True Legend

by Mike Lupica

  “But now we’ve sort of established that you have no idea how to make that happen.”

  “Yeah,” Drew said again.

  Lee said, “Maybe we can start with you not trying to impress her with how good you are at basketball. ’Cause I’m thinking she already knows that.”

  “Hey,” Drew said, “she wanted to win that game as much as I did.”

  Lee turned off the sound on the big screen. “You want to know what Bob Knight’s wife used to say when he wouldn’t let something go,” Lee said.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Instead of telling him to stop beating a dead horse, she’d just say, ‘The horse died.’ Get it? And us talking about a H-O-R-S-E game.” He started laughing. “Dude, I crack myself up sometimes.”

  “Glad you’re enjoying this.”

  Drew leaned back, tried to keep his mind on the basketball game, watching Steph Curry keep getting a step on Derek Fisher, watching Kobe get his usual step on everybody. Both of them making it look so easy.

  Drew thinking, I can’t even get past a girl.

  • • •

  Their next game, against Westlake Village High, a nonleague game, did make him feel like his usual self.

  He didn’t see Callie anywhere in the gym. Or Urban Legend Sellers. Mr. Gilbert wasn’t there either, having told Drew he had “commerce” to take care of in Las Vegas this weekend.

  Only Drew’s mom was there, which made it a little bit like it used to be when he was growing up, looking up in the stands when New Heights was playing in Albany or Syracuse or someplace, and his mom was the only face he recognized. Every time there was a stop in the action, she’d work on one of her crosswords.

  Maybe that’s why he wasn’t playing to the crowd today, wasn’t losing himself in some playground sideshow against somebody like King Gadsen. Today Drew played basketball the way he was supposed to play it. The way everybody was.

  Basketball that began with one good pass.

  He still took his shots when they were there. But today they had to be wide-open looks or a clear path to the basket. Drew made sure that nobody else on the Wolves had a better look than he did.

  Westlake Village’s Warriors tried every defense on him: man-to-man, double-teams, box-and-one, a couple of tricked-up zones. Nothing worked, not today. It was Drew who was in the zone. Or on a mission, to find the open man.

  The open man had always been Drew’s best friend in the world, at least in a basketball game.

  By halftime, he had twelve assists and Oakley was up twenty on the Warriors, who were always a powerhouse in their public school league and were favored to win the league again this season. In the locker room, Lee said, “I’ve heard of guys being on fire shooting the ball. But never dishing it.”

  “Taking what they’re giving me, is all. Like always.”

  “Then please keep taking,” Lee said. He had nineteen points at the half, his game average for the season, right on the number. “Take from them, give to me.”

  In the end, Drew had twenty-five assists for the game, the most he’d ever had, high school or junior high or even with New Heights. Oakley won going away, and Coach D said afterward that if he hadn’t taken Drew out with four minutes left—for what he called “humanitarian” reasons—Drew might have been the first guy he ever heard about getting to thirty assists in a game.

  “Guy did it one time in the NBA,” Drew said. He didn’t know stats the way Lee did. But he knew this one. “Scott Skiles, the Bucks coach, did it when he was playing.”

  When Lee dropped Drew off at his house, it was still only four. Drew announced that before they could even talk about a plan for later, he was going to take a nap.

  “You?” Lee said. “Sleeping? When it’s still light out?”

  “Got tired today,” Drew said, “trying to raise your dag-gone scoring average.”

  Lee had ended the game with thirty-two points.

  “Well played, Mr. Robinson,” Lee said, and fist bumped him and left.

  Drew went upstairs and tried to close his eyes in the quiet, empty house—his mom was off shopping with some friends. No go. Then he thought about actually working on his paper for Mr. Shockey. The due date on that was coming up fast.

  Couldn’t motivate. Still not sure how he was going to handle telling Legend’s story without giving him up.

  He tried to watch a college game on TV, couldn’t motivate on that.

  Finally, he realized something: He wasn’t tired at all. Playing the way he had today made him want to play more. So even though it was still light out, even though he usually wanted to be sure about his alone time when he went to the park at night, he grabbed his outdoor ball and headed for Morrison.

  When he got there, he went straight for the bad court, because there was a pickup game just finishing up on the good one, the kids high-fiving each other, laughing, collecting their stuff.

  Drew steered clear of them, walking along the tree line, Mets cap pulled down low, and didn’t start shooting around until they were gone.

  When he did, still on his high from the game, he wasn’t True Robinson, wasn’t some kind of basketball superhero. He was the little Drew, the one who could only get himself into games back in New York, on bad courts like this, because of the way he could pass the ball to the bigger kids.

  That’s who he’d been today.

  Once the other kids were gone, the only company he had in the park, other than some parents and small kids on the playground, were a couple of orange Agoura Hills trucks, maybe a hundred yards away, doing some Saturday work in the area where the new pool was going in. There were two trucks and a huge yellow backhoe, digging rocks out of the hole in the ground.

  His mom had told him how the town had raised money for the pool project and wanted it in by the summer when kids were out of school.

  “That pool won’t be for the country club boys and girls,” she said. “It’ll be the best kind of place for kids.”

