by Phil Wohl
CHAPTER SEVEN
Pete spent the summer between his junior and senior years at a sleep away camp in the outer reaches of Pennsylvania. On the car trip up with Adam and their fathers, Pete recalled his initial encounter at sleep-away camp when he was all of 11 years old.
Pete always enjoyed the company of his loving parents, despite their elevated communication methods. He was the middle child and the first boy in the Berman family in more than a quarter of a century. His younger sister, Natalie, was three years his junior, and his older sister, Martha, was four years older than him and was out of the picture as she was mercifully estranged from the family.
All four of them made the trip that summer in their Chevy Impala, including their Yellow Labrador Retriever Lightning, named appropriately because he was found in a severe rainstorm. Pete’s mother took over once they reached camp, making his bed and neatly putting his clothes away in his cubby. However, neat would not be a word to describe this area for the remainder of the summer.
When it was time to say good-bye, Pete clung to his parents like a wet shirt. Tears flowed down his cheeks as his mother looked sympathetically at his father.
“Mommy, I have to go to the bathroom,” an uncomfortable Natalie whined.
As his mom reluctantly strolled away with Natalie, dad escorted Pete for a walk near the lake.
“Look how beautiful this place is. You know I went to a camp like this when I was your age. I had the time of my life. Cried for hours after my parents left until someone asked me if I played ball. That summer I had such a great time... I even met my first girlfriend,” Pete’s dad concluded.
Pete stopped crying and even cracked a slight smile as his father continued. “You’ll be all right, champ. Any time you miss us, pick up the phone and call us. We’ll also be back in a few weeks to visit.”
“I still want to go home,” Pete whimpered.
“Close your eyes. Okay, use your imagination for a minute. Think of what our house looks like. Now imagine all of us outside playing with the dog. Can you see it?”
“Yeah.”
“You can go anywhere you want to go if you let your mind roam free. You’ll never be far from home if you remember where you came from. We love you more than anything in the world and would never do anything to hurt you. Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to go out there and have a good time?”
“Yes.”
“Give me a kiss.”
Pete gave his father a kiss and a deep hug and then kissed his mother and sister as they returned. He was now armed with the knowledge that he could accomplish anything with the love of his family firmly behind him.
When the 17 year-old Pete arrived at camp this time he was looking forward to being on his own. He and his father looked each other and Pete said jokingly, “I’m going to be all right this time.”
“Good, the lakefront is clear across the other side of camp,” his dad countered.
They both laughed in a moment that would be always be ingrained in their memories. During that summer, Pete took his game to another level. Gone was the reliance on his outside shot, a game in which he depended on for all of his playing years. Pete now had a distinct size advantage over most of his opponents. He was also a 95% foul shooter, so his accuracy from the charity stripe became even more of an ally.
Pete often marveled at how different he and his father’s games were. Lou Berman was an adept low post player with a killer turn-around jumper and a deadly-accurate hook shot. His range was about 15 feet, while his son would have felt comfortable if they put him in the middle of the parking lot. Pete relied on a snap-quick release and unblinking concentration, but was not a huge fan of contact. His father’s best friends were his strong legs, wide frame and sharp elbows. Pete had grown into a mirror body image of Lou, in that once he put his wide frame on someone and boxed them out, there was no way they were coming near the ball.
The younger Berman was determined to be completely unstoppable on the court his senior year. Off the court, although he had matured, Pete was still not ready to take the final step that summer. The previous year, a cheerleader named Ursula Janis had taught him how to kiss like Claude and Fifi. The lip-numbing sessions had given him a sense of confidence previously stuffed inside like a genie in a bottle. He thought he was feeling love for the first time, but he was blind to the fact that his cheerleader was also seeing someone else. The love triangle angered Pete but also helped him focus his energy on the only thing he could control, his game.
After spending many nights strolling near the lake with his summer love, Shari, Pete’s lips had become just as skilled as Ursula’s in just a fraction of the time. The summer romance was over in the blink of an eye, though, proving that these relationships are as short-lived as the shelf-life of a Hershey's Kiss.
Over the summer Pete had grown another inch. He was now six-and-a-half feet tall and weighed 205 pounds. When he returned from summer camp, his parents immediately noticed their son was no longer a boy and knew the extra year in high school had indeed made the difference.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Senior year. The rivalry became everything. Gerry Williams’ name topped a list of Players to Watch in the local newspaper’s annual pre-season basketball preview. Pete’s name was blended neatly in the middle of the pack among a number of players whose skills were so limited that they would have trouble collectively holding Pete’s jock. West Valley got no respect and neither did Pete. Any softness he exhibited from the prior year’s victory was now cleared from his mind with the speed of a thousand erasers. His hunger had ascended to a new level.
Despite the newspaper’s bias, Pete was invited to attend a pre-season camp called East City Elite 60, a collection of the area’s best basketball players, including catholic schools. This camp took place on a weekend in October, approximately one month before the start of practice. Pete was his team’s lone representative until Tom Sullivan got a late invitation as a result of a few cancellations.
