True Legend

by Mike Lupica

  Now Drew felt at least a little bit lucky on the worst night of his life, just because Mr. Gilbert had backed their lies with a lie of his own.

  Lee left first with his parents, neither one of them saying too much, Drew seeing just from the looks on their faces what it was going to be like for Lee when he got home.

  Drew’s mom got there about ten minutes later. She asked Drew if he was all right, and he said he was, and then she walked past him to where Officer Saunders was sitting, and talked to him in a low voice, nodding a lot, turning and glaring at Drew a couple of times.

  Then she took Drew by the arm, as if he was five again, and walked him out of the police station and to her car.

  Opening up this way when she finally started talking to him again: “What were you possibly thinking?”

  When Drew had called, waking her up, telling her as fast as he could what had happened and where he was, she had first asked if they were both all right.

  Once she found out they were, it was as if she had gotten mad and stayed mad and maybe was going to stay mad the rest of her life.

  After a while—the ride home taking so long it was as if they were driving all the way back to New York City—she found so many new ways to ask what he and Lee were thinking taking the man’s car that Drew had lost count.

  When they stopped for a light or at a stop sign, she’d turn slightly in her seat and give Drew another mean look before she started driving again.

  Finally she said she had nothing more to say. But Drew knew his mom well enough to realize that sometimes her silence was worse than her yelling.

  And the scary part for Drew was that she was only this ripped at him because she thought he’d somehow allowed Lee to take the Maserati.

  It wasn’t until Drew and his mom were inside the house, door shut and locked, that she went off again, talking about what could have happened, how badly they could have gotten hurt.

  Or worse.

  He knew she was as scared about that as she was mad, but he wasn’t about to offer that opinion to her.

  He just stood there in the front hall and took it as long as he could until he finally said, “I’m not apologizing anymore.” Adding, “Sorry.”

  “Now you’re going to give me a little of your True Robinson lip and attitude?” she said.

  Drew almost told her that she didn’t mind him being True Robinson when he was playing ball and helping them get the life they had here now. But he knew better.

  She went to her room, and he walked down to his. Like boxers walking back to their corners. Drew wasn’t feeling hurt by the things she’d said to him. He knew this would pass, maybe even by morning. She never stayed mad, not at him.

  Nobody really did, except maybe Callie Mason.

  No, he wasn’t suffering from some case of hurt feelings. It was worse than that—he had to stand there and take her being this mad at him for the wrong reasons, not knowing the truth. She had no idea how mad she should have been.

  Drew was ashamed.

  Ashamed that he was just standing by, letting Lee take the weight like this, for the speeding, for the damage to Mr. Gilbert’s fancy car. All of it. All because his friend had just been along for the stupid ride.

  Drew not just ashamed, but sad.

  Sad all the way into his bones, because he knew he didn’t have it in him to be even half the kind of friend to anybody that Lee Atkins had been to him tonight.

  Alls I can do, Drew told himself, is keep a secret.

  He closed the shades in his room, trying to make his room even darker than night. Two in the morning by now and Drew not even thinking about trying to sleep.

  Not wanting to sleep.

  Asking himself, What was I thinking?

  Maybe this was one of those times—another time—when he’d thought the rules didn’t apply to him because of the way he could play basketball.

  Drew reached over, grabbed his cell off the nightstand, hit Lee up on his speed dial.

  Lee picked up right away, answered in a low voice Drew could barely hear.

  “Yo.”

  “How is it there?”

  “Bad. There?”

  “Same.”

  “Here’s how bad it is here: my dad says he hasn’t even decided what my punishment’s gonna be.”

  Drew said, “What do you think Coach is gonna do?”

  “Suspend me.”

  “For real?”

  “You weren’t here last year. Ricky got into some trouble on Facebook, trash-talking a Park kid. Coach said he crossed the line and gave him two games.”

  “Two games wouldn’t be so bad.”

  “’Less he thinks this is worse,” Lee said. “Which it probably is.”

  “He wouldn’t suspend you into the tournament.”

  They both knew it started in four games.

  “Might.”

  “Wow.”

  Drew was talking in the same low voice, knowing that if his mom heard him talking on the phone, it would probably set her off all over again.

  After a long silence from both of them, Drew said, “I could explain what really happened to Mr. Gilbert, maybe he could talk to Coach before he even does anything to you.”

  “Righhhhhhht,” Lee said. “’Cause Mr. Gilbert is gonna be so happy with me.”

  “But he always says one of his goals in life is to keep me happy.”

  “Like that’s his real job,” Lee said.

  Drew thought, Lee could be talking about himself. But what he said was, “Man, I can’t let you do this.”

  “We already went over this.”

  “I want to go over it again,” Drew said.

  “We’ll be fine, even if he suspends my butt for the rest of the season. But we’re just another team without you. Like all the other teams we ever had at this school that weren’t good enough.”

  “See, that’s the thing,” Drew said. “If we go to Coach and tell him what really happened, he won’t suspend me.”

