True Legend

by Mike Lupica

  Mr. Gilbert had been cool about the accident from the start, even though Drew knew he wouldn’t have been nearly as cool if he’d known Drew had been the one behind the wheel and had gotten himself hurt because of that.

  Drew wondered how the man would have reacted if it had been Robbie taking one of the fancy cars out for a joyride.

  “Stuff happens,” Mr. Gilbert had said, and had even tried to plead Lee’s case with Coach, saying that he’d done a lot worse in high school. With Mr. G, you could never know whether he thought trying to get Lee’s suspension reduced was the right thing to do or whether he thought doing that made him look good.

  Or maybe he just didn’t want to get mad at Lee because he thought Drew might not like that, another sort of star treatment for Drew.

  Which never seemed to end, no matter how much you were the one in the wrong. Legend had said that the only time the star treatment ended was when you no longer were one.

  “So what’s on your mind tonight?” Mr. Gilbert said. “You needed to come over?”

  “I need a favor,” Drew said, “and my mom is still too mad for me to ask her.”

  “That’s all?” Mr. Gilbert said. “You sounded like it was something serious. You want a favor, you got it.”

  “But I didn’t tell you what it is.”

  Mr. Gilbert gave him a look, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “True,” he said, “this is me. Your all-around man.”

  “Sorry, sometimes I forget how generous you are.”

  Laying it down now.

  “So what can I do you for?”

  “I need Eddie to drive me down to Santa Monica,” Drew said. “To see a guy.” Then he added, “For a paper I’m working on.”

  • • •

  When Coach Fred Holman opened the door and Drew told him why he was there, Holman said, “He’s dead, is where he is.”

  Drew could only imagine, standing there, not being asked to come in, what it must have been like to play for this guy. When Coach John Wooden, the famous old UCLA coach, had died a couple of years before, Drew had read some of the stories about how people used to go see him at his little place in Encino like they were going to see some holy man at a shrine. He didn’t see that happening with the old coach standing in front of him, looking at Drew like he’d come to sell him something.

  “You’re the only one who knows he’s alive besides me,” Drew said.

  Fred Holman looked to be wearing the same clothes he’d worn the first day, the same sweater even.

  “You should have called first,” he said.

  “I just wanted to get up here and see you as soon as I could.”

  “You want me to help you find him,” Coach Fred Holman said. “Give me one good reason why.”

  This time the truth came out easy.

  “Because I’m his friend,” Drew said.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Coach Fred Holman told Drew he could show himself out—the Lakers were about to play the Suns, and he wanted to watch.

  “But before you go, you ought to know something,” he said to Drew. “He’s run before. And when he finally turned up, it turned out he’d been in a place I should have known to look for him.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re telling me.”

  “It’s not rocket science,” Fred Holman said. “You’ve scouted the man. Haven’t you learned anything?”

  Drew felt like the old man was trying to help out, 100 percent, but he still made it sound as if he were telling Drew to get off his lawn.

  But that was it. The old man didn’t even offer to shake hands before Drew walked out the front door and got into Mr. Gilbert’s car, safely in the passenger’s seat this time.

  On the way back to Agoura Hills, he thought about what the old man had meant, almost making it sound as if Legend might be hiding in plain sight. But it wasn’t as if he had all this free time on his hands to go searching for him. He had three regular season games left and a knee to manage without letting on how much it was hurting him, because there was no way he was coming out of the lineup, not with Lee already out.

  He knew what these games meant to Lee.

  Plus, he had the paper to finish.

  He wound up working on that when he got home, worked on it late into the night, revising it, acting like the student his mom wanted him to be. Working on it all by himself, no help from Lee.

  No help from Legend.

  He’d decided that he was going to tell the reader—Mr. Shockey, in this case—from the jump that Donald wasn’t his subject’s real name, that he was a real person, a player the world had pretty much forgotten. Given up for dead, so to speak.

  Writing about a playground legend, he treated it like a playground game, establishing the rules.

  He didn’t say what city Legend was from, didn’t say where he’d played his high school ball. Just said he was a perfect example of how everything could go all sideways and haywire on you, not just your basketball but your whole dag-gone life.

  Two A.M., he was still writing.

  Trying the best he could, in his own thoughts and words, to get to what he thought about “Donald,” what had happened to him.

  And the more he wrote—surprised at how into it he was now—the less it was about some grade he was trying to get, or what Mr. Shockey was going to think about what he was writing.

  Drew simply wanted to get this right.

  Before he shut down his laptop at a quarter to three, he read everything he’d written since he’d gotten home from Coach Holman’s house, and it was like the words had been written by somebody else.

  Sometimes he wasn’t sure whether he was writing about Legend or about himself.

  Drew turned out the light, got into bed, closed his eyes, tried to clear his mind. But his mind was still busy.

