Summer Ball

by Mike Lupica

  When he turned from Rasheed, Coach Powers was already on him.

  “What was that?” he said.

  Not talking in his mean-quiet voice now, talking loud enough for people already in the mess hall to hear him.

  He pointed the finger of death at Danny and said, “Did you think you were bowling? Are you ever going to learn?”

  He’s acting like I lost the game, Danny thought, because of one stupid pass.

  Except it hadn’t been stupid, that was the thing.

  Nothing else was happening in The House. He could feel everybody just watching him and Coach.

  “Are you ever going to learn?” Coach Powers repeated.

  Danny just stood there with his head down, taking it again, good at taking it by now, when he heard the sound of the applause.

  The guys in the stands were clapping because he was getting yelled at by his coach?

  But then Danny heard something else, something much more amazing than applause, heard a calm grown-up voice saying, “Hey, take it easy there, Ed.” Heard the voice saying, “That looked like something I’d try, to tell you the truth.”

  Danny turned around, feeling himself smile as he did, somehow knowing who the voice belonged to before he even put a face with it.

  Josh Cameron.

  Josh Cameron himself: in a Rolling Stones T-shirt and cut-off jeans and unlaced green Nikes, a baseball cap turned backward on his head, shaking Danny’s hand and saying, “Cool pass, kid.”

  23

  THE PLAY-OFFS IN DANNY’S AGE GROUP STARTED THE WEDNESDAY OF the last week at Right Way. If you won your first two games, the final was scheduled for Saturday night in The House, in front of the whole camp, plus any parents who had showed up that day to pack their kids up and take them home. So it was a little like having championship weekend and parents’ weekend all wrapped up into one huge deal.

  Now all the Celtics had to do was make it to Saturday night.

  They were talking about that at dinner the night before the play-offs. It was a weird feeling, the Middletown guys had decided, knowing that if the Celtics won, it meant Ty lost. If Ty’s team, the Cavs, won the championship, it meant that Danny and Will lost.

  “Or we could all lose,” Tarik said. “Any of you bracketologists ever think of that?”

  “Shut up,” Will said. “That would mean Lamar wins.”

  “Not happenin’,” Rasheed said.

  Danny said to Ty and Will, “When was the last time we all weren’t on the same side for a big game?”

  “Biddy,” Will said. “When we were all eight. Ty made that layup at the buzzer, remember?”

  “Over me,” Danny said. “Like I wasn’t there.”

  “Shoulda done your flop thing,” Rasheed said.

  “Thing” came out “thang” with him sometimes.

  “I don’t flop,” Danny said.

  Tarik groaned. “Oh, sweet Lord, here we go again,” he said.

  “Nah,” Rasheed said. “Now we’re on the same side.”

  “Except for Ty,” Will said.

  “Remember, it’s only summer ball,” Ty said.

  “I know,” Danny said. “It just feels like more now.”

  He had played a lot the last two games of the regular season, after they’d finally beaten the Cavs the day of his famous bowling-ball pass. Ever since then, Coach Powers had coached as if Josh Cameron were looking over his shoulder, especially in the second half of the Cavs game, when Danny had gotten to play the point as much as Rasheed, dished out a bunch of assists, played pretty much his best all-around game in Maine, maybe even fooled Josh Cameron into thinking this was the way he always played for Coach Powers.

  When the game had ended, Danny actually felt good about things for a change, felt some of his old confidence coming back. Josh had come back over to him and said, “You’re Richie Walker’s boy, right?”

  Danny said, yes sir, that was him, all right.

  “I should’ve figured that out the minute you made that pass,” Josh said. Then he clapped Danny on the back and yelled over to Coach Powers, “Hey, Ed, I’ve got my eye on this guy.”

  Coach Powers pointed at Josh and nodded, like the two of them were in perfect agreement.

  When they were outside that day, Tarik had said to Danny, “Well, looky there. Coach Ed seems to have swallowed up his own bad self all of a sudden.”

  “For now.”

  “Know what that old man’s problem is?” Tarik said. “He just plain forgot what he loved about this game in the first place.”

  Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe not, but their last two games, Danny had played as much with the first unit as Cole had. Sometimes more. A week ago, he couldn’t wait to get out of here. Now he couldn’t wait for the play-offs to start.

  Summer ball.

  Only more.

  Danny talked to his mom that night on the telephone. He was hoping to talk to both his parents, mostly because he hadn’t talked to his dad one time since the night he’d told him about faking the injury. But his mom informed him that his dad was out taking his nightly walk.

  “My dad?” Danny said. “Walking for, like, exercise?”

  “He says that if he’s going to coach next season, he’s not doing it from a folding chair.”

  “Mom,” Danny said, “you sure he’s not there and just doesn’t want to talk to me?”

  “He’s calmed down about the whole knee thing,” she said, then quickly added, “Somewhat, anyway. You know your dad. He just needs longer to work through things than most people.”

  Danny said, “Is he coming with you when you come to pick me up?”

  When she didn’t answer right away, Danny knew.

  “It’s a long time for him to sit in the car,” his mom said.

  “The finals are on Saturday night if we make it.”

  There was a pause and then his mom said, “I know. And now let’s change the subject, shall we?”

  “Fine with me.”

  Ali Walker said, “So, how goes the battle?”

  “Still a battle,” Danny said, then filled her in on his fight with Lamar, his suspension, Tess’s camera. How he and Rasheed were boys now. Josh Cameron giving him a shout-out after he made the funky pass. When Danny was done, he felt like he’d just made some kind of presentation in front of her class: “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” by Danny Walker.

  “I’m sorry about the fight, Mom,” he said. “But he was picking on Zach.”

  His mom surprised him then. The way she surprised him a lot. “Don’t beat yourself up because a big guy was about to beat up a little guy.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t fight.”

  “And I told you,” she said, “that one of the secrets to life is picking your fights.”

  “Play-offs start tomorrow,” he said.

  “How’s the old coach?”

  “Same old. But he’s been letting me play more.”

  “Hel-lo,” his mom said. “He wants to win, right?”

  Danny smiled. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You don’t need more of a pep talk?” she said. “I’ve got a lot more material.”

  “I’m good.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said. “You are the goodest.”

  Danny said, “And you’re an English teacher?”

  “See you Saturday night for the big game,” she said.

  “If we make it that far.”

  “You will.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “It’s who you are, kiddo,” she said.

  “Do me a favor?”

  “Anything.”

  “Remind Dad of that if you get a chance.”

  The Celtics, as the number 6 team, drew the Bulls, number 3, in the first round. If they beat the Bulls, that meant they were probably going to play the Cavs, Ty’s team, in the semis.

  Then, if everything worked out the way it was supposed to, they’d play the Lakers, the top seed, in the finals.

  Them against Lamar.


  Sometimes you didn’t get to pick your fights.

  Sometimes, Danny thought, they picked you.

  “Winning the championship, that’s what you came here for,” Coach Powers said in their pregame huddle.

  Danny wanted to say, No, that’s what you came here for.

  They had split their two games with the Bulls, basically a two-man team with the two Brooklyn AAU guys, Kareem Dell and TJ Tucker. The Celtics had lost the first one when Danny shot the air ball at the end, then won the last regular-season game, one Rasheed said didn’t count because the Bulls’ coach, Coach Pedulla, had barely played Kareem or TJ in the second half.

  “Understand,” Rasheed had said to Danny in the layup line. “They didn’t want to win yesterday. They wanted the seedings the way they already were, them at three and us at six. You hear what I’m tellin’ you? These guys wanted us.”

  “My mom always says, be careful what you wish for,” Danny said, grinning at him.

  “Mine, too.”

  Cole started with Rasheed in the backcourt. Danny figured the way Coach Powers had been using him, he’d get in at the end of the first quarter or maybe start the second. But when the Celtics got behind by ten points after the first three minutes, in a blink, Coach Powers said, “Walker.”

