EZ and the Intangibles

by Katz, Bob;

  To make these practice games even more realistic, and fair, I sometimes played the role of referee. For the opening tip, I would position myself the way a referee would stand—holding the ball waist high, checking the players to make certain they were lined up properly around the circle, and warning them to stay put until the ball was officially put into play.

  OK. Both teams were ready. I bent my knees and prepared to toss it up.

  “Whoa, there! Not so fast! Sorry, sorry. I almost forgot.” The odd little fellow bounced to his feet, flapping his arms like a wild man.

  “And the ho-o-ome,” he crowed at the top of his lungs, “of the bra-a-ave!”

  Then he plunked back down on the stump to watch the game.

  Chapter Seven

  The old pirate often showed up to watch my games. I would be doing my lay-up drills or maybe a game would be in progress—the Cheaters were always ahead by a point or two right up until the final shot—and I would notice a bright splotch of red and yellow among the greenery and, like magic, there he would be, seated on the tree stump, sporting the same flashy Hawaiian shirt and the same Cheshire cat grin. Did elves really exist? This guy sure fit the profile.

  He always arrived right around game time, which was strange, since my games did not begin at any set time—this was hardly the NBA on CBS, after all—and he never wore a watch, as far as I could see. I suppose he could have been lurking in the grove of spruce, waiting on me. But that would have been creepy, and he didn’t seem creepy. Just odd. And poor. And old.

  After that first encounter, the old pirate had little to say. The only noises he made were the kind of routine outbursts that often erupt from excited sports fans—Wow! Geez! Yay! Ugh! Oh, no!

  And he never sang again, neither the National Anthem, nor any other tune.

  But I did. It was weird. One morning, I was relaxing on the stump following my regimen of lay-ups from various angles and outside shots from around the arc. It was hotter than usual and my t-shirt was soaked through. I was swigging my orange Gatorade. My mind was empty.

  “Be in the moment” was a piece of advice teachers like to give, usually when I’m not paying complete attention. “In the zone” was the phrase TV announcers used, usually about an athlete who was totally locked in.

  And so that morning, I was trying to follow this advice. Focus only on the present, I told myself. Don’t think about ZZ’s annoying habit of bragging about every stupid thing he does in Little League. Don’t think about what Mom said last night about maybe needing to move again. Don’t think about what Dad’s days must be like in FCI Montgomery. Be here now. Don’t be somewhere else. Be in the moment. Be in the zone.

  And there I was—cooling off, catching my breath, gulping my drink, and suddenly, with no forethought, I found myself singing at the top of my lungs, “Oh, say can you see, by the dawn’s early…”

  I’d seen movies about normal people minding their own business, who, out of nowhere, found themselves possessed by demons or alien spirits. Suddenly, they would begin to do bizarre things, like dashing outdoors in a snow storm wearing a swimsuit, or say bizarre things, like telling their boss he’s an idiot—things that they never, ever would have done or said before. Possessed by demons is the only explanation, right?

  Well, that morning, I went out and played like a man possessed—possessed by LeBron. Or Ace Zanay.

  The Cheaters had no answer for me that morning. They forced me to my weak hand and I floated a nifty lefty lay-up, high off the backboard. Count it! I was fouled on the play and made the free throw.

  The Cheater guarding me knew the kind of damage I could do in the paint, so he backed off, daring me to shoot from outside. Three straight from the top of the key—swish! I taught them a lesson.

  Next time, down court, the Cheaters tried triple-teaming me; they’d had some luck with this strategy in a previous game. Not now. I let them think they could steal my dribble, then crossed over, did my little stutter-step, first this way, then that. Two of them nearly crashed into each other, falling for my excellent fakes. I was laughing so hard that I nearly missed the shot, but it bounced high off the front of the rim and fell straight through the hoop.

  Count it!

  “Lucky shot,” taunted the Cheater—the one who’d tried to steal my dribble before colliding with his teammate.

  “Skill,” I replied with a grin. “Not luck.”

