Teammates
A Long Story
By Jeff Roulston
Short Fiction
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
ISBN: 978-0-9920678-3-0
Copyright 2015 by Jeff Roulston
Dedication
For every player I ever coached, especially the ones I worried about the most.
Make me proud.
Contents
The Beginning
The Middle
The End
Epilogue
About The Author
Other Books By Jeff Roulston
Connect With Jeff
The Beginning
Jerome pressed play on the iPod perched precariously on its dock. He had to jiggle it before the speakers flooded his room with his “Ignorant Rap” playlist. He frowned at the smudge on the left foot of his “Raptor” Jordan VII's, dipping the old toothbrush he'd snatched off the dresser into a laundry detergent cap and scrubbing the black suede lovingly. When he was satisfied he chucked the toothbrush toward the dresser and wiped the shoe off with a rag as frayed as the toothbrush.
Getting ready for school on dress-down day was usually a big production, but today was a game day, so Jerome pulled his grey Lions Basketball sweatpants over his practice shorts and found the matching hoodie underneath his basketball bag. He pulled it on over his head, followed by the black zip-up jacket with the three white stripes on the arms and the red Lions logo on the chest.
Jerome had more team gear than anyone else because he had been on the senior team since grade nine. Now an eleventh-grader and one of the top young players in the city, he'd been there for all of the team's recent success. Especially since the team had attracted shoe-company sponsorship, his ball gear was enough of a fashion statement that he could save his carefully-planned outfits and new kicks for another time.
He pulled the MP3 player off the dock with a jerk and shoved the jack for his borrowed Dr. Dre headphones in as he put them on. He scooped up the old toothbrush that had missed the dresser and put it in its place next to all the shoe-cleaning products Foot Locker employees had hustled him into buying and he realized that he hadn't brushed his teeth yet.
The bathroom was across the hall and he banged his head around to the music like Will Smith in that funny old show his uncles always made him watch. Jerome laughed to himself, then swallowed a little toothpaste and coughed in surprise as his dad's face appeared suddenly behind his own reflection in the mirror.
"C’mon Pop!" He slid the right ear of the headphones backward on his head.
"Boy, what happen, you can’t hear? You have me shoutin' your name!"
"Sorry Pop, these are quality noise-canceling headphones."
"So why you don’t put them on instead of waking up the whole house with your music at six in the morning?" His dad laughed and playfully pulled the hood over Jerome's head, dragging him a little as he walked off; probably headed back to sleep until it was time for his afternoon shift at work. Jerome wished his dad could watch him play.
Today's game was against Victoria Park, the other high school in the neighbourhood. There weren't a lot of basketball rivalries in Toronto anymore since American prep schools started raiding the city for talent years ago. His mom's younger brothers had gone to Henry too, and they told him stories about their battles with VP and Georges Vanier and heated games in other parts of the city like the Holy Wars between Catholic powers Mother Teresa and Jean Vanier out in Scarborough and the classic Eastern Commerce-Oakwood games downtown. And every neighbourhood had its own rivalries between lesser-known schools too.
But now even though many of the highest ranked college basketball prospects came from the city or the 905, almost all played for some private high school in New Hampshire or North Carolina or wherever. The best players that stayed all went to the same five or six big-name schools, so the average league game wasn’t so exciting anymore.
But both Henry and VP were good this year, and many of their players were friends and middle school classmates who didn’t want to hear their rivals clowning them around the neighbourhood all summer. Jerome could just hear his neighbour who went to VP and didn’t even play ball asking him, “How’s Henry’s basketball program coming along?” The crowd would be big and rowdy. He could see himself telling his own nephews about this game 15 years from now. No way was he going to lose.
Jerome left the hoodie up over his head, spit out the last of the toothpaste, stuck the toothbrush in its holder and left without washing out the sink.
"Bye Pop," he probably said too loudly because both ears of his headphones were back on. If there was a reply he didn't hear it.
