Part 29 (1/2)
Rostelli came down court, dribbling slowly with his right hand, barking out plays to his teammates. Overplaying his right hand, Ben forced Rostelli to switch hands. He faked as though he were going for the steal, then retreated as Rostelli switched hands and pa.s.sed it to the other guard. ”Next time, next time,” Ben said to himself as he watched the forwards setting screens against Jim Don and Art. The ball came back to Rostelli who dribbled it to the right of the key, Ben overplaying the right hand again, watching, tensing, until the moment Rostelli moved the ball to his left hand. Then Ben broke for the ball, tipped it away from Rostelli, but only barely, sprinting after it with Rostelli matching him step for step, gaining control of the ball, dribbling it behind his back and breaking toward the center of the court where he heard Pinkie's shout coming into his left ear. He felt Rostelli on his right but he was moving fast now, and faster, till he felt himself rising toward the basket, the ball rolling off his fingertips, and an arm cras.h.i.+ng over his shoulder as Rostelli came over him, lunging for the ball that was dropping through the net.
”Good move,” Rostelli said, offering a hand to pull him off the floor.
”The basket is good,” the referee motioned to the scorer's table. ”Number thirteen will shoot one.”
”Thirteen charged, ref,” Bull cried out.
In the first half Ben scored eighteen points. Plays and moves, embedded in him, poured out of him. Twice more he stole the ball from the opposing guard, dribbled the length of the court, and laid the ball gently in the white square painted on the gla.s.s backboard. Three times he left Rostelli on reverse dribbles and drove the center of the lane before the forward could react and rush to prevent the intrusion, to repel the attack of the little man in the area of the court marked out for giants. Always, there was the quick, unantic.i.p.ated move. It all took place in a timeless frontier, in fractional divisions of moments unrecallable, as Ben fed on the noise of the crowd, the plankton of applause as he drove and pa.s.sed and shot, as the lungs strained, as the heart thundered, and as the father watched. On the court, the court he loved, the court he ruled at times, Ben felt disembodied, running to the point of exhaustion, but more alive and more human than he would ever be again. Every pore was open to the action swirling around him, every vibration, every stirring, every cheer, every carnivorous roar. The basketball was a part of him, an extension of him because of long years of dribbling around trees, through chairs, down sidewalks, past brothers, away from dogs, past store windows and before the eyes of men and women who thought his fixation was demented at best. But he had lived with a basketball, had paid his dues, and could now exult in this one small skill of boyhood. This sport in all its absurdity did a special thing for Ben Meecham: it made him happy. The court was a testing ground of purpose. There was a reason. There were goals, rewards, and instant punishments for failure. It was life reduced to a set of rules, an existential life, a life clarified by the eyes of fathers.
At half time, Calhoun led by thirteen points. In the locker room Ben drank ice water as though it were a drug. The sweat was hot on his flesh. His teammates pummeled him again and again until his back and shoulders ached. In the gym, Bull paid the director of the pep club band five dollars to play the Marine Corps hymn. Then he made every person in his section of the stands rise and sing the anthem with him. Silently, Lillian and her children left their seats and walked to the opposite side of the gym.
At the start of the second half, Ben hit two quick jump shots in a row. The night again blurred into sprints and slow walks up to the foul line. Every time he shot a foul shot, he heard the crowd stir as he made the sign of the cross. He remembered that he was in the land of the hardsh.e.l.l, the barren hardscrabble of the spirit where the sign of the cross conjured up rich images in lands that had been totally immersed in the waters of a hard-a.s.sed Christ. He ended the game with a drive down the right side and a behind-the-back pa.s.s to Art when Art's man moved over to challenge him. ”Show-off,” he heard Bull say. But then he was mobbed by his teammates and then by a perfumed, hysterical flock of cheerleaders. As Ansley Matthews kissed him and Janice Sanders hung on to his sweating arm, Ben caught a glimpse of Mary Anne watching him from her seat on the bleachers. It crossed his mind that he had never seen her so sad, but then Carol Huger kissed him on the mouth and the boys who had been cut surrounded him and walked with him to the locker room.
Rebel yells resonated through the steel lockers and sc.r.a.ped along the cinderblock walls. Fathers lined the dark hallway that led to the locker room. They were smoking cigarettes and reaching out to touch the sweating forms of the starters as they glided past them. Not a single father touched a boy from the second string even if it was his own son. The fathers whose sons had played merited a more aggrandized status in the fraternity of older men who queued along the pa.s.sageway. They pounded Ben as he ran their gauntlet. Bull was not among them. He would be waiting outside in his squadron car preparing an exhaustive critique of Ben's performance.
