Jim Gavin: Middle Men: Stories

Overton was just as useless. He had the curse of the two-footed jumper: he was a highlight reel in warm-ups, but could never gather himself enough to dunk in an actual game. His dad, an Air Force mechanic, lived in Victorville, the high desert. Overton hated going out there — he referred to it as “Tatooine”—and he once brought a tumbleweed to practice to symbolize the desolation of his weekend. His dad wanted him to join the Air Force, but after graduation Overton planned to get a job in Hollywood as “one of those guys who do lighting and shit.” He and Tully usually got high before practice. I never used drugs because I didn’t want to make the same mistake as Len Bias, throwing away my golden future for one night of partying.

Weaver was the only guy I liked playing with; he understood when to cut and he could glide past guys, but he was high-strung, and if he missed a layup, or did anything wrong, he would slap his head and scream at himself and sometimes burst into tears. I asked Overton what was wrong with Weaver. “He’s a Jehovah’s Witness,” he said, as if that explained everything. Coach Boyd spent a lot of time with his arm around Weaver, telling him not to be so hard on himself.

Pham graciously conceded his starting point guard position. “I’d quit,” he told me, “but basketball looks good on college apps.”

I dreaded summer league, playing teams that actually ran sets. The Trinity game was in three weeks, but I was already having trouble eating and sleeping. I’d stay up late, imagining miracles. I would play the game of my life and Coach Washburn would beg me to come back to Trinity. But these visions would give way to the nightmare of getting destroyed, over and over, by guys who were actually getting recruited by Division I schools.

One day after practice I expressed my frustration with the offense. Coach Boyd didn’t have an office, so we sat in the bleachers.

“In the spring I tried to put in a flex,” he said, “but it got too confusing and I started yelling at the guys. I hate it when I get like that. Then we had the riots and there was no use having practice. I don’t know about you, but I spent two days in front of the TV, watching the fires, and all that… I really don’t think it was anger. It was pain . Do you know what I mean?”

“At Trinity we ran motion,” I said. “It’s just down screens.”

“I’m not good with systems,” said Coach Boyd. “That’s why I left the Jesuits.”

I was planning on taking the bus home, but Coach Boyd offered me a ride. For ten minutes I sat in the passenger seat while he wrestled with the ignition.

“Come on, baby. Come on, baby…” He said it like a prayer, with his eyes closed. Finally the key turned over and the engine coughed to life. “Beautiful!” He put a tape in the stereo. “Have you heard the Minutemen?”

“No,” I said, as something crunchy and propulsive rattled the speakers. The singer wasn’t singing, just talking.

“What kind of music do you like?” Coach Boyd asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I used to see these guys live,” he said. “I sort of knew the drummer.”

For the rest of the ride he talked about the Minutemen. Apparently their lead singer had been killed in a car accident. “I cried when I heard the news,” admitted Coach Boyd, who seemed to care way more about music than basketball.

• • •

Later that week, on my sixteenth birthday, my mom dropped me off for a job interview at K-Mart.

“Tell them you can start today,” she said.

The guy who did the hiring went to our parish. My mom said I was lucky to have these kinds of connections. After I nailed the interview, they gave me a red smock and sent me to the checkout aisles. The woman I shadowed on the register kept looking at me funny. I thought it was because I was having trouble counting back change, but then she said, “Are you Dustin Tully’s little brother?”

“No.”

“You look like a kid who works here.”

Pretty soon Tully strolled past the registers, pushing an empty hand truck. He didn’t even blink when he saw me.

“You got something in your teeth, Higginbottom.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Don’t let them fuck you on your breaks,” he said, leaning in close. I could smell beer on his breath. “Take your second break consecutively with your lunch, so you get forty-five minutes. They’ll tell you not to, but you can do it.”

A couple hours later, on my way to the employee lounge, I saw him standing in Electronics, leaning on his hand truck and watching TV. “How do you like it so far?” he said, following me. “Do you want to kill yourself yet?”

We passed the Layaway counter. The girl working it, Jessica Ortiz, had gone to my parish school. She was speaking Spanish to a guy who wanted to buy a kid’s bike. She handed him the slip and took the bike, which would remain behind the counter, in Layaway limbo, until he finished paying his installments. It was an insane way to do business. In junior high, Jessica always sprayed her bangs into an adamantine bubble, but now she had her hair pulled back in a slick ponytail. She had beautiful brown eyes and I used to spend a lot of time not masturbating to her.

“Jessica!” said Tully.

“Fuck off,” she said, and then looked at me. “Hey, Pat.”

“Do you know this guy?” said Tully.

“Is this your first day?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’m on the registers.”

“Have you two dated or something?” asked Tully, as I stood there, blushing like Galahad.

“ No ,” she said.

“Did he break cherry on your cherry?”

“I broke it on your mother’s dick, you fucking homo.”

“Jessica, I think we need to have an adult conversation about the integrity of your hymen.”

“Do you have any weed?” she said.

“Meet me on the loading dock in ten minutes.”

I went to the lounge, where a television was the only source of light. Two middle-aged women sat at a table, sharing an ashtray and watching the evening news. The lock on the employee bathroom didn’t work, so you had to hang a sign on the doorknob that read, “Occupied/Ocupado.” Later, at the register, as I waited for a price check, a strobe light flashed and bells started ringing. At first I thought it was some epic Blue Light Special, but it turned out to be the fire alarm. The whole store evacuated. As the fire trucks arrived, I looked across the parking lot and saw Tully wheeling Jessica around on his hand truck.

• • •

Coach Boyd usually ended practice with an inspirational quote. He liked Buddha, Lao Tzu, Saint Francis, all the barefoot mysticism of yore. The day before our first game, he switched things up a little and handed us each an old paperback copy of The Call of the Wild . He wanted us to read it by the end of the summer and write an essay about what it meant to us.

“I read that in fourth grade,” said Overton. “It’s about overcoming adversity.”

“Okay. Maybe you guys are ready for something a little more…” Coach Boyd folded his arms and took a deep breath. “I don’t think the administration will be too happy about this, but have any of you heard of a book called On the Road ?”

“I’ve read that,” said Tully.

“No, you haven’t,” said Coach Boyd.

“I’m serious. I love that book. I love its beauty.”

“You’ve actually read Jack Kerouac?”

“Who?”

Coach Boyd turned to the rest of us. “I’ll give you guys a choice. You can read The Call of the Wild or On the Road, which you can probably get at the library. Actually, you can read any book that seems interesting to you. And don’t worry about the essay. Just read something , okay? That’s your assignment.”