  He pushed right into me with his chest, looking for a fight. “Screw you!”

  With two fingers from each hand jabbed into either side of my mouth, I let loose my best sailor’s whistle—I was the referee now. I didn’t have an official silver whistle, but my dad had taught me how it was done in the Navy, a skill he had learned from his father who had been a midshipman during the war.

  I crossed my forearms high above my head. “Technical foul!”

  Then, a player again, I walked calmly to the charity stripe.

  Did I mention that the game was tied at this point, with no time left on the game clock? I’d been practicing free throws at the end of each practice session because I’d read in an online instruction brochure that it was best to do this when you were good and tired, just as you would be under real game conditions.

  I bounced the ball twice and took a deep breath, trying to ignore the ugly trash-talk from the Cheaters lined up along the lane. They used some rough language and even made a nasty crack about my dad. Their crazed fans were yowling like coyotes in the bleachers, hoping to ruin my concentration. Chill, I told myself. Be in the moment.

  I trained my eyes on the front of the rim and dipped my knees. The ball was a globe with my ight hand supporting it just below the equator. Geography was a subject I enjoyed. I’d seen a picture in a magazine once of guys playing basket-

  ball on a beach with palm trees and the blue ocean in the background. The caption read: “Basketball in Brazil.” I wanted to be in the tropics playing in that game.

  My left hand, just above the equator, was for guidance rather than thrust. I angled my shoulder toward the hoop and raised the ball.

  Nothing but net.

  Chapter Eight

  How much was I improving? Well, let’s just say that the Cheaters were amazed.

  By the third week in August, my left-hand lay-up was every bit as reliable as my right—and my right had gotten much better.

  I could dribble smoothly with my left and right hands, switch between them, back and forth and back, and almost never needed to look at the ball. I could dribble with my head high—eyes peeled for open teammates—while running zigzag patterns, neatly dodging the cracks in the asphalt and the crumbling pothole in center court.

  The progress I’d made with my outside shot was the big surprise to the Cheaters’ defense. I shot over fifty percent from most of the points around the arc, and there was one spot, just left of the free-throw line, where I hardly missed. Why was that? you might ask. What was so special about that location? It was no closer to the hoop than other locations where my shooting percentage was significantly lower.

  Why I was always hot from that spot and not from elsewhere on the court was, frankly, a fascinating mystery. I thought about it a lot. I invented a mysterious explanation that made it even more interesting. I told myself that this spot, a few feet left of where the faded charity stripe intersected the lane line, had been Ace Zanay’s favorite spot on the court. I’d simply inherited it, like his hair color. And ears. And height.

  I’d grown another inch, possibly more, since school had let out in June. The Cheaters had no ready answer for me when I worked the ball around the horn before cutting to the hoop. They had no answer when I backed my man down low in the post, faking left, then right, before flipping up a sweet, short hook. This was not a strong part of my game, not yet anyway, but it forced the Cheaters to adjust—and when they did, clogging the middle, I’d step back to my trusty, old sweet spot
.

  Down low in the post, I almost always drew a foul. The Cheaters were so eager—over-eager actually—to block my shot, to swat it back into my face, to embarrass me so badly that I’d never try it again. All it took was one small up-fake and the Cheater defender would come crashing into me.

  “Foul!” I yelled.

  When the Cheater complained that I’d moved my pivot foot and had initiated the contact, I’d had enough. I slammed the ball down and was about to cross my raised forearms to signal a T, when a shrill whistle screeched.

  The old elf with the red bandana came forward from the grove of spruce, blasting out an expert two-fingered whistle.

  “Two shots,” he announced with great authority. “Shooting foul!”

  How did he know to arrive at this most crucial moment in the game—down by one, clock ticking down? I’ll never know the answer, but I was pleased to see him. It had been nearly a week since his last appearance, and I had worried that something might have happened to him.

  I knew this would probably be my last game of the summer. School started again the following Tuesday. On

  Monday, however, we were going upstate to visit Dad. This final game was the rubber match of the play-offs, the one for all the marbles.