The setting for the gathering was Martin Luther High School, the same place Pete spent many summers attending camp. This would prove to be a big advantage because of his familiarity with the court and hoops. Local high school coaches put the players through a series of drills during the first day of workouts. The big day would be Sunday afternoon when the coaches split the participants into five-player teams for full-court scrimmages.
It was a wild scene. Three separate full-length courts filled with the finest athletes in the region, with the center court lined with college coaches primed to cherry-pick the top players, referred to as the blue-chippers. This was not a place for the meek. Being thrown to the lions was not most teenager's idea of a fun afternoon.
Pete, with butterflies churning, was waiting with his team on the left side of center court. It would soon be their turn to impress the not easily impressed, and to get an early jump on landing a scholarship. Gerry Williams connected on a jumper from the right baseline and the camp’s director, Reverend Fulcher, blew his whistle to signal the end of the game. Pete watched as many of the coaches added to their already crowded note pads. He glanced at his father, who was standing near an adjacent court, and shook his head. Gone were the butterflies. Gerry Williams would never be afforded the luxury of stealing his show.
Pete, as fate would have it, was paired against the top center from the adjacent county. At 6’9”, Brad Janacek was considered one of the top big men at the camp. Pete had never considered himself a big man, and instinct told him to draw the larger player out farther and farther until his nose bled. Ironically, Fellingwood’s new starting point guard, Eric Spalding, was the man who could make or break Pete on this day.
The scouts had circled number forty-one on their programs, waiting all day to see the much-heralded Janacek. Pete lost the opening tap, but got enough of Janacek’s rib cage to cause him to tap the ball strai
ght to Spalding, the Rams' 5’11” point guard. Pete, at an obvious height disadvantage, roamed out to the right corner. Spalding, who was schooled to get the ball to the open man, riffled a chest pass to the wide-open Pete. He caught the pass, turned, and quickly shot the ball, freezing a flat-footed Janacek in the middle of the paint. The ball went straight through, and a few Division III coaches leafed through their programs to see who number 51 was. On defense, Pete frustrated the big guy by stripping him each time he brought the ball down to shoot. When other people shot, Pete held Janacek off long enough to either get the rebound or give a teammate a chance to gather the carom. In the first five minutes of the scrimmage, Pete had outscored his highly touted counterpart 6-0. Each time Pete got the ball he backed up a few more steps from the hoop, and each time the ball went in Janacek looked more and more confused. Like a fish out of water, his chances of survival dwindled with each passing moment.
On his seventh consecutive shot, Pete posted Janacek up on the left block and demanding the ball with a desperate look in his eyes. He got the ball, faced the basket, head-faked the big man off his feet, dribbled once through the paint, and dropped the ball down through the hoop. Pete had risen so high that he could have dunked the ball, but the speed and accuracy of the move made the finish a moot point.
The coaches were writing feverishly. An audible buzz could be heard throughout the gym, as the other games had ended and all eyes were fixed on the shocking center-court mismatch. Pete glared at Gerry as he ran down the court after sinking a 30-foot bomb from the top of the key. Two more jumpers tickled the twine before the scrimmage came to an empathetic halt. Ten shots in a row. After shot nine, word got around that Pete’s father was on the sidelines. Coaches rained brochures on him and said they would be in touch.
Janacek’s father, an older version of his lanky son, walked up to Lou Berman and said, “I’ve never seen a kid shoot like that. Does he do that all of the time?”
Pete’s dad responded, “Only when it counts.”
“Well, it looks like your kid just made it and mine didn’t.”
He walked away without hesitation, leaving a surprised Lou Berman alone to gather his scrambled thoughts and the 40-plus college brochures that were dropped in his lap.
Pete walked over to his father, who now looked like a kid that was let loose in a candy shop. He gave Pete a hug and a pat on the butt, as the two walked out of the gym like a couple of undetected bank robbers. Pete was no longer a secret, and the sweat dripping down Sal Pagnozzi’s hairy, mammoth back was a testament to the talented boy who had grown into an unstoppable man in the off-season. His star had witnessed the carnage first hand and had surrendered his mind in the process. Gerry Williams was no longer the top dog in a county where the new sheriff’s name was Pistol Pete Berman.
CHAPTER NINE
Pete’s social calendar was like a blank slate. His senior year started slowly, but then had taken a turn for the better when a chance encounter made his confidence soar.
There was a West Valley Rockette named Susan Hollins who happened to be in the same Home Economics class as Pete. Home Ec. was a glorified cooking class taught by a woman who sipped wine coolers and ate TV dinners while adrift on her house boat.
For some reason, Susan rubbed Pete the wrong way. He might have liked her looks but definitely not her coy personality. She wouldn’t give Pete the right time of day, as she was holding out for the starting quarterback on a 2-6 football team. Susan only knew Pete as the tall, wisecracking guy in her class and never gave him a second thought.
One refreshing October afternoon Pete and some of his basketball teammates were playing a full-court pick-up game in the gym. The Rockettes, who were outside practicing for an upcoming football game, concluded their session and walked through the gym on their way to the girl's locker room. Patti Zumenko strolled in with Susan and said as she looked at the players, “Basketball season is going to be great. Last year was so exciting. Pete made some incredible shots.”
