Blind Your Ponies (29 page)

His brother Carl bulldozed his way into the gymnasium without Maggie at his side. Mervin hadn’t seen her at a game for years and for him it was just as well. Regret was an unforgetting, unforgiving traveling companion. Carl climbed up the bleachers with Lute Jackson and Sandy Hill in tow, and he entrenched himself straight across from Mervin. He wore a crisp, green John Deere cap and was undoubtedly figuring how he’d spend Mervin’s crisp, green hundred-dollar bill.

Manhattan Christian was located in Churchill, a peaceful rural hamlet where the surrounding dairy farms and cattle ranches were meticulously manicured and where basketball was second only to God, or vice versa, depending on whom you talked to.

Mervin knew it was just damn luck that because of the density of the surrounding farms and the wide draw this private school enjoyed, their coach had the luxury of cutting boys to get down to the officially allotted twelve. Though Mervin understood the practicality of it, he admitted the resentment he felt over the past several years because Christian would only send out their JV’s against Willow Creek, allowing their varsity to schedule
two additional games with more worthy opponents and blatantly humiliate the Willow Creek boys.

Mervin anchored the small contingent from Willow Creek. Beside the diehards, Ray Collins sat with his family, mostly to see if Poke’s collar had done the trick.

When the teams took their mark at center court, Mervin felt goose bumps on the back of his neck. Only he wished his Willow Creek boys looked a little sharper out on the basketball floor. They wore faded, mismatched gold jerseys and shorts. The skinny Jenkins kid looked like he could fly if he could learn to flap his mulelike ears, the bowlegged Cutter kid looked like you could fire a cannon between his legs and not touch a hair. And Olaf looked like a scarecrow with his ill-fitting uniform, long skinny legs, and enormous game shoes. They looked more like the Katzenjammer Kids, more like a comic, underfed jailbreak than a basketball team.

From the opening jump, Mervin was hovering between glimmers of hope and utter despair. The Willow Creek boys managed to stay out in front through the first half, but in the second half they were dropping passes, missing shots, and traveling with the ball. His goddamn brother was beating him up again, just when he dared to believe it would finally be different.

Mervin clung to the wooden bleacher with both hands and shouted until he was hoarse. He felt a kinship with Andrew Wainwright, the talc plant executive, who was a cut above the farm-implement caps and unpolished boots, there in his fancy tailored suit, pulling for the boys. He looked more like a banker, or worse, a lawyer. With his suit coat off and his shirt sleeves rolled up, he was leading the vocal charge, although the Willow Creek fans were outnumbered twenty to one.

Mervin wished Grandma Chapman’s grandson had stayed, though in his heart of hearts he thought the kid was doing the right thing: run to your girl and hang on to her until they chop your arms off. Mervin just wished the kid had stuck one more week, until they’d knocked his arrogant brother off his throne into the maggot-infested manure of loss.

Willow Creek made a late surge. With twenty-three seconds to go and Christian ahead by one point, the little Cutter kid slapped the ball out of a Christian player’s hands and Rob Johnson grabbed it and dribbled into the front court. Fans on both sides of the gym stood, holding their breath.
Stonebreaker put a bulldogging pick on Olaf’s man and the big Norwegian swung into the paint. With four seconds on the clock Olaf caught a high pass from Johnson and jammed the ball in the basket.

The horn sounded!

They won! They broke Christian’s long domination over Willow Creek.

Mervin exploded with joy, the ecstatic Willow Creek fans jumped and hooted and shouted, the Christian fans slumped, stunned with blank faces. But the referee blew his whistled and signaled.

The basket
did not count!

The referee rolled his hands as though he were balling yarn. Traveling! Halfway out of the bleachers, Mervin felt a stab in the chest. The Willow Creek fans slumped back into their seats as though shot by the man in the striped shirt, and the enraptured Eagle fans erupted in cheers. Mervin led a heated chorus of booing as the referees fled to the dressing room.

Christian fans wiped perspiration from their brows and praised God for providing such a clear-eyed and honorable referee.

Mervin led Claire to their car in the darkened parking lot against a chilling wind from the north that felt like his brother’s curse. Damn, the boys played their hearts out. It was far worse than losing by forty, it was more painful having had the game in their grasp, tasting it, and then having it ripped away in the final second. He felt the blood rush to his face. His brother had beaten him again, snatched the hope out of his life, and he didn’t dare believe that it would ever be different.