  Full of this one thought: he was ending the season pretty much the same star player—the playa—he’d been when the season started. But somehow, something he never saw coming, he hoped he was turning into a different person.

  Maybe that was why, when he was done writing the paper, he wrote one more thing before he went to bed. An e-mail to Callie Mason he should have written a lot sooner.

  One that just had two words in it: “I’m sorry.”

  • • •

  Oakley beat St. Thomas, no worries, ending up winning by twenty. Drew sat out the last eight minutes while guys off the end of the bench finally got some real burn. He was happy with the win, and even happier that nobody seemed to notice, not even Lee, that he was playing the game at a different speed than usual.

  Mostly no one questioned Drew’s health because by the time St. Thomas came out of its match-up zone near the end of the first half, Drew had already torched them for twenty-four points, going five for five from beyond the three-point arc.

  It hurt, but he knew he would have hurt all over if he hadn’t gone on the floor this time.

  By the time Drew sat down for good, he was glad Coach didn’t need a full game out of him tonight.

  Glad the team didn’t.

  It was when he was sitting at the end of the bench next to Lee—Lee in his blazer and tie and khaki pants—wanting to ice but no way to do that without people noticing, that he saw Callie. She was sitting up in the stands.

  It was the first time he’d seen her there since the H-O-R-S-E game.

  He told himself not to get his hopes up, knowing her being there might not have anything to do with him. After all, she still hadn’t responded to his apology. Drew had wondered if he’d sent the e-mail to the right address.

  Maybe she didn’t care whether he was sorry or not.

  But at least she was there.

  • • •

  Darlene Robinson was waiting for Drew in the gym after he had showered and dressed,
telling himself he’d ice when he got home, first thing.

  When he walked through the opening in the bleachers at the locker-room end of the court, Callie was there, with some of her teammates.

  “Hey,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t chill him out because her friends were there.

  “Great game,” she said. “And by the way? I accept.”

  “Accept what?”

  “Your apology.”

  Drew didn’t need to do the math: she’d just said more words to him than she had since she walked out of the gym that day. More words combined.

  And not just any words. The ones he wanted to hear.

  Before he could respond, something else pretty amazing happened. Amazing to him, leastways: Callie told her friends she’d catch up with them later.

  They left. She stayed.

  Now Drew didn’t know what to say.

  In a quiet voice, Callie said, “You feeling okay?”

  “I’m good.”

  “You weren’t moving like you do,” she said. “Like you can.” The girl had watched the game with basketball eyes.

  “Little nicked up is all,” he said. “Caught a knee at practice the other day that was a little bit like catching a beating.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  And smiled at him.

  Drew smiled back, saying, “Nice to see my pain is working for you.”

  She laughed. “God got you.”

  “Payback,” Drew said.

  They both stood there. Drew could see his mom at half-court, still waiting.

  Finally Callie said, “You doing anything?”

  “No,” he said. Fast.

  “I’ve got my car,” Callie said.

  Drew knew she’d gotten her license about five minutes after she turned sixteen.

  “Yeah?” Drew said.

  “I was going to stop by the library,” she said. “In town. I’m finishing this paper.”

  “Me too.” Drew answered almost before she stopped talking, like he was jumping out on a pick.

  “We could stop there and, like, get a burger after,” she said.

  It was amazing how his knee had suddenly stopped hurting. “Yeah, sure,” he said. “But . . .”

  “If you’re busy—”

  “No, no, nothing like that. I just . . .” He shrugged and smiled, and some air came out of him so loudly it made him laugh. “So you’re not hating on me?”

  Callie laughed again. “Well, as you may have noticed, I was. But then the more I thought about it, the more I thought, ‘The boy couldn’t help himself.’ Being a guy, I mean. And then I started thinking on something else, that somebody who played the game as smart and clean as you do, at least most of the time, can’t be all bad.”

  “I’m not.”

  With that, he went over and told him mom that he was going to the library. Something he sort of hoped would make her stop hating on him.

  “The library?” she said. “You sick? Let me feel your forehead.”

  “I’m going with Callie,” Drew said.

  She looked past him now, nodded, like that explained everything. “Oh,” she said, making that one word seem as long as a term paper.

  “Then we might get something to eat after.”

  “Oh,” she said again, and now she smiled, something he hadn’t seen her do since the whole Maserati deal.

  “So don’t worry about dinner for me,” he said. “I’m good.”

  Was he ever.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Callie didn’t drive a Maserati.

  Her father had bought her a Kia when she got her license. Not the roomiest front seat in the world—Drew wanted to stretch out his legs, but when he tried to do that, he bumped his knee into the dash.

  And winced.

  “Hurts that bad?” Callie said, putting the car in gear.

  “It just gets stiff after games.”

  “I could drop you at your house, if you want.”

