No Slam Dunk

by Mike Lupica

  “I’m an idiot,” Dinero said as he and Wes were getting back on defense.

  “It’ll go in next time,” Wes said.

  Wes was doing all the things that had worked against Bakari in the first half, but nothing worked because Bakari had just gone off. He and Wes were still the same guys. But it was a different game now. Wes knew why: It was basketball and Bakari had found his shot.

  Bakari went left a couple of times when Wes was certain he was going right. A couple of minutes later he seemed to have a good look, but suddenly spun, backed Wes up, and banked home a turnaround, a shot Wes hadn’t seen from him in either game they’d played this season.

  Really what he’d done was raise his game. Now Wes would have to do the same.

  But the Grizzlies had momentum and came all the way back to tie the game. Even with the game tied, they seemed to be winning.

  The teams traded points and were still tied with two and a half minutes left. Grizzlies’ ball. Bakari made a sweet pass inside to Trevor, but E got a block. Immediately, Wes released. E threw as accurate a long pass as he had all season. It had to be accurate because Bakari was running stride for stride with Wes. If the ball had come up a little short, Bakari would have intercepted it. He didn’t. Wes got a layup.

  Hawks by two.

  Trevor made a turnaround of his own against E.

  Game tied again, 48–all.

  Dinero had a great look at a three, but at the last second he kicked the ball inside to DeAndre, who had a much better look, about six feet away. DeAndre made the shot. Hawks by two again. Bakari, even with Wes all over him, made a long two-pointer, his foot just inside the three-point line. Game tied at 50. Wes tried a three from the right corner. Was sure he’d knocked it down. Watched in amazement as the ball rattled out.

  Game still tied, Grizzlies’ ball.

  Wes hounded Bakari into passing the ball to Trevor, who shot from just inside the free-throw line. The shot was too strong, bouncing off the back of the rim and right into E’s hands.

  Twenty seconds left.

  Hawks’ ball.

  Coach called time.

  “Two-man game,” he said to Wes and Dinero.

  “But what’s the play?” Dinero said.

  “The play is you two playing a two-man game and figuring it out,” Coach said.

  As they walked back out on the court, Dinero whispered to Wes, “I’ll get it to you.”

  Wes gave a quick shake of his head.

  “That’s what they’ll be expecting,” he said. “Especially Bakari.”

  “You want me to take the shot?” Dinero said.

  Wes knew he didn’t have much time. The ref was waiting with the ball, side out.

  “Take your guy off the dribble,” he said into Dinero’s ear. “Give it over to me. But I’ll fake the shot. When I give it back, you put that move on them again and beat everybody to the basket.”

  “You’re our best shot,” Dinero said.

  “Nope,” Wes said. “You are.”

  Wes was on the left wing this time when Dinero threw him the ball. Wes put the ball on the floor, as if he were trying to put a move on Bakari, get himself into position to take the shot to win the game.

  He dribbled left, toward the left corner, and immediately created some space for himself.

  But before he got to the corner, he stopped and jumped and fired the ball back to Dinero Rey, who was just to the left of the free-throw line.

  Ten seconds left.

  Right-handed dribble from Dinero. Then switching to his left hand. Then back to his right, in a blur.

  Seven.

  Dinero had the step he needed on Tate.

  Trevor left E and tried to cut him off. Trevor, who looked like a tall, skinny tree when he had his arms up in the air.

  Five seconds.

  Dinero gave him his hesitation step.

  Released the ball with two seconds showing on the clock.

  The ball didn’t go over Trevor’s hands. It went around them.

  Right to E, who was all alone in front of the hoop.

  Bucket.

  Buzzer.

  FORTY

  THERE WAS ONLY ONE THING wrong with the picture after Wes and the guys were out of the handshake line and had begun their celebration with one another:

  When he looked up to the top of the stands, where his dad and Dinero’s dad had sat for the second half, only Mr. Rey was there, starting to make his way back to the court, even smiling for a change.

  Even as Wes felt the smile disappearing from his own face because his dad had somehow managed to disappear as quickly as he’d appeared in the first place.

  He went over to where his mom was standing with E’s parents.

  “He left?” Wes said.

  “He did.”

  “Just like that?” Wes said. “Without saying good-bye to me?”

  “He said he had an appointment he could not miss,” she said. “But he promised he’d explain later.”

  “Sounds like it was an appointment more important than the one he could have had with me after the game,” Wes said.

  “I don’t think that’s so.”

  “I do,” he said.

  “Your dad came back a long way today,” Christine Davies said. “You saw how he took charge of the situation at halftime. That was the husband I know, and the father you knew.”

  “He could have at least waited to say good-bye,” Wes said.

  “He took charge today and then you took charge in your game,” she said. “Let’s focus on the positives. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he said.

  His dad had been there today, for Wes and Dinero and the team. Even for Mr. Rey, whether Mr. Rey had liked it at first or not. That wasn’t nothing.

  But where had he gone?

  What was more important than Wes and his game?

