Full Court Press (4 page)

Cody sighed. “But, Coach—”

“Is there a problem, Martin? Was anything I just said unclear to you? Because I—can—speak—more—s-s-s-s-slowly—if you need me to.”

“No, Coach, it's just that I'm a forward, and Alston's a—”

“A guard! That's right, Martin! He's a guard, and that's want I want you to do. Guard a guard.”

Alston walked by Cody, slamming the ball into his gut and driving the wind from him. Cody felt tears rising in his eyes.

“Just call me your bus driver, Martin,” Alston whispered, “because I'm gonna take you to school.”

Cody waited for an effective comeback to form in his brain. Nothing developed. He felt as if his mind were a blackboard that someone had erased—and then thrown away the chalk. He shrugged his shoulders and inbounded the ball to Gannon.

Gannon dashed down the floor. Before Cody had even crossed midcourt, Gannon stopped at the top of the key and launched a high-arcing, nineteen-foot jumper. The problem was that the top of the key was twenty feet from the hoop.

Good old Greg Gannon the Cannon
, Cody laughed to himself.
Never saw a shot he wouldn't take
.

Pork Chop collected the air ball and fired an outlet pass to Alston, who dribbled straight for the top of the other key. Cody smiled. He knew Alston—that he was going to take the same shot Gannon had just missed. Show him who the team's true sharpshooter really was! Alston's aim was better than Gannon's, but not much. His shot clanged off the front of the rim and was going to drop into Cody's waiting hands
.

No need to even jump for this one
, Cody thought.
It's coming right to me
.

He extended his arms and waited for the ball's arrival. Just before the leather touched his fingertips, Alston came around Cody's right shoulder like a blur. He leaped into the air, giving Cody a close-up view of his hairy armpit, snagged the ball, and, before his feet touched the ground again, banked it in off the glass.

Alston retrieved the ball as it dropped neatly through the net and then planted it on the end line.

“Nice rebound, Martin,” he said. “Way to sky for that ball!”

With that, he laughed derisively and sprinted down court to play defense.

Meanwhile, Gannon was putting on a dribbling exhibition just past midcourt as Cody took his position on the left wing. Coach had threatened to throw Gannon “like a spear” if he took another bad shot, but Cody wasn't sure if the threat would be effective. He readied himself to charge in for a rebound just in case.

He never got the chance. Apparently not wanting to experience being a human projectile, Gannon passed the ball. And it was a beautiful pass. Gannon looked directly at Cody, then fired a no-look pass to Slaven on the high post.

Unfortunately, Gannon's no-look was so deceptive that Slaven didn't see it coming. Slaven's proud nose took the full impact of the pass, and blood began to trickle from both nostrils.

Cody looked at Coach Clayton. Would he whistle the action to a stop? After all, blood had been spilled.

Then again, no one had committed a foul. Inattention like Slaven's wasn't wise, but it wasn't illegal.

While Cody was thinking, Alston was hustling again. He grabbed the ball, which was rolling away from Slaven's feet, and launched into a one-man fast break.

Cody responded quickly. He sprinted after Alston, drawing alongside him as he veered in for a right-handed layup.

Time for retribution
, he thought.
A well-timed leap, an emphatic block, and maybe Cody Martin will be the bus driver for a while.

Alston pushed hard off his left foot and leaped toward the hoop. Cody jumped with so much force that he heard himself grunt, just like Pork Chop when he threw the shot put.

Alston put good arc on the ball, and at the apex of his jump, Cody knew he couldn't block it. However, he was sure that Alston had shot his layup too hard and too high. It was a bad shot, almost as if Alston had done it on purpose.

Reality hit Cody too late. Alston had already moved to the left side of the hoop, where he collected the ball as it came off the glass. He squared his feet and hit an easy two-foot jumper.

Angry at himself for being suckered, Cody forgot to get his landing gear down properly. He landed awkwardly on his left ankle, stumbled, and crashed into the back wall. The wrestling mat kept him from cracking his head, but he felt a hot needle of pain shoot into his ankle. He tried to take a step on it and felt it start to buckle. Carefully, he sat on the floor to assess the damage.

He saw Alston standing over him, holding the basketball.
Is Alston going to offer to help me up?
he wondered.
Or at least ask if I'm okay?

Alston shook his head in mock sadness. “Nice defense, your gracefulness. Martin, you are so getting clowned. Right in front of Coach, God, and everybody. I only wish your girlfriend was here to see this.”

“I don't have a girlfriend,” Cody snapped, too loudly. All heads turned in his direction.

“Right. That Robyn chick with the funky glasses? The one who's a better player than you are? You love her, and you know it.”

“She's just my friend,” Cody protested.

“Not if she could see the way you're playing. I bet you get cut tonight.”

“Alston!” Coach Clayton's voice was weary but firm. “That's enough.”

“And Martin, go see Dutch and get some ice on the ankle. Goddard, you come in for Martin. And please, for the love of Bill Russell, won't you try to play a little defense on Mister Alston before he starts thinking he's All-World?”

Coach Clayton paused and studied his clipboard.

“Oh, and one more thing. Glazer, Turner, and Martin, I want to see each of you in my office after practice tonight.”

Cody shot a glance at Coach Clayton and then looked away. He felt as if something huge—Doug Porter, for example—had just crash-landed on his chest.

