Dunk Under Pressure (2 page)

“You’re hopeless,” Krystal said sweetly, putting her arm around his shoulder and squeezing. “Maybe we could go to the library one of these days. Maybe you can get something to read.”

“About basketball?”

“About anything you want.”

“Sure,” Dunk said. “Maybe there’s a book about rebounding.”

Krystal shook her head slowly. “All you ate today was some hot dogs?”

“Yeah. It was too hot to eat much.”

“You hungry now?”

“Very.”

“Come on. Let’s get something. I’m buying.”

“Can you wait ten minutes?”

“I suppose so,” Krystal said, putting on a light sweatshirt. “Why?”

Dunk picked up the basketball and started dribbling. “Fifty free throws,” he said. “If you rebound for me, it’ll go faster.”

 

 

“Looks like it rained,” Krystal said as they stepped out of the YMCA. The setting sun was shining, but some dark clouds were moving rapidly away toward New York City. The Boulevard was steaming.

“For about eight seconds,” Dunk said. “I’ve never seen such a quick shower. It sure didn’t cool things off.”

“So what do you feel like eating?” Krystal asked. “And don’t say another hot dog.”

“Pizza?”

“I had it last night. Chinese, maybe? I’m thinking Hunan vegetables and a shrimp roll.”

“Sounds good.”

Hudson City’s main street was lined with small shops and restaurants of all types: Mexican, Cuban, Thai, Italian, and many others. The languages and skin tones of the city’s residents were as varied as could be. So was the music that poured out of the shops.

The nearby choices for Chinese food were the Jade Palace, with its carpeted dining room and booths and waitresses, or the tiny Beijing Kitchen across the street, which relied mostly on take-out orders but had a handful of stools at the counter.

They stopped on the sidewalk outside the Jade Palace and Krystal gave Dunk a good looking-over. “You’re sweaty as a pig,” she said. “And the food’s better over there anyway.”

“You’re a little damp yourself,” Dunk said. “Or is that an indelicate thing to say?”

“Pffft,”
Krystal replied. “Where’d you find a word like
indelicate
? There’s nothing wrong with a bit of honest perspiration.”

So they crossed the street and sat at the stools in front of the Beijing Kitchen’s open kitchen, where they could watch the food being prepared.

The skinny young guy behind the counter nodded at Krystal and started to flirt. He obviously recognized her. “This your big brother?” he asked.

“My
little
nephew.”

“Oh, sorry,” the guy said. He looked mischievously at Dunk. “I better bring you the children’s menu.”

Dunk laughed. “Only if I can get three dinners off it.”

The phone rang and the guy answered, writing down an order. Behind him, two men were working frantically over giant woks, clattering and stirring, and a woman was assembling orders: putting rice into white cardboard containers, ladling soup into plastic bowls, tossing packets of mustard and soy sauce into bags.

“You decide yet?” the guy asked after hanging up the phone.

“What’s good tonight?” Krystal asked.

“Everything’s good, beautiful.” He winked.

Krystal rolled her eyes but didn’t seem to mind the compliment. She ordered the Hunan vegetables.

Dunk asked for shrimp with snow peas.

“You guys want soup?”

“I don’t know,” Dunk said. “It’s so hot out.”

“Nice and cool in here,” the guy said, pointing to a small window air conditioner that seemed to be laboring hard. The restaurant wasn’t very cool at all.

“Okay. Wonton for me,” Dunk said. “A small one.”

“Only one size,” the guy said. “Half a pint.”

“Half a pint? That’s almost a whole pint!”

The guy looked at Dunk like he was crazy. But Dunk thought the joke was hilarious.

“Egg drop,” said Krystal. “And don’t mind my nephew. His sense of humor is a little off.”

“Chopsticks for the dinners?”

“Of course,” said Krystal.

“Not for me,” Dunk said. “Bring me a fork and a spoon. I’m starving.”

 

 

There was a rumble of thunder after dinner as they walked toward Fourth Street, down on the residential end of the Boulevard. Dunk lived two blocks to the left, toward the Hudson River, and Krystal was a block to the right. In the past there would have been no question that she would escort him to his door. But suddenly it occurred to Dunk that it was time for a shift.

So he turned right on Fourth Street.

“You’re walking
me
home?” Krystal said with an amused grin. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Dunk said. “I know my way around.”

“True,” she said hesitantly, stopping in her tracks.

“It’s barely even dark yet.”

She put her hand on her chin, weighing her options. Dunk was big for his age. And it was only three blocks from her apartment to his house.

“Okay,” she said, “but you go straight home. And call me right away.”

“I will.”

“Don’t even bother. I’ll call your mom as soon as I get in and stay on the line until you get there.”

Dunk laughed. “It’s quarter after nine. I don’t usually get in until almost ten in the summer.”

“Well, when you’re with me you do. I don’t care how tall you get, you’re still a little squirt to me.”

“Don’t worry, I’m going straight home. I gotta get up early tomorrow, remember?” He patted himself on the chest. “All-star basketball player. The bus for the Shore leaves at eight.”

 

 

Dunk waited for his aunt to get in, then walked quickly home. The streets weren’t very busy, at least not this far downtown. He crossed the Boulevard and headed up toward Jefferson Elementary School, which was only about fifty yards from his house. When he’d been a student there, he would wait till the absolute last minute to leave for school, watching from the kitchen window until all the other kids were lined up and about to enter the building.

