In the Paint

by Jeff Rud

  Any negatives about the new school were offset by the excitement of sports, in particular basketball. And the excitement had been building for the last two weeks. The team’s first tryout practice was that afternoon.

  With tryouts came a nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach and a pressure Matt had never felt before. He had put so much hope into making the basketball team at South Side, into following in the footsteps of his older brother, Mark, that he couldn’t bear to think about not making it.

  He and his friends had spent almost every day of the summer working out. Not just playing basketball, as in past vacations, but actually following the “workout schedule” presented by Coach Stephens when he had visited Glenview as part of the graduating grade six students’ middle school orientation program in May. That schedule had included, among other things, two hundred jump shots and one hundred free throws to be practised each day of the summer. It had also included twenty “man-makers” at the end of each workout.

  Man-maker was the nickname for a fitness drill that tended to leave most players exhausted and begging for air. It involved a basketball court but no basketball. Players had to run from the baseline, to the near free-throw line, touch that line and then return to the baseline. This was followed by an identical run-and-touch to the centerline, the far free-throw line, and the far baseline. All four trips constituted only one man-maker. And twenty of these at any kind of speed were absolutely draining on a hot summer day.

  After two months of this regimen, however, Matt noticed that his body had become firmer and that he seemed to be able to run forever during the evening pickup hoops with the older players in the neighborhood. As the others began to tire in the second or third games, he felt himself getting stronger and faster and was able to push past them on the fast break for the first time ever. The summer shooting practice had improved his range too. He could now consistently hit a pull-up jumper from fifteen feet, and he was making eight of ten free throws on a regular basis. After working on his dribble all summer, he was now almost as good with his left hand as with his right. Matt approached these middle school tryouts knowing he had never been a better basketball player.

  Still, was he good enough to make the South Side squad? A voice in his head was telling him not to be so sure. If he had been six feet or taller, like a handful of the boys who would be at tryouts, there wouldn’t be any question. But Matt was only five-foot-seven and he was only in the seventh grade. He entered tryouts as one of the shortest players. Would his skills and his fitness level be enough to earn one of the twelve spots on the varsity team? Could he make a big enough impression on Coach Stephens to secure a place even though most of the team would be older?

  Matt was well aware that there were good grade seven players coming up from the other schools that fed into South Side too. Each of them would be going all out for a spot on the varsity. The hard truth was there just weren’t many spots up for grabs.

  As he approached the gym, which was tucked into the west end of the two-story South Side building, Matt felt the insides of his stomach flipping about and a light sweat breaking on his forehead. He hadn’t ever been this nervous before. But then again, he had never had quite as much riding on his performance, either.

  He drew a deep breath as he walked through the double wooden doors of the South Side gym. The waiting was over.

  chapter three

  “Okay, people, listen up,” Coach Jim Stephens told the thirty-three players assembled around center court. “I’ve got three basic rules and if you follow them, we’ll be all right.

  “The first is that you listen. When I blow the whistle, or I’m talking, you hold the ball and don’t say a word. That way, I won’t waste my time or yours.

  “The second is that you try your hardest all the time. I’m not saying you have to make every shot or get every rebound. We all fail sometimes and we all make mistakes. I can live with mistakes if they come honestly. If I see you’re not giving it your best, though, you won’t last long here.

  “The third rule, and this is the most important one,” Coach continued, his voice rising slightly and his eyes narrowing below his bushy gray-flecked brows, “you must respect your coach and your team-mates. There will be no back talking or infighting at South Side. You will be supportive of each other.”

  As he talked, most of the players listened intently. South Side was the smallest of nine middle schools in the city. But it consistently had one of the best basketball programs, and its constant stream of graduating players was a major reason why the South Side High team was always a regional contender. The biggest reason the middle school feeder program was so successful was Coach Jim Stephens.

