Playing Without the Ball (6 page)

“He did, though.”

I nod and look away. “Yeah. He did an okay job. He tried, I’ll give him that much. Screw it. It’s behind me. I’m living for now, man. I’m over it.”

I
avoided basketball at all costs for a week, but I can’t stay away forever. So I do the 5:30 wake-up thing again and get my butt over to the Y.

There are ten of us this time, so we go full-court. I line up opposite Dana and say hello. We nodded to each other in school the other day, and I guess that’s part of the reason I’m here at this ridiculous hour.

“You ready to run?” she says.

“Sure.”

She starts kind of strolling toward the foul line as play begins, and I shadow her. Then she makes the big cut, curving under the basket as I run straight into a pick set by her father. She’s wide open as the pass comes and she swishes the shot from ten feet out.

I take the inbounds pass and turn, and Dana’s right in my face. I dribble hard to midcourt, then pass off and drift inside.

“Somebody’s ready to go,” I say to her.

“I’ve been here since five-thirty,” she says. “I’m warm.”

I’ll bet she is. The ball comes to me; I turn my back to her and push toward the basket. She sticks tight to me, gives a little bump. I could shoot, but I kick it out to the corner where one of our guys is open. He shoots an air ball and we lose possession. I chase Dana back upcourt.

By 7 o’clock guys start leaving, and by 7:15 there are only a few of us left, so the game breaks up. I’ve still got an hour to shower and get to school, so I decide to shoot some free throws.

After a few minutes Dana comes back on the court and rebounds for me.

“So how come you’re not playing for the school?” I say.

She shrugs. “Too busy. You?”

“I got cut.”

“Too bad.”

“It sucks,” I say. “They could use you.” Hell, the
boys’
team could use her.

“Maybe,” she says. “I can’t. I played my first three years, but I’m concentrating on jumping this winter, so I really don’t have time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m a high jumper. My college coach wants to me focus on that.”

“You have a college coach?”

“I got a full ride to jump at Virginia next year. So it seemed like a good idea to quit basketball. Except for this. Plus we were moving anyway, since my dad took a job up here.”

“You must be good.”

She raises her eyebrows a little, shifts her shoulders. “I
choke in big meets,” she says. “I jumped five-eleven last spring, then couldn’t even clear five-ten in the states. I finished third. No way that’s gonna happen again.”

“You gonna jump for Sturbridge this spring?”

“Sure. But my dad will coach me, unofficially. He still jumps, too. In master’s meets. He made All American at UVA, so that’s why I’m headed there.”

“Where do you jump?”

“My dad drives me down to Lehigh two nights a week. See, we’re from Allentown, so we know everybody down there. So I jump twice a week and sometimes compete on the weekends. Plus lifting and running. I’ll be ready this spring.”

Awesome. Her father comes into the gym, fully dressed now, and calls to her. “We’d better get moving, honey.”

“Okay.” She slaps the ball to me. “See ya, Jay.”

“Yeah.”

I shoot a few more free throws, but I can’t concentrate. That girl is light-years ahead of me.

Thanksgiving is the first major holiday I’ve ever spent alone. I sleep late, eat a bowl of Cheerios, listen to a couple of tapes, read
Sports Illustrated
, stare at the ceiling.

Shorty won’t open until 3 today, so I go downstairs to the bar around noon and put on a football game. I look at the phone a few times; I have to call my father. Later, though.

I go back upstairs at 2:30, eat another bowl of Cheerios, listen to another tape, read the sports section of yesterday’s newspaper, stare at the ceiling again. Spit asked me to come over, but I told her I had to work. It isn’t true, of course.

I put on my hiking boots, a pair of cotton work gloves, a
heavy sweatshirt and a windbreaker, go down the back stairs, and walk through the alley up to Main Street.

I walk along Main, which is empty of people and traffic. I walk the four blocks to the river against a stiff wind, then cross over to Park Street and head toward the cliff. I pass the YMCA and cross the bridge over the creek, then follow a short dirt path until it starts to climb. You have to use your hands here for a few feet, pulling yourself up with roots and handholds. Then you’re on a real path that circles through the woods, up the hill, toward the cliff that overlooks the town.

I turn off onto another path about three-quarters of the way up, following a ridge that heads into deeper woods. The maple leaves are long fallen, curled brown and frozen underfoot. There are tiny flakes of snow coming down, just on the snow side of frozen rain. The wind is icy. It feels like winter.

“You should have gone down to New Jersey.” He sounds disappointed, but concerned. My father.

“I had no way to get there.”

“Oh, come on. She would have driven up. You know that.”

“I didn’t feel like it.”

“Please call her.”

“I will.”

“I mean now. As soon as you hang up with me.”

“Yeah.”

There’s a long silence. I’m in the tiny hallway between the bathrooms at the diner, standing next to the pay phone.

“Jay.”

“Dad.”

“You want to come out here?”

“No.” I don’t say it as strongly as I feel it. “Not really.”

“You can come now. Finish school out here.”

“Screw that.”

“You’re still coming when you graduate?”

“If I graduate.”

“What do mean, if?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think school’s the place for me anymore. I got cut from the basketball team.”

“So you want to quit school because of basketball?”

“Not just that.”

I hear him take a big breath and an exhale. “Listen. This isn’t the best time to talk about all this. You’re upset because you got cut and you’re alone on a day that we’ve always been together. Things will be looking better by the weekend, I’m sure.”

He’s probably right. “I know,” I say.

“They will. Now call your mom. Call collect. And call me back in a couple of days. Okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you, kid.”

“I know.”

“Keep your chin up.”

“See ya.”

I hang up. The diner is virtually empty—who eats at a diner on Thanksgiving? But I’m starving and I don’t feel like having Cheerios again. So I take a booth.