He’d never been late, but he’d come close a few times. His third-grade teacher used to call him “Last-Second Duncan.” But Dunk didn’t care.

His mom and dad were sitting on the couch in the small living room, watching the news on TV.

“Here he is,” Mom was saying into the phone. She gave Dunk a smile.

“Good night, Aunt Krystal,” Dunk said loudly.

Dad tossed a pillow in Dunk’s direction, and he snatched it from the air.

“Quick reflexes,” Dad said.

“Gotta have ’em.”

“You packed yet?”

“Nah. It’ll take me about nine seconds. It’s only two nights. At least it better be.”

It was a single-elimination tournament, so an early loss would cut the trip short. But Dunk and his teammates were confident.

“There’s an article in the paper about you guys,” Dad said, pointing toward the
Hudson Dispatch
that was lying on the coffee table.

“Oh, yeah?” Dunk picked up the paper and found the sports section.

“Toward the back,” Dad said.

Dunk found the three-paragraph article under the heading Local Briefs.

“Not much of a write-up,” Dunk said. “Hope they’ll give us some better press when we win the thing.”

“
If
you win it,” Mom said. “Don’t get arrogant now.”

“Don’t worry.”

“Krystal says you ate?”

“Yeah, but I’m still hungry.”

“Eat some fruit,” Mom said. “Listen, Cornell, we got you some stuff for the trip.” She opened a plastic shopping bag and took out a bottle of sunscreen, a toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste, and a box of Band-aids. Then she held up a pair of red shoelaces. “Your team color,” she said.

Dunk laughed. “I think the guys will bust my chops if I show up in red laces. Where’d you get all this stuff anyway?”

“Down at Amazing Ray’s.”

Ray’s was a discount store on the Boulevard that had everything under the sun.

“Well, thanks,” Dunk said. “Wish you guys could come see the games.” He held up the laces. “I’ll keep these as a spare, for good luck. We can always use some of that.”

 

 

T
he Hudson City school bus pulled into a parking spot outside the Greater Monmouth YMCA after a two-hour trip down the Garden State Parkway.

“I don’t see no beach,” Jason Fiorelli said loudly.

“We’re four miles inland,” Coach Temple said in his raspy voice, standing and facing the players as the bus pulled to a stop. He was a monstrous man, with the height of a former power forward but the weight of one who’d spent the past forty years working behind the desk at his accounting office. “Don’t worry—we’ll be staying in a hotel right near the Boardwalk
. If
we win this game, that is. Otherwise it’s ‘Sayonara, Shore.’ ”

Sixteen YMCAs had sent teams to the three-day tournament, but half of those teams would be going home early. There’d be eight games today, with the winners advancing to tomorrow’s round and earning a night at the Shore. Four games tomorrow would cut the field down for that evening’s semifinals. The championship game was the next afternoon.

Dunk followed his teammates off the bus. They stood in the parking lot for a few moments, looking at the city names on the other buses.

“Camden,” said Spencer Lewis, who was wearing reflective sunglasses, a loose Hawaiian shirt, and sandals. “That’s a big-time basketball town.”

“Atlantic City,” Dunk said, pointing across the lot. “Paterson. Burlington. Morristown.”

Fiorelli looked toward the sky and sniffed. “You smell that salt air?” he said to Dunk. He sniffed twice more. “I think I do.”

“That’s Spencer’s armpits,” Dunk said with a wicked grin. “Nervous tension, you know?”

Spencer gave Dunk’s shoulder a light punch. Spencer had always been a combative kid, but he had a brotherly respect for Dunk’s odd sense of humor. “I owe you one for that,” he said.

“Let’s hustle, boys!” called Coach Temple. “We’re in the second game.”

The brackets were posted on a large bulletin board outside the gym:

Dunk followed the others into the gym and looked around. This was a big place—like a college gym—with bleachers on both sides of a shiny hardwood floor. There were large scoreboards on both sides of the court.

The squads from West Trenton and Morristown were warming up at opposite baskets. They looked smooth and confident. The bleachers were about half full, mostly with players and coaches from the other teams.

And now Dunk could feel his own armpits starting to drip with nervous sweat. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be on that court, facing a win-or-go-home opening game. Nobody on this team wanted to take a bus ride back so quickly. The excitement of a potential state title had them feeling wired.

“Downstairs,” Coach Temple said firmly, pointing toward a sign that said LOCKERS. “Team meeting first, then we’ll suit up and relax for a few minutes.”

Dunk wasn’t even sure why he was nervous. He didn’t expect to play much, if at all. The pressure would be on guys like Fiorelli and Jared and Spencer.

He looked over at Jason Fiorelli—the guy who always seemed to make the clutch shot or get the steal when the game was on the line. But Fiorelli was lacking his usual confident expression.

“You all right?” Dunk asked as they made their way down the stairs.

Fiorelli shrugged, then smiled. “It’s weird, with these teams from all over the state,” he said. “When you’re playing Jersey City or Bayonne, you know what you’re up against, right? But I don’t even know where Salem is. I never heard of some of the towns on that list.”

“You ain’t been around much, have you?” said Spencer, turning to look back at them. He was grinning. These guys loved to ride each other.

“More than you have,” Fiorelli said.

“You never heard of Camden?”

“Camden I heard of. Camden is the man.”

“You think New Jersey is, like, this big,” Spencer said, holding his thumbs and forefingers together to make a small circle. “Hudson City, Jersey City, Weehawken, Newark. That’s hardly any of it.”