  A tall, rigid man in his mid-forties who had once been a college basketball star, the no-nonsense coach commanded instant respect from most players. He also had a pretty simple way of operating. If you didn’t give him that respect, you didn’t last long.

  There had been many talented, tall kids who had gone through the school during the fifteen years Coach Stephens had worked there who didn’t stay on the team because they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, follow the rules. There were no exceptions, no matter how good the player. In the coach’s world, no one player was ever more important than the team.

  “Is all that clear?” the coach said, looking around as heads nodded. “Good then. Let’s get started.”

  Matt surveyed the group, which seemed so much older and more mature than the Glenview Elementary team on which he and his buddies had played for the last three years. He instantly recognized the player directly behind the coach, a muscular boy about five-foot-ten with dark hair and eyes. It was Grant Jackson — the boy from the incident at Anderson Park. But if Jackson recognized Matt, he wasn’t letting on.

  As Coach Stephens wrapped up his pre-practice talk, Jackson and his friends were smirking at the coach’s comments, as if they’d heard this speech too many times before. The boys were laughing quietly about something, but they all went absolutely silent when the granite-jawed coach spun their way.

  “McTavish, Jackson, White,” he barked at the trio. “Since you guys have been through all this before, why don’t you lead everybody in ten man-makers to get us warmed up?”

  Jackson’s grin disappeared. He raised his eyebrows, but nevertheless hustled down to the baseline to lead the fitness drills. South Side’s first practice of the year was officially on.

  Once the balls were bouncing and the players moving, Matt’s nerves faded into the background. The drills weren’t much different than those he had done at Glenview, the players were just bigger and faster. The prospects worked in stations, with a half-dozen players under each basket, concentrating on specific skills such as dribbling, boxing out under the boards and defensive shuffles. For Matt and his friends, just being in the South Side gym with its see-through backboards, glistening oak floor and the huge maroon letters spelling “HOME OF THE STINGERS” painted along each baseline wall, was a thrill. Several times during the session Matt looked around, drew a deep breath and reminded himself to work as hard as he possibly could. He wanted this more than anything.

  Near the end of the session, Coach Stephens split the players into groups of four so they could work on both executing and defending the pick-and-roll. Matt had practised this with his buddies all summer, playing two-on-two and developing a keen sense of when to use the pick to get free of his defender and drive hard to the basket, and when to instead fake the shot and drop the pass inside to the post player cutting to the hoop. “If you know how to run the pick-and-roll properly,” the coach said matter-of-factly before beginning the drill, “nobody can stop it.”

  Matt and a beefy grade nine center with blond, spiky hair named Dave Tanner were paired up for this drill. They were matched up against Jackson and his best friend, Andrew McTavish, another of the boys with whom Matt had experienced the run-in at the park just weeks before.

  For the most part, Tanner and McTavish played inside while Matt was pitted against Jackso
n on the perimeter. But near the end of the drill, Jackson nodded to McTavish and the two silently switched places.

  Matt followed Jackson into the key as he moved to the free-throw line, posted up and waited for the pass. Matt had a decent defensive position on Jackson as McTavish dumped the ball inside. Jackson caught the pass and spun quickly, cocking his elbow and hitting Matt flush on the jaw. The surprisingly powerful shot rocked Matt backward, bringing the taste of blood mixed with sweat to his mouth and sending him sprawling to the hardwood. Matt was stunned, but he bounced up quickly, wiping the trickle of blood from the side of his mouth with his left hand as he felt his lower lip begin to swell.

  One look at the hard-nosed, sneering Grant Jackson standing above him told Matt no apology was forthcoming. Jackson glared down at him with his hard eyes. “Just remember, rook,” he hissed quietly. “I’m the starting point guard on this team.”

  chapter four

  Matt stared down at the light brown Cheerios bobbing in the half-full bowl of milk and tried to convince himself that he was hungry. It was 7:00 on the first Monday morning of October, and he wasn’t the least bit interested in eating breakfast. Or if he was, his skittish stomach didn’t realize it.