  I bounced the ball twice. The Cheater fans were on their feet, howling up a storm. I took a deep breath.

  The shot felt wrong as soon as it left my fingers. I’d been too tense. The ball was short. It ticked the rim and somehow managed to bounce upward instead of down, before falling through. Whew.

  Retrieving the ball, I returned to the charity stripe, wiping sweat from my eyes. Score tied; biggest game of the year; no time left. The pressure was like an elastic strap squeezing my arms and shoulders, making every muscle tight. This sure didn’t feel like charity.

  “More oomph this time!” the old fellow shouted. “More juice!”

  Why did he enjoy watching? Where did he disappear to when my games were over? Where, come to think of it, did he come from before arriving at the court? Did he live in the woods? It was possible. People sometimes did that, so I’d heard. Homeless people, anti-social people, crazy people.

  But right here in Longview? Our middle-class town? But then again, middle class was only the average. Averages did not tell the complete story. Some were rich, like the Rutledges. Others, like us…

  I bounced the ball twice. Stay loose. But not too loose. Focus. But relax. Lots of contradictions.

  I knew it immediately. My shot was wide. It scraped the side of the rim and ricocheted into the corner.

  The old guy hopped off the stump and scampered to grab the ball. Yes—hopped; yes—scampered. Maybe he wasn’t that old after all. Maybe he didn’t have a bad hip. Maybe he was just strange and poor and homeless. Maybe he was just lost and tired and defeated.

  I watched him run his hands over the surface of the ball, like it was a cherished object. He shut his eyes for a moment, as if savoring the sensation.

  Then, with the ball pulled inward and elbows splayed, he rifled a perfect dart of a bounce pass—one skip. It landed as perfectly in my hands as if he had walked over and placed it there.

  “Good luck, kid,” he said, not in an announcer’s voice but almost like a friend—or a father. “You’ve got what it takes.”

  I felt like asking him to elaborate, as though he were a teacher writing a personal note on my report card. But he was already shuffling away. His red bandana and brightly colored shirt soon disappeared into the tangle of tree trunks and greenery. It was like watching a bird carefully pecking its way down a path. Birds always seemed so happy.

  The game was now tied with no time left on the clock. Which meant OT. Overtime.

  But the sun was high, rising over the treetops, and the court was beginning to bake. It occurred to me that ending with a tie game was acceptable, under the circumstances. The circumstances being that summer was ending, the new school year was about to begin, and I had grown taller and improved my skills.

  The Cheaters were lucky to escape without losing. Just this once.

  Chapter Nine

  The drive to visit Dad at FCI Montgomery (FCI stands for Federal Correction Institute) took about three hours. If we had a good book on tape, the time tended to pass quickly. The first time the three of us drove up to visit Dad, we had Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on the CD player. The story was so captivating, and the actor who played all the characters was so excellent, that I almost wished Dad was being held in a prison much farther away so we could keep on driving and keep on listening. I didn’t want the story to end.

  This time, we listened to Treasure Island—just Mom and me. ZZ had a Little League tournament and his coach had begged Mom to let him stay and play, which was fine by me. The last thing I needed was ZZ shouting out every five miles to pause the tape because he couldn’t understand something Billy Bones or Long John had said.

  Treasure Island was on our class summer reading list. Listening to it made the drive seem shorter, but Mom’s frequent roadside stops to check on the score of ZZ’s baseball game made the drive last longer. It was pretty frustrating to be riding in the passenger seat, worried sick about young master Jim Hawkins and the huge risk he was taking by sneaking ashore in the pirate’s boat, and have my mom suddenly ruin the mood by veering into the breakdown lane.

  Our town, as I’ve said, is nuts about sports. This week was the valley regional baseball championship—the winner would qualify for the Little League World Series. Without my brother’s unhittable fastball and dangerous bat, Longview wouldn’t have a chance. Mrs. Rancatore, the coach’s wife, had promised Mom that she would send video from her phone, inning by inning, edited for highlights, with a personal voiceover narration. Mrs. Rancatore worked at a public relations agency and apparently knew how to do this.

