Maybe the whole summer has been one big mistake.
You grab your stuff off the bleachers and start toward the door, but for some unexplainable reason you stop. You turn around. You glare across the court at Dante, mumbling, “I just wanna play.”
“What?” Dante shouts back. He picks up a ball and fires it at you, narrowly missing. “Speak up if you got something to say!”
“I wanna play,” you repeat, louder this time.
“What?”
“I wanna play!”
A few of the guys start toward you again, wanting to get you out of the gym before you get hurt, but Dante puts a stop to that. “Get away from him! This is between me and the kid!”
The whole gym silent aside from your heartbeat.
Your short, nervous breaths measuring the time.
“Check it out,” Dante suddenly announces. “The kid’s got my spot this game.” Then he turns back to you. “After you get smoked, you walk out them doors and never come back, you hear?”
You stand there studying him for a few extra beats, searching for his angle, trying to decide if it’s some kind of trick, if you’re still in danger. Before your ruling is in, though, you find yourself being shoved out onto the court.
“You got Dollar Bill,” someone is telling you.
It takes a minute to realize what’s happening.
They’re letting you play.
And if you mess up, it’s over.
As fast as your heart was beating when Dante got in your face, it slows back down once the ball is in play. Because this is the one place in the entire world where you’re truly alive. Where your brain shuts off and every move is made on instinct.
It only takes two trips up and down before you shake off the cobwebs and slip into the flow. First time the ball gets swung to you out on the wing, you skip past your defender and spin into the lane for a little ten-foot bank shot off the glass.
A few guys on the sideline oohing and aahing.
A few plays later you bury an open twenty-footer, nothing but net, Dante style.
You rip Dollar Bill near half court and race down the floor for a little finger roll over the rim. And as you retreat back down for defense after that one, you can hear the gym erupting.
Now you’re buried deep inside the folds of the game.
The outside world slinks off and hides, and all you know are the choreographed movements around you. The dance. The beautiful symphony of squeaking sneaks and grunts and the thud of body meeting body. Each man’s heavy breath and his eyes like a portal to his mind.
You bury two more deep jumpers, followed by a game-winning scoop shot in the lane, which results in the other team’s big man tripping over his own feet and falling on his face.
The guys on your squad mob you near midcourt.
“That’s right, young buck,” they say.
“That’s how you let fools know,” they say.
A few go on about how they’ve been meaning to pick you up all summer, they just never got a chance, blah, blah, blah.
But just as you’re starting to feel yourself, Dante will be back in your grill. “What, you make a couple jumpers, and now you supposed to be somebody?”
“No, I just—”
“Get off my court, kid.”
“But—”
He’ll grab you by the arm and fling you toward the bleachers, barking to everyone else, “Yo, I got my spot back! Check ball!”
You’ll consider putting up a fight here, but don’t.
Trust me.
What matters is you’ll have proven you can play. What matters is every head who saw what you just did will see you differently now. As proof, not thirty seconds later a guy who goes by the name of Slim will wander over and say, “Yo, young buck, I got next. Wanna run with me?”
“For sure.”
Rob will overhear this exchange and bark, “Yo, Slim, I thought you already had five. Who you dropping?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“You just seen this boy’s skills, right? I gotta get me a point guard.”
“But you said I was down, Slim. Don’t play your boy like that….”
In the middle of this debate, a stray jumper will roll out of bounds toward you, and Dante will give chase. He’ll grab the rock and kneel down, not five feet from you, to tie his shoe. “Hey, kid,” he’ll say in a quiet voice.
“Yeah?”
He’ll look up at you, mid–double knot. “You wanna get in games, you don’t just sit there like a punk, right? You stand up and challenge the baddest dude in the gym. Someone like me. Then you do your thing. Understand?”
His intense eyes will be like knives inside your chest. “Yes, sir.”
He’ll stand up and nod, then jog back onto the court, shouting, “Yo, check ball! Let’s go!”