  His mother was busy making lunches and asking him about school and his friends. But despite sitting just a few feet away at the kitchen table, Matt didn’t hear much of what she was saying. His mind was fixed on the list that would appear today. The only thing he could think about was whether or not his name would be on that list.

  This afternoon, at 4:00, Coach Stephens would release the names of the twelve players who had made the varsity squad. After two weeks of practice, Matt wasn’t sure where he stood. He thought he had played pretty well, but there were plenty of good kids in tryouts, most of who were taller and older.

  Matt wanted to be on the team so badly it was difficult to concentrate on anything else. He had struggled to do his math homework over the weekend, finishing one question and then daydreaming about the team list, then doing another. Even the horror movies he and Jake had rented on Saturday had failed to hold his complete interest. The time between the last practice of tryouts on Friday afternoon and this morning had seemed to stretch forever.

  “Matt? Have you heard a word I’ve said?” his mother interrupted his thoughts, feigning anger. “Maybe if I painted my face orange and wrote Spalding across my forehead, I’d have a better chance with you!”

  “Sorry, Mom,” Matt replied, forcing a spoonful of now soggy cereal into his mouth. “But today is huge. If I make the team it will be so sweet. But if I don’t … I don’t know.” His voice trailed off. The thought of not making it was too much to bear. There was so much riding on the list.

  “If you don’t, then you’ll make it next year,” she said sweetly, laying her small hands on his shoulders and gently stroking his wavy brown hair. “Besides, this isn’t the first team you’ve ever tried out for. It will be okay.”

  It was true. Matt had been playing organized sports since he first took to the field for mini-mites soccer as a five-year-old. Despite the fact his mom was a single parent, she had always managed to find the registration fees, money for decent equipment and enough time to drive Matt in their chuggy red Toyota Corolla to the baseball diamonds, swimming pools and gymnasiums around the city.

  Matt loved sports but none quite as much as basketball, a game he had first seen on television and then later, in a much more real sense, when his older brother Mark was a steady guard on the South Side High School team.

  Eight years older, Mark was gone now, working a good job on the oil rigs in Eton, a couple of hundred miles away. Their only contact was on his brother’s odd visit home, Sunday-night phone calls and, most frequently, e-mails. But Matt could still vividly remember those winter nights when his mom would make a thermos of hot chocolate, bundle him up in his heavy jacket and mittens and trudge through the snow from their two-bedroom apartment to the high school to watch Mark play.

  Back then, when he was only seven and not much more than four-feet tall, high school basketball was a fascinating new discovery for Matt. The cheerleaders giggling and locking arms, the hundreds of people of all shapes and sizes packed tightly into the bleachers, the smell of the sweat and the squeaks of the sneakers on hardwood all mingled into an intoxicating blend. The very first time they visited the South Side High gym, he was hooked on the game.

  Ever since then, Matt had spent much of his free time on the outdoor courts of the neighborhood; shooting hoops by himself after school until it got too dark; and playing H-O-R-S-E with his buddies on summer days until they grew tired of laughing at each other’s miserable attempts to make the “ultimate” shot. To Matt, there was nothing better than the feeling of a ball in his hand and a backboard in front of him on a sunny afternoon.

  And there was nothing more important right now in his life than making the South Side Middle School roster.

  Matt’s mom noticed the serious look and his furrowed brow. “Come on,” she coaxed. “Basketball isn’t everything, you know.”

  Matt had to smile. Somehow, his mom always seemed to have a way of making him feel better, of calming his nerves. And even though she sometimes came out with some pretty weird things — like calling Kobe Bryant “Bryant Kobe” in front of Phil and Jake one day last summer — she still understood him better than anybody else in the world.

  Matt and his mother were about as close as a parent and a child could be. His father had left when Matt was just three, and although he had often wondered what it would be like to have a dad around, he honestly couldn’t think of many times he had felt shortchanged because of it.

