Soon a small but growing crowd of people, mostly students, began to form on corners of the court: We were in Louisville and this was the UofL basketball team after all. I suspected they drew a crowd wherever they went.
Tyrell Dee remained off to the side, absorbed with his phone, but Kyle and the two Bigs continued to bang away while people took pictures and ooohed and ahhed. After one particularly loud, rim-rattling dunk, Ethan jumped up and screamed at the absolute top of his lungs, “Wow! Wow! Wow!”
This last exclamation caught Tyrell’s attention. He finally looked up from his phone and took Ethan in, his face still blank.
“Give me the ball, man,” he said to Kyle. He dropped his phone on the grass by the side of the court, hitched up his shorts, and bounced the ball a couple of times, before taking full flight. Whirling a semicircle in the air, he slammed it down spectacularly with one hand. Then he pointed at Ethan.
“Wow!” Ethan quietly said. He was stunned and maybe a little scared by the spectacle.
“Wow,” I agreed.
Tyrell Dee walked over to Ethan and slapped him five. “See, that’s how it done,” he said. “Don’t pay no attention to these others, don’t be wowing them. They all be playin’ in Croatia next year, man. Their mommas gonna have to get some kind of super international dish, see their games two in the morning. They say, ‘Oh, look, there’s DeMarcus! He just scored for Team Croatia, I so proud!”
He said this last sentence in a falsetto voice, and even though DeMarcus was a seven-foot-tall, four-hundred-pound beast, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah, where you be playing next year, TD?” Kyle asked
Tyrell sauntered back onto the court. “You know where I be, Sweet LA. Who you think I just be talking to? Kobe, just beggin’ my ass to come out there, resurrect the situation.”
“You be playin’ for DC,” DeMarcus said.
“Ain’t playing for no DC. I ain’t no Wizard, man, tell you that right now. LA gonna trade for me. Hey, yo, watch this, man!” He pointed to Ethan, then threw a ball against the backboard, caught the rebound in midair with one hand, and slammed it home. More ooohs and aaahs from the crowd, more phone cameras flashing.
“Wow!” Ethan yelled.
“Wow is right. I am wow.” Tyrell walked back over to us. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “Yo, Baker, what’s his name, man?”
“Ethan,” Kyle said.
“Ethan, you know talent. What you hangin’ out with Baker for? He probably be playin’ in Iceland next year. Or be a hockey player. Go play for the Canucks somewhere, man. Be a Ca-nuck.” Again he slapped a beaming Ethan five and looked at me.
“All right I give him a ball?”
I was speechless over the offer. “Yes. But you don’t have to.”
“’S all right. Gotta support my fan base. DeMarcus, give me a ball. Over here, man, come on. Give me a good one. That one right there. No, that one, yeah. The one in your hands, man. You holdin’ it. Come on. Over here.”
DeMarcus flipped Tyrell a ball, and he signed it with a marker from his pocket. “You take care of that,” he said, handing the ball to Ethan. “Gonna be worth when I go next year, man. Just don’t let any of these others sign it. They probably write something in Croatian, depreciate the worth.”
I laughed again; the guy was funny.
“Shit, TD, he always got a pen on him,” DeMarcus said, bouncing a ball and smiling.
“Ain’t no point leaving home without one,” Tyrell said, slipping the pen away. “Ain’t that right?” He slapped Ethan five one more time and asked DeMarcus for another ball. “Yo, Ethan, man,” he said. “Watch this close now. You learnin’ from the best.”
“Wow!”
“You got that right,” Tyrell Dee said. “I am wow.”
*
After Kyle made me take a few shots to show the others I once played D1 ball (for the record, not that it matters, I went nine for twelve from downtown); and after I took close to a hundred pictures of Ethan with the players (and one with just Tyrell Dee and me); and after Ethan gave everyone way too many good-bye high fives because he can’t do fist bumps; and after I gave Kyle an awkward but very much-deserved bro hug; and after Ethan and I made our way to the Marriott East on the outskirts of town where we had a quick dinner in the bar and watched some SportsCenter, we called it an early night.
“Night, dude-man,” I said after I brushed his teeth and tucked him in.
“Leave. Now.”
“You’ll get no argument from me there.” I kissed him on the forehead, stripped off my clothes, and fell into my bed. There would be no need for free throws or bourbon or Blue Highways tonight. I was exhausted and sensed a night of good sleep on the horizon.
“Good night, Ethan.”
*
I was just drifting off when I heard Karen’s voice, and jerked awake. Daddy. She had called me Daddy on the phone. Daddy. She hadn’t called me that in twenty years.
4
I forced myself to wait until six the next morning before calling Mary. Borrowing a page from her no-foreplay, no-bullshit, in-me-or-off-me playbook, I jumped right in. “What’s wrong with Karen?” I whispered.