  For the exact same reason Drew thought he could take the car out, even without a license. Because the rules didn’t apply to him.

  “We’re not gonna find that out,” Lee said. “We already lied to the police. It’s not like we can go to Coach now and say that it’s all right to lie to the police but tell him the truth because it might help out our team.”

  He knew Lee was right. Lee’s right, and I’ve got nothing, Drew thought. Tired all of a sudden. Like the whole night had caught up with him the way the cops had.

  Lee said, “You still there?”

  “Barely.”

  “This stays between us, like we agreed. You don’t need something like this in the papers, on ESPN, on your permanent record.”

  Drew said, “Iverson went to jail and still got to go to Georgetown.”

  “You’re not him.”

  “Maybe I just lie better,” Drew said. “My mom’s always told me that a lie is halfway ’round the world before the truth gets its boots on.”

  “Oh, good,” Lee said. “More parental wisdom—just what I need about now. Get some sleep. I’ll see you at school.” Lee paused and said, “That would be right after my mom drops me.”

  Drew put the phone back on the nightstand. His knee was hurting from where it had hit the dash. He thought about getting some ice. But decided that if his mom heard, found out he had got himself hurt, she’d start acting like her hair was on fire all over again.

  Only one thing to do.

  Drew got off his bed, got his ball out of his closet, quietly opened his back window, climbed out, started walking to Morrison Park.

  Limping slightly.

  Just like Legend.

  THIRTY-TWO

  It was funny, Drew thought on his way over to Morriso
n, all the times Mr. Gilbert had told him not to get himself hurt, not to dive for loose balls. And how he’d listened to him.

  Now he banged up his knee on the man’s own car.

  What was I thinking?

  Drew knew. He wasn’t thinking. He was just doing what he wanted and getting Lee to go along. Now he’d gotten hurt and hurt Lee in another way. Letting Lee clean up the mess.

  Drew wondered if there’d always be somebody around to clean up his messes.

  Legend had talked to him about mistakes. Now Drew had made one. Only it hadn’t cost him, it had cost his best friend. And the only way he could figure out how to deal with it was to go play himself some ball.

  Even on a sore knee.

  When he got to the park, he sat down on one of the swings to rub the knee, knowing he really should be back home icing, not playing ball to make the dag-gone world go away, make him feel better.

  He was still sitting there, rubbing on the knee, when he heard the bounce of the ball.

  He got up and walked in the direction of the bad court and, like the first night, Legend Sellers was just there. And for the first time since he’d seen those flashing police lights—heard the siren—Drew did feel better.

  • • •

  Drew didn’t sneak up on him this time. Didn’t watch from the shadows. Just started bouncing his own ball to let Legend know he was in the area.

  As always, the man was cool, acknowledging him with a nod, like they were supposed to meet up here in the middle of the night.

  Legend said, “You wouldn’t have been able to cover me like this when I still had my legs underneath me.”

  “Been looking for you at your hotel, but haven’t been able to find you.”

  “I heard.”

  Drew came out on the court, no warm-up, one bounce, made a three. When he jogged after the ball, Legend said, “What happened to your leg?”

  Drew thought, Do I trust him?

  But Legend had trusted him so far with his secret that he was still alive when the world thought he was dead. So Drew told him what had happened, wondering how he’d react, if he’d start fussing on him the way his mom had.

  He didn’t. Just stared at Drew and said, “Had to blow off some steam, didn’t you? Feeling like if you didn’t, you might explode.”

  Drew stared back. “How did you know?”

  The older man made a growly sound, which Drew took to be his version of laughter. “How do I know?” he said. “Because I do, that’s why. Because I was you once, remember?”

  Then he turned and went back to shooting jumpers. Drew did the same. Talking to each other in a different way, without words. Drew put down his ball, and the two of them shared Legend’s. One would shoot until he missed, then rebound for the other. No judgments from this man about what Drew had done tonight. Maybe because this night wasn’t even close to the kinds of mistakes Legend had made in his life.

  All there was between them right now was basketball.

  Once, they both stopped at the same time to massage their sore knees.

  “You put any ice on that ’fore you came?” Legend said.

  “No.”

  “Idiot.”

  “Yeah,” Drew said. “All night long.”

  They went back to shooting until Legend finally said, “Enough.” They sat down in the grass. Legend had a big jug of water and offered it to Drew. He drank some and handed it back and leaned on his elbows.

  “I saw you,” Drew said. “Working on your crew.”

  “Know that. Saw you, too.”

  “So that’s your job.”

  “It is,” Legend said. “Not ashamed of it, either, if that’s where you’re going, like seeing me in my dirty work clothes somehow made you feel sorrier for me than you already do.”

  “I didn’t say any of that.”

  “Didn’t have to,” Legend said. “It’s honest work and gives me a paycheck, regular. Helps me to save up a little bit at a time.” He grinned. “As you saw at the hotel, it isn’t like I got myself a lot of high overhead.”

