go wait in the car. And I mean, in the car.”
He walked out to the parking lot, carrying his ball, knowing his mom was watching him through the doors. When he got to the car, he turned around, waved, saw her close the door.
He waited two minutes and then snuck back. He carefully closed the front door, walked through the foyer, got on his toes, peeked through one of the windows in the double doors.
They were standing close to each other in front of the stage.
Danny cracked open one o
f the doors just slightly, praying that it wouldn’t make some creaking noise that would be like a smoke alarm going off.
Now he could tell how pissed off his mom was.
Because she wasn’t yelling.
Danny knew from experience it was the absolute worst kind of yelling there was.
Because she was speaking in such a low voice, he could only pick up bits and pieces of what she was saying.
“…don’t lie to me, Richard. Sally saw you last night.”
His dad had his head down.
“…can’t be invisible, not in this town,” she said.
His dad taking it all, the way they’d taken all his yelling in practice.
“…not the children’s fault that you’re still hungover the next night.”
He said something back now, but must have mumbled it, because Danny couldn’t hear a single word he was saying.
Her voice came up a little. “Yes, you can,” she said. “We went over this already. You have to.”
Danny could see him shaking his head, the head still down, acting as if he were the kid who’d done something wrong now, he were the one trying to act sorry.
Finally his mom said, “Quit drinking. Now. Or leave. No goodbyes, no travel team. No Danny. Just leave. It’ll be better that way than letting your son be the last one to find out what a drunk you are.”
She left him standing there, the ball bag still over his shoulder, and walked straight down the middle of the court.
While her streak of light streaked for the car.
Thinking as he ran about the magic they were supposed to make this season.
Wondering just when the magic was supposed to happen, exactly.
17
EVERYTHING HIS MOM HAD SAID TO HIS DAD MUST HAVE GOTTEN THROUGH TO him, because he was back to being the dad Danny always thought of as the Good Richie by the time they played their next game, against Hanesboro.
It’s what you were always looking for from your parents, Danny had decided a long time ago, that they would show up with their good selves most of the time, in a good mood, not tired or pissed off about something at work. Or hungover. Just happy with you and the whole world.
The rest of the time, when their evil twin showed up, you just had to ride it out.
His mom drove him to Hanesboro, which was about an hour away, as far as they had to go in the Tri-Valley League. Danny couldn’t tell whether it was because she wanted to see a whole Warriors game from start to finish, or because she thought she still had to police his dad.
“You didn’t have to come,” Danny said.
“I love sports,” she said, and he couldn’t tell whether she was the one being sarcastic, or not.
When they got to Hanesboro Middle School, his dad was on the court, moving around in his Tin Man way, shooting around with the O’Brien twins, and Oliver Towne, and Will.
He was even joking around with Will again.
“You been in the weight room?” Richie said to him. As he did he nodded at Danny, and winked.
“You want to touch these guns, Coach?” Will said, flexing his biceps in a bodybuilder pose.
Will was just making fun of his own skinny self, he knew everybody was in on it, that his arms, from wrist to shoulder, were about as thick as the lead in pencils.
Richie said, “They look more like cap pistols to me.”
Will tried to look fierce as he kept staring at his right bicep. “You do not want any of this,” he said. “Trust me.”
When Colby showed up with Dr. Danes, Richie made a point of working with her in the corner, defending her with his arms up in the air, showing her how to get her shot against taller players.
Even Colby Danes, tall girl, was being asked to guard players taller than her, every single game. It was funny, Danny thought. Just not laugh-out-loud funny. Not funny the way Will Stoddard was. Because Colby had always been tall to Danny, from first grade on, the way Tess was taller. She was tall even when you put her up against most of the boys, she was tall when they’d have fool-around games in basketball or dodgeball or capture the flag at recess.
She still looked tall to him when the Warriors scrimmaged against each other.
Then they’d show up for a travel game and she’d go match up with the forward she was supposed to guard, or who was guarding her, and Danny would watch her shrink in front of his eyes.
Against Hanesboro, they didn’t even have a size advantage at center, their guy was even bigger than Matt Fitzgerald.
It didn’t matter over the first three quarters.
This time they were actually in the game.
It looked like another blowout when they got behind by ten points in the first quarter. But Richie told them they were “going small” in the second quarter, which meant starting Danny, Bren, Will, and Steven O’Brien, the better of the two twins.
And Colby at center.
