Blind Your Ponies (28 page)

Another couple appeared through the gate and went into the dilapidated dressing rooms. In a daze, Sam and Diana cuddled, with her on his lap. When the other couple appeared and stepped into the pool, Sam staggered toward the dressing rooms still holding Diana’s hand, having forgotten for that moment that he had another life somewhere beyond these weather-scarred walls.

On the drive home through the wild, nocturnal landscape, she snuggled to him with feline softness.

“I wanted to take your mind off the team,” she said.

“What team?”

Driving with one hand holding hers in her lap, he wondered how he could ever leave her and return to his solitary bed, suspecting that tonight he had passed from his familiar world of cold isolation into one of warmth and closeness.

Elizabeth Chapman was desperate, sure that her grandson was making a mistake he’d regret the rest of his life. In her desperation, she decided the only thing that might sway him to reconsider was to tell him how she lost her hand. She’d never told his mother the truth, and no one in Willow Creek knew, but it was the only card she had to play that might derail Peter’s headlong rush back to his girlfriend.

She stood in the doorway to his room while he stuffed clothing into his duffel bag.

“You promise me you’ll talk to Coach Pickett before you leave,” she said.

“I promise. Besides, he’s not home. I’ve been over there three times.”

“Well, you hold off your packing a minute and you listen to me, boy, and listen good.”

“I’m listening, I’m listening.” He threw himself onto his bed and lay there, staring at the ceiling.

“Your grandfather and I were sweethearts when he joined the Navy and went off to war. His ship fought in the South Pacific, a ‘tin can’ he called it, and somehow he managed to stay alive. When he came home after the war he got a job as a deputy sheriff and we got married. But like I told you, he had a drinking problem, and after a couple of years he lost his job because of it. Well, I was young and full of vinegar and I figured it was my Godgiven duty as his good wife to save him, to make him stop drinking.”

Peter slipped past her into the bathroom to grab his personal things.

“Are you listening to me, boy?”

“Yeah, I’m listening,” he called from the bathroom. “You thought it was your duty to make him stop drinking.”

“Right,” she said, raising her voice. “Well, one night he told me he was going off to the Legion Hall to get together with some of the vets, no women allowed. I knew it was just an excuse and I told him I was going with him
to see that he didn’t get to drinking, said that I’d even drag him out of there in front of his buddies. We got to fighting, yelling and arguing until he just picked me up and hauled me off to the garage. Your grandfather was a powerful man.”

Peter scrambled back into his room and gathered his Walkman and tapes.

“Well, he still had a pair of handcuffs from his deputy days and he handcuffed my left wrist to a metal pole in the middle of the two-car garage. I couldn’t reach a thing. He was laughing and said not to wait up for him, that he’d damn well do what he wanted with his life. He turned on a light, left me a jug of water, a pillow and blanket, a radio playing, and shut the door. In a few minutes I heard him drive off.”

“Did you have any neighbors?” Peter said as he tucked a small bundle of Kathy’s letters into his bag.

“We were living in Utah then, a ways out from town on a dirt road. I was embarrassed, humiliated, and plenty sore. I hated to admit he’d gotten the best of me and I tried to figure a way out of that mess. The floor was concrete and there was no way I was going to move that metal post. Wasn’t until I’d settled down a bit that I realized he’d closed the cuff on my left hand to the last notch. It was too tight.”

“Damn, Grandma, what did you do?” Peter sat on his bed.

“At first I panicked, started yelling every few minutes, just in case, and when I’d hear a car coming by I’d shout bloody murder. Hand got red and started swelling up and hurting real bad. I was scared. Poured water over my wrist and tried wiggling out of the cuffs but couldn’t. After a while the pain stopped, hand turned white and I couldn’t feel it much. Laid down and tried to sleep but I kept peeking at my hand. It got all blue, looked a fright and then I heard him come home. By then my voice was shot. I’d yelled until it was raw and I couldn’t make a sound. I pounded the water jug on the concrete floor, hoping he’d notice I wasn’t in bed and remember, but I knew he’d be drunk as a skunk. He stumbled into the house and fell asleep on the sofa, never looked in the bedroom, forgot all about where he’d left me.”