When Ben entered the locker room, Art lifted him off his feet and danced him from one end of the locker room to the other, spinning in circles and singing the fight song of Calhoun High. The players had begun to peel the sweaty uniforms from their bodies. The scrubs who had not played removed their warmups that still smelled of detergent and their mothers' hands. Mr. Dacus moved down the long bench slapping b.u.t.tocks and punching shoulders. ”Jim Don, you ain't worth a tinker's d.a.m.n,” he shouted at the large forward. ”Artie, what's wrong with you? You played well tonight.”
Art put Ben down, ran over and began to shadowbox with Mr. Dacus. ”Did you see me sky tonight, Mr. D.? I was jumpin' so high I felt like I was part n.i.g.g.e.r.”
When Mr. Dacus reached Ben, he grabbed him in a headlock and said, ”You sorry d.a.m.n p.i.s.sant. You're going to be sweet as potato pie if you learn to play both ends of the court. Work on your defense, Ben. Otherwise, it was a great game.”
”Thanks, Mr. Dacus.”
”We ain't beat West Charleston in ten years,” Pinkie screamed.
”f.u.c.king A,” Mumford said.
”You've got to score more, Philip,” Ben heard Mr. Dacus say. ”You've got to look for the basket. You treat that ball like it's radioactive.”
”I get more satisfaction out of making good pa.s.ses than I do scoring, Mr. Dacus,” Philip answered. ”Anyway, I didn't feel very good tonight.”
”You sick?” the princ.i.p.al asked.
”Yeah,” Pinkie said, entering the conversation, ”Prince Philip's got the Mongolian Zinch disease.”
”What's that, Pinkie?” Ben asked.
”Everything he eats turns to s.h.i.+t,” Pinkie said.
The locker room exploded with laughter until Jim Don said, ”All right, let's hold it down in here or I'm gonna have to kick a.s.s and take names later.”
”You going to whip my a.s.s, Jim Don?” Mr. Dacus asked.
”Naw, Mr. D., I'm gonna let you slip out the back door before I commence to doling out fist burgers.”
”Meecham got thirty!” the manager cried.
”Jesus H. Christ!” someone said.
”Who's got some greasy kid stuff I can use after I clean my gorgeous body?” Art asked.
”Philip's got some,” Pinkie answered. ”Hey, Prince. You gonna let me use some of that English Leather jungle juice?”
”Why don't you buy your own s.h.i.+t,” Philip snapped.
”Because my old man don't own the whole f.u.c.king state of South Carolina,” Pinkie answered.
”Sure, Pinkie, I was just kidding.”
”Hey, Pinkie,” Art called. ”What do you think of the r.e.c.t.u.m as a whole?”
”I think it ought to be wiped out.”
A transistor radio tuned' to the Big APE radio in Jacksonville blared through the locker room with a song by Peter, Paul, and Mary. Then the Big Ape bellowed. The first shower burst against the tile floors of the shower room and plumes of steam inched along the ceiling and flowed down the walls. Ben rose naked from the bench and walked slowly to the shower room. The place where his uniform lay made a wet spot on the cement floor. He would be sore tomorrow, he knew, for already the stiffness was settling into trembling half-cramped leg muscles. The body always demanded and received payment for the punishment it endured in a basketball game.
Ben turned on a shower at the end of the room and stepped into water as hot as he could bear. The sweat burned off his body in an instant. He stuck his hand under the spray and felt the blood rush through his body. In a minute all ten showers were in use. The steam was so thick that the players were vague, ethereal forms in the mist. Only their voices remained clear.
”Pinkie, T.C. O'Quinn says he can take your 'fifty Ford any day of the week and twice on Sunday,” Jim Don said.
”s.h.i.+t, that car of mine's souped up better than Campbell's. What's O'Quinn been running?”
”He says he's got it up to one-twenty.”
”Big deal.”
”That's in second gear.”
”Bulls.h.i.+t.”
”s.h.i.+t. Pinkie's car can stop on a dime and give you nine cents change,” Art said.
”We ain't discussin' stoppin',” Jim Don said, ”we's discussin' racin'.”
”Pinkie's car got more horses under that hood than a John Wayne movie and you and T.C. O'Quinn both know it,” Art said.
”f.u.c.king A,” Mumford said.
”Shut up, Mumford,” Jim Don shouted. ”Who asked you anyway. You ain't even circ.u.mcised.”
”Did you hear that Pamela Wall swallowed a watermelon seed?” Art said.
”Odum Bell ain't gonna marry her either,” Pinkie added. ”She's going to that home in Charleston.”
”If I'd known she was giving it away for free, I'd have played hide the banana with her myself,” Jim Don said.
”Pamela had peanut b.u.t.ter legs all right,” Art said, his head under the shower, ”smooth and easily spread.”
”I heard her old man just beat the livin' s.h.i.+t out of her when he found out.”
”s.h.i.+t, I could have told him she's only been screwed twice that I knowed of,” Pinkie said. ”Once by the football team and once by the band.”