Jim Gavin: Middle Men: Stories

“We can’t afford a dermatologist,” she said. “Not right now.”

The show aired at midnight. The donut shop owner was clearly insane but that didn’t stop Wally George from denouncing him as an enemy of the American people. Every time he slapped his desk in exhortation, the camera turned to the audience. I couldn’t see Jessica or Overton, but there was Pham, his face red from nonstop booing, and there was Tully, posing in his blazer and turtleneck. He had brought an old-fashioned pipe. As everyone around him jumped and screamed and made lewd gestures, he just stood there, taking imaginary puffs, in the plummy style of Thurston Howell III.

• • •

At evening mass on Sunday, the celebrant, Father Meyer, read with feeling from the final canto of the Purgatorio , and from there he transitioned smoothly into a thoughtful and witty analysis of Aquinas and his notion of Angelic Knowledge. Or maybe he just told us that abortion was bad. Either way, my mind was elsewhere. The next morning we were driving up to Ventura.

After mass we got Del Taco and watched The Simpsons. I stayed up late shooting baskets, until my mom opened the front door and yelled at me to go to bed.

At some point that night, Michelle, my manicurist, sat next to me on the bleachers at St. Polycarp. Several Big Wallys were running up and down the court, and then Wally George was there too. It was a convergence of Wallys. Eventually, Michelle touched my chest and I woke up. It was three o’clock in the morning. I peeled off my boxers and snuck out the back door. Before I got to the trash cans, I heard music, and noticed a light burning in our old storage shed. I took a step toward it and kicked an empty bottle. The light went off, but not before I caught a glimpse of my dad, holding a beer and sitting on a rusty folding chair. There was a tape player at his feet. In the darkness, I could still hear music.

“Pat?”

“Dad?”

I wanted to ask what he was doing out here at three o’clock in the morning, but I also didn’t want to know. I think he felt the same about me. We were both caught. The less said about our depraved nocturnal errands, the better. Now I could make out the voice of Bonnie Raitt.

“Everything okay?” he said.

“Yeah.”

Moonlight fell softly on my spunk-laden boxers. For a moment we were quiet. “I wanted to come see the tournament,” he said, “but I found some work out of town. I might be gone for a little while.”

“How long?” I said, but he changed the subject and asked about my last summer league game, and I stood there for about five minutes, giving him the play-by-play. He never mentioned the fact that I was wandering around the backyard naked, and I never mentioned the fact that he was squatting in a dark shed, listening to Bonnie Raitt.

• • •

The van broke down on the 101. Coach Boyd pulled onto the shoulder and walked to an emergency call box. I had never been this far north. California seemed to go on forever. The freeway was surrounded by farms and I could smell manure. When Coach Boyd got back, he opened the hood and stared idly at the engine. The Triple-A guy arrived and informed us that we were simply out of gas. “My bad, guys,” said Coach Boyd, laughing. “I forgot the gauge is busted.”

We had reserved two rooms at Motel 6. After we put our bags away, Coach Boyd led us down to the beach, only a couple blocks away. We walked through a sleepy neighborhood and then over some sand dunes. It was overcast and the shoreline was littered with driftwood and seaweed. In the distance I could see a giant hotel right on the beach. I figured Trinity was staying there. Coach Boyd told us to sit down and relax.

“This is a big tournament,” he said. “And I know for some of you it probably feels like the most important thing in the world—”

“It’s just summer league. Who gives a shit?”

“I know, Tully. But some guys might feel like their whole lives…” He squatted down and picked up a handful of sand. “Listen. What you have to understand is that in the big picture, none of this matters.” He let the sand fall through his fingers. “That probably doesn’t mean anything to you guys right now, but it will. Because here’s what’s going to happen. Someday you’ll be on a beach somewhere…”

“We’re on a beach right now,” said Tully.

“I know, but I mean like a beach in Mexico or something.”

“What about the beach in Long Beach?”

“I guess,” said Coach Boyd, “but it’s a pretty crummy beach.”

“I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii,” said Pham.

“Me too!” said Coach Boyd. “And that’s the point. Someday you’ll be on a beach somewhere, a beautiful beach, in Hawaii or Mexico, and you’ll be with your friends, or your girlfriend, or maybe you’ll be there by yourself. Who knows? But either way, evening will come and you’ll see the sun going down in the water, and you’ll get it. You’ll just get it.”

At two o’clock we drove to a local junior college. In our first game, Weaver played out of his mind. He dropped thirty, but we still lost. Afterward, we came out of the locker room in time to see Trinity warming up. We had to play them the next day. I watched the mesmerizing spectacle of their pregame drills and felt my stomach drop. Ted Washburn stood at center circle, surrounded by a retinue of assistant coaches.

“Is that the guy who raped you?” said Tully.

“We can watch a little of this game,” said Coach Boyd, “and then we’ll hit Sizzler. How’s that sound?”

Since Weaver gave me the pamphlet we had been avoiding each other, but now he sat next to me and asked about all the Trinity players. “I can run with them,” he said, suddenly full of himself. “One of their coaches said so.”

“Which one?”

“I don’t know if he was a coach, but he said he helps out the program.”

During warm-ups, all the Trinity players wore custom Nike T-shirts with a nickname printed over their number. Mark McCracken, Trinity’s best long-distance shooter, was “AT&T.” Jelani Curtis, the fifteen-year-old featured in Sports Illustrated , was “Money.” Darren Hite, a wiry small forward, was “Skeletor.” Tully commented on how incredibly lame all the nicknames were, until he saw Andy Fague, the biggest wiseass at Trinity, whose nickname was “Nickname.”

“That’s not bad,” said Tully, and it was the only time I remember him complimenting someone.

The game tipped and we watched Jelani Curtis put on a show. He handled the ball, zipped passes, buried jumpers. There was an ease and confidence to his game, a kind of regal nonchalance that I would later understand as the defining trait of all the great players who’ve come out of SoCal, from John Williams to Paul Pierce.

“We’re fucked,” said Overton.

At Sizzler, Coach Boyd paid for three all-you-can eat buffet dinners and everybody took turns with the plates. The waitresses looked annoyed, but they didn’t say anything. I couldn’t eat. I kept looking up and seeing Trinity’s press in front me. Back at the motel, we played cards for a couple hours, and then Coach Boyd suggested we all go to bed. He was sleeping down in the van. A few minutes after we turned out the lights, Tully and Overton shuffled out the door. I couldn’t sleep, so I spent most of the night in the bathroom, trying to finish The Call of the Wild , but my mind kept drifting to the game. At dawn I went out on the landing and saw Tully and Overton passed out in lounge chairs by the pool. They spent the rest of the morning smoking out in the bathroom.

On our way to the game, I had trouble breathing. When we got to the gym, a few Trinity players came down from the bleachers to say hello and wish me luck. In the locker room, I kept lacing and relacing my high-tops. The buzzer sounded and everybody went out for warm-ups. I couldn’t move. Coach Boyd asked what was wrong, but the words were stuck in my throat. “I think you’re hyperventilating,” he said. “I’ll go find you a bag.”