After licking their wounds at the Blue Willow for an hour or so, Carter insisted on driving Olaf home. Olaf asked Rob and Mary along, and they agreed to ride shotgun. Because of the stick shift, Olaf had to stuff himself in on the passenger side, leaving the other two kids between him and Carter.

“It’s too bad your family couldn’t have seen you tonight,” Carter said.

“No, I’m not wanting my father to see,” Olaf said.

“But you played so well,” Mary said.

“That stupid referee is blind,” Carter said. “He just didn’t want Willow Creek to beat Manhattan Christian.”

“You got that right,” Rob said. “We’d have taken them if Pete was still here.”

“Yeah… but he’s not,” Carter said.

When she parked in the yard, Carter left the pickup running and walked Olaf to the house.

“Good game, Oaf,” Rob called, “we’ll get ’em.”

“You were great,” Mary said.

The lights were on in the big barn and they could hear someone hammering, which normally would have drawn Olaf to see what was going on. But right then he didn’t have the courage to face Mervin, who had told him about his bet with his haughty brother. He wanted so badly to win the game for his kind and genial hosts, especially for Mervin.

At the door Carter wrapped her arms around him the best she could. “I know it hurts. I’m sorry. You played so well.”

“Ya, but we are hurting together. It is okay.”

Carter lingered, hugging his waist.

“You can kiss me if you’d like,” she said.

“Oh… thank you,” he said, but he had other things on his mind. He didn’t speak. He stood there, hearing the hammering in the barn.

“Good night,” Carter said, and then she released him.

“Good night. Thank you for giving a ride.”

Carter walked to the truck. Olaf stood there, listening.

W
HEN
M
ERVIN HADN’T
come in by midnight, Claire got worried and was unable to sleep without him next to her. She fixed a thermos of coffee and bagged a handful of his favorite chocolate chip cookies. She pulled on her coat and carted the offering out to the barn to see what he was up to at this time of night, to coax him to the house and to bed.

In the barn she found her fuming spouse hammering a two-by-four framework on the end of the loft wall, too upset to talk or explain what on earth he was doing. He did consent to drink the Coffee and eat the cookies, and that assured her he was working through his anger on schedule and would probably slip into the warm bed beside her within the hour. On her way back to the house she wondered where all this basketball business was leading and she knew that Carl and Maggie Painter were somehow stuck in her husband’s craw.

The Twin Bridges Falcons came north like birds of prey to pick clean the bones of the Willow Creek team. They strutted into the gymnasium ready to add a notch to their already impressive win column. Thus far, they had no loss column, and it was inconceivable that the first one would come from a town that their new bus driver had trouble finding.

Peter’s desertion had scattered Sam’s hopes. He was teetering, losing his balance, and he knew he had to get a grip on himself for the boys’ sake, for his five remaining boys, standing with him.

Only a small contingent of fans showed up from Twin Bridges, not for lack of team support, Sam guessed, but for lack of interest in watching their Falcons stomp a hapless bunch of uncoordinated boys into the varnish one more time. Thus, when the trip to Willow Creek appeared on their schedule, most of their avid fans probably thought more of saving gasoline and rented videos.

On the Willow Creek side the bleachers held only a few dozen, a big turnout for a town where the question of whether or not the band would make it through the national anthem held more suspense for the spectators than the basketball game. Little kids chased about, the three cheerleaders practiced cheers in a world of their own, and parents hobnobbed around the concession window until game time.

Diana, in a striking blue-and-gold jumpsuit, saw to it that the boys stretched properly before the game. Mervin Painter entrenched himself in the stands, top row, middle of the court, not the pew he and Claire usually occupied. His fierce posture replaced his usual mellow manner, while beside him Claire beamed at the anarchic activity around her. Not far from the Painters, John English stepped up into the bleachers and sat, the first game he’d appeared at and one he knew for sure Willow Creek would lose, adding ammunition to his efforts to abolish the basketball program.

The teams warmed up. Twin Bridges, twelve strong in matching sweats and loud banter, displayed evidence of being a contemptuous, well-trained squad. Willow Creek, with only five, found it difficult to even run a layup drill.

