“Play?” a voice behind him booms. Willie turns to see Jack, basketball under his arm, dressed in white gym trunks and a gray sweatshirt with PETERBILT carefully lettered in Magic Marker across the front. His telephone equipment hangs on his hip and he wears street shoes with black dress socks.
Willie smiles. “No…thanks. I’m…just gonna…watch.”
“Can’t,” Jack booms. “Got to play. You’ll get an ‘F.’”
Willie starts to explain that he’s not in the PE class yet, that he’s just checking it out.
“Can’t check it out,” Jack says. “You got to play something or they give you an ‘F.’”
Willie tries another tactic. “We…can’t play…here,” he says. “They’ve…got…the court.”
Jack turns and points to a basket mounted on a wooden backboard up against the school. It’s lower than regulation by at least a foot and tilts down on the right side at least three inches. It looks like a basket designed to fit Willie’s new body structure and it’s far enough away from where most people are playing that no one would notice. He decides why not.
“Make it, take it,” Jack says. “By ones to eleven.” He’s been listening to the big boys play. “Do or die.” He launches a shot from the top of the faded key; a high rainbow that whips through the net without even touching the rim. “My outs,” he says and begins to bounce the ball with both hands.
Willie hasn’t touched a basketball since way before his accident and has no idea whether he can even shoot anymore; or dribble.
Jack’s second shot bounces off the rim and he doesn’t even attempt to rebound it as it bounces into Willie’s hands. Willie takes it, trying to establish some kind of rhythm, dribbling with his right hand and dragging his left side along. Jack doesn’t play much defense, except to jump up and down in front of him yelling, “Hey, man!” so it’s pretty much Willie against himself. He finally does get a primitive kind of rhythm and moves in close on the right side of the basket, flipping the ball underhanded toward the hoop. It bounces off the rim and Jack snatches it up, yelling, “Showtime!” as he two-hands it out to the top of the key. He turns, plants his feet wide and shoves another rainbow high into the air, screaming, “Two!” as the ball whips again through the bottom of the net.
Jack sinks two more from the same spot before Willie gets the ball back and works it slowly, methodically, in for a point of his own. By now the main basketball game has broken up and players are moving over to see what exotic athletic contest is taking place on Jack’s court, and Jack is building up a cheering section.
This is Willie’s worst nightmare: a crowd of strangers standing around watching what he has become. He holds it together, though; pats Jack on the back and says, “Good game, Jack. I gotta go finish a paper.”
“Eleven!” Jack yells. “We go to eleven! You can’t quit. That would be a chickenshit rip-off!”
Someone in the growing crowd yells, “Come on, finish the game!” and Jack gives a big nod. “The fans want it,” he says.
Willie’s claustrophobic. There’s no way out except to play, and now Jack is getting excited, running a weird commentary on the play, bringing way more attention to them than would normally accompany the nightmare. Embarrassment edges toward humiliation, but Willie brings the ball in, protects it with his bad side and works toward the hoop. Jack makes a few halfhearted attempts at slapping it away, but he’s more interested in his running commentary: “Gimp protects the ball and moves in. Telephone Man is playing him like a blanket. Like a blanket. It’s a matter of time before he’ll snatch the ball from the greedy clutches of Gimp and sink it big time. Gimp doesn’t have a chance, folks. He’s a white guy. White guys can’t play this game. Telephone Man is all colors. He’s a rainbow. And he can sky.”
The banter from the crowd, which includes almost everyone now, is good-natured, directed at egging Jack on rather than humiliating Willie, and Willie is making himself invisible, smiling as Jack talks and letting him take his shot.
The crowd parts at the side of the court to let Lisa through, and she walks onto the court. “Willie,” she says, walking close, “do you want to finish this?”
He starts to say “No,” but hears the crowd yelling to let it continue; to “let Telephone Man show his stuff.” He shrugs instead. “It’s okay,” he says. “No harm.”
Lisa looks into his eyes, sees that anything would be better than this attention, and turns to Jack, moving real close to his ear. “His name is Willie,” she says evenly. “You have some respect. You call him that.”
