Playing Without the Ball (2 page)

“I don’t mean the beer,” he says, winking at her.

Bobbi is every guy’s fantasy in here and she knows how to flirt just enough to keep them interested. I watch her for a few minutes, drawing beers, smiling when they make their lame jokes about taking her home. You have to just about shout to be heard above the band, and above everybody else who’s shouting, too.

Shorty catches my eye and motions with his head for me to get out of sight. I nod. I go.

The first time I entered Shorty’s Bar was Labor Day weekend, almost two months ago. Me and my dad had reached a stalemate—I wasn’t going to California and my father definitely was.

We’d been through this every night for about two months.
My father had a “job offer” out in Los Angeles that he couldn’t pass up. The job was managing the breakfast shift at a Denny’s—with a promotion soon if it works out. Mostly he just needed to get away from here.

I’ll get into that later. The abbreviated version is that, realistically, I have one season of basketball left and this is the only town I can use it in. No way I walk into a school in L.A. as a scrawny white senior and make the team. So we compromised. I’d rent this room from Shorty DiGiorgio—the only guy around with any use for my father—and Shorty would watch out for me like a hired uncle or something. Then in June I’d pack up and join my dad out west.

Shorty stuck to the watch-out-for-Jay deal for about two days. Since then, I’m pretty much doing whatever I want to.

Shorty is a man who does not give a shit. He rakes in money from this bar and from taking bets on sporting events. He liked my father because he was a major contributor to both sources of income.

Here’s the basketball reality. I’m a borderline player, but at least I’m a known entity in this town. The coaches know I’ve run my ass off ever since the Biddy League back in fourth grade, even if my shooting touch is less than consistent.

I’m about five-foot-eight, with good speed and strong legs. My style on the court can be deceptively smooth—simple but effective passes inside, more rebounds than a guy my size ought to get. But making the varsity is not a lock. If you’re not going to be an impact player as a senior, then you just aren’t going to stick.

I see it. Why keep a non-contributing senior when you can develop a younger guy instead?

I see it, but it sucks. If I was a coach, I’d never screw a kid who’d worked his butt off for so long. But a senior is far more likely to get the ax than an underclassman. So I have to be twice as good to stay.

The thing about basketball is that it gets into your head real easy. Sturbridge is not a place where hoops has ever been big; high school wrestling is a town-wide obsession and that team is always among the best in Pennsylvania. But basketball has caught on here lately, more on the recreational level than scholastically. It’s fueled by the general desire for fitness, I suppose, but it goes a lot deeper than that. I’ve played enough with everybody—the doctors and lawyers who play like stegosaurs on Sunday afternoons, the playground boys who’d never go near a real team but can play their asses off anyway, the hardcore guys with beer guts and bad knees who play in the men’s league—to figure out the socio-dynamic crap.

The Sturbridge YMCA runs men’s basketball leagues most of the year, using outdoor courts through the summer, but moving to late-evening hours inside the Y’s narrow, rickety gym from October through April. The men’s league has teams sponsored by bars and insurance agencies and pizzerias, and the rare opening on a roster is quickly filled with somebody’s buddy or a recent high school player who’s kept himself in shape.

There’s also the forty-and-older league, which has a slower pace but only a few less fights and hard fouls. And there are pickup games going on whenever there’s open gym time at the Y. I’ve been spending as many hours there as I can, mixing in with whoever’s on the court. You learn the pecking order pretty quickly, moving up over time if you’re into it.

The high school program is proud but undistinguished, run by Ralph “Buddy” Johnson, a gym teacher in his forties who played forward here a long time ago and is dead serious about the game. But he’s been coaching for twenty years and has only had four winning seasons. One league championship sixteen years ago—the banner is hanging from the ceiling above midcourt.

“We play clean, unselfish basketball here,” Johnson tells us every year at the tryouts. “None of that Harlem playground shit in my gym.”

Last year the varsity won just seven games, mostly on the shoulders of all-conference point guard Brian Kaipo. Some say the game has passed Johnson by. Others say it had a mighty big head start.

I’m scraping burnt grease off the grill when the sound of Spit’s voice stops me cold. She’s singing an autobiographical tune about being alone and bewildered, something I don’t think she’s over yet. I set down the spatula, wipe my hands on my white cook’s shirt, and lean against the doorway to watch the band for a few minutes.

If you concentrate, you can hear a trace of the Mediterranean in her voice, beneath the Newark and the punk and the confusion. There’s an athleticism in her wired frenzy, her ropy black hair swinging against her shoulders, and her pale stomach showing when her shirt whips about on the stage.

Something, the knotty strength in her legs maybe, makes you believe that she really could have been a gymnast, back before her growth and her addictions and her anger.

Spit. For Sarita. The most unlikely friend I’ve ever had.

She’s almost twenty, spent a year at Tyler School of Art, lived with one of her instructors in Philadelphia since the middle of the first semester—some guy named James. He broke her heart last spring so she came to Sturbridge where her mother had landed after finally going through with the divorce.

Spit’s working as a legal assistant. “It sucks,” she says, “but it supports my excesses.”

Her excesses, the obvious ones, are energy, hair color (streaks of orange in the natural black), emotion (approaching both extremes), and intelligence. She’s the lead singer, songwriter, and apparent brains of the rock group Elyit, which formed within a week of her arrival in town. They play at Shorty’s about three times a month, but so far have not landed any other “gigs.”

Bobbi brings in the predictable run of orders around 11:30 when guys who’ve been drinking for three hours get the munchies. Four cheese steaks, three orders of fries, and a hamburger.

“And somebody broke a bottle over by the jukebox, when you get a chance,” she says.