“He was a mean sonofabitch.” Peter scowled.

“He found me around ten Sunday morning, rushed me to the hospital, but by then my hand was black, they couldn’t save it. The law wanted to
throw him in jail but I told them I put the handcuffs on myself to keep me from going into town and acting foolish. Nobody believed me but there was nothing they could do.”

“They should’ve hung the bastard.” Peter pushed his way out of the room. “I’m glad I never knew him.” He searched through the kitchen and came back with a sweatshirt, then stuffed it in his duffel bag. Grandma grabbed his shoulder and directed him to her stuffed chair.

“You listen to me now, Peter Strong.”

She squatted in front of him.

“I wanted to leave him, but I thought I could save him, that somehow my life depended on his. So, I stayed. My decision was bad for both of us, we never should’ve been together. He didn’t touch a drop for six, seven months, devastated by what he’d done to me. He could be a prince when he wasn’t into the booze and I got pregnant with your mother during those sane months when he wasn’t drinking. Lucky for you, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said with a slight smile.

“But I wouldn’t let him forget, found subtle ways to stick it in his face, no forgiveness. I became a real cunning bitch. That’s how he went back to his faithful, forgiving bottle. It was the only way he could black out his guilt. Every time he saw my stump it reminded him. When your mother was about grown, I finally gave up my anger. I tried to forgive him, told him over and over.”

Peter’s face had turned ashen and she worried that she’d thrust too much on his young heart.

“Your mother doesn’t know any of this, don’t know for sure why I’m telling you except that it comes down to this: I squandered the best years of my life trying to make a man who didn’t love himself love me, and I just don’t want to see you miss your chance at something special in life trying to make someone love you.” She grunted as she stood up. “That’s all I’ve got to say.”

“I just want to find out if Kathy loves me or not, that’s all.” Peter cleared his throat, and she could tell he was choking up. “I’m sorry about your hand, Grandma… and about all that stuff with Grandpa. Thanks for having me, I…”

He didn’t finish. He pushed out of the chair and went to the kitchen door. “I gotta tell the coach.”

Tripod followed him.

She knew he was making a terrible mistake, that he would be tied to some girl’s skirts the rest of his life and not do what he was meant to do. But Grandma Chapman had learned, finally, that she couldn’t save anyone, not even herself. She prayed Mr. Pickett could do what she’d failed to do.

W
HEN
S
AM AND
Diana pulled up in front of his house, they embraced in the Volvo.

“If I don’t have you again I will cut my throat.”

“We can’t have you dying in the middle of the season,” she said.

He watched her taillights disappear at the end of Main Street and all the old feelings came rushing back. What was he doing? Did he understand what was at stake?

Sam walked to the house and was startled by a shadowed figure sitting on the sagging front porch.

“I need to talk to you, Coach, if you’ve got a minute,” Peter said.

Sam felt the tightening in his stomach. “Sure, sure, c’mon in.”

Sam attempted to gather his thoughts as he opened the door and lit lamps in the front room. They settled in and the room seemed strangely quiet without the customary basketball tape playing on the TV screen. Peter explained his decision at some length. When he finished he regarded Sam with imploring eyes.

“I don’t know what to do. I want to go back, to be with my friends and my mom, but I want to stay with my grandma and the team. I hate to leave in the middle of the season. I know how much the team needs me.”

“When would you go?” Sam asked as calmly as he could manage.

“Tomorrow. I could catch a bus late Afternoon.”

“What does your grandmother say?”

“She says if I go now, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. She thinks I’m going back because of my girlfriend.”

“Are you?”

“No… not really… I don’t know. Damn it, Coach, I just don’t know. She dumped me a couple months ago.”

“But I thought— ”

“I didn’t want anyone to know.”

Sam pushed the glasses up on his nose and cleared his throat.

“Pete, we come to forks in the road we can’t avoid, and the way we choose changes the direction of our life forever. Life is not forgiving. We can never go back. I’ve got the funny feeling that this group of boys is very unusual, as though you were meant to come together for this one bright season, from Saint Paul, from Norway, from the plowed fields surrounding Willow Creek. We want you to be with us, but I don’t want you to stay to win basketball games. I want you to stay because of this chance to do something you may never be able to do again, something that will prepare you and inspire you for the journey ahead. I believe you’re here for a special purpose, but I could be wrong. God knows I’ve been wrong before. Don’t you think it’s strange that you ended up in Willow Creek this year?”