In his best Pavarotti voice, Jack says, “Yes, ma’am.” He turns to Willie. “Didn’t mean to call you that.”
Willie just nods. Jack brings the ball in, dribbling with both hands, deliberately moving to his spot. “Telephone Man, you one sweet ball-handler,” comes from the crowd. “Man can bounce that ball.” Then, “He nose dribble better than he do,” and Jack comes on point, whirling to face that voice, his telephone equipment perpendicular to his body like a ballerina’s tutu as he spins. “There’s nothing wrong with my nose!” he booms. His face looks like a road map of Mars as the blood rushes in, and his entire body stiffens. “There’s nothing wrong with my nose, Joel! I heard you! I know you’re there!”
Willie, seeing Jack’s about to go up in smoke, limps over to him. “Let’s…just…play,” he says quietly. “There’s…nothing wrong…with…your nose.”
“They just won’t leave me alone!” Jack yells and his voice starts to go high. “They won’t leave me alone!” He’s squealing now, falling into a heap. Willie tries to hold him up, but he isn’t ready and Jack is heavy. They both topple. Behind them in the crowd, Willie hears someone chastising Joel for his remark, but Joel says something about the kid’s mother and the crowd begins to break. Secretly, though Willie feels bad for Jack, he’s glad someone did something—anything—to break up the game. At the rate he was scoring, it could have gone on forever, and he felt more and more naked as it continued.
“Willie, could I see you in the office for a minute?” It’s Lisa.
“Sure. Just…a…sec.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Willie walks into the office as Lisa kicks André out. “I need to talk to Willie,” she says. “Alone. Why don’t you go out back and flush out some dope fiends, or something else useful?”
André slaps her on the butt on his way out and she whirls around in mock anger. “In your wildest dreams,” she says and leads Willie on in.
Lisa sits in André’s chair and motions for Willie to sit in the chair next to the desk. “Pretty embarrassing out there, I guess,” she says.
Willie nods. “I…guess…so.”
“I thought you weren’t going to join PE yet.”
He shrugs. “Just…watching. Jack…”
Lisa nods, thinking. “You protect the ball. Ball-handling’s not bad, all things considered. You’ve played before.”
“Yeah. A…long time…ago.”
“How old are you?”
“Almost…seventeen.”
“Couldn’t have been too long ago, then.”
“Seems…like it,” Willie says.
Lisa stands up thoughtfully and walks around the desk, sits on the corner and pulls a knee up under her chin. “Your condition is new, right?”
Willie looks puzzled.
“You weren’t born like this.”
Willie smiles and looks down. “No. I…wasn’t…born like…this.”
“How long ago?” Lisa asks.
“Less…than…a year.”
“Have you had any therapy?”
“I had…this…counselor…”
“No, I mean physical therapy. Has anybody worked with you on physical rehabilitation?”
“I…did some…exercises,” Willie says. “And…I run…some.”
Lisa nods. “Yeah. That’s not what I mean. Look, I’m studying for a Master’s in Recreational Therapy and I’ve studied a lot of physical therapy, too. Actually, sports m
edicine. Would you be willing to try some things with me? Rehab things?”
Willie shrugs. “Sure. But…I…can’t…pay…or anything.”
Lisa laughs. “No,” she says. “This will be as much for me as you. You get the benefit, I get a paper. Like a partnership.”
Willie says that sounds good and starts to get up to leave, but Lisa stops him. “Stand there a second,” she says and walks over. “Do you know where your center is?”
Willie remembers watching the kids at the beginning of PE. He points just above his navel. “Here…I…guess.”
Lisa puts her hands on his shoulders to square them, then stands back. “Probably not,” she says. “That probably was your center at one time, but—” she looks closer, squinting—“not now. Close your eyes.”
Willie obeys.
“Now stand there and relax,” she says, and Willie’s left shoulder slides down a little, pushing the rest of his left side down with it. “Okay,” Lisa says, “now let all the tension drain out through your feet; the only muscles you’re using are those you need to stand there.”
Willie relaxes more.
“Let it drain,” she says. “All the tension is liquid and it’s running out the bottoms of your feet.”
Willie pictures a thick, dark liquid moving through his body toward gravity; his body relaxes more.