  “What I want,” he said, “is to go to the library and then go get something to eat.”

  He didn’t add, “With you.”

  On the way into town, Callie asked him about what she called “Lee’s accident.” Drew just said that he felt bad because it was really his fault more than Lee’s, that Lee would never have taken the car out without Drew saying it was, as he said now, aight.

  “But he was still the one driving,” Callie said. Her hands—beautiful hands, Drew couldn’t help but notice—were at perfect driving-manual position on the wheel, ten minutes after ten.

  Drew only knew that because Lee had told him one time. He hadn’t cracked open his driver’s manual yet. Just another book he hadn’t opened. A guy on his way to the library.

  Drew changed the subject as quickly as he could, got Callie talking about her own team, asking her how many games they had left and if anybody had a chance to stop them from going into their tournament undefeated for the season.

  “We should be good to go,” she said. Just a small smile this time, not even turning her head, eyes on the road. “Long as somebody on our team doesn’t borrow somebody’s car.”

  “You,” he said, “are definitely not feeling my pain.”

  “Poor baby,” she said.

  They laughed together.

  She parked in the lot behind the library, said that what she needed to do shouldn’t take longer than an hour. If that.

  “Do you have to work on your English paper for real,” she said, “or are you just keeping me company before I get you fed?”

  “For real,” he said.

  He wasn’t totally sure he needed any more material on playground ballers than he already had. But there was one more book Mr. Shockey had suggested, called Heaven Is a Playground.

  “Just go do your thing. Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ve got this one book I need to check. Might not even have to check it out. I might just find myself a quiet piece of floor and stretch out my legs and read.”

  “Text you when I’m done,” Callie said.

  He watched her walk away, this cool girl, even breezing through a library in a way that made you watch her. Drew thinking, I don’t understand girls now, and I never will.

  He didn’t try now, just went to a computer and punched in the title of the book, found out the author was named Rick Telander. Then Drew had to ask where to find it and what the code meant. He wouldn’t have admitted this to Callie, but he had never been inside the library before.

  And Agoura Hills, for a small town, had a big one, three levels, looking pretty much brand-new to Drew. It turned out Heaven Is a Playground was on the third level, all the way in the back. Drew made a couple of wrong turns getting there and twice found himself in the wrong stacks before finally managing to locate the book.

  It was even quieter up there than it had been downstairs.

  He hadn’t brought a notebook, since he wasn’t planning to be there, but he decided that if he found something he could use, he would walk himself back downstairs and get the first library card of his life.

  On his way into the stacks, he’d seen this open area with chairs and a couch overlooking one of the town parks. But the chairs and couch were taken. So Drew decided the stacks were fine; there was a nice soft carpet on the floor. He’d noticed an empty spot near a window, bright light coming in, and decided to head there.

  He made sure his cell was on vibrate, and powered up, not wanting to miss Callie’s text if she finished early.

  Came around a corner and stopped.

  The man with the hotel room full of books sat surrounded by them now.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Leave me alone.” His voice was like some sad note from the jazz music Legend liked.

  He didn’t
say “please leave me alone,” but Drew heard it anyway in Legend’s quiet library voice, like he was asking and not telling.

  “I can’t,” Drew said. “You got to know that by now. If I was gonna let you be, I would have done it in the park that first night.”

  “I ran then.”

  “I didn’t run after you,” Drew said, “but I started following you just the same.”

  “All the way here,” Legend said. “Funny . . . I didn’t take you for the library type.”

  “This time I wasn’t following, I just found you. Like it was meant to be.”

  “What’s meant to be is what I am,” Legend Sellers said. “And you can’t change that, and neither can I.”

  “Bull,” Drew said.

  Sitting there, Legend looked older today. Smaller. And sadder. He made no move to get up or go anywhere, just put down the book he was reading. Drew saw it was called Out of Sight, which he thought was a movie with J-Lo and George Clooney.

  Drew made a motion with his hand that asked if it was all right to sit down next to him.

  “What am I gonna say, no?” Legend said. “You’re more stubborn than I am, which might make you the most stubborn guy ever.”

  The older man watched Drew sit himself down, get his legs out in front of him, seeing the effort it took to stretch out the bad knee.

  “You get that looked at?”

  “It’s getting better. I played today.”

  “Your team win?”

  Not asking how Drew had done. How the team had done.

  “Yeah.”

  They sat there for a minute, the quiet between them just part of the quiet all around until Drew finally said, “You promised.”

  “Promised what?”

  “You wouldn’t run.”

  “I did.”

  “You lied.”

  Legend said, “I wasn’t lying when I said it. You can believe that or not. But that’s what happens sometimes. What they call in books the law of unintended consequences. Stuff you say turns out to be the opposite of what you do, and that turns out to be the same as a lie. But you can’t stop yourself. And that is the truth.”