The clock read seventeen seconds.
Notre Dame called their last time out. The coach drew up a play to go to Earl, who was having a brilliant game. Earl had already tossed in thirty-four points. And all he needed was to get his team two more and they would possess college basketball’s most coveted prize.
It was a simple play: give Earl the ball on the low post a few feet from the basket. Then just clear out and let him do his thing.
Notre Dame inbounded the ball. They passed around the perimeter, trying like hell to work the ball inside to Earl. But he was being covered closely.
Eight seconds remained.
Notre Dame’s point guard finally spotted an opening. He faked left and passed the ball inside. Earl caught it.
Three seconds.
Earl faked, turned, spotted a clearing, took one dribble, prepared to dunk the ball for the easy winning basket… and the ball was gone.
Earl quickly spun as the buzzer ended the game. David held the ball. He had stolen it from the big center, preserving the victory for his University of Michigan.
Earl had been devastated. The press could not get enough of the story. They claimed that there was trouble between the two superstars, that their rivalry had taken on nasty overtones, that they genuinely did not like each other. In truth, David and Earl barely knew one another off a basketball court.
Speculation about their dislike of one another began to increase when the media began to concentrate on which player was going to be the first pick in the pro basketball draft. Again, fans broke down into David and Earl camps.
That was when Clip Arnstein, a short, bald senior citizen who looked like he should be working for a deli rather than a pro basketball team, made the deal.
It had cost him. Many questioned the risk of trading three veteran players for two rookie draft picks, but Clip had been making successful deals since the late 1940s and was not about to let the skeptics start bothering him now.
The morning before the draft, the Celtics announced that they had secured the rights to the first two picks in the college draft. When the NBA Commissioner called for the Celtics’ senior president to select the first player, Clip Arnstein calmly stood, lit a cigar, reached into his pocket and yelled over to Earl Roberts, ‘Call it. Heads or tails.’
‘Excuse me, Mr Arnstein?’ Earl replied.
‘I said call it. Heads or tails.’
Earl shrugged. ‘Heads.’
Clip flipped the coin. ‘Heads it is. You’re the first pick in the draft. Baskin, you’re the second.’
The crowd was stunned. Suddenly the long-time rivals were teammates.
Earl was finishing his eulogy now. He concluded by looking over at Laura, smiling, and stating simply, ‘I love you, David, I always will.’
He turned the podium over to an ashen-faced Clip Arnstein. A more skeptical person would claim that Clip had lost his most valuable financial commodity and that was the reason for his devastation. But Laura had seen David and Clip together too many times to believe such nonsense.
She watched now as Clip walked over to the roped-off area where his own bronze image sat on a bench, the smile on his bronze face contrasting with the grimace of pain on his real one. He pulled away the sheet next to his likeness and revealed the new bronze statue. Laura and the entire audience gasped. Somehow, the artist had captured David perfectly, his crooked smile, his soaring spirit…
Laura wished she was dead, wished she could feel something other than the pain of losing David.
Please, I just don’t want to go on. I just want to be with my David, my beautiful David. Please don’t be dead. Don’t let my David be dead…
Mercifully, the ceremony ended. The crowd slowly drifted off, drifted toward cars that would take them back to the safety of their homes. Laura sat in a murky haze as people walked up to her.
Voices. So many voices.
‘I’m so sorry…’ ‘A real tragedy…’ ‘What a waste…’ ‘It’s always the good…’ ‘Why him?…’ ‘So sad…’ Laura just nodded tiredly, their words meshing together in a meaningless wave of sound. Then something was said that truly jarred her.
‘I’m David’s brother Stan.’
Somehow, Laura got through the funeral.
Somehow, the endless hours passed, the grim words were spoken, the casket buried in the earth. Somehow, Laura managed to numb her brain enough so that reality could not seep through her haze. If not – if she had truly understood what was going on – she would surely have started screaming, screaming until both her mind and her vocal chords snapped.
Her father helped her out of the car and gently led her into his house. A half-dozen other cars filled the circular driveway while down the street, a roadblock had been set up to keep the press away, but Laura could still hear their zoom-lens cameras snapping away, the constant clacking like buzzing insects in her ears. She felt her knees buckle again, but her father was there to prevent her from crumbling to the ground. He gripped her arm tighter and half carried her into the living room.
Being a private gathering, only those closest to David were in attendance. Laura could see David’s teammates, his coaches, Clip, Serita, Gloria, Judy, her father and of course, the surprise show, Stan Baskin. Odd that in this group the only person Laura had never met was David’s only living relative. In fact, David had mentioned Stan once, maybe twice, in all the time she had known him. She knew that they had not gotten along, but as of today whatever it was that had separated the brothers was in the past. Stan was family and he was here to mourn the death of his brother. In death, much is forgiven and forgotten, and that at least was a good thing.
After maybe twenty minutes, Laura found herself sitting on the couch alone, her eyes lowered toward her feet. A pair of neatly polished shoes came into view. Laura looked up into the face of David’s brother. The two brothers had by no means been identical, but there was no mistaking the family resemblance. Looking at Stan’s face twisted her heart until she felt the tears swell once again.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said.
‘Thank you.’
She paused, swallowed. ‘I’m very glad you could make it.’
Stan nodded slowly. ‘I’m so sorry. There is so much to say, so many things I should have said a long time ago.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘No, Laura, I really need to get some things off my chest.’ He took a deep breath, his handsome face grim and lined. ‘David was my baby brother. I can still remember the day he was born. I was ten at the time. David, you see, was the little accident.’
Quiet chuckle.
‘Anyway, I loved him like mad and he followed me like I was his hero. Wherever I went, he went with me. A lot of that may have been because our father had passed away, but you should have seen us back then. We were inseparable. We played in the yard, built snowmen, walked to school, collected caterpillars… how can two people who shared so much grow apart like that? How can things change so drastically? I never stopped loving him, Laura. No matter what came between us, I never stopped loving him.’ His shoulders hitched and then he began to cry.
Laura reached out and gripped his hands. ‘I’m sure he understands, Stan. I’m sure he never stopped loving you either.’
Stan continued to cry.
Oh, Stan My Man, you are brilliant. She’s buying it all! Now just don’t overdo it, my boy, and she’ll be crawling into your pants in no time at all.
He glanced up and laughed, but it just sounded like he was bawling more intensely. Her hand gripped his tighter.
How hot is she? She just buried her hubbie and already she’s holding my hand!
Laura watched him.
It was so sad. Stan would never be able to forgive himself for not telling David how he felt. And now it was too late. Too much time had been wasted with the petty.