  Danny was a few seats down from him. “Yes, Coach?”

  Coach Powers turned and said, “I was wondering if you might be interested in going into the game?”

  Now Danny jumped up. “Yes, Coach!”

  “Play the point for a little bit,” he said, “and cover that pesky boy with the crew cut. See if we can get him to do the same with you at the other end.”

  The pesky boy with the crew cut, and more freckles than Danny had ever seen on one face, was Ricky Hartmann. By now, having gone through the regular season and seen a bunch of games, Danny knew Ricky was pretty much the one guy at Right Way you didn’t want guarding you, under any circumstances. Will and Tarik, who had made it their mission to know as much as possible about as many campers as possible, said Ricky was a defensive back in football at home in Philadelphia. Before he would foul out of a game, and he fouled out of almost every game, he came after you like he was blitzing a quarterback, sometimes from the quarterback’s blind side.

  He took Danny now, the way Coach Powers wanted.

  “Oh, man, is this ever taking one for the team,” Danny said to Rasheed a couple minutes later, while Tarik took two foul shots. Ricky Hartmann had already fouled Danny once, sending him sliding into the first row of bleachers when the two of them dove for a loose ball.

  “You’re part of this team now,” Rasheed said. “That’s the main thing.”

  It wasn’t as if Danny came into the game and started running rings around Ricky Hartmann. Ricky aggressively bodied up on him every chance he got, held him when the ref wasn’t looking, even hip-checked Danny right off the court one time when Danny tried to get out on a fast break Rasheed was leading. Somehow, though, Danny held his own. More importantly, Rasheed, even with Kareem guarding him now, was getting some room to maneuver, starting to get his points in bunches.

  The Celtics cut the lead to four by halftime.

  It felt like a real game now.

  Right before the second half started, Coach Powers said, “Same group we opened the game with.” Then he paused. “Except for Cole. Walker, you take his place for now.”

  When they started to break the huddle, Danny felt somebody grab his arm, hard, from behind.

  He turned around and saw that it was Cole.

  “This should’ve been your spot all along,” he said. “Now, go kick their butts.”

  There were no surprises from the Bulls, not in a play-off game. They were just going to ride Kareem and TJ as far as they could. With seven minutes left, the two of them had stretched the Bulls’ lead to twelve points, their biggest lead of the game. The Bulls had gone to a zone, and Rasheed, playing with four fouls, wasn’t just missing, he’d gotten frustrated trying to get open looks at the basket.

  Finally Coach Powers, more out of desperation than anything else, called a time-out and put Will Stoddard in the game, said he was giving Will a chance to be what he called his designated zone-buster.

  Even now, facing elimination in the first round, Will was incapable of being anybody except himself.

  “You know what they say, Coach?” Will said.

  “What do they say, Mr. Stoddard?”

  Will hit him with one of his favorite lines then. “There’s no greater tragedy in basketball than being hot and not knowing it.”

  “You think this is funny, son?” Coach Powers said.

  “No, sir,” Will said. “Just fun.”

  Will hit his first two threes. Then another shot with his foot on the three-point line. And all those baskets did was change everything for the Celtics, just like that. Danny had seen it before, a couple of baskets changing everything. Now it had happened here, against the Bulls. It was one of the things Danny loved about sports, how fast things changed. His dad always said that it was something that had always fascinated him about all sports, not just basketball—how fragile games could be, how they could turn on the smallest moment or play, and how you better be ready when they did.

  Will had done exactly what he was supposed to do, which meant he had shot the Bulls right out of their zone. Ricky Hartmann was still on Danny when the Bulls went back to man-to-man, Kareem was still on Rasheed. With two minutes left, Rasheed beat Kareem off the dribble and seemed to have a clear path right down the middle. But Ricky Hartmann switched off Danny and got in his way just as Rasheed dropped his shoulder for his drive.

  Rasheed went down, Ricky went down.

  Ball went in.