Since Susan failed to make the squad in her junior year, she said, “Oh, there’s that pain in the ass guy from my Home Ec. class. Lucky shot. He probably won’t even make the team.”
“Are you talking about number 44? The tall guy that just hit that long shot?” Patti astoundingly questioned.
“Yeah, the tall guy. Why?”
Patti grabbed Susan’s arm and pulled her to the side. “He’s not only going to make the team, he is the team. That’s Pete Berman.”
Susan’s jaw dropped as her mind flashed back to a game the previous year when Pete made the same long shot to win a game. A few seconds later, Pete hit a 12-foot bank shot to win the eleven-point game. He then strolled by, sweat drenching his blue and gold mesh tank top, and said, “Hi Patti. How was practice?”
“The usual,” she replied. “Can’t wait for the season to start. It will be nice to kick in front of those crowds again.”
“It’s going to be lots of fun,” he replied. “Hey Susan, close your mouth. You wouldn’t want to catch any flies in that wide open trap.”
Pete and Patti laughed as Susan’s eyes followed Pete to the water fountain. She now saw him in a completely different light. No longer was he grating and annoying, but charismatic and engaging. Before she could turn on the charm, Patti said, “Don’t even think about it. You’ll never catch that big fish with your small hook.”
CHAPTER TEN
Pete was still not satisfied following his performance at the Elite 60 camp. Word spread like wildfire through his teammates, as Tom Sullivan recounted the details of the eventful afternoon. Pete didn’t get excited about his success on center stage because he prided himself on never letting another player get the best of him. There were times when he wasn’t on, but over the long haul he would eventually prevail. Every player had a weakness, and Pete was very adept at finding that flaw and eventually exploiting it.
The entire basketball team made it a point of attending every home football game, rain or shine. The football players were among the basketball team’s most vocal supporters and deserved equal respect. Near the end of the season, the school chatter quickly turned away from another dreary football season and to the basketball team’s chances of unseating Fellingwood as Conference 1-A champions. The basketball team had not recorded a championship season in nearly 20 years, so the school was long overdue for a winner.
Pete was unwavering in his belief that the team would complete the task. The school rarely had a favorite to support, constantly fighting long odds as a perennial underdog. Many of the local papers picked Fellingwood to repeat, but one reporter for a major paper had witnessed Pete’s performance at the Elite 60 camp and bucked the trend by picking West Valley. He even went so far as to give Pete the following headline:
WEST VALLEY FIRED UP OVER PISTOL PETE
Berman’s loaded guns too much for Fellingwood
Someone had finally noticed that West Valley should be considered the favorite against Fellingwood. Games are not won on paper, though, and Pete and his teammates realized they would have to fight for every inch, just as they did the previous year.
People in West Valley were charged up over the article. Mr. Noonan, faculty advisor of the school’s newspaper, even went so far as to recommend a full-page article on Pete and the team for an upcoming issue. He also gave Pete a chance to write a weekly column on the subject of his choice. Mr. Noonan was Pete’s Creative Writing teacher, and had become impressed with his ability to put a story together.
All of this fanfare did not impress Erica Noble, the Pocket Rocket’s Editor. It took her two solid years to get a feature article, and now they were just going to hand a spot to some guy who could shoot a basketball. Nonetheless, she had to set up a meeting to discuss these ideas with Pete. Finding him would be no problem. All one had to do was look up, and there he was.
She spotted him at his
locker between periods, standing with his head against the cool metal with his eyes closed. Without provocation he said, “Its O.K., I won’t bite.”
“Are you talking to me?” Erica said acting surprised.
“Mr. Noonan said you would be looking for me.”
“Why were you standing there like that?” Erica asked.
“I was trying to think of an idea for the end of my short story.”
That was not the answer she expected to hear. Erica was an honor student. Most honor students considered themselves the only intellectual beings of merit in the school, not thinking that an average student could have a shred of intelligence.
“What’s the story about?” Erica responded.
“That’s all right, I don’t want to bore you with the details.”
“Really, I don’t mind. Why don’t you come by my office in the 400-wing after school.”
“I can’t do it today. I have to run a few miles and lift some weights. Pre-season training garbage.”
“Well, I have a National Honor Society meeting at three, maybe we could get together after that.”
Pete, having a chip on his shoulder from people assuming he was stupid, said “What do you talk about at those honor society meetings? Do you exchange study tips and clip extra-credit coupons?”
“You’ll never know.”
“I have to go to class. Maybe we’ll talk another day.”
Erica realized she made a big mistake. She was prepared to fight a grizzly but wound up trouncing a teddy bear. Before Erica could say another word, the bell rang and she had to hustle to Chemistry class. She thought to herself: "Who is this guy and what planet is he from?" The article had to be done but she would give him a little space in the meantime.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There was something about Erica Noble that intrigued Pete. She was attractive, but not blessed with the body of a cheerleader; she stood about 5’ 8”, and had medium-length brown hair. It must have been her deep blue eyes that burned a hole through his brain that afternoon. Her remarks had stirred something within him and pushed him to complete his short story. The last paragraph of the story was written down feverishly:
