No Slam Dunk

by Mike Lupica

  But Coach decided to give him a rest at the start of the second quarter. When he told Josh to go in for him, Dinero blurted out, “But, Coach!”

  Coach calmly turned and gave him a long look and said, “Exactly, I’m the coach. You can wait until I call your number again in a couple of minutes.”

  Dinero opened his mouth, then closed it. Finally he said, “Yes, sir.”

  Coach left Wes out there for now. As Wes started to walk back on the court to join his teammates, Coach walked with him and said, “Let’s put the ball in your hands a little more. And make that talented young fella work a little harder at our end.”

  And it worked.

  Josh, in at point guard, was happy to let Wes take the lead. It was Josh’s way of being a team guy. Because as the Hawks quickly stretched their lead, everybody could see Coach’s new game plan was working. And Josh wasn’t going to let his ego get in that way of that.

  My kind of player, Wes thought.

  Wes was moving the ball around, getting everybody else involved, E and DeAndre and Josh and Russ. Over the first three minutes of the quarter, the Hawks went on a 10–2 run, and everybody on the court for the Hawks had one basket. A couple of times Wes looked over to the scorer’s table, expecting to see Dinero there, getting ready to check back in.

  He was still sitting next to Coach.

  But Wes couldn’t worry about him. He was too busy playing, happy to be playing the way he was and the way the Hawks were. It was 34–24 when Dinero finally did check back in, replacing Josh. Coach gave Wes a rest, too.

  There were two minutes left, the Hawks still ahead by six points, when Wes checked back in.

  He didn’t touch the ball the rest of the half. There were two Hawks’ possessions when no one except Dinero touched the ball. He brought it up, dribbled around until he was ready to make his move. Once he pulled up and made a jumper. The other time he got in too deep on a drive and missed a layup. It was as if the Hawks had been one team when he’d been on the bench and were a totally different team now.

  But when he banked in a three-pointer to beat the horn, getting the Hawks’ lead back up to five, he ran off the court as if he were on his way to cut down the nets, even though there was still an entire half left to play.

  Wes watched him and thought:

  How can somebody this good be this bad at understanding team ball?

  But Dinero came running over to him and said, “We got this!” and put up his hand for a high five. Wes gave him one back, wondering if he meant that their team had this.

  Or just the Money Man.

  In the second half, Wes made it his mission to stop Bakari as best he could, or at least slow him down. Do as much as he could on defense to help his team win the game. He dogged Bakari all over the court, tried to move him off his favorite spots, boxed out aggressively to keep Bakari off the boards. He was basically doing so many of the things he’d been taught to do his whole life, the kind of things that never ended up in a box score, but helped you win.

  Unfortunately, Bakari’s size began to take its toll on Wes, who found himself committing three fouls before the half was halfway over. He would have to be more careful.

  On offense, Coach had told Dinero to move the ball around, actually told him to be a little less of a ball stopper. Dinero nodded as if he understood. Yet it still seemed to Wes that Dinero was only passing him the ball as a last resort. Wes told himself not to force things when Dinero did, to stay within the offense. He got two more baskets in the middle of the quarter, one on a putback, the other on a neat drive past Bakari, who reached in, causing a foul of his own. Wes made the free throw for a three-point play.

  The game was tied going into the fourth quarter. Both starting fives back out there. Dinero really had dialed down hogging the ball now, especially with the Grizzlies having switched to a zone defense. But even with that, at least to Wes’s eyes, Dinero was still trying to impress Bakari. He wanted his eyes on him the way he wanted everybody’s eyes in the gym on him.

  Hey, look at me.

  Two straight times, with under four minutes left to play, game tied both times, Dinero ignored the fact that Wes was open because he was lost in one of his shake-and-bake moves, like the announcers said, once with Bakari covering him on a switch.

  Dinero missed both of the shots he ended up hoisting.

  During a timeout with two minutes to go, Hawks down a basket by now, Coach said, “I don’t care who shoots it at the end of this possession. But I want everybody to touch the ball. Am I clear?”

  They all nodded, Dinero included.

  They ran their motion offense. Everybody got at least one touch. E finally cleaned out Bakari with a hard, legal screen. Josh threw Wes the ball, and he squared up and hit a jumper. Hawks up a point, 54–53.

  Wes hounded Bakari into a miss at the other end, managing to avoid a foul. E got the rebound and hit Wes with a smooth outlet pass. He had space in front of him and had Bakari beat. But he saw Dinero streaking down the left side, ahead of everybody. Wes threw him a perfect bounce pass; Dinero got a layup. Now the Hawks were up three.

  The Grizzlies quickly got the ball back in Bakari’s hands. Even with Wes’s hand in his face, Bakari made a jumper just inside the three-point line. Both teams feeling it now.

  Hawks still up by one. One minute left.

  Now Dinero held the ball too long again, as if everybody getting a touch had only applied to the Hawks’ last possession. Wes ran the baseline twice, right to left, left to right, and shook free from Bakari finally. Dinero ignored him, forcing the ball to the middle, where he took an off-balance shot that missed.