  E came over later and they watched college basketball on television, and then E stayed for dinner, Wes’s mom having told E’s parents that she’d be happy to drive him home.

  “I felt like we were in a movie when your dad just showed up like that,” E said to Wes.

  “Wish I knew how the movie’s going to come out,” Wes said.

  They were still at the table, eating the banana splits Wes’s mom had made for them.

  “Be patient,” his mom said. “Aren’t you always telling me that you’ve got to let a play develop?”

  “You sound like Mr. Correa with that patience stuff,” he said.

  “An example of great minds thinking alike,” she said.

  “Admit something,” E said. “You’re at least allowing yourself to feel good about yourself and Dinero and our team?”

  “Our team, mostly,” Wes said.

  “You could have taken the last shot if you wanted to,” E said. “Admit that, too.”

  “Doesn’t matter whether I could have or not,” Wes said. “Dinero ended up with a better shot.”

  “We were a team today when we had to be,” E said.

  “And my dad had a hand in that,” Wes said.

  “Didn’t he, though?” his mom said.

  Wes took the ride with his mom to E’s house when it was time for E to leave. On the way they talked about maybe going over to the rec center for open gym tomorrow.

  Wes did some reading when he got home, a book about a New York City point guard who ended up becoming kind of a hoop legend when he and his mom moved to California. But by the time he’d read ten pages, he could feel his eyes getting heavy. He had gotten that tired, that fast, as if the whole day had caught up with him.

  He washed his face, brushed his teeth, shut out the lights, yelled out to his mom that he loved her. She yelled back that she loved him more.

  But he was still thinking about his dad and where he’d gone after th
e game. What he might be doing right this minute. Was he watching a game at that bar? Did he still even watch basketball games at night the way he used to?

  Was he missing Wes and his mom as much as they missed him?

  Wes didn’t see the text Mr. Correa had sent him until the next morning.

  Meet me at the gym at Annapolis Christian, one o’clock. Good game.

  FORTY-ONE

  WES’S MOM DROVE HIM OVER to Annapolis Christian and said she’d come in to say hello to Mr. Correa. Wes had brought his game sneaks and his gym bag with a couple of bottles of water in it, and even his Hawks’ shooting shirt, just because he was proud of it.

  But Mr. Correa hadn’t invited him to play; he found that out as soon as he walked into the gym.

  The court was filled with kids that had to be the third-graders that he’d told Wes he was coaching on weekends, sometimes on both Saturdays and Sundays, depending on gym schedules.

  This had to be one of those Sundays.

  “I thought when he said to show up for a good game, he meant one I could play in,” Wes said.

  His mom grinned. “Looks like you’d dominate if you did,” she said.

  “You can go, Mom,” Wes said. “Mr. C must have wanted me to come watch his kids.”

  “Maybe I’ll watch for a little while, too,” she said. “And remember what it was like when your rug-rat team was playing another.”

  They’d played four minutes already, according to the scoreboard, but the score was only 2–2. Mr. Correa’s bench was at the far end. He was standing in front of it, because one of his players had just used what looked like all of his strength to get the ball to the basket and score.

  “Way to go, Danny,” Mr. Correa said, smiling and shaking a fist at him.

  It wasn’t until he sat back down that Wes and his mom saw what Mr. C must have wanted them to see:

  Wes’s dad, who’d been sitting right behind him.

  “Mom,” Wes said.

  “I see,” she said.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Coaching,” she said.

  They were in the corner and sat down now in the first row of the bleachers. Wes’s dad stood up as they did, smiling himself, waving Mr. C’s players to get back on defense.

  Now they knew what game he’d left the bar for, and where he must have been going after Wes’s own game the day before. He didn’t have a game to play. He had one to coach. He was so wrapped up in what he was doing, and so happy doing it, that he didn’t seem to notice Wes and his mom. Or didn’t let on that he did.

  Wes watched him and thought:

  He looks like he’s home.

  Or maybe almost home.

  It wasn’t until halftime that Mr. Correa and Wes’s dad walked down to where Wes and his mom were sitting.

  “Busted,” Michael Davies said.

  “Blame me,” Mr. Correa said. “I asked them to come.”

  “You didn’t mention that to me,” Wes’s dad said.

  “Well, yeah,” Mr. C said, shrugging. “But until now I’d failed to mention that I gave you a coaching job, even if the only pay is cookies and juice boxes when the game is over.”

  “Hey,” Wes’s dad said to his mom.

  “Hey yourself,” she said. “We having any fun yet?”

  “Ton of it,” he said.

  Wes looked at Mr. C.

  “How did this happen?” he said.

  “I’ll explain after the game,” he said. “For now, I gotta get back to work.”

  “It doesn’t look like work to me,” Wes said.

  Mr. Correa grinned. “Are you kidding?” he said. “Trying to make me look as if I know what I’m doing is a huge job.”

