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

Elwood just smiled, and made a little pair of imaginary scissors with his fingers.

“You fucked with my suit?”

“I just noticed you play better without it, man. You think I didn’t see you were turning it off?”

“That’s just for my jumpshot!”

“I saw you in practice in Key West, white boy. You play better without it. Notice I ain’t saying you play good. Just better.”

“Fuck you, Elwood.”

It was a nice night, but it was just a night. A fluke loss by the almighty Knicks — it happens sometimes. The Vanilla Dunk Revue went back to cakewalking its way to a championship, while we struggled on, treading water in the middle of our division, barely clinging to our playoff hopes. Surprisingly, Elwood didn’t seem that interested in applying the defensive techniques we’d developed together against any of the other teams. Oh, we trapped here and there, but Elwood didn’t ever take command the way he had. He seemed to go back into a trance, like he’d done when we were first traded. We won our share of games, but nobody was particularly impressed. As for Early Natt, he saw more minutes, but they only seemed to give him more opportunities to blow it, and soon enough he was in the doghouse. Elwood had abandoned him. I guess Elwood liked that one-dimensional game a little better on a hapless black man than he liked it on an arrogant white one, but not so much that he wanted to encourage Early to make it a regular habit.

Elwood and I were shooting alone in the gym when I asked, “Why don’t we go back to that trapping game?”

He didn’t even turn around, just sank a shot as he answered. “Element of surprise the only thing makes it work, Bo. Teams’d see through that shit if we hauled it out two nights in a row.”

“Some great teams won with defense, back—”

“Shut up, Bo. You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“What have we got to lose?”

“Shut up.”

Elwood’s playing got more and more distracted, and we went on a losing streak, but I didn’t catch on until two weeks before the end of the season, when the Knicks came to town again. I waited for Elwood to rouse us again, to make a big demonstration, and instead he played in what was becoming his usual trance. He almost seemed to be taking a masochistic thrill in letting Vanilla Dunk run wild.

The next day I glanced at the papers, and I realized that, for once, Elwood was watching the standings.

We had to lose three games in the standings to drop out of a regular playoff spot, and into the wild card spot. The wild card team played the team with the conference’s best record in the first round of the playoffs, in a quick best-of-five series, a sort of warm-up for the real playoffs.

The Knicks, thanks to their win over us the night before, were now the team with the best record, by one game over the Pistons.

In other words, the victory over the Knicks earlier in the season wasn’t the main point; that was just Elwood finding out if he could do it.

Elwood and Coach Wilder yelled at each other for a straight half hour in the visiting coach’s office in the bowels of the Garden. In the meantime I was left to play diplomat with the press and the rest of the team. I’d never been in the visitors’ locker rooms of the Garden before, and it frankly got me a little depressed. I’d never dared mention it to Elwood, but I missed the Knicks.

When they came out it was Coach Wilder who looked beaten. Elwood didn’t say anything to me, but his eyes said he’d won his point. When we got out on the floor he flipped the practice ball to Early Natt, then crooked a finger and beckoned Early over to him.

“Remember when I told you to go crazy?” he said.

Early just nodded, smiling defensively. He looked a little intimidated by the roar of the Garden crowd.

“We gonna do that again. Remember how?”

Early nodded.

“Just stay uptown, look for the pass. Stay open, that’s all.” Elwood turned to me, but didn’t say anything, just stretched his arms up in the air. I mirrored them with my own — albeit six inches higher.

Our moment was swallowed in a roar, as the Knicks came out of the lockers and were greeted by the crowd in the Garden. I looked out and then back down at the Heat uniform on my chest. I felt about as small as a seven-foot guy can feel, at that moment.

This time I somehow beat Flynnan on the tip-off, flipping the ball to one of our guards. We went up the court and scored, Elwood sinking a jumper from midway out. The Knicks inbounded and I realized I was frozen, that I wasn’t following Elwood into the trap defense. The Knicks got the ball to Vanilla Dunk. Dunk flew upcourt, Elwood dogging his steps, and broke loose for a fabulous mid-air hook shot. I cursed myself.

Elwood grabbed the ball and hurled it upcourt to Early who ran into a crowd and had the ball stripped away. Defense again. This time I rushed the ball — it was in Otis’s hands — and forced a weak pass to Flynnan, who was too far out for his shot. I jumped on Flynnan, my hands in his face, and heard a whistle. I’d fouled him.

Flynnan went to the line and hit both shots. 4–2, Knicks.

Elwood rushed the ball to Early again, passing into a thicket of Knicks, and Early was immediately fouled. Early went to the line and missed one.

The Knicks came up and Flynnan rolled over me for an easy layup. God, he’s a big motherfucker, I wanted to whisper to Elwood, but Elwood wasn’t meeting my eye.

Elwood went up, got caught in traffic, and bailed out to one of our guards, who threw up a brick from outside. Flynnan and I fought for the rebound, and Flynnan won. He dumped it out to Vanilla Dunk, who immediately had Elwood all over him. I rushed up from behind and stabbed at the ball.

Dunk twisted out from between us, head-faked, made a move. The move didn’t come off. He and Elwood tangled up and fell together. A whistle. The ref signaled: offensive foul, Knicks. Number double zero, Alan Gornan. Vanilla Dunk.

Dunk got up screaming. Elwood shook himself out and turned his back. The ref rushed up between them while a kid wiped the sweat off the floor.

Then Dunk yelled one word too many.

“What?” Elwood turned fast and got in his face, real close, without touching. The ref squirted out of the way.

“I said nigger,” repeated Dunk.

They both drew back a fist. I grabbed Elwood from behind, so he couldn’t get his shot off. Don’t ask me why I grabbed Elwood instead of Dunk.

Vanilla Dunk’s punch was off-line. It slammed into Elwood’s shoulder. That was his only shot. The other Knicks were all over him.

The refs threw them both out of the game, and soon, all too soon, it was restarted. With Elwood gone it was too much a matter of me against Flynnan, and it was Flynnan’s night. I couldn’t hang with him. For help on offense all I had was Early, who seemed completely cowed by the Garden and baffled with Elwood gone. I tried to dump it off to him, but he’d lost sight of the basket, kept trying dumb passes instead. Whereas Flynnan had McFront, who’d found his midrange shot, and was pouring in pull-up jumpers.

They blew us out. An hour later I was sitting on the edge of my hotel bed, watching it on television. Early Natt and one of our guards were there with me, but the room was silent except for the tube. Elwood had disappeared, so we didn’t have to be ashamed to watch the sportscast.

It was Vanilla Dunk all the way. He’d run straight to the press, as usual, and the tape of his interview was replayed every fifteen minutes. The commissioner had already decided: both players were available to their teams for the rest of the series. Elwood would be fined five thousand. Dunk, who’d thrown a punch, would pay fifteen thou. I’d saved Elwood ten grand by grabbing him. And probably saved Dunk a broken jaw.