  Bakari had the rebound and pushed the ball, played his two-man game with Bo. Bo made a baby hook.

  The lead gone. Grizzlies by one.

  Ten seconds left.

  Coach yelled, “Ohio.”

  One of Wes’s favorite plays. E set a weak-side screen for him. Wes cut for the basket as soon as he did. If he wasn’t open, he kept right on going, to the right corner. Coach knew the way everybody on the team knew that it was one of Wes’s sweet spots.

  Clearly Coach was going to give him the chance to win the game.

  E came up the way he was supposed to. But Bakari blew up the play, giving ground before E even had a chance to set the screen. Wes ran for the basket anyway, Bakari with him step for step. Wes knew he had the edge, because he knew what was going to happen next even if Bakari didn’t, that he was about to make a hard right turn for the corner. Wes was sure it would give him all the opening he needed.

  Dinero still had the ball at the top of the key.

  Bakari was on Wes’s shoulder as the two of them approached the basket.

  Now.

  Two things happened then, pretty much at the exact same moment, hard to tell which happened first, neither one good for the Annapolis Hawks.

  Wes made his cut.

  Dinero threw the ball right where he’d been.

  The pass went out of bounds, behind Wes, with three seconds showing on the clock.

  Grizzlies’ ball.

  The Hawks never even got the chance to foul. Bakari quickly took the ball from the ref, threw a half-court pass to Bo, who dribbled out the clock. And the game.

  As soon as the horn sounded, Dinero walked straight for Wes, and in a voice only the two of them could hear said, “I passed you the ball this time. You happy?”

  “I wasn’t open,” Wes said.

  “Then maybe I should get the ball to someone who is next time.”

  Before Dinero walked away, he said one more thing under his breath.

  Told Wes that his head had ended up you-know-where after all.

  SEVENTEEN

  ONLY WES HEARD WHAT DINERO said.

  And the first thing that hit Wes, even more than the hurt of what had just happened, was this:

 
What if Dinero was right?

  Not about Wes playing with his head up his you-know-what. But had Wes been playing with his head down? Had he been open enough for Dinero to get him the ball?

  So as mean as Dinero had sounded, as mean as a toothache, maybe he was right. Maybe Wes had done the one thing you were never supposed to do on a basketball court, and had lost sight of where the ball was.

  And now the Hawks had lost a game because of that.

  Wes’s mom had made the trip to Bethesda for the game. When Wes was out of the handshake line, and Coach had actually told all of the players on his team to keep their heads up, Christine Davies came over and reminded Wes that he was going home with Mr. and Mrs. Pike and Emmanuel, because she had to get right back to the book fair that had started today at Annapolis High, and would go on all week. She also reminded him that she would be home in plenty of time to make them dinner.

  “You played beautifully,” his mom said.

  “Mom,” he said. “We lost.”

  “Not your fault,” she said.

  “You sure about that?”

  She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and got close to his ear and said, “That pass didn’t throw itself away.”

  And left.

  Emmanuel Pike knew enough to know that Wes had no interest in talking about the game on the ride home and must have told his parents not to talk about it, either. So they didn’t, mostly riding in silence all the way back to Annapolis.

  When they pulled up to Wes’s house, E said, “You want me to come in and we’ll just hang for a while?”

  “I can come pick up Emmanuel later,” E’s mom said.

  “No thanks, I’ll call you later,” Wes said. “Nobody wants to hang with me right now.”

  “I do,” E said.

  “Call you later,” Wes said again.

  “You’re just gonna go inside and keep blaming yourself for a loss that wasn’t your fault, right?” E said.

  “Basically, yeah,” Wes said.

  “Figured so,” Emmanuel said.

  “You know me,” Wes said.

  “Aw, man, do I ever?” Emmanuel Pike said.

  Wes didn’t notice his dad sitting on the front step, back against the front door, until Mr. Pike had backed out of the driveway, and their car had pulled away.

  EIGHTEEN

  THERE WAS NO CAR AROUND. Once again, his dad had managed to show up when his mom wasn’t here. But how did he know that? If they’d been talking in the last couple of days, Wes was sure his mom would have said something about that. But she hadn’t.

  Did his dad know she was at the book fair? But if he knew, how did he?

  Or did he not care?

  “Hey, Dad,” Wes said.

  He had his bag over his shoulder. He’d changed into his street sneakers after the game, so his game shoes were in the bag, along with a bottle of water and the shooting shirt all the Hawks wore during warmups.

  “Hey, kid,” Michael Davies said.

  He was wearing his old Orioles cap and what looked to be the same old jeans he’d worn on his last visit, and a dark blue Navy hoodie.

  “Mom’s not here,” Wes said. “She’s over at school.”

  His dad nodded, not saying whether that was news to him or not. To Wes, he looked even more tired than usual and even thinner.

  And older, somehow.

  “We lost today,” Wes said.

  “How’d you play?”

  “Pretty well, until the very end,” Wes said, and then he described the last play. How he thought he was covered. How Dinero threw the ball to him anyway. How Dinero had hogged the ball for most of the game, until that moment.

