Jonathan Lethem - The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye

In a minute they had him on his feet, and the crowd started buzzing again, which made things feel more normal. Pharaoh walked with his head bowed, while the doctor peeled the exosuit away from his damaged wrist. They hurried him off towards the trainer’s room and a couple of kids with towels rushed over and wiped the sweat off the floor where he’d fallen.

Coach Van slapped me on the ass. “Wake up, Lassner. Get in there.”

I stumbled out onto the floor and we restarted the game. We’d built up a good lead, and even without Pharaoh or Elwood available we cruised to victory — mostly on the strength of Gorman’s play, I have to admit. He was the only one on the floor who didn’t seem a little stunned by Pharaoh’s going down. I did my best to fill the role of Gorman’s protector, though I must admit I felt a renegade urge to do what Elwood would have wanted, and leave him out there naked.

At the start of the fourth quarter, before Coach Van pulled the starters out, it hit me that with me, McFront, and Vanilla Dunk our entire frontcourt was white — the first time the Knicks had more whites than blacks on the floor since I joined the team.

Sal Pharaoh had broken his right wrist in the fall, and he’d be out for at least six weeks, probably more — I learned that from the television in our hotel room that night. Elwood burst in half an hour later, and he learned it from me.

What it meant, of course, was that I was the starting center for the time being. It also meant good things for Elwood, if he behaved himself. With Pharaoh out he was our only enforcer, so he’d probably get the nod over McFront. With me in instead of Pharaoh we also lost a lot on defense and rebounding, and Elwood was a better defender and rebounder than McFront.

On the other hand, Pharaoh had served as a buffer between Gornan and Elwood — also between Gorman and the rest of the league, all those teams frustrated by being beaten by a white hotdog who was getting more endorsements in his rookie year than they’d see for their whole careers. I wasn’t going to be able to serve that role. I wasn’t strong enough, or black enough. That role fell to Elwood. The two of them had to play together or the team was in trouble.

Two nights later, in L.A., against the Time Warner Lakers, I saw that the team was in trouble.

The Lakers were a team that would have tested us with Pharaoh on the floor. It was bad timing that we hit them on the first night without him, and the first night since Elwood’s walkout. We should have had a patsy, a fall guy, to give us confidence, to give Elwood and Gornan a chance to have some fun together. No such luck.

In the first quarter Gornan was playing his usual game, to the delight of the crowd. He was scoring a lot of the time but we weren’t coming up with any rebounds, and our defense had nothing, and very quickly the Lakers were up by ten points. I got all passive, started leaning on my jumpshot, and left the inside open, waiting for Elwood to take over. But Elwood was invisible. He was playing man-to-man defense so stubbornly that he had nothing left for the fast break. He was putting on a clinic, demonstrating what Gornan was doing wrong, but Gorman wasn’t paying any attention, and the crowd didn’t have the faintest idea what was going on.

At halftime the Lakers were fifteen points up, and in the second half things really started breaking down. Gornan tried to compensate the only way he knew how, by diving for ridiculous steals, hogging the ball even more, putting on an air show. He got fouled so hard I actually started to get a little worried about him, but each time he jumped back up with a grin. I tried to play a little post-up but the Lakers’ center, who had Artis Gilmore’s skills, was making me look stupid. Our guards were working the margins, trying to get us into the game from the perimeter, but the Lakers were picking up every rebound, so missed shots from the outside were very costly.

Elwood lost his patience, started falling off the defense and trying to mount a show of his own. As usual he strung together some impressive slams, and for a minute the momentum seemed ours, but another minute later he racked up two fouls in a row and the Lakers beefed up their score at the free throw line. There isn’t any way to defend against free throws — not that anyone was playing defense.

Gorman responded as only he could, by taking up increasingly improbable moves. They had two or three guys on him every time he touched the ball, and he was turning it over a lot. He was airborne, but a lot of balls were being stripped away on the way up.

By the fourth quarter I was exhausted, and humiliated. Coach Van called a time out and I jogged reflexively towards the bench, but he wasn’t taking me out. He subbed McFront in for Elwood and sent in another rookie for Gorman. We lost the game by 23 points, our worst margin of the season so far.

We lost in a similar fashion the next night, and at the end Coach Van called me and Elwood and Gornan into his office. I assumed the idea was to mediate between the two of them, and that I was there more or less as Elwood’s official interpreter.

“What’s happening, guys?” said Coach Van.

Gornan jumped right in. “We need a center who can play, Coach.”

“What?” I blurted.

“Sorry, man,” said Gorman. “But let’s face facts.”

“I was starting for this team before you—”

“Whoa,” said Coach Van. “Relax, Bo. Alan, that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Seems to me the team is suffering from what I’d call a feud.”

“Feud?” Gorman played completely dumb. Elwood just sulked in his chair.

“I don’t care about the personal stuff,” said Coach Van. “It’s a matter of how you play. You have to play like you like each other. You have to be able to pretend on the court. You guys don’t seem to be managing it.”

“Hey, me and Bo get along fine,” said Gorman. “Far as I know. But he’s just not as strong as Pharaoh under the net. If me and Elwood’s games are hurting, that’s the reason why.”

“This is ridiculous,” I said. Gorman’s strategy began to dawn on me. He was going to pretend he hadn’t even noticed Elwood’s hostility. It was instinctively brilliant, and vicious. He’d avoid the appearance of a black-white conflict by cutting me down instead.

I looked over at Elwood, but he wasn’t offering me any help.

“Look,” said Gornan. “Me and Elwood are playing the same as when the team was winning. Lassner here is the difference.”

“Are you gonna take this?” I said to Elwood. “He’s saying that the way you’ve been playing in the last few games is your normal game. Can’t you see what a veiled insult that is? You can play a hell of a lot better—”

“You getting down on my game, Lassner?” growled Elwood. “You a fine one to fucking talk, man.”

“No, no, I mean, I’m just trying to say, look at what he’s saying—”

“Enough, Bo. Be quiet for a minute. Maybe I’ve misunderstood the situation—”

“Coach,” I protested, “Gornan is twisting this—”

“Enough! I don’t know the details, I don’t want to know the details. What matters is the chemistry sucks right now. All three of you are playing below your capabilities. That’s my opinion, and I’ve told ownership as much, and I’ll tell the press the same when we get home. That’s all for now.”

End of meeting.

We lost the last two games of the road trip and flew back to New York. On the plane I slept and dreamed of missed shots. The cabbie who took me back to my Brooklyn apartment asked me how I felt about the trade.

“What trade?” I asked, and the cabbie just said, “I’m sorry.”

The Disney Heat were a mediocre team with one big star: Gerald Flynnan, their center. He played with the skills of Hakeem Olajuwon, and he carried their team to the lower rounds of the playoffs each year, but no further. The rest of the team was talented but young, disorganized, and possibly stupid.