  Every half hour, Mom flicked her turn signal and pulled over to the breakdown lane. My mom has a round head and frizzy hair, especially in the summer. She’d become a little chubby this past year—not my observation, believe me; I’d heard her complain about her weight to friends on the phone—and it was kind of funny to watch her quickly hop out and scoot around the side of the car to get a better phone connection.

  Until last winter when Dad went away—that’s how we referred to his prison sentence; Dad had “gone away,” as if he were off on a camping trip—Mom had not cared all that much about sports. Either she had changed or felt that she needed to take over Dad’s role. Dad certainly had care—too much, if you ask me.

  “EZ, do you want to watch?”

  What I really wanted was to learn what happened next to young Jim Hawkins, all alone in the jungle and running into crazy Ben Gunn. That’s what I call suspense. ZZ facing a 3-2 count with bases loaded? Big deal.

  Each of Mrs. Rancatore’s video segments took a minute or two. Mom would jump back into the car, bubbling with news: “We’re up 2–0. ZZ’s two for two and still pitching.”

  “Geez, Mom. Can’t you just wait till we get there and watch it all at once?”

  Mom looked at me like I was the family dog, too stupid to understand (we don’t actually have a dog, but I know the look). “The game,” she said, annoyed, “is happening right now.”

  “So? It’s not like it makes any difference to know what’s happening while it’s happening.”

  “It makes a big difference,” she asserted with complete exasperation, “to me.”

  I gave up. She was a good mom. She had a lot to worry about and not much help. Right now, ZZ was a star, her star. For now, life was better for Mom if ZZ kept slugging extra base hits and pitching goose eggs. I couldn’t help her out that way.

  It was a good thing Jim Hawkins didn’t have a mom with a cell phone. She’d worry herself to death.

  Chapter Ten

  Mom told ZZ and me that FCI Montgomery was not really so scary. She’d assured us that it w
asn’t some miserable gray dungeon patrolled by ferocious guards holding back snarling dogs.

  There were such prisons, Mom explained, but those were for people who had been convicted of violent, horrendous crimes. She had never tried to persuade us that Dad was innocent. She told us, instead, that he had committed the crime he’d been accused of and that he’d made a reckless mistake with other people’s money. Whatever Dad had done with the money—which she never did exactly explain—was illegal. But he had never physically hurt anybody. No blood had been spilled. If he had been convicted of anything like that, he would have been sent to a very scary prison. As it was, he was in a prison that Mom compared to an army barracks—except there were high walls with barbed wire and he was not free to leave.

  When Mom talked about the prison, her voice was always very matter of fact. It was strange—I wanted her to sound sad, or angry. I even wanted her to cry, which is a strange thing to want to see your mom do. But all she did was report the facts, with no visible emotion. “Dad’s punishment,” she said, “was appropriate and suited his crime.”

  I asked again, “Why can’t he just pay back the money?”

  “I told you already, EZ. It was a lot of money.”

  The countryside driving up to FCI Montgomery was mostly rolling, green farmland. We sped by vast fields of corn and tight rows of smaller, greener crops. We crossed twisting rivers and as we hurtled past I tried, for those few fleeting seconds, to track the water flowing past slick rocks and low-leaning trees. I wondered what it would be like to glide those quiet currents in a wooden canoe, curious to see what wonders lay around each bend.

  The long access road to the prison passed through a tunnel of tall trees. It looked just like the entrance to the state park campground where we’d vacationed a few years back. At the end of the road was a tall chain-link fence and a driveway with two crossing gates—much like the kind you see at parking garages. Between the gates sat a squat little building with ivy inching up its side. There were, as far as I could see, no guns sticking out the windows, and no moats with crocodile snouts jabbing from the murky water. In the far distance, I could see the neatly mown lawn of a baseball diamond, and the chain link backstop.