He said they were going to play kamikaze ball, and they did, pressing after every Hanesboro basket, even pressing after a Warrior miss and a Hanesboro rebound, if they could match up quickly enough. Colby was smaller than their center, by a lot, but she was a lot quicker, and started beating him to rebounds; a girl doing that made the kid look as if he wanted to take up another sport. Every time Colby would get a rebound, the Warriors would run, and keep running, and Danny was dishing on the break, and by halftime the game was tied.
Richie stayed with the same group to start the third quarter, even though he got Oliver and Matt in there for a few minutes later.
It was still tied going into the fourth quarter.
Middletown 28, Hanesboro 28.
When the third quarter ended, the Warriors raced to the sideline, slapping each other five, pounding each other on the back. Feeling like a real team, maybe for the first time.
Danny, playing his best game, having assisted on just about every single basket they’d scored, was breathing hard in the huddle, like he’d just run a race, and gulped the red Gatorade that Richie handed him. As he took the bottle, the two of them locked eyes.
His dad made a small fist.
“Settle down now,” Richie said. “It’s not enough to just be in it. We’re here to win it.”
He looked around, talking to them in his quiet voice again. The one that had gotten their attention from the start.
Who knows, maybe he was the latest grown-up to crack the code on that.
“Don’t change anything you’re doing ’cause it’s the fourth quarter,” he said. “Get back as fast as you can, push it up as fast as you can. Okay?”
They all nodded.
“Same group that ended the quarter,” he said. “Now bring it in.”
He put his big hand out and then all these small hands were on top of it, and each other.
“One, two, three…defense,” he said.
The Warriors yelled that out now, they were the ones doing the yelling, and came firing out of the huddle.
Danny scored the first basket of the fourth quarter, on a two-on-one break with Will. He was on the left with the ball, Will to his right. All game long, Danny had given the ball up on plays like this. The Hanesboro kid between him and Will expected Danny to do that again, especially coming at the basket on the left side.
The Hanesboro kid, a forward, all arms and legs—Danny was only worried about the arms right now—backed off at the last second, going with Will.
Danny slowed up just slightly, as if getting ready to make his pass.
Then he put it into another gear about ten feet from the basket, imagining himself exploding to the basket the way big guys did when they were going to throw down a dunk.
Pictured himself doing that, and flying.
Laid the ball up with his left hand.
Definitely not his strong suit.
But he put it in the exact right spot on the backboard, in the middle of the square behind the rim, got what one of the ESPN announcers always called the Kiss.
The ball dropped through and the Warriors were ahead fo
r the first time in the game.
Hot dog.
Danny turned around as soon as the ball was through, looking over to his dad, pointed out of bounds, his face asking the question: Keep pressing?
Richie waved his arm hard, like a traffic cop. His face saying: Damn right.
The Warriors stayed right in their faces. Hanesboro hung in there. With two minutes to go, Danny dusted the blond kid guarding him, the one with the long mullet haircut, crossed over on him at half-court—the single crossover, not the double—and fed Will for an open fifteen-footer. Which he drained.
They were ahead by two again, 38–36.
Mullet Head got loose when Bren didn’t switch and threw in a long one from his butt. They were tied again. Colby missed from the corner, Mullet Head missed, Will missed. Still tied. With thirty seconds left, their big guy got away with shoving Colby on a rebound, got the ball, had a wide-open layup until Colby grabbed him from behind.
Two shots.
He made the first, missed the second.
Hanesboro 39, Middletown 38.
Richie called time.
“You do not have to rush,” he said. “Thirty seconds in basketball is longer than church. Forget trying to run the play. Will, Bren, and Matt—you guys go over and stand on the left wing. We’re gonna give the ball to Danny and let him and Colby run a little two-man…” He grinned, then said, “Two-person game over there on the right. Colby, do whatever you can do to get open. Step back from your guy like you want to shoot, and if he bites, and takes even one step toward you, bust it to the hoop. Okay?”
Still talking to them in the quiet voice.
But as excited as Danny had ever seen him.
“Dan? Just read the play. If she’s open, get it to her. If the kid guarding you—the one with the Barbie hair?—turns his head, you blow by him. Will, after Danny and Colby make their moves, you be a bail-out guy in the left corner. Bren? You come behind Danny after he does whatever he’s gonna do.”
“What about me?” Matt said.
“As soon as somebody shoots, you crash for the rebound. Just don’t foul anybody.”
