* * *
I was fifteen and Danny was eighteen when we played the game of basketball that changed things between us. We had graduated together a week before, and while I had already been accepted to the university in San Bernardino a commutable distance away, my brother had made plans to share an apartment with his girlfriend and another couple in San Diego, where he said he could find work in real estate development. He’d had his things boxed up for weeks, but the lease wouldn’t start for a few more days. Where we live, where it’s hot but there’s nowhere to swim, where you have to drive half an hour to get to a mall or an indoor movie theater, everybody we went to school with wanted to go away north to San Louis Obispo or south to LA or San Diego, so I don’t know why I felt so betrayed by his leaving.
He didn’t have a particularly off day, nor did I have a particularly lucky one. On a humid afternoon in June, I was simply better than my older brother at basketball for the first time. It was real, it was permanent, and that was that. For the first time in our history of hundreds if not thousands of one-on-one games, I was going to beat him. I didn’t know Danny’d be back in a month, kicked out by his girlfriend and unemployed. Part of me thought I’d never see him again, and I thought if I was ever going to win, this could be my last chance.
I dictated the pace of the game, frustrated Danny by repeatedly stealing the ball from him, and made shots from all areas of the court. No matter how well I played, though, Danny kept hanging around that day. For every perfect jumper I swished from twelve or fifteen feet, he managed to wriggle his way inside for a lay-up or a two-footer just over my outstretched fingers. My brother wasn’t playing pretty; he just wanted the ball in the hoop, and he was doing what had to be done to make that happen, as much through will as anything else. We were tied at eleven, tied at thirteen. The sun was out, but it almost seemed like it could rain, too. We didn’t notice except to wipe our wet hair back on our heads so as not to interfere with the game. I almost beat him 20-18, but my shot rolled off the rim, and he scored to tie it again. We went on for hours that way until we realized sunset had approached, making it a sudden death game. Mom was making a special dinner – meatloaf and mashed potatoes, Danny’s favorite – for what would be one of our last nights together. One of us had to win before it was time to go home.
Fatigue hit us as the day’s light began to fade. We began playing an even faster-paced, more physical game. Every shot took more out of us than the last. Every dribble fake, every time we raised our arms to defend, it felt like there was almost nothing left. There were fouls, called and uncalled. I was ahead by a point and about to end the game with a lay-up when my brother hit me in midair, his forearm batting my wrist down as I went up with the ball. We crashed at the hips, the shoulders. I landed hard on my butt, back, and elbows, and I saw through squinted eyes the difficulty Danny had landing without falling.
Bent at the waist, hands on his knees, he sucked air as he looked up at me. I walked slowly to get the ball, which had rolled into the chain link fence that separated the court from the street. It was a blatant violation of the rules, what my brother had done, and it left no doubt that I was entitled to a foul shot. I approached the free-throw line with apprehension, dribbling only every second or third step. I looked Danny in the eyes, not sure what I saw. If it had been a normal game, I would have asked him why he’d done that, told him to calm down and that, what the hell, it was just a game, right? But it wasn’t a normal game; it wasn’t even just a game anymore. So I didn’t say anything.
We were both wet with sweat that soaked our clothes, our hair, and dripped off our skin. My left shoulder ached dully, and my tailbone stung with every other step. I looked at Danny and wondered why I wanted to beat him so badly and why he couldn’t allow that to happen. I stood there at the line, not dribbling, not looking at the basket, not even breathing. I gripped the ball tight in both hands and looked down at my shadow.
“It’s your shot, little brother,” Danny said, using a name he never called me.
I looked closely at him then, the jaw line and chin just like our father’s. I listened as he said nothing, noting the breadth of his shoulders, his arms, his legs, the way he stood. I could see everything about him that made him different from me, and all the things that made him my brother. I stood there at the free-throw line, ball in hand, looking at Danny and looking at myself, not doing anything but standing and being, and I waited. I waited for the time when everything would become blue again, the time when all games had to end, finished or not, when my brother’s lips would darken in the absence of light that told us it was time for dinner.
# # #
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Author's Bio
Richard A. Sanchez's work has appeared in Tin House, Storychord, and The Pacific Review. He is a graduate of the MFA program in creative writing at University of California, Riverside, and he currently works as an English and creative writing instructor.
He lives with his wife and three daughters in California, where he is working on a collection of stories and a novel.
Find Richard at:
richardasanchez.com
Basketball Gods: A Short Story Page 4