  Nick Pinto, reffing the game, didn’t hesitate, signaling offensive foul.

  Rasheed had fouled out.

  Anybody else, Danny knew, including Danny himself, would have jumped up and protested the call, because it was that close. And usually a call like this, this late in the game, this late in an important game, went to star players.

  Rasheed just sat there. Nick, answering a question Rasheed hadn’t even asked, said, “He beat you to the spot.”

  Rasheed just shook his head, stayed where he was, arms folded across his knees. Chillin’. Even now.

  Danny put a hand down to pull him up. Before Rasheed reached up to take it, he looked at Danny and said, “World’s full of danged floppers, you know?”

  “I thought it was on him this time,” Danny said and pulled him up.

  “Yo,” Rasheed said. “Now you all got to pick me up in more ways than one.”

  Danny grinned at him. “Don’t worry, dog,” he said. “I got you.”

  Kareem chased down a loose ball with forty seconds left, turned around and made a truly outrageous three-pointer to put the Bulls ahead by one. Will missed a wide-open three at the other end, first shot he’d missed since Coach Powers put him in. As soon as TJ got the rebound, David Upshaw fouled him.

  Twenty-two seconds left.

  Coach Powers called their last time-out.

  He said they were going small: Danny, Tarik, Will, Cole, plus David. Coach said that if TJ made both free throws, putting the Bulls up three, to look for Will at the other end, out beyond the arc.

  If they only needed a two to tie or win the game, Coach Powers said for them to spread it once they got over half-court.

  “Spread it for who?” Danny said.

  “You,” Coach Ed Powers said.

  “Got it,” he said, like he always ended up with the rock with the game on the line.

  TJ, who could do everything on a court except shoot free throws, missed them both. David Upshaw got the rebound, Danny pushed the ball hard over half-court then put the brakes on, passed it to Will and got it right back.

  He put the ball on his hip and checked the clock.

  Ricky Hartmann was eyeballing him, in a defensive crouch, looking as if he really might try to tackle Danny as soon as he made a move.

 
Danny started his dribble with ten seconds left. Ricky got right up on him. Danny dusted him with a crossover that was up there with Rasheed’s best. Then he broke into the clear at the top of the circle.

  TJ Tucker came over from the corner, covering about twenty feet with about two long strides.

  It had come down to Danny against TJ again, the way it had when Danny shot the air ball.

  TJ Tucker, whose arms were even longer than broom handles.

  Danny slowed up just slightly at the free throw line, pulled the ball in, went into his shooting motion, hands in perfect position.

  TJ, with those amazing ups of his, went way up, like he wasn’t just trying to block the shot, like he wanted to be another guy catching one of Danny’s shots.

  Small problem.

  Danny didn’t shoot it.

  He sold his fake, though, sold it as well as he’d ever sold a fake in his life.

  Then he waited for gravity.

  What goes up, he thought, must come down.

  When TJ did come down, like he was falling out of the sky, Danny leaned in and waited for the contact he knew was coming, then right before TJ landed on top of him, he fired the ball at the basket.

  He landed hard.

  But rolled like a champ.

  The way Nick Pinto said little guys had to.

  Then Danny got up, tucked his jersey back into his shorts, went to the line, knocked down the two free throws that put the Celtics into the second round, the whole thing becoming official once Kareem missed a wild heave at the very end.

  Danny was at half-court when the horn sounded. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around.

  “Glad you hung around this place?” Nick Pinto said.

  24

  THEY WENT INTO CEDARVILLE AFTER THE GAME, NICK PINTO DRIVING. Even after everything that had happened at Right Way, it still seemed to Danny as if it were just the other day that Nick had driven them to camp from the Portland airport.

  “Sure am going to miss that hooptie bus,” Tarik said. “The 4 train doesn’t shake like this when it comes into the Yankee Stadium stop.”

  Nick dropped them in front of Pops and they went right for their favorite booth, where everybody ordered milk shakes, except for Rasheed, who said the only way to celebrate was with a root beer float.