by Mike Lupica
“Listen,” his dad said, “I gotta get going.”
“Why don’t you hang around until Mom gets home?” Wes said. “Stay for supper.”
“Maybe one day next week,” he said.
He smiled now, even with his eyes, like he really meant it.
“You know what my favorite song is, right?”
Wes did. He couldn’t remember the name of the old singer, just the name of the song.
“‘I Won’t Back Down,’” he said.
“The guy who wrote it died,” his dad said. “People, they die in this world.”
Then his smile was gone. “Anyway, I got to be going.”
Michael Davies turned and walked down the driveway, made a left when he got to the sidewalk, and then was gone.
Wes wanted to run after him, the way he’d wanted to run and hug him. But he didn’t do that, either. Instead, he stood there with the ball in his hands until he said, “Love you.”
He was the only one who heard.
TEN
IT WAS FIVE MINUTES BEFORE the first game of the season. The gym at the rec center—a home game against the Prince George’s County Pistons—and the bleachers across from the two home benches were already full.
Wes had just taken his last shot of warmups, a free throw, never leaving the court until he made it, always telling himself it was the point his team needed to win the game. Now he was at the Hawks’ bench, taking off his shooting shirt. He always wore number thirteen. It was the number his dad had worn at Navy because it had been Steve Nash’s number with the Mavericks and the Suns. His dad, Wes knew, had always been a Nash guy. He said that nobody ever thought Nash would ever get close to being a big-time star in the NBA, because of his size. But he went on to be named MVP, not just once—twice—mostly because, Wes’s dad said, he played the same kind of beautiful and unselfish floor game that made everyone he played with look better.
“Other players were faster and bigger and stronger and could jump higher than Steve Nash,” his dad said. “Nobody was tougher or tougher-minded. Or more creative when it came to making the other guys around him better.”
Now Wes stared across the court at the bleachers, trying to spot his dad. But he could not.
Emmanuel saw where Wes was looking.
“Don’t see him?” Emmanuel said.
“Nah.”
“He still might show up.”
“Like he showed up at the house without telling me he was coming,” Wes said.
Wes kept staring, his eyes moving from side to side through the crowd, up and down the bleachers. He saw his mom, sitting in the second row with Emmanuel’s mom and dad. She saw that he saw her, and smiled and waved. Wes gave her a small wave back.
“I hear the Pistons are loaded with scorers,” Emmanuel said.
“E?” Wes said. “Everybody in this league is loaded.”
Emmanuel turned and put out his fist so Wes could pound it with his own.
“Would we want it any other way?” he said.
“No way,” Wes said.
Dinero came walking over, big smile on him, of course.
“You guys follow my lead today,” he said, “all the way to a W.”
Wes smiled back at him.
“Best thing about the Hawks is that we have a team of leaders,” he said. “And every one of our guys is ready to put it on their guys.”
Dinero held his gaze for a second, like they were having a contest to see who would stop smiling first, then turned to Emmanuel.
“Number Thirteen sounds ready to me,” he said.
Emmanuel said, “You have no idea.”
“Let’s hope so,” Dinero said to Wes.
Wes didn’t recognize any of the players on the Prince George’s team, not even from summer ball. But the guys on the starting fives introduced themselves to one another before the coin flip to determine which team would get the ball first. The kid who Wes would be guarding introduced himself as Matt Riley. He was about the same height as Wes, red haired, freckles covering his face.
Wes grinned when they shook hands and said, “You think there are two whiter kids in the whole state of Maryland than the two of us?”
“How about the whole world?” Matt said.
“Have a good one,” Wes said.
“You too.”
“Just not too good,” Matt said.
The ref flipped a silver dollar. Wes called heads. It was. They’d get the ball first. When he and the rest of the starters were back in the huddle, Coach Saunders said, “Play the next play as the one that might make all the difference. You’ll win as a team, so trust your teammates. If you want to do it all yourself, go play on one of the side courts.”
They put their hands together in the middle of the circle and went out to play the season, which felt like the biggest of Wes’s life. His eyes quickly searched the bleachers one last time before the ref handed him the ball so he could inbound it to Dinero.
If his dad was over there somewhere, he had managed to hide in plain sight.
By now he was as good at that as he’d once been at basketball.
ELEVEN
THE ELITE TEAM IN THE first half, in their first game in their elite league, wasn’t the Hawks. And the best player in the game wasn’t Wes. Or Dinero.
It was the Pistons’ point guard, the one guarding Dinero and the one he was supposed to be guarding at the other end.
His name was Tate Brooks. He was a couple of inches taller than Dinero, and just as fast. Everything about him, even his looks, reminded Wes of Chris Paul. He even wore number 3, the same as Paul did.
Tate Brooks wasn’t as slick with the ball as Dinero was. He couldn’t make the flashy-looking passes that Dinero could. But he didn’t try. It was as if he tried to make every play and every shot as clean as it could possibly be. And was dominating Dinero at both ends, and dominating the game.
No smiles from him. No change of expression, even when he would make a shot or a pass. No look-at-me to him. When he’d get a basket or an assist, his response was to get right back on defense. Or get up on Dinero and pressure him all the way up the court. Wes couldn’t help but think how much fun it would be to play with a point guard like that.