“Now put both arms out in front of you, with your fingers touching.” Willie does as he’s told. “And bring them back to what feels like the center of your body. Not what looks like the center; what feels like the center.”
Willie’s fingertips go directly to the place.
“Now open your eyes and look at it,” Lisa says, and Willie looks down to the spot—which is significantly to the right of his navel and a little higher than he would have expected.
“That’s the spot,” Lisa says. “What you want to do now is, any time you’re doing something physical, especially athletic, move your entire body from that place. In other words, move that place first and let your body follow.” She gets up and slaps him on the butt. “That’ll help.”
Willie watches her walk out the door, his fingertips still touching his “center” lightly. He pokes himself hard there so he’ll remember where it is. He doesn’t really understand this at all, but he watched her play ball against guys with a hell of a lot more physical weaponry than she had, and hold her own. He picks up his cane, twirling it in his right hand, and moves out of the office, center first.
CHAPTER 15
Music blares from the tape in Lacey’s stereo system as Willie shuffles across the hardwood floor in the dining room. He’s moving to the beat “from his center” the way Lisa’s been showing him for the past three weeks, and it’s beginning to feel more comfortable. “Just incorporate what you’ve got into your act,” she said after their first session, and Willie is learning that when the music’s too fast, you can cut the beat in half and be cool.
During the second session, Lisa showed him miles and miles of films and tapes over at the Alameda County Coliseum; sequences of famous athletes moving slow. One tape was nothing but a series of Jim Brown, the legendary running back for the Cleveland Browns back in the fifties and sixties, getting up from one after another vicious collision with some giant, faceless defensive lineman or linebacker. “See,” Lisa said, “you can never tell if he’s hurt or not. He always gets up and moves back to the huddle like he’s taking his last step. It’s part of his act. Could be he’s lost all the feeling from his neck down and could be he’s just taking his time.” Then she showed him similar sequences of O. J. Simpson and Marcus Allen. “It’s all slow, but look how graceful. You can move like that, too, Willie, if you’ll quit trying to make your slow side catch up all the time. Do it the other way around. Try it to music.”
So Willie is trying it to music. He knows if Lacey catches him playing this “honky rock-and-roll shit” on his sound system, he’ll crap his drawers, but Willie sees so little of Lacey these days he’s not really worried about it. Lacey is usually in bed in the morning when Willie leaves for school, and it’s extremely seldom he sees him afterward because Lacey’s either on his bus route or on the street. And most of the time when he is home, the time is taken up with these vicious telephone calls from his ex-wife, after which Lacey finds at least a dozen different ways to call her a bitch, storming around the kitchen kicking walls and slamming his fist against cupboard doors. It seems more than mere anger to Willie; more like agony. He doesn’t know what it’s all about—Lacey’s been real clear it’s none of his business—but he’s told himself a million times he does not want to be there the day the two of them come face to face. Several days ago, Willie talked to André a little about it, while they were painting the student lounge, and André said if it got too bad, Willie could move into the empty classroom in the basement of the school; André had plenty of furniture at home, and the added security of having someone inside the school twenty-four hours a day wouldn’t be all that bad an idea. Willie considered it, but decided against it for now because, even though they spent so little time together, he felt that Lacey was attached to him somehow; that it would be a small betrayal to leave.
Bob Seger starts into the even beat of “Fire Lake” on the sound system and Willie tries a slow heel-toe, heel-toe across the hardwood floor, looking down at himself and laughing self-consciously when he realizes if he keeps it up another few seconds his right side will run away from his left side and he’ll be doing splits on the floor. Heel-toe will have to wait. It’s after ten and he decides he better get with his homework, moving to the stereo to stop the record just as Lacey storms through the door. He’s talking loud, though not angrily, and Willie knows he’s drunk. The swinging door from the kitchen flies open and Lacey yells, “Chief! How you doin’, my man?”
Willie starts to answer, then sees Lacey’s not alone. He’s followed by a young girl; a girl Willie knows from school. She’s tall and willowy, really beautiful to Willie, with light brown skin and green eyes. Willie has always seen her as quiet; either arrogant or really shy; and soft. But tonight she looks different, her painted lips and heavy rouge masking the softness and her plunging neckline immediately sinking Willie’s heart. She works for Lacey.