  The score was 8–6 for Mr. C’s team by then. There were times in the third quarter when Wes honestly thought that neither team might score a single basket. But the kids were having a great time running up and down the court, and Wes was having a great time watching, because they did make him remember what it was like when he first started playing organized ball, and could barely remember the final score an hour after he got home.

  What Wes remembered best about those games was that he’d be afraid to look up at the clock during the second half, because he didn’t want to know when the game would be ending, way too soon for him. The only thing that made him sad at eight wasn’t losing, it was knowing that when the game was over, he had to wait a whole week to play another one.

  But as the clock started to run out today, he found himself watching his dad more than the players. Michael Davies would usually pick out one boy to talk to during a timeout, get down on a knee, smiling and talking away, pointing to the court. Sometimes he’d call out one of the players’ names and simply point them in the right direction. It never sounded to Wes like he was ordering them around. More like he was making suggestions.

  A couple of times he called out to the team—by now Wes knew the name was Warriors—and made a motion like he was reminding them to box out after a missed shot.

  One time, Wes leaned over to his mom and said, “He looks as young as anybody out there.”

  “Doesn’t he,” she said.

  The game ended up tied at 12 with twenty seconds left. So, it turned out that the Hawks weren’t the only ones playing a close game this weekend. Mr. Correa, still smiling, called a timeout and waved his players over. They sprinted to the bench. When they got there, he pointed to Wes’s dad, who knelt in the middle of the circle of third-graders, talking away, finally pointing at the boy Mr. C had called Danny and the tallest kid on the team, clearly drawing up a play he thought could win them the day.

  “Back door,” Wes said to his mom.

  “I’m going to assume that’s not the way you want us to leave when the game is over,” she said.

  “Mom,” he said.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Dad loves that play,” Wes said. “The blond boy, Danny, is the one who’s handled the ball most of the time. The tall boy with the freckles has scored most of their points. Danny will be on one side. The tall guy will be on the other. He’ll come running out, maybe even wave for Danny to throw the ball. But then he’ll stop, and cut back to the basket—going through the back door on the play—and Danny will try to throw him the ball.”

  “I actually followed that,” she said.

  “If it works right, they’ll win the game,” Wes said.

  “You’re sure of this?” his mom said.

  “Not that it’ll work,” Wes said. “I just know how Dad likes the game to be played.”

  It worked.

  Danny waited until the exact right moment, as Wes was sure he’d been told, and threw a high pass over the defense, though it didn’t have to be all that high considering the ages and heights of the players. The tall, skinny boy caught the ball, dribbled twice, didn’t travel, and made the layup that won the game for the Warriors.

  After he did, the Warriors’ players on the court came running for Wes’s dad, all of them trying to high-five him at once.

  “He looks pretty happy,” Wes’s mom said.

  “So do you,” Wes said.

  “I don’t think it’s about winning the game,” she said.

  “It never was.”

  They drove back to the house together.

  FORTY-TWO

  THEY SAT AT THE KITCHEN table, the way they used to after Wes’s games. This time Wes’s mom joined him and his dad. She drank tea. His dad had a cup of coffee in front of him. Wes said he didn’t need anything, he was fine.

  Because he was.

  They had been talking for a while. Wes’s dad had done most of the talking.

  “I finally decided I couldn’t go on the way I was,” he was saying now. “The low point, it goes without saying, was the day I made that awful scene after your game, son, for which I will always
be sorry.”

  “You don’t have to apologize to me, Dad,” Wes said.

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I do. To both of you.”

  “But if that day brought you to this one,” Christine Davies said, “then maybe it wasn’t the worst thing that will ever happen to this family.”

  His dad sipped his coffee, then said to his wife that she still made a damn fine cup of coffee. She said that he always said that. Didn’t make it any less true, he said. Wes watched them and thought: This is the way things used to be, even though he was smart enough to know that they weren’t here to talk about his mom’s coffee.

  “Anthony Phillips came here to see us,” Wes’s mom said.

  “I know,” his dad said. “We finally talked.”

  He looked at them. “He told you the story that I just told you,” he said. “He did my job for me.”

  “All it means,” Wes’s mom said, “is that you taught him well. And that he’s still as loyal to you back here as he was over there.”

  “Dealing with what happened and Jake’s death,” Michael Davies said, “turned out to be a different kind of war, just one inside me. It’s taken me a long time to figure that out.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “I decided I could handle it myself,” he said.

  “You would,” Wes’s mom said.

  She reached across the table, almost without thinking or by force of habit, and put her hand over her husband’s.

  “But the more Jake’s death tore me up, the more I drank,” he said.

  He looked at Wes. “These things might be hard for you to hear,” he said. “But they’re harder for me to say.”

  “I can handle it,” Wes said.

  “No doubt,” his dad said.

  He sighed again and kept going.

  “But I figured out that I’d had enough,” he said. “Not all problem drinkers come to that realization. But I finally did. My drinking wasn’t solving problems. It was creating more.” He smiled, but it wasn’t a happy one. “But I don’t have to tell either one of you that.”