Cody limped the length of the locker room, pausing occasionally outside Coach's closed office door to strain his ears for bits of the conversation with Turner. But it was all murmurs and mutters. Glazer had left ten minutes ago, the veins in his moist eyes looking like tiny red branches. He had offered Cody a quick, wounded glance, and then bowed his head and trudged away.

Moments after that, Pork Chop had come in. Chop was uncharacteristically quiet. He lightly slapped Cody on the back, as if he were trying to kill a mosquito. Then as he turned to leave, he said, “Call me, Cody. Tonight. No matter what happens.”

Cody sat down in front of his locker. He looked at his ankle, trying to determine if it looked swollen. He rose to pace again, then forced himself to sit. Coach had ordered him to “stay off that bad wheel,” but anxiety kept driving him to his feet.

He looked at his watch. Turner had been in there for eleven minutes now. What were they talking about? Would Turner exit crying too?

I should probably say something to Turner,
Cody thought.
I should have said something to Glaze
. He tried to think of a Psalm or Proverb about comfort, but nothing came to mind.

Cut. That's what he was going to be. He bounced the word around in his head. Cut, cut, cut, cut. Cut! He remembered sixth grade, when he had sliced a blueberry bagel and his left hand along with it. Mom had bandaged that cut and dozens of others through the years. But now she was gone. And besides, there was no Band-Aid that could help a cut like the one Coach Clayton was about to give him.

Chapter 4
Smells
Like
Team
Spirit

Y
ou look like you're gonna eject from that chair, Martin,” Coach Clayton observed. “Sit back. This is gonna take a while.”

Cody tried to relax on the cold metal folding chair that faced Coach Clayton's desk. The coach sat on his desk, rather than behind it, his long, narrow feet dangling only an inch from the floor. He cleared his throat. “Martin, do you know why you're here?”

Cody thought of the two tearful departures he had witnessed within the past half hour. He stared at Coach Clayton's game-weary Converses.

“No, Coach. Not really. I'm—I'm sorry about what happened at the tail end of practice. I don't know what was wrong with me. I was just having a bad day. I—uh—think I was getting tired near the end, and—”

“Tired, Martin? I don't think so. You're probably the fittest guy out there.”

No excuses, no excuses, no excuses
, Cody told himself. He felt tears forming and tried to blink them back.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

He had recited that line a hundred times during Mom's funeral. It kept him from crying then. Maybe it would work now, too. He felt Coach's eyes on him and forced himself to move his eye contact from shoes to face.

“Martin, do you know what the hardest thing is for a basketball coach to find these days?”

Cody shrugged.

“It's defense, my man. Big D.” Coach Clayton hopped from his desk and began to pace the length of the office, which took him six strides, round-trip. “Defense is hard and dirty work, Martin. And in this age of showtime, run-and-gun basketball, few athletes have the will to play hard-nosed, all-hustle, in-your-face- like-an-insurance-salesman d-e-e-e-e-fense!”

Cody swallowed hard
. Here it comes. The gripe session for letting Alston school me.

“Martin, you're not the fastest guy on the team, are you?”

“No, sir.”

“And you're not much of a leaper. And even though I'm impressed you can shoot with either hand, your shot needs some work.”

Great, great. Let's give a detailed list of all my flaws. What's next? My haircut's ugly, and I have six zits on my face?

Coach Clayton stopped pacing and stood in front of Cody. “But there's one thing you can do, Martin. And that—never mind what happened tonight against Alston—is play me some defense.”

What game is this guy playing? Okay, I got your point. I'm no good at anything but defense, and tonight, with making the team on the line, I didn't even do that. Just cut me already, so I can call my dad and tell him I'm a failure. That's just what he needs right now. No wife and a loser son.

“Do you know what I'm trying to say to you here, Martin?”

“Um, that I'm good at only one part of basketball, and when I'm up against somebody talented, I'm not even good at that?”

Coach Clayton leaned forward and smacked his hands together so loudly that Cody almost ejected from his chair.

“No! Cody Martin, I have you in PE. I watched you play football this year. I talked to Coach Murphy about how you guys stacked up in hoops last year. And during these tryouts, I've watched you like Pork Chop watches dessert being served at Mamie's House o' Pies. Here's the juice, my man. You can cover anyone in this league—Alston, Rick Macy, Keenan Jones, anybody.”

Coach Clayton settled himself on his desk again. “But you cannot get all nervous or starstruck, or whatever you were out there tonight. I didn't know if you were gonna guard Alston or ask him for his autograph.”

“I'm sorry, Coach.”

“You
should
be sorry, Martin. Good grief! Is Jason Kidd on our team?”

Cody thought this could be a trick question, but he coaxed the obvious answer from his mouth.

“No, sir.”

“Correct! Is Michael Jordan making another comeback and using our league to tune up?”

Cody managed a small smile. “No.”

“You'd better believe it's ‘No'! Those guys don't play here. Neither do Larry Bird or Magic Johnson. Neither does Pistol Pete, may God rest his soul. So you see, all I'm asking you to do is guard thirteen-and fourteen-year-old boys. Boys pretty much like you—only a few of them, like Alston, have facial hair. But that doesn't make them players. If that were the case, Santa Claus would be MVP in the NBA. You got that, Martin?”