No Slam Dunk

by Mike Lupica

  “Wes . . . I really gotta go.”

  “At least let Mom drive you.”

  “Rather walk,” he said. “You know what they say about guys in the condition I was in today. Air will do me good.”

  Finally he threw Wes a bounce pass. Wes caught it and threw him a bounce pass right back.

  “You’re still a great teammate, kid,” his dad said.

  Then he turned and walked in the other direction, away from the playground and away from the street where Wes’s mom had parked the car.

  It wasn’t until Wes was back inside the car that he remembered he hadn’t gotten the chance to thank his dad for coming to the game.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE HAWKS KEPT WINNING. WES’S dad stayed away. That was the story of the next few weeks of his life, as the season moved into January.

  And Dinero was still Dinero.

  As talented as he was, it was still as if he couldn’t get out of his own way sometimes, even with the Hawks going good, even looking like the best team in the league.

  He would be going along and looking every bit as much a team guy as Wes was, or Emmanuel Pike, who couldn’t have been more unselfish on the court if he tried. He would go long stretches of games and be a pass-first point guard, and totally play the game the right way.

  Then, all of a sudden, without warning, he’d turn back into the Money Man. The hey-look-at-me Dinero who attempted hot-dog passes and acrobatic drives to the basket almost for the fun of it. The thing of it was, he would make them work a lot of the time, which made it hard to be mad at him. Wes even found himself admiring some of the things Dinero could do on the court. That line between playing selfishly and unselfishly wasn’t always so clear when he was scoring buckets and the Hawks were winning games by ten points or more. Sure, Wes and the other guys were getting fewer touches, but was that a bad thing? Wes knew his dad would think so.

  One person who definitely thought so was Coach, who would sit Dinero down for a few minutes whenever Coach thought he was out of control. Wes would look over at them when there’d be a break in the action in the game and see Coach talking and Dinero nodding, neither one of them seemingly paying attention to what the rest of the Hawks were doing.

  When Dinero would get back out there, he’d play as if he’d learned whatever lessons Coach had been teaching him on the bench, and sometimes things would be fine for the rest of the game.

  Wes remembered something he’d read about Magic Johnson, how it was as if there were two of him: Magic and Earvin, which was his real first name. Earvin Johnson, they used to say when he was still playing, was the perfect teammate with the perfect basketball values, always looking to make the right pass, set up the right shot, either for himself or his Laker teammates. But then when the Showtime Lakers would get rolling, it was Magic who took over, doing fancy things on the court almost like he wanted to play for the Harlem Globetrotters.

  Even at twelve, Wes could see some of that in Dinero, as if he couldn’t help himself, even when he’d find himself getting the kind of timeout from Coach your parents used to give you when you were little and had misbehaved. Wes wondered what Dinero’s dad thought about the way he acted on the court. But when Wes would find him in the stands, he’d just be sitting there in the same pose, arms folded in front of him. Mr. Rey showed no emotion about what Dinero or anybody else was doing out there. It was like Mr. Rey thought of basketball as a business and Dinero was just doing his work.

  In Wes’s mind, Dinero had gotten better at keeping his ego under control as the season went along. And things seemed to have gotten better between them, certainly since the Rockets’ game, that day Wes’s dad had come out onto the court.

  Wes hadn’t seen his dad since that day at the park. As far as Wes knew, he hadn’t snuck into any of his games. His mom said she’d called him a few times, just to check in, but he wasn’t answering his phone or returning her calls.

  “Do you think he might have left Annapolis without telling us?” Wes said one night at dinner.

  “No. He’s been seeing a therapist at the Naval Academy once a week,” Wes’s mom said. “A friend of mine who’s a nurse has seen him there.”

  “You could go over there and try to talk to him,” Wes said.

  She shook her head. “Therapy is an intensely private thing,” she said, “especially for a private man like your father.”

  “At least he’s making an effort to get help,” Wes said. “That counts for something.”

  “It counts for a lot. There’s a part of him that understands he can’t do this alone,” she said. “So, there’s that. There’s just no room for us, at least not now.”

  All along Wes had thought that somehow basketball would bring him back. He’d clung to that. Now he wondered. Maybe the way his dad had embarrassed himself and embarrassed Wes that day drove him away from this season, maybe for good. So, Wes had lost him, at least for now, even as the Hawks kept winning.

  Maybe their most impressive win yet was the one they’d had today, on the road against the Northern Virginia Spurs. The Spurs had been undefeated before today. But the Hawks jumped on them early and led by sixteen points at the half.

  But then the Spurs showed why they had the record they did. It was a combination of things. Their shooters started to make the shots they’d been missing in the first half. And the Hawks started missing the shots they’d been making.

  Dinero wasn’t helping matters very much by trying to do too much himself. His shooting had gone cold but he kept forcing difficult shots when Wes or Emmanuel were open—if not for their own shot then at least for a pass. It was like the more Dinero missed, the more stubborn he grew.

  This time when Coach Saunders put him on the bench, halfway through the second half, he decided to keep him there. Josh, who normally would have replaced Dinero at point guard, had four fouls, so Coach moved Wes to the point, where he proceeded to take over the game without taking a single shot.

  The funny thing was, Wes had been having a good shooting day up until then. The Spurs had seen this, and with Dinero out of the game, they figured Wes would be the Hawks’ first option on offense. As soon as he brought the ball up the court, the Spurs’ defense began keying on him. So he did what any good point guard would do: He passed to the open man.

  First Russ hit a couple of shots. Then Emmanuel and DeAndre started playing a nifty two-man game in the low blocks. No matter who it was, there was always someone open for a shot, so Wes kept feeding them. E ended up in double figures for the first time all season, and it was the also the first time that Russ ended up feeling like part of the offense. Wes loved it, knowing that it would build their confidence and make the team stronger.

  “First place is gonna be ours,” E said when the game was over. “Slam dunk.”

  Wes shook his head.

  “No slam dunks in basketball,” he said. “Not when you’re our age.”

  It was the middle of the afternoon when the doorbell rang. For some reason, and even though he hadn’t seen his dad in weeks, Wes thought it might be him. Maybe his dad had been hiding somewhere in the gym in Alexandria. Maybe he’d seen with his own eyes the way Wes had played down the stretch and the way the Hawks had looked.

  Maybe his dad wanted to surprise him.

  There was a surprise waiting for him when he opened the front door, only not the one Wes was hoping for or one he expected.

  “Can I come in?” Dinero Rey asked.

  TWENTY-NINE

  WES DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO say at first.

  “Who’s there?” he heard his mom say from behind him.

  Wes stepped aside so she could see Dinero.

  “Well, Dinero, this is a surprise,” she said.

  You’re telling me, Wes thought.

  “Wesley Davies,” his mom said, “are you just going to stand there like a statue or are you going to invite the young
man in while I go check on my cookies?”

  “Sorry,” Wes said to Dinero. “I just wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  Dinero gave Wes one of his best smiles.

  “Guess what?” he said. “Neither was I.”

  They were still standing there in the doorway.

  “I didn’t even know you knew where I live,” Wes said.

  “Coach gave me the address,” Dinero said.

  “How’d you get here?” Wes said. He was looking past him, and didn’t see a car on the street.

  “My dad drove me,” Dinero said, “and said he’d be back for me later.”

  “Come on in,” Wes said.

  Dinero followed him into the house. Wes wasn’t sure where to take him, into the living room or the kitchen, or upstairs to his room or outside to the driveway.

  What the heck was he doing here?

  His mom saved him, at least for the time being.

  “Why don’t you two come back here to the kitchen?” she called out to them. “My killer chocolate chip cookies are going to be ready to be devoured by hungry young men in about two minutes.”

  Dinero followed Wes back to the kitchen. His mom already had a plate of chocolate chip cookies on the table that looked big enough to feed the entire Hawks team. She told Dinero that Wes usually had milk with the cookies when they were fresh out of the oven. Dinero said milk would be fine.

  They sat across from each other and didn’t really have to start up a conversation because they were too busy eating. After a few minutes Dinero smiled at Wes’s mom and said these were the best chocolate chip cookies he’d ever had in his life, but she had to swear not to tell his own mom that he’d said that. Christine Davies smiled back at him and said that his secret was most assuredly safe with her.

  “Another win for the Hawks today,” Wes’s mom said.

  “Thanks to Number Thirteen,” Dinero said. “I got to watch same as you did, Mrs. Davies.”

  “Could just as easily have been you out there at the end passing the ball around,” Wes said.

  Dinero even managed to smile about that.

  “Coach might disagree,” Dinero said.

  “Hey, all that matters is that we won,” Wes said. “I pretended I was you when I started to get a few assists.”

  “More than a few,” Dinero said.

  Somehow, even in his own kitchen, Wes couldn’t stop himself from being a team player. Maybe his dad was right. Maybe being that kind of team guy really was in his DNA. It was something else Wes had learned once from his dad: About DNA. And not just as your makeup applied to basketball.

  “Sometimes my ego gets in the way of my own game,” Dinero said now.

  “Happens to everybody,” Wes said, “all the way from seventh grade to the NBA.”

  They went back to eating cookies until Wes’s mom said, “Listen, you two seventh-grade basketball stars. I’ve got bills to pay upstairs. If you want more cookies, they’re in the cookie jar next to the fridge.”

  “Mom,” Wes said, “if I eat any more cookies, Dinero will have to roll me like a basketball out to the driveway after.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Dinero said. “My dad likes to say that the two most beautiful words in the world are ‘more pie.’ With me, it’s ‘more cookies.’”

  Wes’s mom left. Now it was just the two of them in the kitchen. It occurred to Wes that he was feeling more pressure to make conversation—with one of his teammates—than he did when he was at the free-throw line in a close game.

  Or driving to the basket.

  And sometimes, he thought, the easier way to get there was in a straight line.

  “Why are you here?” he said to Dinero.

  The way he just came out with it made Dinero laugh.