“Yeah. I’ve thought about that.”

“I have a hunch I’m in the place I’m supposed to be right now,” Sam said. “I’ve never felt that before. I have no idea how I got here. Sometimes it seems more by fluke or accident or Fate’s sense of humor than my making the right choices. Somehow we’ve been drawn together in this common quest, and maybe, whether we know it or not, someone else has a hand in it.”

Sam gathered himself.

“I know how hard it will be for you to decide.” He reached over and put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Do what you feel in your heart.”

“That’s the trouble. It’s all mixed up inside. Whatever I decide—it seems right and wrong at the same time.”

“I wish I could be more help.”

The boy glanced at Sam and he had tears in his eyes.

“Say good-bye to the team for me. I can’t.”

“Okay, I will.”

S
AM LAY IN
bed restlessly and fought off the images that found him there with no defenses. He’d shared the hidden place of his soul with Diana and she offered him all that was missing from his life, there for the taking if he’d dare to open his heart. But he knew the terrible danger, the terrifying possible consequences.

He came out of a shallow sleep shortly after three. That familiar swishing sound went past his window but when he got out of bed and squinted into the darkness there was nothing there. He could see a million stars. How could they go on without Peter Strong? How could he go on without Diana? He asked the stars. They winked at him mutely from an eternal silence.

Wednesday, the first day back at school, word spread, and by the time the boys gathered for practice, everyone knew that Peter Strong had jumped ship. All day Sam had rehearsed what he could say to keep the team afloat, to make any sense for them to carry on with only five boys.

While Sam was trying to patch together some survival plan for his unraveling basketball team, his mind kept drifting back to the Beartrap Hot Springs, where he carelessly and foolishly lowered his defenses and became dangerously vulnerable. And now he missed her, felt off balance, and couldn’t get her out of his head.

At practice, Diana greeted him politely and stood with the boys under the south basket. Axel and Hazel joined the group, but Grandma sat on the lower bench of the bleachers, ostracizing herself as though she bore the blame for her grandson’s desertion.

The plan was simple. With Dean a starter, they would each have a specific role and they would stick to that role no matter what. They would employ a zone defense. Dean would play out front and harass the guards, using his quickness and stamina to full advantage, but he had to avoid fouling. Curtis would play the baseline corner where he would also hound his opponent with his long arms, keep a body between his opponent and the basket, and rebound. Dean and Curtis would keep moving, setting picks and screens for the other three boys. They were never to shoot unless they had a clean breakaway to the basket for a layup. Only Tom, Rob, and Olaf were to shoot the ball.

Sam went over it several times and then they went to work against the village scrubs. When practice was about over and the boys were shooting free throws, Sam caught Diana before she ducked into the girls’ locker room.

“How about dinner tonight?” he asked. “I don’t feel like cooking.”

“Oh, thanks, that sounds wonderful, but I have so much to do to catch up I better not.” She smiled warmly. “See you tomorrow.”

He felt his chest ache. He turned back to the boys. “Same way every time!” he shouted. “Develop your ritual. Same way every time!”

M
ERVIN
P
AINTER ARRIVED
at the Manhattan Christian gym early and staked out a seat for himself and Claire right at center court, four rows up. He usually sat down at the far end, where the whipping they took didn’t seem so personal. But tonight he wanted to be smack dab in the sweat and heat of it. He was unable to remember being so ready for a brawl. His mind kept leaping ahead to Monday morning when he’d march into the café and finally lord it over that sullen bastard of a brother.

Olaf was becoming like an adopted son, and the lanky Norwegian caused more than a mild stir among the fans filling the bleachers, dunking the ball while running layups during a warmup drill with what looked like a pickup team in a refugee camp. Mervin felt a fatherly pride watching him. He knew that though they were somewhat intimidated, the Willow Creek boys relished the chance to play in this sizable gymnasium where you didn’t have to pick your teeth out of the wall after a layup or trip over a fan’s shoes down the sidelines.