Роберт Паркер - Edenville Owls

“Me too,” Billy said.

They began to drift away.

“You coming, Bobby?” Russell asked me.

“Nope.”

Russell stood still for a minute and then shook his head.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, and went after the other guys.

Standing alone in the dark on the empty street, I felt like a fool. My eyes teared a little. What a jerk, I thought. You thought it would be like the movies. Stake out the house and in two minutes the bad guys show up and the action starts. The movies didn’t show you the hero standing around in the cold hour after hour, needing to take a leak, wishing he had something to eat. Getting nowhere. Seeing nothing. Doing no good. And what about friendship? All those war movies where guys were heroically dying for each other. A little boredom. A little cold weather and the Owls flew away in the night. The hell with them. But I couldn’t say the hell with them. We had a game tomorrow. I looked at the blank ungrateful front of the two-family house where Miss Delaney lived. There were things you can’t do anything about. The thought scared me. It made me feel kind of helpless. But there it was. I turned and headed home.

ON Saturday morning, at the high school, we played a team from Alton. The Alton team was a lot better than the guys we played before. They had a coach, and they knew how to play. But except for number 22, they couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean.

Russell was, as usual, taller than the other center, and we were able to get him the ball close to the basket. Billy was hitting his outside set shot from behind the screens we set up for him. And Manny was getting his share of the rebounds.

But number 22 was keeping them in the game. He was one of those kids who probably shaved in the seventh grade. He had muscles. He was fast. Sometimes he would shoot a layup with his left hand. He was deadly from the outside. But if you played up on him to stop the outside shot, he would drive past you and go in for the layup.

We tried double-teaming him. But they would spread the floor and he would pass the ball to the open man the minute he was double-teamed. Then we would run back to guard that guy and they’d pass back to number 22, and he was one on one again before we could get back to him.

In the middle of the second half he had eighteen points, and Alton was beating us by four, when we called a timeout.

We were all breathing hard. We had no subs. We played the full game every time. But we weren’t breathing as hard as we used to.

“We gotta do something about twenty-two,” I said.

“Double-teaming him doesn’t work,” Russell said.

“We gotta put someone on him that has no other assignment. Whoever guards twenty-two doesn’t have to score or rebound or help bring the ball up. He just stays with twenty-two.”

“Worth a try,” Manny said.

“Who?” Billy said.

“Nick’s the best athlete on the team,” I said.

Everybody nodded. All of us, including Nick, knew that was true.

“I’ll take him,” Nick said.

“Okay,” I said. “We’ll basically forget about you on offense. If you can score too, fine. But your job is to stay right in twenty-two’s face the rest of the way.”

“Gonna ruin your scoring average,” Russell said.

“Then it’ll be down with yours,” Nick said.

“Don’t get caught fouling him,” I told him. “We got nobody else, remember. You foul out and we’re screwed.”

Nick nodded.

“And if he wants to pass, let him,” I said. “What we want is the ball out of his hands.”

“I’m on him,” Nick said. “He’s a dead man.”

We brought the ball in at midcourt. I got it to Manny in the corner, who passed into Russell, who shot over his man with a little turn around. We were within two.

Number 22 normally brought the ball up, and when Alton passed in to him under their own basket, Nick was right up on him, in a crouch, arms extended, eyes focused on the middle of 22’s stomach. It’s nearly impossible to fake with your stomach. It has to go where you go. Number 22 tried to go around him, and Nick kept his feet moving and stayed in front of him. He tried the other way, dribbling with his left hand. Nick stayed with him. Number 22 got frustrated and ran straight into Nick, and the referee called him for charging and we got the ball.

I brought it up, and when we got to the top of the key, we went into a four-man weave without Nick. Nick was staying next to 22. Which meant that 22 had to guard him, so the rest of us were four on four. Billy put up another set shot. It rimmed out, and Manny got the rebound and put it back up, and we were tied.

And that’s how it stayed. Back and forth so that with two minutes left we were still tied. Number 22 had not scored in more than five minutes, and he was clearly tired. During breaks in the game he would stand bent over with his hands on his knees. Nick bothered him so much that Alton had someone else bring the ball up. Nick stayed up on 22. Once 22 tried to cut to the basket without the ball and Nick blocked his way. Then 22 shoved him. Nick stepped away smiling.

“Now, now,” he said.

Number 22 took a swing at him. And missed. Nick backed away, still smiling, with his hands raised, palms forward. The referee stepped in between them and threw 22 out for fighting. Nick, grinning, waved bye-bye to him as he went to the bench.

Nick hit both his foul shots, and, without 22, Alton folded. We won the game by eight points, and when it was over, we charged Nick, all the Owls. I got there first and hugged him and then we all piled on him, hugging him, pounding him on the back.

In our run for the tourney we were two and oh.

It was late afternoon on Saturday. I was in the town library reading The New York Times. I’d never been to New York. But reading the Times allowed me to feel like I knew something about a world of excitement I had never seen. I could read box scores for the Yankees and the Giants and the Dodgers. I could read about famous actors in plays I’d never seen, and famous singers and comedians in nightclubs I’d heard about on Manhattan Merry Go Round. I could read about Toots Shore’s, and Jack Dempsey’s, and the Stork Club, and fights at Madison Square Garden and St. Nicholas arena. I knew what Tammany Hall was. I knew where Billie Holiday was performing, and Duke Ellington. I knew who was at Carnegie Hall. I knew about Greenwich Village.

Joanie came in and sat down at the library table beside me.

“What are you reading?” she said.

“New York Times,” I said.

I liked telling her that.

“You ever been to New York?” she said.

“Not yet,” I said.

“But you will,” she said.

“Sure,” I said. “I’m not staying in Edenville the rest of my life.”

“You want to move?” she asked.

“No. But even if I stay here to live,” I said, “I want to travel and stuff.”

“What kind of work do you want to do when you’re, you know, a grown-up?” Joanie said.

“I want to be a writer,” I said.

“Like for a newspaper or something?”

“No,” I said. “I want to write books.”

“Books?”

“Yes.”

“Wow,” Joanie said. “I never heard of anybody wanting to write books.”

“Well, now you have,” I said. “How about you? What do you want to do?”

“I’m supposed to marry a nice man, live in a nice house, have enough money, have nice children,” she said. “You know?”

“Stay here?”

“I guess so,” Joanie said. “I think I’m supposed to go where my husband’s job takes us.”

“You sound funny about it,” I said. “You want to get married?”