There are two old burnouts way down the end of the counter drinking coffee, a guy about my father’s age at the register, and the new waitress. We’re the only people in here.

The waitress smiles at me and comes over with a question
ing kind of look on her face. “Hi,” she says. Her name tag says Brenda.

“Hey.”

“Just you?” she says.

“Uh, yeah. Just need a quick bite.”

“Oh. You need a menu?”

“Nah.”

“Okay. Well we have turkey and stuff. Maybe you already had enough of that today?”

I smile and nod, lying with my gestures. “I think I’ll get chicken salad on a roll. With, um, fries and a Coke.”

“Sure. You want cranberry sauce? We’re giving it away.”

“Nah. Maybe a salad, though.”

“Okay.”

She comes back two minutes later with the Coke and a big bowl of salad. There’s extra things in it like raw broccoli and carrot sticks. The waitress is wearing a white T-shirt and black jeans, and her ponytail is starting to unravel.

“The sandwich’ll be ready in a minute,” she says.

“Thanks.”

She walks away nicely and I feel the kind of pang I’ve been getting a lot of lately.

After she brings the sandwich, she goes to the end of the counter to check on the coffee guys, then comes back down to my end and sits at a booth in the corner. There are about twenty small clear salt shakers on the table, and she starts filling them from one of those big cylindrical containers, leaning way over so she doesn’t spill any. She’s more or less on the periphery of my vision, so I can watch her without being obvious. When I glance up, the guy at the register is giving me a look.
Maybe that’s her father, I don’t know. But he doesn’t like the way I’m looking at her, and he’s probably right about that.

I ought to tell her that I work at Shorty’s. Maybe she’ll come by. Spit’s playing tomorrow night; it would be fun, even though I’ll be working.

She comes over and asks if everything’s all right. I say it’s great. “You’re new, huh?” I say.

“Yeah. We just moved here. So I’m stuck working the holiday.”

“I know the feeling.”

“You too?”

“Not today. But all weekend. Over there,” I say, pointing across the street. “At Shorty’s.”

“What is that, a bar?”

“Yeah. Good place.”

“You tend bar?”

“Uh, no. I cook.”

“Oh. That’s what my boyfriend does. He made that sandwich.”

Shit. “Oh,” I say. “He works here?”

“Yeah. We both do.”

So much for that idea.

“I’ll get your check,” she says. “Unless you want some dessert or something.”

“No. I gotta get out of here. But thank you.”

“All righty.”

F
riday night Spit comes in during a break. Shorty lets her keep wine and beer for the band in here so they don’t have to go up to the bar. She takes a wine bottle out of the refrigerator and pours a big glassful.

“What’s up?” she says.

“Not much. Good crowd.”

“Definitely.” She reaches into her pocket and takes a fat white pill out of a prescription bottle. “I still got that crappy throat from this cold,” she says.

“What’d you do, go to a doctor?”

“No. I found these in my mother’s medicine cabinet.”

“Oh.”

“I better take two,” she says. “This cold sucks.” She chases them down with half the glass of wine and wipes her mouth. She punches her chest with a fist, her bracelets bouncing on her bare arm. “Righteous,” she says. She shakes her head and gives me a goofy smile.

I keep getting visitors. Bo sticks his head in around midnight and gives me that faintly theatrical look, wide-eyed, like he freezes for a second, expressing mock surprise at finding me here. That’s how he greets everybody.

Bo’s maybe twenty-two, but he’s a comfortable regular. He’s small, with long curly hair and a little blond beard. He’s always wearing a Harley-Davidson painter’s cap, and he’s an expert with a cigarette. Everybody likes him, the way he nurses a beer. Even the old guys who’ve been coming here forever and won’t change their routines for nothing. They’re out there tonight, on their regular stools. They don’t care if Spit’s on and it’s wall-to-wall kids, or it’s a weeknight with the TV and three other old guys.

“Bo,” I say.

He nods. “Keeping busy?”

“Not too right now,” I say. “What’s going on out there?”

“Take a look.”

I come to the door. It’s the regular scene. At least the regular scene when Spit’s group is playing. Lots of denim and bare navels. Navels and those little green bottles of Rolling Rock seem to go together. Along with Marlboro Lights, I’m afraid.

I clean up the kitchen about 1 o’clock because there’s not likely to be more orders. The band is still on when I finish, so I lean against the doorframe to catch the end of the set. The room is still pretty full; a few girls are dancing, and a few couples. The frenzy level is high, and the noise, but Spit is gyrating very
slowly, eyes closed, furiously singing “Ironbound” in the bright white light:

Julie the elbow-icer is one of the ones on the floor, dancing with her girlfriends. I melt a little more. A scruffy guy in a loose flannel shirt with brown and black squares moves over and motions something like “you want to dance?” She grins and shifts her attention toward him. They dance until the song ends, then he asks if he can buy her a drink. She smiles and says, “no thanks.” He gives a sheepish smile and goes back to the bar. Another song starts and one of Julie’s girlfriends comes over to her. I see her raise her eyebrows and they laugh and start dancing again.

I’m the boy who washes dishes, who’s not even supposed to be out here. But I’m watching her dance and it’s like I’m an arm’s length from cracking this, an arm’s length that might as well be a light-year.

I go out in the alley, look up at the moon. It’s one of those clear, cold nights, and though the bar is noisy you can step out into the lot and be right in your own quiet space.

The church league. I guess that has to be my answer. No sense giving it up now. The cold air feels right against my face, here in this corner of the evening.

Spit’s in the kitchen when I go back, leaning against the table. “Thirsty as hell,” she says. She takes another dose of the
antibiotic and chugs another glass of wine. “You okay, bud? You look, I don’t know … odd.”