  Drew knew where she was going, he’d heard this speech from her enough times growing up, when she’d drop him off at a youth center like Morrisania, near Yankee Stadium.

  “A safe place for them to go when their folks aren’t around,” she’d say. “The kind of place you’re going to build when you start making money in the NBA.”

  “Gonna build you a house first,” he’d say.

  “Just remember where you came from,” his mom would always finish.

  Drew thought about that now. Where I come from, he thought, and where I’m headed are worlds apart.

  He shot for a half hour straight, finally sat down with his bottle of blue Gatorade, toweled off. He thought about putting the buds from his iPod into his ears, listening to music while he played, like he did sometimes.

  But he didn’t need music to get him going today.

  This had been a good basketball day, best of the season. Drew wished Callie had been there. Maybe she was still mad at him.

  He got up and went harder than before, nobody bothering him, the workers paying him no mind. It was mostly just straight-up shooting, Drew working on his stroke, believing that the weakest part of his game was his pull-up, mid-range J. Nobody would have believed that if he’d said so, but Drew knew the strengths and weaknesses of his own game the way he knew his phone number.

  To be the player he wanted to be, the player he had to be, he needed to be able to knock down that shot like it was a layup. And he couldn’t, not yet.

  Callie had a better pull-up than he did, at least in games. Drew had seen it for himself.

  So that’s what he worked on today until he finally gave himself another break, chugged down the last of his Gatorade, got ready to walk home, call Lee, think about the two of them making their dinner plans.

  He looked back over at the pool workers. It see
med they were about to call it a day themselves.

  It was then that Drew saw him.

  Urban Sellers, in dirty work clothes, old gloves covering those big basketball hands, looking tired and old, looking whupped, climbing into the back of one of those Agoura Hills trucks, as if it took all the strength he had left.

  Drew stood there staring.

  This time Drew didn’t follow the man.

  He didn’t want to.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mr. Gilbert was standing in the middle of the court while Drew warmed up for the game against Garner, acting like he owned the place.

  Which he did.

  “Haven’t been seeing too much of you at the big house,” he said to Drew.

  Drew was shooting three-pointers, one of the team managers rebounding for him. “Would’ve come over on the weekend,” he said, “but you were in Vegas, doing your commerce thing.”

  “I meant you haven’t been around much, period,” Mr. Gilbert said. “Dude, I’m not feeling you lately.”

  That was another one of his ways, talking like a kid. But why not? Drew thought. He thinks he’s part of the team.

  “Trying to catch up on some schoolwork,” Drew said.

  He had actually started writing on Mr. Shockey’s paper, using a fake name for Legend.

  Mr. Gilbert laughed now. “Right,” he said.

  “I mean it,” Drew said. “I got this paper due, about old-time playground guys. I’ve been learning a lot about them, the history of them and whatnot.”

  “Whatever,” Seth Gilbert said, dragging out the last part of the word. “Just remember: high school’s just your part-time job. High school ball, that’s the day job.”

  Drew kept shooting as he talked, grinning as he said to Mr. Gilbert, “You better not say that in front of my mom. She says that if I’ve only got this year and then two more in school, she wants me to make the most of them.”

  “Just go out there and school Garner tonight, that’s all I care about,” Mr. Gilbert said. “And let’s shoot the ball a little more. Nobody ever passed their way to the league.”

  “Jason Kidd,” Drew said, the name just coming out of him, even though he knew Mr. Gilbert didn’t like to be debated on basketball things.

  “Eighteen points a game at his best, seventeen points,” Mr. Gilbert said, having the numbers right there. “And all those triple doubles. He was a lot more than a pass-first guy.”

  “But that’s what I’ve always been,” Drew said.

  Mr. Gilbert said, “Never forget something, kid: I know your game as well as you do. Maybe better sometimes.” He wasn’t smiling now or playing. “Shoot the ball tonight.” Mr. Gilbert shook his head, like he was disgusted with Drew. “Maybe you’re spending too much time in the park, living inside your own head too much.”

  “What?” Drew said.

  Mr. Gilbert said, “Don’t worry, I got eyes on you even when I’m not around. You don’t think I know you’ve been shooting around with some old dude over at Morrison?”

  How could he know that? Did the cops tell him? But how would he even know the cops?

  Drew tried not to act surprised, just shrugged, like it was no thing, started dribbling toward the free-throw line, ending the conversation that way.

  “Shoot it tonight,” Seth Gilbert said one more time.

  He did. He made the first four outside shots he took, and it was like that gave him an excuse to keep shooting, on his way to thirty-five for the night, just six assists, in a game against Garner that Oakley finally won by six. Drew even knocked down a three in the last minute after Garner had cut Oakley’s lead to a basket.

  On the way off the court, Drew said to Lee, “Was I too much of a ball stopper tonight?”

  His way of asking if he’d been too much of a gunner.

  “Nope,” said Lee, who’d ended up with just eight points. “We needed you to be shooting it tonight. The rest of us couldn’t throw the ball into the ocean from the beach.”