I clean up the bottle before starting on the orders, brush
ing the bits of glass into a dustpan. The bar room is long and tight, and a guy backs into my head when I’m bent over. About eight people are dancing on the tiny dance floor, but most of the customers are standing around, packed in close, looking for somebody to go home with. I know how they feel.

The band is taking a break; the dancers are blundering to “Satisfaction,” which is playing in my ear from the jukebox as I wipe the gritty floor with a towel.

The place closes at 2. Shorty limps into the kitchen about 2:15. (Shorty has told people the injury is from Vietnam; at other times he’s said it happened playing football. People who know him best say he was just born with a left leg that’s two inches shorter than his right.)

“I’m out of here,” he says. “Don’t forget the bathroom floors.”

“I won’t,” I say. I know how much urine a weekend crowd can spill. “Have a good night?”

“Great night,” Shorty says. “They ain’t bad.” Spit’s group he means. “They bring people in.”

There aren’t many local options if you want live entertainment. Shorty’s can accommodate fifty customers without too much squeezing, but there were at least seventy packed in here tonight.

“Anyway,” Shorty says. “See you tomorrow.”

I wipe down the stovetop and pour some ammonia in a bucket. I’ll mop the bathrooms real quick. I’ll mop the toilets, too. No way I’m getting any closer than that.

I push the ladies’ room door open with my foot and take a step back in surprise.

“Spit,” I say. She’s sitting on the back of the toilet, up on the tank.

“I’m spaced,” she says.

“Oh.”

She stands up and wobbles.

“You all right?” I ask.

“Yeah. A guy gave me some acid. I haven’t done acid in ages.”

Great. I’m alone in the bar with a hallucinating woman.

“Shocking, huh?” she says, noting my expression. “It’s no big deal, bud. Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

I figure I can mop up tomorrow—Shorty doesn’t open until 3 on Sundays.

“Just till I come down,” she says.

“Okay.”

We step out the back door. The air is cold and still. Nothing is open; no one is out.

“Oooh,” she says. “I can breathe again.”

I take a deep inhale, kind of in agreement. We walk through the car dealership lot on Church Street and head for the park.

“You don’t seem too high,” I say.

“I’m not. It’s like an intense focus right about here,” she says, putting her palms up to her forehead. “Everything else is just sort of fuzzy.”

I nod, as if I can relate.

“I’ve still got a hit if you want it,” she says.

I shake my head. No way.

The park covers one large block in front of the courthouse. There’s a fountain in the middle and diagonal sidewalk paths going from corner to corner. There are a few benches, a few
trees, and a couple of pieces of playground equipment. We sit on a bench halfway between the fountain and the street.

“You sang good tonight,” I say.

She raises her eyebrows. “I guess,” she says. “For a few minutes there I felt like we were clicking.” She stretches both arms out and yawns. “This town isn’t exactly hip.”

She’s got her feet tucked up on the bench and is hugging her knees. Both legs of her jeans are ripped at the knees.

“My moments of clarity come by once a week if I’m lucky,” she says. “When I get my mind off James. See, I’m usually terrified, like I’ll just fade away, like I’m losing my grip, and I’ll get farther and farther from that inner voice and never get it back.”

I’m trying to keep up with her. My primary concerns are basketball and getting enough to eat, so I’m listening to her and comparing it to my own life, and she’s just rambling like it doesn’t even matter if I’m sitting there.

She’s picking at the threads by her knee. “I get down,” she says. “I worry. And then this goofy optimism kicks in and makes me search for that next rush in spite of myself.” She draws a counterclockwise circle in the air.

I’m freezing my ass off. “You coming down?” I ask.

“Maybe some,” she says. “We can go.”

She sings softly as we walk back, some Portuguese folk song she learned from her mom. A police car goes by and slows a little, then moves along.

We reach the back steps and she puts a hand on my shoulder. “Can I crash here?” she says.

I think about it for a second. I’ve got a sleeping bag in the closet. “There’s not much room,” I say.

“I don’t need much.”

When I come out of the bathroom, Spit is passed out on the mattress. I open the closet door to get the sleeping bag, but she wakes up and says, “Just get in.”

I shrug and get under the blanket. She rolls onto her side and says good night.

I hunch up on the side of the bed. I prefer to sleep facedown, with all four limbs spread, but I’m so tired I don’t give a shit. Spit’s asleep again already. I can smell her dried sweat; her breath is raspy and sour.

This is the first woman I’ve ever slept with, literally or figuratively. But it’s hardly a moment to treasure.

E
thnicity? I suppose we had some, three or four generations back, but it’s been bleached out of us pretty good. We’re as white as Twinkies and fish sticks.

It’s a neutral, Wonder Bread sort of whiteness, a bland-talking, straight-thinking, virginal whiteness. Like Cheerios.

When I was little, before my mother took off, she’d buy those cartons of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry ice cream. She’d dish it up and I’d let it get soft, and I’d experiment with mixtures, stirring different combinations together. And it struck me that if you added just a drop of melted chocolate to a dish full of vanilla, the mix would take on an undebatable tone of brown. But stir a drop of vanilla into a spoonful of chocolate and you’d never even know it was there.

I play basketball. Every day. At school, at the Y, in people’s driveways. My game is sound, but it’s quiet and unremarkable. That’s attitude. Or the absence of it. I’ve got a white man’s game in a black man’s sport.

I bet my great-great-grandfather kicked some ass on the
boat over here from Glasgow. But the McLeods have gone downhill from there.

I need to find myself some attitude.

Sunday morning I sleep too late, waking with a start. Spit opens her eyes, wipes her nose with her fist, and burrows back under the blanket. I bolt some orange juice and a package of Yodels, brush my teeth, and jog over to the Y.