Summer Ball

by Mike Lupica

  “Hooptie,” Will said, shaking his head. “Another cool word.”

  “Maybe you should have been keeping a diary on stuff Tarik says,” Danny said. “In case you forget some of them when you get home.”

  “Get home and deal with your general heartbreak on not being black,” Tarik said.

  Will had ripped through his milk shake, now made a loud sucking sound as he finished it. “You have to keep throwing that in my face,” he said.

  Ty wasn’t with them—his coach had scheduled a nighttime practice to get the Cavs ready to play the Celtics in the semis tomorrow night.

  Will said, “We should have T-shirts made when we get home, saying, ‘I Survived Basketball Camp.’”

  “On the back you can put ‘Barely,’” Danny said.

  Tarik and Rasheed said they were going to walk down to the dock and buy some taffy. Will and Danny said they’d wait for them in front of Pops, on one of the benches near the front door.

  Just the two of them for a change, not surrounded by the other campers at Right Way. Now, this felt right, Danny thought, felt like all the other times when it was just him and Will Stoddard.

  “What?” Will said.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “But you want to,” Will said. “You forget sometimes that I know you as well as Tess does.”

  There was a piece of paper near his sneakers, some kind of flyer somebody had dropped. Danny picked it up, crumpled it into a ball, tossed it into the wire basket near the curb without it even touching the sides.

  “Money,” he said.

  “I’m good with that,” Will said, grinning. “Because I am willing to pay you to find out what’s bothering you all of a sudden.”

  “I’ve been thinking about something since the game ended,” he said. “If we win, which means I win, that means Coach Powers wins, too.”

  “Only you want him to lose,” Will said.

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “I want there to be some secret formula where we win and he loses.”

  “Because if we win the camp championship, he gets the only thing that matters to him,” Will said, “even though he did everything possible to drag us down. Basically, it’s like dealing with our parents. There are times when they know they’re wrong about something and we know they’re wrong, but they’d never admit that in a million trillion years.”

  “I want him to admit he was wrong about me,” Danny said.

  “First we win the game,” Will said, “and then we worry about the rest of it.”

  “You do sound like Tess sometimes.”

  “I’m going to take that as a compliment,” Will said, then gave him a sideways look. “She definitely can’t hang around for the finals if we make it?”

  “She’s out of here tomorrow on JetBlue,” Danny said. “Her mom wants her back.”

  “So we call her after the game and tell her all about it,” Will said.

  Danny looked at Will Stoddard, the best friend of his life, and said, “You think we’re gonna win this game?”

  Will reached out so Danny could bump him some fist.

  “We always have,” he said.

  They beat the Cavs the next day, beat them by six points finally, beat them because of what became a one-on-one game between Rasheed and Ty, and Rasheed was better on this day. Maybe it would have been different the next day. But today is the only one that ever matters in sports.

  It wasn’t that either one of them was hogging the ball or being selfish, because neither was that kind of player. They hadn’t suddenly morphed into being Lamar. It was just that Rasheed finally took over for the Celtics, and Ty took over for the Cavs, and the two of them guarding each other and getting after each other was the way this game was supposed to end. It was like an old-time play-off game that Richie Walker had taped for Danny off ESPN Classic once: Larry Bird and the Celtics went up against Dominique Wilkens and the Atlanta Hawks, matching each other basket for basket, until Wilkens started missing at the end and the Celtics won.

  Even the coaches seemed to get what was happening. Maybe that was why Coach Powers finally let Rasheed guard Ty and Coach Tom Rossi put Ty on Rasheed at the other end and then both coaches pretty much stayed out of the way after that.

  Rasheed scored the last ten points for the Celtics. Ty was on his way to doing pretty much the same thing until he missed a couple of open jumpers. Danny knew why, even if nobody else in the gym did, knew what happened to Ty’s shot when his legs got tired. He stopped elevating enough, started firing line drives at the basket.

  Ty even missed the front end of a one-and-one with forty seconds to go. After that, Rasheed made six straight free throws and the Celtics were in the finals against the Lakers, who had blown out the Knicks, biggest blowout of the whole camp, somebody said, in the first semifinal game.

  When the Celtics–Cavs game was over, Rasheed went and found Ty at half-court, gave him what Tarik called the “brother snap.” They shook hands by locking their thumbs, pulled close together and bumped shoulders, backed away, shook hands again with the tips of their fingers, snapped their hands away to finish.

  Then Danny heard Ty say, “You were better.”

  Rasheed said, “Nah, I just had more legs than you at the end.”

  “You’re the best I’ve ever played against,” Ty said.

  “Today,” Rasheed said. He knew. It was always about today. “Next time it would probably be you.”

  “Hope there is one,” Ty said. “A next time, I mean.”

  They all heard Lamar then.

  “Don’t come to me looking for a big hug when we whup y’all’s butts in the finals,” he said in a loud voice. Everybody in the gym looked at him now.

  Which, Danny knew, was the point.

  Rasheed just calmly stared at him, without saying a word. Stared for what felt to Danny like five minutes. You could see how uncomfortable it made Lamar.

  “Got nothin’ to say, ’Sheed?” Lamar said.

  Rasheed just shrugged.

  Lamar stood there, nervous now, cracking his knuckles, the scene not playing out the way he intended. “Well, we’ll see what you got to say Saturday night. You and your little boy there.”

  Now Rasheed smiled.

  And Lamar gave up.

  “That’s right, give me that big spit-eating grin now,” he said. “Till I wipe it right off your face on Saturday.”

  He walked out of The House.

  Danny said to Rasheed, “That was the coolest trash talk of all time.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Rasheed said.

  “That’s why,” Danny said.

  On Friday night they watched Zach’s team win the eleven-and twelve-year-old championship, win it so easily Zach didn’t even have to play the last five minutes of the game.

  He was the smallest kid on either team, and it didn’t matter. If you knew anything about basketball—and maybe even if you didn’t—he was the only player on either team you were interested in watching. Mostly because he was playing a different game than the rest of the kids, even the ones who were a lot bigger than he was.

  It was as if he knew something the rest of them, even his own teammates, didn’t.

  When the game was over, before the trophy presentation, Danny saw an ending to this kind of game he had seen before, watched a couple of the bigger kids put Zach up on their shoulders and carry him around like he was the trophy.

  Danny waited until the celebration was over before he went over to Zach, carrying the bag with the gift inside.

  He handed it to Zach now, and Zach opened it up to find the same indoor/outdoor ball Lamar had wrecked on him. Danny had spotted it in the window at Bob’s Sports in Cedarville.

  “You didn’t have to get me anything,” Zach said. “I’m the one who should be getting you something.”

  “You were great tonight,” Danny said. “Awesome, dude. I mean it.”

  Zach looked down. “I wouldn’t have made it without you,” he said.

  “
Yeah,” Danny said, “you would have. My father always tells me something about sports.” It was amazing how many times he quoted his dad. Even now, when his dad wasn’t speaking to him. “He says that the guys who aren’t any good, they’re the ones who always find excuses. But the guys who are good enough, they always find a way. It just took you a little time to find your way here.”

  Then Danny said he’d see Zach back at Gampel later, there was something he needed to do right now.

  Go someplace and play.

  Danny cut across the lawn and made his way to the bad court. The lighting on it was as bad as the playing surface—the best light actually came from the end nearest the parking lot, where there were a couple of old-fashioned-type streetlamps.

  Danny had picked up a ball along the way, one lying near the court outside Staples. And had stopped in the mess hall to get a folding chair. Something to use as a target for his passes, just like in his driveway.

  So he had a ball and a chair and a court all to himself. When it was like that, there really was no such thing as a bad court.

  He went through all his stuff now. Dribbled the length of the court with his right hand, came back with his left, then up and down again, this time switching hands as he went.

  Free throws, outside shots, driving layups with both hands.

  Hitting the chair with two-hand chest passes, then bounce passes, even a couple of no-looks, knocking the chair over and picking it up and then hitting it again.

  Then he started moving the chair around. Drive and pass to one corner, then the other. Move it out to the wing and hit it there.

  Getting ready for the game the only way he knew how.

  He started driving hard to the basket, pulling up, shooting his high-arc shot over an imaginary tall guy, Danny imagining arms that stretched to the stars. He kept taking that shot until he could make it three times in a row.

  It was late now, and he should have been tired, but he wasn’t, even working himself like this. Mostly because this wasn’t work, not to him.

  He didn’t know how much he’d get to play against the Lakers. Coach Powers had talked a lot at practice today about how big the Lakers were, even in the backcourt. But Danny knew this: He was going to be ready, no matter how little his name got called. His mom was going to be there tomorrow. He was not going to stink up the joint in front of her.

  Or Josh Cameron.

  When he finally stopped, out of breath, sweating, he felt like he’d just finished playing a game.

  It was then that he turned and saw Coach Powers standing over near the woods, at the start of the path that took you back to the coaches’ cabins.

  Standing there like some kind of ghost.

  Danny wanted to say something, call out to him. But there was nothing left to say. Nothing he could say at this point that was going to change anything between them.

  So Danny just stood there, in what felt like the most natural pose in the world to him, ball on his right hip. Coach Powers stayed where he was, hands in his pockets. There was just the night between them.

  Then he turned and walked into the woods. If Danny hadn’t heard his slow steps on the gravel path he would have wondered if he really had seen a ghost, would have wondered if the coach had even been there at all.

  25

  THERE WAS SOMEONE WITH ALI WALKER WHEN DANNY FINALLY SPOTTED her Saturday morning in the crowd of parents walking up from the parking lots.

  It wasn’t his dad.

  Just the next best thing on this particular day.

  Tess.

  Camera bag slung over her shoulder.

  After Danny had broken loose from his mom, after a Mom hug that tried to squeeze all the oxygen out of his body, Danny said to Tess, “You’re supposed to be home.”

  “Change of plans,” she said. “It turns out that I’m hitching a ride back with you guys.”

  It had been arranged when they’d gone off to camp that Ali Walker was the designated parent from Middletown and would drive Danny, Will and Ty home. Ali had brought her Suburban, so there was plenty of room for Tess.

  “So you get to see the big game,” Danny said.

  “I guess,” Tess said, smiling at him. “I mean, as long as I’m here.”

  Ali didn’t want to talk about the big game, she wanted to tell him that he needed a haircut as soon as he got home and was he packed and if he was packed, was he sure he had everything? Danny said yes, to all of the above. She said, prove it, so he and his mom and Tess walked down to Gampel.

  Zach was sitting on his bunk when they got there, his parents having left a message that they were stuck in traffic somewhere on the highway between Boston and here.

  Ali said, “Is this the budding superstar I’ve been hearing about?”

  Zach stood, looked up, shook her hand and said, “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Walker.”

  They all stayed in Gampel while Danny proved to his mom that he hadn’t forgotten anything major, and then they all went outside so Tess could take some pictures before lunch.

  The game wasn’t until seven-thirty, which meant there were still almost eight hours to wait. But Danny was fine with that. It was a great feeling, the sense of anticipation and the nervousness you got before a big game, as long as the day of the big game had finally arrived.

  The only thing better was actually playing the game.

  That never changed, no matter where the game was, no matter who it was against.

  Even at camp.

  There was a barbecue for the campers and parents that began a little after four o’clock. Things were set up that way so the players from both the Celtics and Lakers would have time to not only get something in their stomachs but actually digest it before the opening tip. It was at the barbecue, after Ali Walker and Danny and Tess had taken a quick trip into town so she could see Cedarville, that she finally got to meet Tarik and Rasheed.

  “My son tells me you’re even better than he thought you were in North Carolina,” Ali said.

  Rasheed grinned. “He means how good he thought I was until he flopped on me.”

  “I didn’t flop,” Danny said.

  Ali said to Rasheed, “You’re both probably talking to the wrong parent on this.”

  Danny looked at her. “How’s Dad doing?” It was the first time they’d talked about him all day.

  “I’m under strict orders to call him the minute the game is over.”

  When they sat down to eat, his mom was between Will and Tarik, which meant she spent the whole barbecue laughing her head off. It was funny, Danny thought now, watching her, seeing her as comfortable as she’d always been with his friends. Sometimes you didn’t even know what you were missing when you were away from somebody until you were back with them. And one of the things he had missed most being up here at camp was the loud, happy sound of his mother’s laughter.

  He still wished his dad were here, for a lot of reasons, one of them being that this reminded him of all the other games his father had missed when his parents had been apart all those years, all those years when Danny had pretty much convinced himself that his dad was never coming back.

  It also brought him back to the start of camp when he felt lower than dirt.

  He looked up then, all the way across the mess hall, like this was some kind of weird cue, and saw Lamar Parrish, already dressed for the game in his Lakers jersey, glaring at him.

  Lamar pointed to himself first, mouthed the word Me, then pointed at Danny.

  You.

  Danny turned and said to Will and Tarik and Rasheed, “You guys wanna go shoot?”

  His mom said, “You hardly ate anything, not that a person would consider that any kind of breaking news.”

  “Mom,” Danny said, “I can’t sit here anymore, I gotta move.”

  She smiled at him and said, “Like a streak of light.”

  All Danny heard from Tess was the click of her camera.

  Danny thought there was an outside shot that he might start, but Coach Powers went w
ith their normal starting five, which meant Cole was with Rasheed.

  Before they went inside The House to warm up, a few minutes after seven o’clock, Coach Powers took them all over to the lake side of the building, and sat them down in the grass. There were no locker rooms at The House, just bathrooms, so all pregame meetings like this always took place out here. It was a perfect night, not too hot, not too muggy.

  The Celtics were stretched out in one long line. Coach Powers got down on one knee, so he was facing all of them.

  “You get only so many games in your life when you play for a championship,” he began. “I read in a book one time, I forget where, the writer asked, If there were only three or four sunsets you were going to see in your whole life, how valuable would they be? So if I told you that tonight was only one of the three or four times in your life when you might play for the title of something, how dear would you hold this one game of basketball?”

  There was something in his eyes now Danny hadn’t seen before, a light in them, some kind of spark.

  Without looking around at his teammates, Danny knew the coach had their attention.

  “It doesn’t matter where the game is, or who it’s against,” he said. “But you know the feeling inside you is different today. You know because that feeling has been inside you since you got up this morning.” He paused. “Because today is different, that’s why. Today is different because you’re playing for something today. Not a trophy. Or to prove something to me or the parents who are here or the counselors or the other coaches, or even Mr. Josh Cameron himself. You’re here to prove something to yourselves tonight—that you’re the best of the best.”

  He paused again and said, “People who don’t play sports will never have this feeling for one day in their lives.”

  He’s right, Danny thought. He hated to admit it, especially about a guy he’d hated from the first day. But Coach Powers was right. For the first time, Danny at least could see why he might have been a great coach in the first place.