“This Angel,” Lacey says. “She go to you school. Get her some outstanding grades. Get some outstanding grades for me, too.”
Willie tries to hide his disappointment. “…Hi,” he says. “I’m Willie.”
“I know,” she says. “I see you sometimes.”
“You…know Lacey, huh?” Willie says, and Angel’s eyes go to the floor.
She nods, but before she can speak, Lacey says, “We have a workin’ arrangement. An outstanding workin’ arrangement.” He looks to the sound system. “You playin’ that honky shit on my machine? Them voices is in-fer-ior; mess up my speakers. Be gettin’ them white boys off there.”
Willie starts toward the system again, but the record is finished, the arm moving to its rest. He shrugs. “Over,” he says. Then, “Well, listen…Got…to go. Get…some sleep.” His speech is getting better; lots better, thanks to Lisa. She’s getting him to work on that the same way he does his body; see things first—or hear them in the case of his speech—then go about them at a speed that works. He’s not as embarrassed to talk now. “You guys…have a good…time.”
Somewhere late in the night Willie hears a scream in the house and in a flash sits up in his makeshift bed. Chills run up his back as he waits, sure he heard it, but tempted by the possibility it was a dream. He hears it again, followed by Lacey’s voice: mean. Willie throws back the blankets, moves quickly across the living room toward the stairs, scraping his shin on the coffee table lost in the dark. He hears the scream again and a loud bump, as if someone has been thrown down. He flips on the light and grabs his cane, starting up the stairs, calling Lacey’s name.
At the bedroom door he stops, hoping that it’s over; that he can just go down to bed; but there’s more scuffling and Angel screams again.
The sound of Lacey’s open hand on her soft flesh sickens Willie and he hits the door with his cane. “Hey, Lacey. What’s…going on…in there?”
No answer. Just more yelling.
“Lacey! Come on…you guys! What’s…going on?”
“Git away!” Lacey yells from inside. “This none you damn binnis!”
“Come on!” Willie yells back. “Someone’s…gonna get hurt!”
“Be you, you don’ get back from that door!”
Another scream and the sound of scurrying. The door opens and Willie sees Angel’s face briefly as Lacey pulls her back into the room and punches her in the jaw with his closed fist.
“Stop it!” Willie screams at him, but Lacey is cocking his arm for another shot. He pulls Angel’s head up by the hair with his other hand and aims a fist for her nose. Without thinking, Willie swings the cane, intercepting Lacey’s swing at the wrist, and now Lacey screams, dropping to his knees and clutching his arm. Willie comes back with the cane as hard as he can and the brass baseball catches Lacey in the back of the neck, whipping his head back hard, then driving his face into the floor.
Angel is stunned. She’s uncovered from the waist up, kneeling by the bed, staring at Willie. “Oh, God,” she says. “Why did you do that? When Lacey wakes up, he’ll kill you.”
Willie is trembling. He acted out of instinct, and now fear washes over him. Lacey will kill him if he wakes up. He stands over Lacey, swearing that if he moves, he’ll club him again. He can’t think; looks back to Angel. “Cover…yourself up,” he says, and she reaches up to pull the bedsheet over herself. “Go downstairs…and…call Emergency. We’ll…get him…to a doctor. That’ll…give him…time to cool off.”
Angel is still stunned; her nose is bleeding and the side of her face is starting to swell, but she moves around the bed, pulls on her blouse and picks up the phone.
Lacey hasn’t regained consciousness when the ambulance arrives, and they put him in on a stretcher. Angel stays out of sight because she fears the police will show once the paramedics see the nature of the injuries, and she wants no part of that. Willie tells them Lacey got real drunk and pitched down the stairs, and though they seem skeptical, they hurry him off. Willie says he’ll follow in Lacey’s car, but he has no intention of doing so. He’s going to pack his stuff. The medics assure him Lacey will stay the night in the hospital even if he regains consciousness. That gives Willie until tomorrow to pack and be gone. He absently gets the name and number of the hospital.