Pasha Malla - The Withdrawal Method

It's past three now, by the waiting-room clock, and to shake the memory from my head, I take out the postcard again. Sitting there looking at it, I start to wonder how things changed for Dizzy after all those years creating stories to go with the picture. Was there a point where he ran out of possibilities? Was there a day when he looked at it and didn't see anything, a time when everything that had been hope and glory and a whole universe of fantasy faded, and, just like that, when that image of the greatest player to ever play the game became nothing more than a bookmark?

THE FOURTH QUARTER of that city final was tight. We traded baskets back and forth, Dizzy on his game, driving to the hole, scooping up their misses under our basket and going coastto-coast, picking passes off, working their press. But Heights came hard too. They were pounding us inside, knocking down open shots, their pressure throwing us off our halfcourt set, making us overly careful, nervous.

With under a minute to go we were down two, 60–58, and they had the ball, running a weave up top to knock as much time off the clock as they could. Me and Healey were trapping and recovering, trying to force a turnover, waiting for McGowan to holler at us to foul.

Then something happened. Heights' point guard jabstepped one way and came hurtling down the lane. As he picked up the ball on the hop-step, one of our rookies, a good, solid kid named Leeman, came with the help and got a hand in, tied him up. The refs called it a jump — our possession. McGowan yelled for time and got us in a huddle to figure out a last shot. Not that we had a play. Everyone knew to get one guy the ball and sit back and let him do his thing.

We took our time off the inbounds with their pressure, working the ball back and forth in the back-court before we crossed half and set up our zone offence. Thirty seconds on the clock, and everybody in the gym knew who we were going to. I had it up top, dribbling over to the wing where I knew Dizzy would come swinging through for the pass. Heights were playing us tight, though, and he got the ball farther out than he usually liked — right up near the hash mark. The rest of us spread the floor, and Dizzy squared up, triplethreat, with one of their guys right in his face. The clock was counting down — twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-four — and right before the five-second call he put the ball down, hair in his face, and started to move in.

We waited. No one wanted a pass. Their zone was laid flat out, waiting for Dizzy to go outside so they could bring the trap and he'd have to swing it back around to someone else. And, for whatever reason, my little brother gave them exactly that — he brought the guy up the sideline, into the corner, and then there were two on him, and the rest of us realized we had better rotate around to give him another option.

I came off a screen from Healey, wide open at the top of the key. Dizzy looked at me, still working his dribble with two defenders closing in on him. His eyes met mine. My hands went up. Eighteen seconds on the clock, seventeen. And then he went around the back, split the trap, and he was at his sweet spot, a step in from three, right where he'd made a living all season.

But, for whatever reason, he didn't shoot. He looked at me again quickly and then took a step backwards so he was beyond the arc. And then, like he'd been a bomber from out there all his life, he let fly for the win.

I heard McGowan yell, "No!" and then there was just silence as the ball made its way to the hoop, my teammates and I just watching, no one crashing the boards. It came down off the front of the rim, bounced up off the backboard, rim again, before falling out. One of the Heights guys nabbed the rebound, but we were so dazed we didn't even think to foul, and it was one quick outlet pass, and another, and their point guard was up for two at our end to put it at 62–58 and out of reach.

"MR. CALDER?"

I look up and it's the little doctor with the clipboard, slight and brown and sort of bowing at me, like he's a butler or something.

"Yes?"

"I'm Dr. Singh."

I stand up and we shake hands.

"I've got some good news," he says. "We were able to save your brother's right foot. Just some pustules, some minor infection."

"Oh, good." Right away, this seems a dumb thing to say.

"He's in recovery, a bit disoriented, but otherwise doing fine."

"Yeah?"

"We told him you're here," Dr. Singh says. "He said he'd like to see you."

Dr. Singh bows again and then he's off down the hall at a decent clip, and I have to hurry to catch up. I've still got the postcard in my hand, although now I realize that it's bent and folded like Bettis's magazine.

AFTER THE GAME I sat in the locker room with my shoes off and uniform still on. Clark was crying a bit, and McGowan put his arm around our big man and told him he was proud of how far he'd come, and to the other guys he said they did a great job and that he was looking forward to next year.

But I sat there, remembering that look Dizzy had given me before he shot, almost apologetic, but something in it that seemed cocky, superior — like, "This one's mine. Sorry." And then the miss and he'd gone shuffling off the court while the clock ran out on our season.

He'd got changed and was sitting there in jeans and a hoodie, reading Che across the change room. Eventually he looked up and I caught his eye. He slung his gym bag over his shoulder, stuck his thumb in the book to keep his page, and came across to where I was, sitting beside the door.

"Good game," he said to me, his palm out for five or a handshake.

I just sat there, offering nothing.

Dizzy smiled then, that one side of his mouth turned up at the corner. He flipped his hair out of his face. "It's just basketball, man," he said. Then, as he opened the door to head outside, my brother looked back at me with the same expression as the one he'd given me on the court — not arrogance, I'd misread it before. This was a look of distance. Once, when we were kids, I'd been sent to fetch Dizzy from the ravine. I'd stood up top, looking down, watching him pile branches on top of one another in the valley, whispering to himself, pointing here and there as though he were directing other people. When I'd finally called out, "Dinner!" he'd gazed up at me with the same look he gave me then in the change room, like I was part of a world he didn't care about belonging to. Just as I had back then, I couldn't take it. I had to look away. Dizzy waited for a moment in silence like he was going to say something else, but instead just shrugged, then ducked out the door and was gone.

WALKING DOWN THE hospital hallway, Dr. Singh bopping ahead of me in the dim light, that's not the way I want to remember my brother, not now. I want all those moments I can tell other people about, those moments when I was there and so close to being a part of his life — our post-up games in the driveway, running pick-and-rolls to perfection, me driving and dishing to him for the spot-up jumper. I want the kid at the beach, spinning and giddy and tumbling in the sand.

Dr. Singh stops at a door and peeks in through the little window. I'm still a few paces down the hall. When he starts to open the door, I pause. By now Dizzy's postcard is little more than a crumpled, papery mush in my hand.

I look to my right, into another room just like the one I'm sure my brother's in. Sitting on a chair with his back to me is Bettis, and lying in the bed in front of him is a pale, pretty woman with a bald head. He's got both of her hands in his, held up to his mouth, and his big shoulders are heaving, shuddering like a glacier run ashore. He's weeping, but his wife's looking at him with a smile on her face — the tired, sad smile of someone saved.

I turn away and Dr. Singh has disappeared. The door to Dizzy's room hangs open, an invitation, with a triangle of pale yellow light slanting into the hallway from inside.