And the better he played, the more frustrated Dinero got, the more he tried to do too much, as if Tate Brooks simply didn’t understand that it was Dinero who was supposed to be the star of Hawks versus Pistons. Dinero who was supposed to be the point guard to watch.
On the last Pistons’ possession of the first quarter, Tate easily beat Dinero off the dribble again. Dinero fouled him hard as he went by, making no attempt to make a play on the ball, and the ref whistled him for a flagrant foul. Wes didn’t think that Dinero was doing anything dirty. He was frustrated, more angry at himself than anything else. Tate didn’t get angry, just went to the free-throw line and knocked down both shots. The Pistons kept the ball. Tate fed their big man for a layup. The Pistons were ahead, 20–8.
When the Hawks got back to their bench, Coach Saunders pulled Dinero aside, spoke quietly to him, then turned and told Josh Amaro to report in. Josh would start the second quarter at point, not Dinero.
Wes watched to see how Dinero took it. He took it well, making a point—or a show—of patting Josh on the back and telling him to get out there and kill it. “Get me the lead,” he said to his teammates. Somehow he had a way of making himself the show even when he was being asked to take a seat for a few minutes.
Josh was the same in the game as he was at practice: He didn’t try to be someone he wasn’t, starting with Dinero. But he had talent and brains, and had to know that he would be starting on most teams in the Tri-Valley League. On the rare occasions when they’d be on the same side in scrimmage, Wes loved playing with Josh. He ran the plays the way they were drawn up, seemed to have a good grasp of Coach’s motion offense, and g
enuinely wanted the other four guys on the court with him to do well.
As the Hawks began to climb back into the game over the first few minutes of the second quarter, it was Wes who was doing well, mostly because Josh kept getting him the ball first chance he got.
On the Hawks’ first three possessions of the quarter, Wes hit a jumper from the right wing, then one from the left wing, before he and Josh ran a high pick-and-roll and Josh fed him for a layup.
They’d cut the Pistons’ lead in half. Next time down, Josh gave the ball to Wes on the left side, Wes beat Matt Riley, looked like he might go all the way to the basket before he made a sweet no-look to Emmanuel. And for the first time in the game, Wes was aware of some real noise coming from the Hawks’ fans in the bleachers. The Hawks finally tied the game when Wes took an outlet pass from Emmanuel, saw Josh take off down the right sideline, and threw an over-the-head, two-hand pass about fifty feet that caught Josh right in stride, and well ahead of the defense.
The Pistons’ coach called for time.
Day late and a dollar short, Wes thought to himself, his dad’s voice inside his head again as he remembered all the times when he’d be watching a game on TV with his dad, college or pro, and one of the teams would go off on a rip before the other team’s coach would stand up and call time. And his dad would say, “He should have called that timeout two possessions ago.”
The two teams played even the rest of the second quarter. Coach finally put Dinero back in for Josh, even though the Hawks had been playing better without him. Dinero made the most of those last three minutes of the half, though, and the matchup between Dinero and Tate finally looked like a fair fight. Just before the horn sounded, Dinero made the play of the game thus far by timing Tate’s dribble perfectly as Tate tried to drive past. Seemingly in one perfect move he stole the ball and fed Emmanuel with a pass that hit him perfectly in stride for an easy two right before the horn.
Wes thought that Dinero was still pounding the ball too much, still seemed too caught up more in winning the matchup with Tate than winning the game for the Hawks. But at least over those last three minutes of the half, he looked more like himself and the player he was supposed to be.
Even if today the only one who seemed to be following his lead was himself.
“Even though they came back a little the last part of the quarter,” Coach Saunders said, “we’ve still got momentum on our side. But remember something: Momentum can be a funny old dog sometimes. And if you’re not careful, he’ll run away from you.”
Coach, they all knew, had a lot of dog references.
Emmanuel grinned and raised a hand. “Does that mean you’d like us to keep the pressure on and keep playing like we’re behind?”
“E,” Coach said, “how lucky am I that I’ve got you to translate for me?”
They did keep the pressure on in the third quarter. The Hawks were starting to run now, and that was when Dinero was at his best. The whole team could feel him feeling it now.
But the one who was really feeling it, now that a really good game had broken out, was Wes Davies.
He got hot again, same as he did at the start of the second quarter when Josh was feeding him the ball. Now Dinero was, too. Fact was, he should have been doing it even more than he was. But he was still fixed on showing up Tate.
Even in the flow of the game the way he was, even picking up his own game again, Wes wondered whether everybody else could see what was happening: Dinero looking away from Wes sometimes when Wes was open and trying to break down Tate off the dribble. Still pounding it too much. But even if nobody else noticed, Wes did. He knew. He always knew the way things were supposed to be going, how the game was supposed to flow. How it was supposed to look.
Now he also knew that things continued to look up for the Hawks, no doubt, after that terrible beginning to the game. They were doing much better. Way better. But they could have been doing even better than that. Wes could see that Dinero wanted their first win as much as he did.
Even if it had to be on his terms.
His ball.