  “Saving up for what?” Drew said.

  Legend paused and then in a quiet voice he said, “For school.”

  “For real?”

  “For real,” Legend said. “Now that I can finally read, I got myself some unfinished business.” Then he held up a finger and said, “I have myself some unfinished business.”

  Drew said, “What’s that mean, you can finally read?”

  “It means what it means. When I first got to high school, I couldn’t read, at least not anything like I was supposed to.”

  Drew sat up, stretched out his sore leg, turned so he was facing Legend. “But if you couldn’t read—”

  “How’d I get by? People took care of me, because of the way I could play ball. This come as a big shock to you?”

  Drew thought instantly of Lee. No, it was no big shock to him.

  Then he remembered what he’d read about Legend Sellers, being accused of having somebody else take the SATs for him, even though he denied it up and down and they could never prove it.

  He didn’t tell him that, didn’t want Legend to think he’d followed him through the Internet the way he’d followed him to his hotel the first time.

  Legend said, “I didn’t start getting a real education until . . .” Now he smiled all the way in what little light there was. “Till I reached the afterlife.” He stood up again, tossing the ball from one big hand to the other. “Why am I telling you all this?”

  “Because I tell you stuff.”

  “Maybe so,” Legend said. “Eventually I want to find my way to some kind of college.”

  “But if you did that,” Drew said, “wouldn’t you have to tell people you were still alive?”

  “Haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” Legend said. “For now, I just sneak in the back and audit some night classes at the Thousand Oaks Community College.”

  “So that’s where you were those times?”

  Legend nodded.

  Drew, excited now, said, “Listen, Mr. Gilbert could probably make a couple of calls, get you enrolled at Thousand Oaks no problem.”

  He got the growly laugh in response.

  “Now you’re getting ahead of yourself,” Legend said.

  “How?”

  Legend looked down at the basketball in his hands, slowly turned it over. “Because I never graduated from high school,” he said.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Drew wanted to know how that was possible and tried to ask, but Legend said enough about him, he wanted to know how Drew had picked this particular night to act dumber than the rocks Legend had been pulling out of the ground at Morrison.

  “I told you.”

  “You told me about getting behind the wheel, not what put you there.”

  “You said you knew I felt like I was gonna pop.”

  “But not why.”

  By three in the morning, Drew had told him all of it, even the part about Callie and the H-O-R-S-E game. Told it as honestly as if he were telling it to himself inside his own head. Told it in a way he’d never told it to anybody else, not even Lee.

  Because he wasn’t sure even Lee would understand it.

  But he knew Legend would.

  He even told Legend that he’d kept the secret about him being alive from everybody so far, including Lee.

  “You want some kind of trophy for that to put with all the others you’ve probably won?”

  Drew should have known by now to stay on his guard, because Legend could give him a quick elbow to the ribs like that.

  “I just wanted you to know I could do what I said I was gonna do,” Drew said.

  “Woo hoo!” Legend said.

  “Laugh at me if you want,” Dr
ew said. “I didn’t know my word meant something to me until it did. It would be easier for me to tell, because I got this paper due now, and I need the grade. But I don’t know how to do it without calling you out.”

  There was another long silence. Drew could see it wasn’t something that bothered Legend. Maybe that was because he was alone so much, had lived inside his own head for so long. In this life that he’d made for himself, the one he called his afterlife.

  Legend said, “And you can’t get your boy Lee to write your paper for you, because you’d have to tell on me.”

  “Word,” Drew said.

  “So I’ll help you,” Legend said.

  “You’ll help me write my paper . . . about you?”

  Legend nodded. “Maybe there’s a way we can write it together,” he said. “See if there’s a way to do it right. Get the story right. Even if we have to tell your teacher. Let me think on that. But if I’m ever gonna find out if I can handle a real school, it might as well be now.”

  “At my school?” Drew said. “Working with my English teacher?”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  “No,” Drew said, he sure did not, remembering something his mom had told him once, about how once a good idea got inside your head even the United States Marines couldn’t get it out.

  Then Drew said, “But that would mean trusting somebody besides me.”

  Legend actually laughed out loud now. “Hale, boy, you put it that way, I could probably trust anybody after trusting you.”

  Drew said, “You ever think about what the worst thing would be, if you did come back to life?”

  In the sky there was the sound of a night bird.

  “All the time,” he said. “Sometimes I think, ‘Go ahead, Urban. Nobody’s even gonna care.’ But then I think about the world we live in now, how they’d probably eat up a story like mine. I don’t want that spotlight back, even for a day.”

  “But if I fix it that you could somehow take courses at Oakley, you’d think about it?”

  “They’d probably want to see if I had any dang eligibility left.”

  “I mean, for real,” Drew said. “I don’t usually have much use for teachers, but Mr. Shockey’s one of the good guys. Even I’m smart enough to see that. And probably the only one in the school who’d know who you used to be would be Coach.”