Luther hits a long jumper, then misses a gimme at the foul line. Cedric rebounds and dribbles out to the top of the key. Luther picks him up, covers Cedric like a second skin, bumping him, contesting every dribble. Cedric brings the ball up to shoot. Luther slaps at the ball but only gets flesh. The ball doesn’t even make it to the rim.
“My ball,” says Cedric. “Got a foul.”
Luther looks at him. “Bullshit.”
Jo-Jo throws the ball back to Cedric.
“What you mean, Luther?” says Cedric. “You saying that handcuffing wasn’t a foul?”
“Damn right,” says Luther. “Quit crying.”
Cedric bounces the ball to Luther.
“Okay, Luther, your ball.”
Jo-Jo comes up to guard Luther, but Luther just holds it, looks over at Cedric.
“You afraid to guard me, superstar?”
Cedric just stares at him, puzzled but also a little pissed off. In high school Luther had been the point guard and Cedric the power forward. They’d been the two tightest guys on the team. Luther ran down loose balls, made a few steals, and hit a couple of jump shots, but the main reason he was on the court was to get Cedric the ball when he was close to the basket, even when Cedric was double-teamed. And he had. He’d gotten Cedric the ball enough for Cliffside High to win the state 2-A championship our senior year.
“Okay, Luther,” Cedric says. “I’ll guard you.”
Luther passes the ball to Charles, gets it back, and spins toward the basket. He gets himself between Cedric and the goal, but when Luther releases the ball Cedric blocks it from behind, comes up with the loose ball, and dribbles out to the key. Luther’s all over him but it doesn’t matter. Cedric puts the ball between his legs one time, lines up the basket with his elbow, and releases.
The ball arcs toward the basket, so high you don’t think it’s ever coming down, and then it does, touching nothing but net. He does that four straight times, and for a few moments it’s like all the bad things have been wiped away — the five-million-dollar contract he’d snorted up his nose, the injury, the arrests. It’s like his sophomore year in high school again, that first game of the season, when nobody really knew how good Cedric was because he’d just played JV ball his freshman year. He’d scored thirty-seven points in that game, going head-to-head with a guy who was supposed to be the best player in the conference. We’d all felt good that night, not just for Cedric but for ourselves because he was one of us. We’d been in school together since the first grade. His daddy worked at the same mill as Luther’s daddy and mine.
Later, after high school, after I’d started working construction, I’d watch him play on TV, first college, then pro. And it was like watching Cedric play made it easier to go into work the next morning, just having known him. The guys I worked with — Luther, Jo-Jo, all the ones who’d gone to school with him — they were like me. They watched the games on TV, checked the box scores in the newspaper. We’d talk about the games at lunch break, what Cedric had done the night before. Any maybe some of the guys were jealous, especially after he signed the five-million-dollar contract, but if they were I never heard it. We were proud of him, like he was our own flesh and blood.
After the fourth shot, Luther chests up to Cedric even more, so close you couldn’t slip a piece of toilet paper between them. “That all you got?” he says to Cedric. Then again, “That all you got?”
Cedric gets the ball and doesn’t even bother to fake. He just holds Luther off with his right arm and heads for the basket. I’m under the goal and I jump when Cedric jumps but I’m not even in the same time zone. Then before he can jam the ball through the net Luther cuts Cedric’s legs out from under him. Cedric lands hard on his back. Then it’s like nobody’s breathing.
Cedric gets up slow, making sure he’s not hurt.
Luther’s next to him, the ball in his hands. “You want a foul, superstar?”
Cedric’s up now, and Luther’s not backing, so I get between them.
“Get out of my way,” Luther tells me. “This ain’t got nothing to do with you.”
He doesn’t add “because you’re white,” but that’s what he’s saying. And it’s bullshit. When Cedric first started losing his game and you kept hearing about him missing practices, taking himself out after the first quarter, some of the guys at work, guys who’d know, said it was drugs. It was Luther and me who kept telling them no way, that Cedric was too smart to screw up what he had going. Even later, when the rumors weren’t rumors anymore, we kept believing it was just a matter of time before he got his act together.
“I don’t need this shit,” Cedric says. He turns from Luther and walks over to the bleachers to get his sweat suit and gym bag. Then he disappears out the door.
Charles comes up to Luther. “What’s the matter with you?” he asks. Then Charles walks over to the bleachers and picks up his sweats. The rest of us follow.
In the truck Luther pops the top on one of the Millers.
“Sorry I lost my cool,” he says, handing me the beer.
I take it, but I’m not about to let a warm beer and a half-assed apology end it.
“You don’t think I understand what was going down with you and Cedric? You don’t think it has anything to do with me?”
Luther doesn’t say anything for a minute. He’s looking out the window. I remember how hard Cedric worked in high school, shooting free throws after practice, running dirt roads in the summer, lifting weights. But Luther and me had worked just as hard. We’d stayed after practice, run the dirt roads every day in the summer, lifted weights. We’d won the hustle awards, paid the price. Nobody practiced or played harder, but Luther didn’t have the size and I didn’t have the talent to go beyond high school. Only Cedric had that.
Luther turns and looks at me. He meets my eyes for a second, long enough.
“Yeah,” he says. “You’re apart of it.”
THE CABLE COMPANY hasn’t unhooked my cable for nonpayment yet, so as soon as I get home, I shower, heat up some leftover chicken, and turn on TBS. The Hawks are playing the Bulls. The announcers are talking about how great Jordan is, swearing nobody has even come close to him. Maybe I’m wrong but I’m not seeing anything Cedric didn’t do eight, maybe ten years ago. Maybe not as flashy as Jordan, but close, damn close.
I get tired of hearing the announcers, so I turn down the sound and put my scratched-to-hell copy of Eat a Peach on the turntable.
The first notes of “One Way Out” blast out of the speakers. More ghosts. Ole Duane Allman, playing that slide guitar like he knew he wouldn’t be around long. Berry Oakley, dead now as well. Gregg Allman, who tried his damndest to join them but is still around. I saw him last April in Charlotte. He looked like he’d just been paroled from hell, but he could still sing and bang the piano. They say he’s clean now, so maybe some people do get a second chance. By the time the album ends I’m too tired to get up and turn it over. I close my eyes.
When I wake up the game is over. I’m not sure how long I’ve slept but it’s long enough to have a dream, a dream about Cedric. We’re in high school and Cedric’s playing ball again, the way he used to, no bloodshot eyes, no knee brace. He swoops in from the foul line for a dunk and we are all watching, me and my daddy and momma, and Luther’s daddy and momma, and our brothers and sisters, and Luther’s kids. Everything is in slow motion. Cedric keeps gliding toward the basket, and we start shouting, screaming, and praying he won’t ever come down.