  Drew didn’t tell Lee that wasn’t the reason, that this had been another time he couldn’t get Mr. Gilbert’s voice out of his head. Another time when he’d let Mr. Gilbert be the boss of him, not just the boss of his mom.

  After the game, Seth Gilbert was waiting for him outside the locker room, excited, even giving Drew the kind of chest bump Lee would after a good play.

  Behind Mr. Gilbert, Drew could see Lee and Brandon shaking their heads, like they couldn’t believe what a tool the man was sometimes.

  “Do we win tonight if you’re not hoisting it up there?” Mr. Gilbert said. “That’s the True Robinson I’m talking about. Whole truth and nothing but.”

  “No, sir.”

  Drew just wanted to get into the locker room, but agreeing with Mr. Gilbert made his life easier, on and off the court.

  “Who’s your basketball coach and your life coach?” Seth Gilbert said.

  “Man whose last name is on the gym.”

  “I’ll wait for you,” Mr. Gilbert said, “take you over to the house.”

  “Can’t tonight,” Drew said. “Got a little more work to do to get out from under that paper.”

  It was true, just not in the way Mr. Gilbert might think. He was going to work on the paper because he was going to see Urban Sellers. Drew had looked for him in the gym, but didn’t spot him, second game in a row.

  But he wanted to see him. Wanted to spend time with him more than he did with Mr. Gilbert.

  He knew it was weird, 100 percent.

  It was still the whole truth. Nothing but.

  • • •

  Not much media around tonight, not even close to what they’d gotten for the game against King Gadsen, but the ones who were there still had questions for Drew.

  It occurred to him sometimes that it was going to be like this for the rest of his playing life, the postgame questions no different from the ones he got now. Just more people wanting answers.

  Lee started calling the reporters the “True Crew.” And he timed how long Drew spent with them after games.

  “Fifteen minutes tonight,” he said to Drew as they walked out of the locker room. “Not so horrible.”

  “No matter what happened in the game,” Drew said, “they all want to know if I’m gonna stay home for college or go off to Kentucky or Duke or Carolina.”

  “And they keep coming at you.”

  “Like waves to the beach.”

  “No matter how many times you tell them your focus is winning a league championship and a state championship for your school.”

  “Word,” Drew said.

  Lee said, “You want to go get something to eat in town?”

  “No,” Drew said, “but would you mind dropping me?”

  They had reached the door to the parking lot, and Lee was about to push it open.

  “Drop you where?” he said. “Or should I say, drop you why?”

  “It’s no thing,” Drew said. “But can I ask you not to ask me why?”

  “No,” Lee said.

  “No?”

  “Of course I can drop you wherever,” Lee said. “I’m your wheel man, you know that. But I almost always know where you are, day or night, like I got one of those electronic anklets on you.”

  “Just not tonight. Okay?”

  “You still ghost hunting?”

  Drew hated lying to Lee, hated lying to him as much as to his mom, but he didn’t see any other choice. “No. There’s just something I gotta do.” He grinned. “But if this is sketching you out, I can always walk.”

  “After you drop thirty-five on Garner? What kind of teammate would do that, even to a secret-keeping weasel?”

  Drew didn’t like keeping secrets and did feel like a bit of a weasel, sitting on something as big as the guy
they thought dead being alive, information he knew would light Lee up like he was a rocket.

  But a promise was a promise.

  There was no conversation in the car until Lee dropped him in front of the Starbucks on Kanon Road.

  “Curbside service,” Lee said. “No tipping allowed.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, thank you.” Not happy with Drew, not trying to hide it. “You sure you can get home after you do whatever it is you’re doing?”

  “Got cab fare.”

  “Wouldn’t need it if I was with you.”

  “See you tomorrow,” Drew said.

  He shut the door. Lee drove away. Drew knew he wouldn’t circle back, follow him. It would be, Drew knew, a violation of Lee’s strict bro code. Lee wouldn’t sneak around, even when he thought Drew was sneaking around.

  As usual, Lee Atkins was a much better friend to Drew than Drew was to him. Probably always would be.

  But a promise was a promise.

  He went into the Starbucks, got himself a giant Frappuccino with whipped cream, the whole thing as sweet to his sweet tooth as an ice cream sundae. And he always ordered a “giant.” Couldn’t bring himself to order in Italian like everybody else.

  He drank it through a straw on the way to Urban Sellers’s hotel. Wondering if he’d been at the game tonight without Drew seeing him. Hoping that he hadn’t, because Drew knew he’d shot it too much. The game he was sorry Legend had missed, if he’d missed it, was the one against Westlake Village, when he’d passed nearly all the way to thirty assists.

  But he wasn’t looking for him tonight to talk about basketball, he wanted to ask him more about his job, about his life, about how after all the promise he’d had—all his potential—he’d ended up living in a run-down hotel.

  How he ended up working on some park crew.

  Drew walked through the lobby, up the stairs, down the hall, knocked on 3G.

  No answer.

  Knocked harder.

  Nothing.

  There had been no point in calling first. Drew hadn’t seen a phone in the room. For some reason, he didn’t see the man owning a cell. Or maybe he did have a cell, some little throwaway phone. Nothing like the iPhone Mr. Gilbert had given Drew for Christmas.