  “It’s not a short answer,” he said.

  “You got somewhere to be besides here?” Wes said.

  Dinero shook his head.

  “Me neither,” Wes said. “There’s no shot clock in my mom’s kitchen. Take as much time as you need.”

  Whatever needed to be worked out between them, maybe they could work it out once and for all.

  Dinero said he’d been wanting to come over and talk to Wes like this since Wes’s dad had come out of the stands after the Rockets’ game, and Wes had told Dinero he was going after him.

  “Some of the guys told me after about how he just got back from being in the army, right?” Dinero said.

  “Navy,” Wes said. “A Navy SEAL.”

  “Like the ones we studied in history?” Dinero said. “Like the guys who tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden?”

  “Like that,” Wes said. “He was in Afghanistan.”

  They weren’t talking about whatever reason had brought Dinero here today. But it was all right. They were here and they were talking, and that wasn’t nothing, as E liked to say.

  “SEALs are like the best of the best, right?” Dinero said.

  “Like a whole unit of navy LeBrons,” Wes said.

  “Like a Dream Team,” Dinero said.

  Well, yeah, Wes thought, until you feel like one of their lives has turned into a nightmare.

  “I’m still sorry for what happened that day,” Dinero said.

  “You didn’t do anything,” Wes said.

  “No, see, that’s the thing,” Dinero said, leaning forward. “I’m not apologizing about what your dad did. I’m apologizing for what I did.”

  “Not sure I understand,” Wes said. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “Actually I did,” Dinero said. “Because everybody in the gym knew he was really yelling about me that day.”

  Wes started to say something, was about to tell him that he’d moved on from the way that game ended, just like he’d moved on from what his dad had done. But Dinero put a hand up to stop him, almost like he’d anticipated a move Wes was about to make.

  “Don’t even bother denying it,” Dinero said. “You know it was true. He was mad at me because I didn’t pass you the ball.”

  “We won,” Wes said. “It’s all that matters, like I said before.”

  “But it does matter,” Dinero said. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since, too. Because think about it: If I’d passed you the ball like I should have and you’d knocked down one more jumper, he would never have started yelling or come out on the court or any of that.”

  “You don’t know that,” Wes said. “Maybe something else would have gotten him going. My mom says people hardly ever know what they’re going to do when they’ve had too much to drink.”

  Wes really didn’t know what to say now.

  “It took me a while to screw up my courage and come over here,” Dinero said. “Probably surprises you, since I know how cocky everybody thinks I am. But what happened to you that day is really on me.”

  Wes sat there. From next door he heard the neighbors’ dog barking. From upstairs he heard his mom talking to somebody on the telephone.

  “How about I say, apology accepted, and we just go from there?” Wes said.

  Dinero shook his head.

  “It’s not everything I came here to say today,” he said. “What I really came here to do is ask you to help me.”

  “Help you with what?” Wes said.

  “Help me be more like you in basketball,” Dinero Rey said.

  “Get out of here,” Wes said. “You’re already great at basketball. You’re the best player I’ve ever played with, pretty much.”

  Dinero nodded.

  “I’ve always been the best player on every team I’ve ever played on,” Dinero said.

  It didn’t come out in a cocky way, just like he was stating a fact.

  “But that’s why I’ve never had to be a great teammate,” Dinero continued. “Do you get what I’m trying to tell you? Everybody else alway
s had to be a good teammate to me, and that’s why I never had to learn to be one myself.”

  “It’s not like a class you can take,” Wes said. “I can’t teach somebody how to do that.”

  “I think you can,” Dinero said.

  “It was my dad who taught me,” Wes said.

  “See, that’s the thing!” Dinero said. He slapped the table so hard it made their glasses and the plate between them jump a little. “Your dad taught you that it’s all about the team. From the time I got good at basketball, my dad has been saying it all has to be about me. He’s the one like Lonzo Ball’s dad, except the only one who hears it from him is me.”

  Dinero smiled. “I was doing what my dad taught me that day against the Rockets,” he said. “And your dad got mad because I wasn’t being like you.”

  Without another word he stood up and took their glasses over to the sink and cleaned them, and put them on the counter. Then he came back and took the cookie plate and did the same thing.

  “Let’s go,” Dinero said then.

  “Where?”

  “That basket I saw in your driveway?” he said. “That’s the same one I have at home. Let’s go play some ball.”

  Wes grinned.

  “My basket, my ball, my rules,” he said.

  “I feel you,” Dinero said.

  Wes said, “About time!”

  This time they both laughed.

  Wes told Dinero where the ball was. He ran upstairs to get his sneakers since he’d been walking around in flip-flops when Dinero had shown up.

  His mom was waiting for him at the top of the stairs.

  “I might have overheard a little of what you two were talking about,” she said.

  “Mom!” Wes said, trying to act outraged, both of them knowing he wasn’t. “You were spying on us?”

  She put a finger to her lips. “Shh,” she said. “I don’t want Dinero to hear that I heard.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “And by the way?” she said. “You may call it spying. I call it taking a healthy interest in my son’s life.”