The Hawks were ahead by a basket at the end of the third quarter. Then the Pistons were ahead by two, four minutes into the fourth. There was a three-on-two break for the Hawks, almost like the drill they’d been doing the night Wes caught that pass in the face, when Dinero held on to the ball too long again, got himself jammed up in the middle before he made the pass he should have made to Wes, who’d gotten two long strides clear of Matt Riley. Dinero ended up forcing a pass to Emmanuel, too hard and too far away from the basket, and the ball went off E’s hands and out of bounds.
As the ref went to collect the ball, Wes went over to Dinero, couldn’t help himself and said, “I was open.”
Dinero stared at him, then shrugged, said, “My bad,” and walked away. Wes couldn’t tell whether he meant it or not. Didn’t matter, though. The game was still tied, 42–42, thirty seconds left, Hawks’ ball, in front of their own bench. Wes and Dinero were there. Coach told them to run a weak-side pick play.
“Then one of you figure out something doggoned wonderful,” he said.
They both nodded. Emmanuel was standing underneath their basket, watching them. Wes nodded at him, briefly touched a hand to the top of his head. It meant for him to flash up, first chance he got, and set a screen on Matt.
Wes inbounded the ball to Dinero. Dinero checked the game clock, slowly dribbled toward the top of the key, then kept going to his left. As soon as he did that, Emmanuel Pike came hard from the right side of the lane and set a perfect pick on Matt Riley.
Wes had his choice: Cut inside and down the lane to the basket, or break to the outside. But there was too much traffic clogging the lane. Wes ran for the right corner, wide-open, nobody on him. Matt and the Pistons’ center had both stayed with Emmanuel.
As Wes ran, he watched Dinero the whole time, making sure he was ready for the pass he knew was coming.
Dinero was still dribbling.
He crossed over now, Tate right on him, got himself into the lane, where there was still a ton of traffic. Wes checked the game clock, ran for the basket. Twenty seconds now. Still time for Dinero to give it up.
He wasn’t giving it up.
With ten seconds left he pushed up an off-balance teardrop, somehow getting it underneath Tate’s arm, almost flinging it in the direction of the basket.
They all watched then as the ball, with hardly any spin on it, bounced high off the backboard, came down on the front of the rim, hung there for what felt like a minute and not the last second of regulation.
And then fell through the basket.
Hawks by two.
Pistons out of timeouts. Their shooting guard inbounded the ball to Matt Riley, closest Piston to him. But Wes knew Matt only had one plan: Get the ball to Tate Brooks, who’d shaken free of Dinero.
Wes backed off Matt, watching his eyes the whole time, got himself into the passing lane between Matt and Tate, intercepted Matt’s pass as if it had been intended for him.
He could have walked in and made a meaningless, show-off basket before the final horn. Instead, he dribbled toward the basket, veered off at the last second, ended up back in the corner.
Ball game.
TWELVE
WES AND EMMANUEL WERE AT the Annapolis Ice Cream Factory on Main Street. Wes’s mom had dropped them there after the game.
Emmanuel was eating his favorite at the Ice Cream Factory, strawberry in a big bowl, with colored sprinkles on top. Wes thought everything about it was wrong. He had gone old-school: banana split, two scoops, vanilla and chocolate, chocolate sauce, whipped cream.
“Got a question,” Emmanuel said.
“Shoot.”
Emmanuel made a snorting sound. “Shouldn’t we leave that to Dinero?”
“Not. Funny.”
But they both knew it was.
“My question is this: How come you needed comfort food when we won the game?”
“You know I need about as much of an excuse to eat ice cream as you do,” Wes said. “And I never need an excuse to eat ice cream.”
“Except after the game you said we needed ice cream now,” E said. “And you stepped on now pretty hard.”
“So now we’re eating ice cream,” Wes said. “And I don’t need comforting. I need you to admit that we both saw something on that last play we didn’t like.”
“We did,” E said. “Hundred percent.”
They talked it through then. Agreed that there was no way that Dinero didn’t see how open Wes was. Dinero saw everything on the court the same way Wes did. They also agreed there was no way that Dinero had suddenly forgotten how hot Wes had been the whole game. Or that he thought he was making the right play because he thought he could get a better shot.
What he got, they both really agreed, was a bad shot that happened to go in.
“It’s supposed to be about all of us,” Wes said. “And what I keep thinking that Dinero wants it to be about us right after it’s about him. You hear what I’m saying?”
Emmanuel said, “Loud and clear.”
Wes said, “He didn’t like the way he got shown up by that guy Tate early. So he was fixed on making up for it with a hero play at the end. Even if it had cost us.”
“He’s lucky it didn’t cost us,” Emmanuel said.
“Right is right, like my dad says. He also says if you’re right, you don’t run.”
“So,” E said, “what are we gonna do about this?”
Wes spooned more ice cream into his mouth. It didn’t make him feel any better. But being with Emmanuel always did. Going through what he was going through with his dad, trying to get through it and still keep his focus on basketball, was always made a little easier because he had E as his wing man. Wes would never compare what he was going through to being a Navy SEAL, not in a million years. But sometimes he pretended like he and Emmanuel Pike were in the same unit. Tight like that.