  When he finished, his dad said, “Well, you win some, you lose some.”

  He got up now, slowly, and Wes thought he might want to go inside. But all he did was sit back down on the top step of the front stoop.

  Wes thought, You win some, you lose some?

  “I kind of feel like the turnover was as much my fault as his,” Wes said. “Maybe more.”

  His dad actually laughed.

  What was so funny?

  “Did he really say that about getting your head out of your rear end?” Michael Davies said.

  “He didn’t say rear end,” Wes said.

  “Gotta admit,” his dad said, “sounds like a pretty good analysis, if you ask me. But don’t you worry. One day that boy’s going to hang a poster of you on his wall. He’s lucky he gets to share the same court with you.” Then he laughed again.

  Wes’s whole life, every game that he’d ever played when his dad was around, they’d broken down the game when it was over, as if Wes were still trying to break down a defense. If his dad had attended the game, he’d focus on the parts he thought were most important. If he hadn’t been there, Wes would be the one to pick out the highlights and lowlights, almost as if he were playing the big moments of the game all over again.

  Wes wanted that today, in the worst way. He wanted him to be that dad, one more time.

  Only this dad was the one acting as if his head weren’t in the game.

  “You feeling okay, Dad?” he said.

  “Never better,” he said brightly. “Why do you ask?”

  “You’re just acting a little funny, is all.”

  “What, a guy can’t be funny? Lighten your load a little there, big guy. It’s a long season.” Now he had this goofy grin on his face. “It’s just one game, for crying out loud.”

  “You used to tell me that they’re all big games if somebody is keeping score,” Wes said.

  There was no indication that his dad had heard what he just said. Or maybe he’d heard and just didn’t care.

  “You got any water?” his dad said now. “Little thirsty all of a sudden.”

  Wes said he did, reached into his bag and handed the bottle in there, one he hadn’t opened yet, to his dad, who took it and seemed to drink half of the water down in loud gulps.

  When he was finished, he set it down carefully beside him, almost as if he were afraid that somehow the plastic bottle might break if he tipped it over.

  “I actually think things between me and Dinero are getting worse,” Wes said, trying to get the subject back to basketball.

  His dad lifted his shoulders, let them fall. “Still early,” he said.

  Neither one of them spoke now.

  Finally Wes said, “You staying for dinner tonight?”

  In his head, he thought that if he could just get him to stick around, as weirdly as he was acting, it would feel as if he’d won something today.

  “Gotta be someplace,” his dad said. The goofy grin again. “And you know what they say, right? Everybody’s gotta be somewhere.”

  “Okay,” Wes said, and then almost by reflex said, “Maybe next time.”

  Suddenly there was the sound of his mom’s car pulling into the driveway. It seemed to startle his dad, the grin disappearing from his face, his eyes wide. He seemed to lean away from the noise of the car engine, and as he did, he knocked over the water bottle, the rest of its contents spilling across the top step.

  By now his mom was out of the car, closing the door, but not making any move toward the house. She was just staring at Wes’s dad.

  “Michael,” she said.

  He spread out his arms and said, “Honey, I’m home!”

  She looked in the direction of the street. “Where’s your car?”

  “Took an Uber,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “And why was that?” she said.

  “I do that sometimes when I don’t feel like driving,” he said. The grin was back. “Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  “I’ve asked you to call before you stop by,” she said. “It’s the polite and respectful thing to do. For Wes and for me.”

  He
put his arms out wide, palms up. “Forgot my manners,” he said. “My bad.”

  “You’re welcome to stay,” she said. “I’ve got enough food for three.”

  “Thanks but no thanks,” he said. “I’ll just walk for a while and then Uber on home.”

  Christine Davies said, “Let me drive you.”

  “No need.”

  “I’d be happy to do it.”

  Wes’s head was going back and forth, from his mom to his dad. It was like some kind of standoff, even with his dad still sitting down.

  “Nah,” he said. “Adios, amigos.”

  He waved. Wes’s mom started up the walk as his dad started down it. He tried to give her a lot of room to pass him, actually moving over so that he was on the lawn. But she stopped suddenly and got in front of him, blocking his way.

  They were almost nose to nose. Neither one of them spoke until Wes’s mom said, “Your breath.”

  He watched as his dad broke the stare-down and just looked down now. When he tried to move around her again, she blocked his way again, almost as if she were guarding him.

  “Please,” he said.

  Michael Davies looked back up at his wife, then at Wes, then back at her.

  “Not in front of the boy,” he said in a voice that wasn’t much more than a whisper.

  “Please don’t,” he said. “Just let me go.”

  But Wes knew there was no stopping her now.

  “Don’t you ever come to this house again after you’ve been drinking,” she said.

  His dad hung his head a little and shuffled his feet.

  Then she let him pass. Wes and his mom watched him slowly walk toward the street. When he got to the sidewalk, he seemed uncertain about which way to go, finally made up his mind, and went left.

  Wes thought for a second about going after him, even took a step in his direction before he stopped.

  “Let him go,” she said.