  Mom had always been there, even in the early days when she was a waitress and he and Mark ate supper in the back booth at the Elmhurst Diner while she worked. She had saved her tips, always made sure they had decent clothes and good food and that they did lots of interesting things like trips to the zoo and to the park. Even now, when Matt was twelve and old enough to do most things for himself, she made a point of taking him out for a pizza or a movie or to play mini-golf every once in a while. They had their fights and issues, but more often than not they enjoyed each other’s company.

  Matt liked to refer to his auburn-haired mom as “short but sweet.” He liked almost everything about her as a parent, but he desperately hoped he had inherited his height from his dad, whom Matt understood was about six-foot-four. His mom stood only five-foot-two, but Matt loved her big brown eyes, small nose and easy smile, all traits that he shared. And his mom had a warm, gentle manner that had helped make him feel safe and loved as he grew up. He felt he could talk to her about anything — or almost anything.

  Matt had always been able to sense his mom didn’t enjoy discussing his father. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t answer questions about his dad, but Matt thought he could detect hurt in her eyes whenever the subject came up. For the most part, he simply avoided the topic. He had gleaned enough to know that his father was tall, had a mechanical engineering degree, knew a lot about music and airplanes and had been a pretty good athlete in his high school days. Matt also knew his father hadn’t been around while he was growing up. He hadn’t seen his dad or had any contact with him since his parents split up, which meant that Matt had no real memories of his father. But a few years ago he had decided that he didn’t really need to ask a bunch of questions if it meant upsetting his mom.

  When he was about seven and Mark was fifteen, their mother began studying for her real estate license, thinking that if she was good with people in the restaurant she might be able to use the same skills to sell houses. When Matt was nine, she officially became a real estate agent and, within months, was making more money. The job change meant they could move out of their apartment and into a two-bedroom house about six blocks from South Side Middle School. It had also meant that Matt had to become more independent, making his own meals sometimes and doing the laundry for his mom after Mark moved out. You could never tell when Mom’s pager would
beep and she’d be called away to show a property or write up an offer. But no matter how busy she got, she had always been able to get him to his baseball, basketball or soccer games. And she always seemed to have time to make him feel better when he was worried.

  “Basketball might not be everything,” Matt said, as he grabbed his backpack and headed for the door. “But it sure feels like it this morning.”

  “Good luck,” smiled his mom, rising to her toes to kiss him on the forehead. “And try to forget about it until this afternoon, okay?”

  As he hurried down Anderson Crescent, Matt went over the pool of players and tried to determine which twelve players Coach Stephens would select. Some were obvious, such as Jackson and McTavish and even Amar, who had been impressive during tryouts. But others were on the bubble. Matt couldn’t help but feel he was one of those.

  His pace quickened as he saw Jake and Phil up ahead, waiting as they always had since elementary school, under the massive oak on the corner of Anderson Crescent and Seventh. Jake lived about five miles outside town at Long Lake, where his parents ran a small resort. Each morning, he took the bus into town, getting off on Densmore Street near Wong’s Grocery, the corner store run by Phil’s family. Jake and Phil then walked a couple of blocks to Anderson and Seventh and waited there for Matt.

  The three of them — four, counting Amar, who walked to school from the opposite direction — had been inseparable since their days at Glenview Elementary, playing sports together, exchanging trading cards and video games and just hanging out. Matt felt comfortable with these guys. He knew they’d remain friends no matter whose names appeared on the team list this afternoon.

  “The Mattster,” Jake shouted in an overly dramatic television announcer’s voice. “What’s up?”

  “Not much,” Matt replied. “Just thinking about the cuts, you know?”

  Just seeing Jake put Matt at ease. Of all his buddies, Jake was the most easy-going, and it was difficult not to feel comfortable around him. He never seemed to take anything too seriously, including himself. He was a natural at everything — sports, school, music — without even trying.