He stepped out the front door into a prototypical twenty-first century Toronto winter morning—cold and grey but with no snow—and sat on the steps of his duplex to wait for his teammate Kevin, who usually walked with him to practice. Kevin had moved to the high-rise buildings overlooking the Don Valley Parkway in grade nine and they'd become pretty close friends considering they hadn't grown up together, though basketball was really the main thing they had in common.
When he came they exchanged pounds and walked in silence as usual, both with their headphones on. They crossed the street and walked in front of the gray brick townhouses with the brown fences and as they were turning the corner to walk down under the bridge, Kevin elbowed Jerome and pointed out his friend Ice walking across the street toward them. Ice was with another slightly-older cat that looked familiar.
"What up Rome? Superstar!"
"What up Isaiah," Jerome smiled. They slapped hands and Ice grabbed Jerome in a bearhug and tried to pick up his 6-foot-3 friend. "How do you keep growing? You were my height in grade nine bro, what the hell," Ice laughed as Jerome squirmed out of his hug and threw some playful punches to his body.
"I'll tell you what you need to stop," Jerome joked. "Those size 40 jeans and eight-XL hoodies! What year is this?"
"I was just about to ask what happened to them skinny-ass, nut-huggin' uniform pants you're usually wearin'!" Ice laughed as if he hadn’t laughed in months. He looked at Kevin's dark-blue Levi's as he offered him a pound. He asked, "dress-down day?"
"Yeah."
"I see you bro," Ice replied approvingly.
Jerome asked, "What you doin' up so early anyway?"
“Early? I'm up late," he laughed, as if amused at a child's knock-knock joke. "The game don't stop bro!"
"Sleep is the cousin of death," Ice's boy said seriously. His voice made Jerome realize that he was even older than he first thought. Where did he know that guy from?
"Real shit," Ice said, real cool like. He and the older guy then exchanged words with their eyes and Ice said, "I'll link you though," and gave the two hoopers pounds. The older guy nodded and the two walked off.
"When's you guys' next game?" Ice shouted back the question while walking backwards but maintaining his pace.
"Today," Jerome replied. "At home against VP."
"Iight," Ice called back, turning to keep up with his associate.
"I swear you're the only man that calls him Isaiah," Kevin said, and they headed down through the underpass toward practice as the other two bopped in the direction from which Jerome and Kevin had come.
The day Jerome's family had moved to the duplex after living in Scarborough for two years, he came out of the front door and saw Isaiah standing in the back of the moving truck admiring his bike.
"What are you doing?" Jerome ran up, shaking, readying for a fight. He hated fighting.
"Is this yours? This is a sick bike," the boy said. "Wanna race?"
"Huh?" Jerome relaxed only slightly. "Race where?"
"To the sign in the park. Come!"
Jerome had no clue which park this kid was talking about, but he followed hi
m and walked his bike across the street.
"The finish line is the wooden sign at the corner of the park, okay?"
Jerome nodded, "but where's your bike?"
"I don't have one," he replied. "Ready? Go!" Isaiah took off.
"What the--" Jerome jumped on and pedaled like hell after him. He was on two wheels and Isaiah was on two feet, but he only beat him by a few yards.
"You're fast," Jerome said breathlessly.
"Your bike's faster," Isaiah smiled.
Isaiah lived in the townhouses across the street and they played together every day that summer. After Jerome got a new ten-speed for his birthday that winter, they could ride all over the neighbourhood together the next summer—Isaiah riding Jerome's old BMX—exploring streets they'd never been on and discovering unknown parks, playgrounds and hills.
Their biggest discovery was the basketball court. The day they found it, they sped home to drop off their bikes so they wouldn't be stolen. Jerome grabbed his gray Wilson basketball with the leather shaved off. It had been stolen from Eastern Commerce by a friend of his uncle who'd played for the legendary high school team that had won seventy-two straight games, two Ontario championships and produced five Division I players, one of whom had even made the NBA. They took turns dribbling back-and-forth through their legs as many times as they could without the ball rolling onto the street or someone's lawn.
Jerome was really good at dribbling and could go between his legs over 30 times in a row. When they got to the court, Isaiah saw that Jerome could make any kind of lay-up too. But it was hard to get any sort of