Sam was proud of his team. They stayed with Twin Bridges until halfway through the third quarter, holding back the inevitable avalanche they all knew was coming. Craig Stone, a Falcon center, was abusing Olaf in the paint and the referees seemed blind to it—cheap shots with his elbows, jabs to the ribs—and when Olaf retaliated he was called for the foul. Tom had had enough of it. As the teams hustled downcourt, Tom ran alongside Stone and pushed the opposing player headfirst into the second row of the bleachers, somewhere in the vicinity of rotund Axel Anderson and the more fragile Truly Osborn. Stone came out from among the shocked and delighted Willow Creek fans with his fists flailing, walled off from Tom by the referees and coaches.

Tom was tossed out of the game, banished to the locker room, and the avalanche came down on all of their heads. Twin Bridges poured it on, five against four, until Olaf fouled out. At five against three there was no mercy. The haughty Falcons used Curtis and Rob and Dean for fodder and yet the Willow Creek boys never gave up, occasionally stealing a pass and even scoring.

When it was mercifully over, 72 to 51, Jeff Long, the balding Twin Bridges coach, approached Sam out on the floor.

“Your kids are quite good,” he said as he shook Sam’s hand.

“They’re better than that, they’re excellent,” Sam replied.

“You ought to clean up your act,” Diana said over her shoulder as she helped Scott gather equipment.

“Ah, a bad loser.” Jeff smiled at Diana. “We must set a good example of sportsmanship, right?”

Diana glared at him. “I’ll remind you of that next time we play.”

In the locker room, Sam didn’t speak a word to his beaten athletes. He approached Tom, who was slumped on a bench at the far end of the narrow room with an ice bag on his knee. Sam stooped and embraced his strong forward, soaking his shirt and tie with the boy’s grief and anger. He moved over and hugged Rob, who, counting tournament games, had absorbed his
ninth straight beating at the hands of Twin Bridges. Sam looked at Olaf and saw the welts from Craig Stone. He patted Olaf on the back as well as Dean and Curtis. He hesitated at the door and turned to face the boys who were absorbing their defeat with a stoic dignity.

“Tom, didn’t your mother ever tell you not to throw stones?”

Sam paused, allowing a thin smile.

“I’m proud as hell that you stood up for a teammate,” Sam said. “You were the better team out there. That ought to make you feel good because they’re rated number two in the state right now. They had to find a dishonorable way to win. We’ll meet them again.”

“Can we go to McDonald’s tonight?” Dean said.

“Not tonight, Dean, but next week we’ll travel,” Sam said, “and then we will.”

“Why did Pete quit on us?” Dean asked.

The locker room went still, no one moved. The question hung in the humid air.

“I don’t know, Dean,” Sam said. “Maybe it was something he had to do.”

“We’d a beat them if Pete was here,” Dean said.

“I know… we would have,” Sam said.

He turned and hurried into the gym, almost knocking Diana over as she listened at the locker room door.

“We’re just beginning, Coach,” she said. “The boys are lucky to have you.”

She kissed him quickly on the cheek, and he glanced around the nearly empty gym to see who might have witnessed their simple affection. No one.

In the smattering of stragglers, several grade-school kids were chasing a basketball around on the floor and trying to toss it high enough to make a basket. Sam wondered if they would be among those who followed in this litany of loss. He thought the kind and merciful thing to do would be to warn them before it was too late. And like Tom and the boys, he wished that Peter had been there to battle with them against the Falcons, and against the fates and the ghosts that inhabited their hearts.

January hadn’t lived up to its notorious reputation, but instead had turned mild and sheepish, with daytime temperatures in the forties and fifties. Diana called on Sunday, inviting Sam for an After-noon hike, and he eagerly met her out at the old iron single-lane bridge that spanned the Jefferson River. In her Levis, Padres cap, and weathered khaki safari jacket that was slightly too big for her, she appeared somewhat girlish and in need of protection. Sam was so happy to see her he nearly kissed her.

He expected her to drive to some remote place near the mountains, but he was surprised when she led him on foot down through the road ditch, past a senescent barbed-wire fence, and across a cattle-tracked pasture. The snow had been consumed by wind and sun except in a few isolated protected patches.