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

Knicks management had offered me, Elwood, and a first round lottery pick to the Heat in exchange for Flynnan, and the Disney team had taken the bait. The Knicks picked up a dominant center to replace the injured Pharaoh, and to fill his shoes in protecting Vanilla Dunk. And they’d gotten rid of the tension in their frontcourt by unloading Elwood; McFront and Dunk would start.

What the Heat got was a mid-season mess: an angry, talented star and a tall white guy with a jumpshot. The lottery spot wouldn’t help the team until next year. Elwood and I were flown down and in the Disney uniforms before we knew what hit us, and the coach tossed us into a game before we’d even had a chance to introduce ourselves to the other players.

The result was an ugly loss, but then the players there seemed pretty used to that.

The crowd too. The Disney fans were a jaded, abusive bunch, mostly concerned with heckling Coach Wilder for not playing local favorite Earlham “Early” Natt, a talented eccentric who carried the skills of Marvin Barnes. At the start of the game they cheered Elwood and greeted me with shouts of “Where’s Gerald?” but by halftime they were drinking beer and shouting for Early Natt, a request which Coach Wilder ignored except in the final, hopeless moments of each game. Natt looked pretty dynamic when he got in, which explained the crowd’s affection. He also paid zero attention to defense or team play, which explained the coach’s resistance.

The same pattern held in the two losses that followed.

That brought us to the all-star break. Elwood and I were 0–3 with our new team, and nobody was particularly happy. I couldn’t figure Elwood — he was playing quiet, walking quiet, and, I suspected, mixing a little thinking in with his brooding. For my part I was just trying to keep my head above water — to my embarrassment, I was too out-of-shape not to be exhausted by starting every night. Plus management and media caught on that I was the communicative one of the new pair, which meant I was answering questions for me and Elwood both.

The all-star break gave us most of a week before we played again, and Elwood surprised me by suggesting we get out of town. He’d located a beach hotel on Key West with a nearby high-school gym we could rent. I agreed. Without having to say so, we were both avoiding paying any attention to the all-star game, which was sure to be yet another installment of the Vanilla Dunk show.

Elwood shocked me again by getting up first that morning, to rouse me out of bed. He called up a breakfast on room service; I swear in all our years rooming together I’d never seen him pick up a phone before.

At the gym he said, “Okay, Lassner. I’m gonna teach your tall white ass how to play a trapping defense.”

“What?”

“You heard.”

“What is this punishment for, Elwood? What did I do? Just tell me.”

“Here—” He threw me the ball.

And proceeded to do exactly what he’d promised.

The next day word had got around — possibly with Elwood’s help, I never found out — that a couple of pros were working out in the local gym. Six guys showed up: confident, tall kids out to impress, all lean and strong from boating on the island, a couple of them with real talent. Elwood worked them into the clinic he was giving me, and they and he spent the next four days busting my ass.

I went back to Miami exhausted, and Elwood still wouldn’t tell me what he was getting at.

It quickly became clear, however, that he’d been looking at the schedule. The first team we played after the break was the Knicks. That afternoon in practice, while the rest of the team was drilling, he took Coach Wilder aside.

“Let me call the plays tonight,” he said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“What?”

“Let me call the plays.” He actually smiled.

“We’re playing the Knicks.”

“Exactly.”

“What are you saying, Elwood?”

“You traded for me, man. Give me a night to run the show. One night. If you don’t like the results we go back to your way tomorrow. Nobody will ever know.”

I walked over to show my support — for what, I didn’t exactly know. “Give him a half, at least,” I said.

“He did this in New York?” asked Coach Wilder. “Called plays?”

“Yes,” I lied.

Elwood pulled Early Natt off the bench as we took the floor at the start of the game, saying to him only, “Go crazy.”

I got Elwood aside. “Okay,” I said. “I’ve waited long enough. What’s the deal here, Elwood?”

“We’re gonna defend these mothers,” he said. “That’s the deal. Our guards can play a zone defense if they hang back. You and me are boxing out Dunk, taking the rebounds, stripping the ball. Don’t hold anything back.”

“What’s Early doing?”

“Cherry-picking. Outdunking the Dunk.”

“I never saw Marvin Barnes play,” I said, “but I didn’t think he could hang with Michael Jordan. Early is stupid, Elwood.”

“We’re not playing against Michael Jordan,” said Elwood. “We’re playing against Vanilla Dunk. Jordan had an integrated game. The best there ever was. Dunk’s just a show. I’ve played a little one-on-one with Early. He can put on a show if he doesn’t have to think about defense or passing, and if the coach isn’t breathing down his neck. That’s our job, Lassner. Keep Early from having to think about anything. He’ll put on a show. Trust me.”

Gerald Flynnan, the Knicks’ new center, beat me on the tip-off, so the Knicks came up with the ball. I followed Elwood’s lead — after the week of drills, it was second nature. We charged the ball, my hands up wide and high to block the pass, Elwood’s hands low for the steal off the dribble. Our guards scurried behind us on the zone defense, picking up the slack.

Otis Pettingale beat us on a headfake and went up. Score: Gulf and Western 2, Disney o.

One of our guards fed it in to me, and Elwood hissed, “Up to Early!” I did what I was told. Early Natt was halfway up the court. He twisted through three Knicks, not looking back to see if he had any support, and scored. Tie game.

The second time up the court the ball was in Vanilla Dunk’s hands, and Elwood seemed to go into another time signature. He was all over him. Dunk dribbled back and circled and came up again. I put up my hands and cut off a pass opportunity. Dunk hesitated, and Elwood stripped the ball away. A flip pass upcourt into Early’s hands and we were ahead.

The crowd went wild. Not because they had any idea what me and Elwood were up to, but because Early was in the game, showing off, doing the only thing he knew how to do: score. The Knicks brought the ball back to us, and this time Elwood took it away from McFront, tipping it into my waiting hands. Not waiting to be told this time, I tossed it to Early. Score.

The strategy was working, at least for the moment. No team in the league played this kind of defense, and it had the Knicks confused. High on the novelty of it, and the crowd’s response, we roared to a fifteen-point lead by halftime. Elwood ran back to bench and spread his hands in a mute appeal to Coach Elder.

“This one’s yours,” said the coach.

In the second half the Knicks adjusted somewhat, and I got tired and had to sit for a few minutes. Flynnan bulled his way through Elwood for six straight points, and Otis added a couple of outside shots, and they nearly tied it. But Vanilla Dunk looked all flummoxed, and he never got into the game. A few minutes later we opened up the lead again and we ended up winning by five points.

I took Elwood aside in the locker room. The media all wanted Early Natt anyway. “When I was sitting in the third period I checked my suit,” I said. “It wasn’t working.”