"Yeah," I say, "from Boston Garden."
Bettis nods. He's sweating now — dark circles around the armpits of his shirt and hair slick at the sides. And he's looking at me, all intent, and I know what's coming; he's opened up a door and he's on the other side ready with that question certain people who don't have any good sense ask one another in places like this. I put the postcard back in my pocket.
"So," he says, puffing, "who you here for?"
DIZZY WASN'T REALLY a huge Michael Jordan fan. He went through phases, obsessed with a whole bunch of different players, copying their moves in the driveway. Isiah Thomas used to drive him crazy with his dribbling. Dizzy's handle was good, sure, just never enough to run point. But we'd watch Pistons games on Tv and Zeke'd be down there low to the ground, ball parumping off the floor like a drumroll, between the legs and behind the back and spin-dribbles, socks halfway up his calves — and smooth. And Dizzy'd be all over those moves, all winter working the ball in the garage until it was warm enough to get a good bounce going, and from inside the house we'd hear him through the wall, dribbling away, then after a while inside, all sheepish and bashful like he'd been beating off to the Sears catalogue out there or something.
But the one thing he never had was a favourite player. Back when we were kids, all of us would call who we were on the playground. I'd be Kevin Johnson, Mark Price, Tim Hardaway. Big guys were Ewing, Olajuwon, Mutombo. You'd usually get six or seven kids arguing over who was Michael Jordan. But Dizzy was just Dizzy. It was like he thought of the pros as just regular guys and pretending to be them was about as weird as pretending to be your favourite scientist when you wrote a biology test. He borrowed bits from here and there, certain moves — but everything he took he made his own.
Like his routine from the line. It was a weird mishmash he'd put together from guys he liked in college or the pros. He'd line up with the hoop, then take a half-step right — just off-centre, his feet right together. Then he'd get that shock of blond hair that hung in front of his face out of the way with a flick of his head, take a couple dribbles, and pull the ball up to his mouth — he either kissed it or said something, a little message, maybe. Guys lined up around the key would beak him for that, but usually they'd shut up once they checked the score sheet and saw he'd accounted for half our points. Then a knee bend and another dribble and a pause, and the ball would come up just over from his forehead, another pause, then that sweet left hand, all wrist: his shot would trace an arc you could teach math with before landing with a thock, the mesh catching the ball like a pair of hands and releasing it bouncing on the baseline.
BUT HERE'S BETTIS, staring at me, mouth hanging open like he's waiting to be fed. What do I tell this guy? I can just imagine him backtracking, all apologies with his big chubby arms around me. When I finally answer, I make sure to turn away a bit to show him that I want this conversation to go only so far. "Waiting for someone in surgery. You?"
"Yeah, me too. My wife." He holds up his ring finger, a sausage wrapped in a strip of gold, as proof. "She's having an operation for endometrial cancer. Know what that is?"
"I work in pharma. We practically had to go through med school our first year." Then, almost as an afterthought, I add, "Sorry to hear that," and surprise myself when, thinking about Jen, back home in Oakville, I realize I actually am.
"Yeah. She'll be okay." Bettis nods at this to reassure himself. And just when I think the conversation's over, he goes on. "So you're in sales?"
"That's right. Four years now. Regional manager, Peel- Halton." By reflex, I find myself going to my wallet to hand over a business card, but then think better of it.
"Right," he says, rubbing sweat from his hands down his pants. "I'm articling here in town, myself."
"A lawyer?" I hope I don't sound as blown away by this as I feel.
"Almost," Bettis says, "but I've had to take a few weeks off because of, you know, stuff?"
There's something in his voice when he says this that forces me to really look at him for the first time, and it's like someone's kicked my legs out from under me. I see bags the size of teacups under the poor guy's eyes, a week's worth of stubble peppering his jowly face. Here's someone reaching out, his wife dying, for all I know, and I'm closing down. I swivel around to face him, take a big breath before I speak. "Actually, I'm here for my brother," I say. "I'm here for Dizzy."
BEFORE BASKETBALL took over his life, Dizzy was always the kid off on his own, the kid who'd eat dinner in total silence while me and Mom and Dad joked with one another about whatever, and then we'd turn around and his plate would be empty with the chair pushed back from the table and he'd just be gone, off wherever, down to the ravine or up to his room.
Dizzy drove Mom crazy, especially with how careless he was with his health. He usually had his insulin on him, he'd just forget. Before we ate Mom always asked him, "Did you take your meds?" and Dizzy would nod, hiding behind all that hair in his face. Then I'd watch him sneak a needle out of his hip-sack, stab himself through his T-shirt under the table, then stash it and move right to his knife and fork and dinner. But he hated it, always did — not so much the needles or the diet, but the dependence, relying on something just to stay alive.
He's been Dizzy for so long that when Mom called me up at home in Oakville last week and said, "Derek's coming home," it took me a minute before I realized who she meant. Even in the few emails we kicked back and forth I never read the D he signed off with as his real name. Of course those weren't ever much more than him telling me how his Spanish was getting better, or me giving updates about the NBA. It felt more like checking in than real communication, and often his messages would sit unanswered for weeks before I could think what to write back — and, considering the lag between replies, I assume he had the same problem with mine.
Dad came up with his nickname one day down at the Pinery. I'd shown my little brother how spinning in place could make the world swim up and away from you. He'd loved it. Mom and Dad and I watched him all afternoon twirling circles with his arms out until he couldn't twirl any more, staggering down the beach and trying to make the water before he fell down. I'd been seven, he'd been five, and all the way home in the back seat he was Dizzy, and then it came to school with him that Monday, and that's who he's been ever since.
While I was happy as a kid to sit down with the Tv, maybe play Trouble with Mom or Dad, Dizzy couldn't stay inside. It's funny, because he was always so quiet, not your average hyperactive kid bouncing off the walls and shrieking and starting fights. Just restless. First chance he got from about age eight to twelve, he was right down to the ravine behind the housing complex, building forts to shut himself away in. First the ravine, then the basketball court: places he'd escape to, passing in and out of them, sly and silent, like a ghost through walls.
"DIZZY?" SAYS BETTIS.
"Yeah. It's a complication from his diabetes." I pause. "You knew he was diabetic?"
Bettis shakes his head.
"No, why would you. Sorry. Anyway" — I breathe here, deep — "he's got some problems with his feet. Pretty serious."
"Oh, that's terrible."
"Yeah. They're amputating one for sure, but they're going to try to save the other one. The right foot." His jumping foot, I think, but I don't say it.
"Amputating? Oh, god. That's — that's terrible."
"He didn't take care of his feet down in Cuba, was the thing. Trucking around construction sites in flip-flops or whatever. After so many years it started to take its toll."
"Man," says Bettis. "Well, I hope everything turns out as good as it can."
"Yeah. I mean, he's not going to die or anything."