Rudy — Hoppin to the ball, rock forward then back then forward then ba- then shoot forward pickin Bug off to lay up a scoop but -
Rit — "Void l" say the Big Wop, waitin all along to cram that Wilson sandwich down the man's throat -
Bug — Work a lightnin show past three men, offer Preston a stuff but dump it back to Rit on a lay-up, good.
Rudy — Swipe the inbound pass, sees Ernie where Ernie should be -
Ernie — Spotshot, good.
Back — No move, no dribble, just look at Brian's laces for a second then let loose a skyball, freezes with his arm pointin up -
Ball — Check out the stratosphere, gets lonely an come down like a mortar shell off the rim, climb again, come down to Brian -
Brian — Got the floor now, dribble an look around for where to put in his two points' worth, walkin, talkin, signifying in Hoop -
Brian shot and didn't blink when it swished. "Thirteensixteen, my ball." He could see every step to his winning. Businesslike, just push where Preston was weak and execute. Execution, that was Coach's favorite word.
"Five of us there were, and only my poor brokenhearted mother to take charge." The old man would be on his fifth or sixth beer. It was usually somewhere in there that he'd get sentimental and start being Irish.
"We were so poor I had to wear my brother's shoes for a year when they were a full size too big for me. Stuffed with newspaper."
Slim would wait a moment for the bells to quiet, for the steel ball to run off the table. "We were so poor we had to patch the soles of our shoes with cardboard."
"Shoes," Jockey Conn would say, squinting over the cue bridge. "Who had shoes?"
Brian peeled his practice uniform off and tucked the money in his Converse. Coach had given everybody who made the team a free pair. They were always called Converse instead of sneaker, the same way Theopolis Ruffin always said his father would pick him up in the Cadillac instead of the car. If you weren't on the team you wore Keds or Red Balls or the kind that were two bucks a pair mix'n'match from a bin in the supermarket. But if you made Coach's team you wore Converse All-Stars and nobody would steal them even if you didn't Magic Marker your name on the insteps. They were that easy to trace.
The others were already done with their showers and getting dressed. Brian listened to them yelling and snapping towels and shouting the dozens at each other over the locker rows. Trench warfare.
"Hey Dukey! Du-key!"
"Hey what?"
"Is it true what they say bout your mama?"
"Aw shit, man, don't start."
"It true she got some new furniture? Three beds and a cash register?" Laughter was invisible, scattered through the locker room.
"Man, you mama like a birthday cake. Everybody gets a piece."
"Yeah? You mama an me got one thing in common."
"What's that?"
"You!"
"Shit, Gregory's mama got the only pussy in town that makes change."
"So who wants change for a nickel?"
Brian ducked as somebody's jockstrap flew over the locker top. Wire-stiff with old sweat, it skittered along the floor like an elastic tarantula.
"You mama like a cup of coffee, man. Hot, black, an waitin for the cream."
"Black? Who you callin black? Listen to the shit call the dog smelly. Your mama so black she got to drink buttermilk so she don't pee ink."
"Yeah, you mama, she lays for 'fays an screws with Jews."
"Ha. Hey Preston! Press-tone, you there?"
Preston usually played. Preston could cut with the best of them.
"Yeah. I'm here."
"Why aint we heard from you?"
"I don't have a mama. Remember?"
"A wasted youth. Only got as far as the tenth grade at St. Paddy's."
"A-men. St. Paddy's."
"It was a shame to see it fold."
"A-men."
"True, it was going down when the Eye-talians started moving in, but where else in fifty miles was there a high school half as good? And now that it's gone where can you send your boy for a Catholic education?" The old man would address the bar as if it was full, though there was only Teeter beside him, Sweeny at his horses, jockey and Brian.
"Where, I ask you? Couldn't raise the money, they said. The people of the diocese just couldn't dig deep enough. But they'll pay for it in the end, they will. They'll pay through their teeth."
"Public school is free."
"Sweeny, you pay nothin, you get nothin. Public schooll My boy here is at public school. A basketball player. Tell him, boy, on the starting five. How many white?" The old man's finger would jab at him from the mirror.
"Just me."
"There's your public school! Only one white boy on the floor. Oh, they'll pray they had St. Paddy's back, now that it's too late."
"You'll always have your coons in basketball." The eight ball would roll ever so slowly to thunk in the corner pocket. "Basketball is the coons' game."
The score reached 1g-18, Preston's lead, Preston's ball. Lucius had gotten quiet. Preston drove and stopped to put up a short jumper. Brian had watched the same shot pass under his nose unmolested the whole game, but this time he slapped it from the air and recovered it back behind the line. When Preston came out to guard him he went left for the first time, hard and straight and fast. Preston could only turn to watch. 19 all.
The move was a drawn-out version of The Rocker, Waterbug's favorite. Waterbug had played ahead of Brian on the varsity for a while. Bug was Coach's playmaker, his hand on the floor. Bring the ball down the court, glance to the bench, raise his hand in fingers or call out a color to set the pattern. Coach had them playing the post-and-pick pattern basketball he had played when he was a student at the high school, back when there was no three-second rule and you had a center jump after each score. "The year they cut the bottom out the peach-basket" was the way Bug put it whenever they'd pass the trophy-case picture of Coach and his beefy Irish teammates. "Man was a star the year they made the ball round." It was a drag-ass, ham-and-eggs kind of basketball but if you wanted to play for Coach that's what you played. And playing for Coach was the price for all the other things, for the names in the paper and the girls jumping round cheering your name, for satiny uniforms and Cons on your feet. For a chance to show your game off to the college recruiters. So Waterbug set up Coach's patterns, called Number Two or Green Play and watched the team be run ragged by the runand-gun pro style everyone else was using. Waterbug played ahead of Brian on the varsity, shooting four or five times a game and never from more than fifteen feet. For a while.
They'd lost the first three games of the year and were well on the way to losing the fourth. Brian had only seen action late in lost causes. Though he sat next to Coach, there was little chance he'd be called in before the outcome was decided. A minute man.
The other team knew all Coach's patterns by heart, Waterbug would get the first pass off and it would bog down. Late in the first half he called Number Four. But somewhere between the calling and the pass-off Bug saw an opening, the kind of half-step you thought about twice unless you were very fast. A risk. He faked and drove through for a lay-up. The next time down he interrupted the flow of the Green Play to throw in a thirty-footer. Coach wouldn't even allow them beyond twenty feet in practice. The others smelled it, felt something was up with Bug and took it off his hands. Theopolis Ruffin peeled back to steal the inbound pass, Perry Blaydes put a move on his man and threw in a double-pump hook shot. Waterbug led an improvised full-court press, zipping all over the floor giving instructions, pushing them on. "Stop an popl" he yelled, "Run an gun! Shake your tailfeathers, children, let's get on the case here!" They were running loose and grinning, grinning on the basketball floor as if they were playing a game. They went into the locker room at halftime with a two-point lead.