Craig Davidson - Rust and Bone - Stories

The episode passes and everything’s a bit cheerier when I get back outside. Jason and the girl are gone. Lola’s cleared away the bottles and settled the bill. Pocket the change, leave no tip. The Rottweiler barks wrathfully—has it been trained to sniff out skinflints like those airport drug dogs? “Hush’n, Biscuits,” comes Lola’s voice from inside.

With a few minutes to spare before Jason’s game, pop into the liquor store. A homeless man squats outside the door begging bus fare. Where’s the guy need to get to so badly? He doesn’t ask anything from me. Wander air-conditioned aisles, past cognacs and brandies and aged scotch whiskies, arriving at a cooler stocked with screw-top Rieslings, boxed Chardonnays and malt liquors. Settle on a smoky brown bottle, label stamped with a snorting bull: a plucky malt best enjoyed on those occasions one finds oneself a bit down at the heel. Paying the cashier with the coins my son hadn’t bothered to pick up, it strikes me I may’ve hit a new low.

It’s not kosher to drink in public so I hunt through the liquor store dumpster. An empty Big Gulp cup—bingo! A wasp inside, big angry bastard must’ve crawled down the straw to get at the crystallized globes of Orange Crush clinging to the waxed insides. It buzzes away as I pour in the contents of the brown bottle, re-fasten the lid, and step onto the sidewalk well pleased with this subterfuge. Sucking merrily on the neon pink straw, I pause to consider who else’s lips it may’ve come in contact with. Could’ve been anybody, you got to figure—a bum’s, Christ, some scabby diseased bum, cracked lips rich with fungal deposits and now I’m wondering if 7-Eleven even sells soda to the homeless, if they conduct a brisk trade with this sort of clientele, and while I come to the reasonable conclusion that no, they clearly do not, I cannot help but feel the earlier sense of lowness I experienced was merely a staging area, a jumping-off point for this profound, near-subterranean, even lower low.

A TEEMING THRONG rings the championship court. Shove through the mob with an air of boozy entitlement—it’s my son they’re gawking at, isn’t it?—to find the game’s already started. Jason’s team is matched against a trio of blacks whose voices betray an upper New York lilt: “trow” for throw, “dat” for that, “dere” for there, “dear” for dare, so what you hear is Trow dat shit up dere—go on, I dear ya! Up from Buffalo with their dusky sunpolished skin, cornrowed hair and trash talk, figuring they’ll take these pasty Canucks to school. Some bozo with a megaphone, the announcer I guess, does not call the game so much as cap each play with an annoying catchphrase: “Boo- YA! ” or “Boom-shakalaka!” or “Dipsee-doo dunkaroo!” or “Ye-ye-ye-ye-ye-ye- YEAH! ” or just “Ohhh, SNAP! ”

The other team is up 7-4 when Jason takes the ball at the top of the key. He dribbles right and bounces a pass to Al Cousy on the low block. Al rolls off his man, elevates and fires a one-legged jumper that clanks off rim.

“Don’t pass to stone hands!” I cry. “Jesus, son—use your head! ”

The other team’s point guard executes a smooth crossover dribble— an ankle-snapper —catching Jason flatfooted. Kevin Maravich shuffles over on helpside defense but the guard flicks the ball to Kevin’s check, who dunks two-handed and gorilla-hangs on the rim.

“Biggedy- BAM! ” hollers the announcer.

Jason keeps passing to his tits-on-a-bull teammates. Kevin gets blocked twice and big Al puts up enough bricks to build a homeless shelter. Their opponents dish out a constant stream of trash: Don’t go bringing that weakass shit in here, bitch—this is my house! Hope you got an umbrella, son—I’m gonna be raining on you all day! Boy, my game’s so ill I make medicine sick! The ref, a balding old shipwreck in frayed zebra getup, lets the Yanks get away with murder: pushes, holds, flagrant elbows. I give it to him both barrels.

“Hey ref, if you had one more eye you’d be a cyclops!”

“Hey ref, Colonel Mustard called—he said get a clue!”

“Hey ref, if your IQ was any lower someone’d have to water you!”

Spectators snorting and laughing, a beefy mitt slams between my shoulder blades and someone says, “Thattaboy—stick it to the man!” Take a haul on my drink and for a long vacant moment feel nothing but relentless seething hatred for the ref, the opposing team, Jason’s teammates, anyone and everyone trying to stop him from reaching the goal he’s destined for, stifle the gift that’ll take him out of this rinkydink town, far from the do-nothing go-nowhere be-nobody yokels surrounding me.

The score’s 13-4 and Jason hasn’t taken a shot. He kicks the ball to Al who kicks it back, a stinging bullet hitting Jason in the chest. “What are you doing? Take it, man.” Jason stab-steps his defender, gives him a brisk shake-n-bake, shoots. As soon as the ball leaves his hands, you know it’s good. It passes through so clean the net loops up over the hoop and that sound —dear god, almost sexual .

“This guy’s dialed in long distance!” the announcer brays.

Jason picks the point guard’s pocket on the next possession, clears beyond the three-point arc, fires. Swish . 13-9.

“He’s shooting the lights out, folks!”

The point guard muscles past Jason but Kevin gets a hand in his face and the shot misses short left. Al gobbles up the rebound and shovels it to Jason. The defensive rotation’s slow and he gets a clean look from twenty-two feet, burying it. 13-12 and now the other team’s a bit frazzled; “C’mon, naa,” the point guard says. “D-up. We gut these bitches.”

But it’s too late: Jason’s entered some kind of zone. Wherever he is on the court, no matter how tight the coverage, he’s draining it. Running one-hander from the elbow—good. Fadeaway three-ball with a defender down his throat—good. High-arcing teardrop in traffic—good. In my head I’m hearing Marv Albert, longtime New York Knickerbockers play-by-play man and purloiner of women’s undergarments: Mikan takes the ball at the top of the circle, shakes his man, hoists up a prayer— YESSSSS! Twisting circus shot around two defenders—good. Step-back three launched from another zipcode—good. The lead’s flipped, 22-17; the Yanks’ faces are stamped with grimaces of utter disbelief.

“This cat’s got the skills to pay the bills, ladies and gentlemen!”

Throughout this shooting display Jason’s expression never changes: a vacant, vaguely disgusted look like he’s sniffed something rank. He doesn’t follow the ball after it leaves his hand, as though unwilling to chart its inevitable drop through the hoop. If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think he wants to miss. Scan the crowd for a familiar face, my shitheel supervisor Mr. Riley maybe— See that, asshole? That’s my son! My good genes MADE that! What did your genes ever make, Riley? Oh, that’s right—a few stains on the bedsheets and a PUSSY TAX CONSULTANT!

The game-winning shot’s a doozy. Jason passes down to Al, who is blocked but corrals the ball and shuttles it to Jason. The other point guard’s tight to his vest and Jason backs off, dribbling the ball high. Maybe it’s just the malt liquor but at this moment he appears to move in a cocoon of beatific light: glowing sundogs and sparkling scintillas robe his arms and legs. He goes right but so does his defender, swiping at the ball, almost stealing it. They’re down along the baseline, Jason’s heels nearly out of bounds and he shoots falling into the crowd, a dozen arms outstretched to cradle him and as he’s going down I hear him say, in a small defeated voice, “Glass.” The ball banks high off the backboard and through the net.