Going the Distance (7 page)

“It figures they hate me?” I asked.

He shook his head as he speared another piece of steak with his fork. “They don’t hate you; they just resent your talent.” He popped the meat into his mouth. “That or they’ve seen you dress out and are jealous of something else.”

I felt my face burst into flames as I threw a hushed “
Dad
!” at him and he just burst out laughing.

Our first Saturday practice after I was named captain was when things began to thaw. We were three hours into what was sure to be at least an eight-hour day, and we were sitting on the sidelines drenched in sweat as the coach went over the moves with a few of the slower players on their own. Tommy came over and tossed me a towel and sat next to me. “Thanks,” I said, wiping my face off and wondering if he had put something on the towel when I wasn’t looking.

“This is a good idea,” he said, looking across the court as the second squad tried a few layups. I wasn’t sure if he was waiting for me to answer, but since we’d never once had a conversation, I just assumed he was talking to talk. “Took a lot of balls to bring up a plan that basically ensures you’re probably never going to score.” He looked over at me, and we stared at each other for a few seconds. “I don’t think I would have thought of that.” Before I could respond, he stood up and watched the squad run up and down the court for a moment. “Nice call,” he said, walking away, and then added a quieter, “Captain.”

Practice ended up lasting over nine hours, and I was almost ready to drop at the end, but I had a smile on my face the entire day.

That next week we began fine-tuning our game as, one by one, guys began asking me questions about specific things they were lagging behind in on the court. At one point I looked over at Cody as I was showing a guy how to pivot on the fly, and he just nodded and smiled. He’d been right; they were coming around.

By the time Friday rolled around, the school was abuzz with excitement.

The coach had a rule of dressing up on game days. Button-up shirt, tie, and khakis made us easily recognizable in the halls, which was a new thing for me. Cody and I walked to class before the bell rang, and more than a few girls smiled at us as we walked by, which made our day. “Dude, we so need to win tonight,” he announced after the girls had passed.

“I want to win for more reasons than just girls,” I said, trying to ignore how much more attractive Cody got when he smiled.

“Fine, fine,” he said, waving me off. “You play for the love of the game, and I’ll play for the love of them,” he said, nodding to a group of girls who were standing by their lockers watching us walk by.

I rolled my eyes. “You’re skeeving me out.”

He shot me an evil grin and said, “You have no idea.”

I wished my body didn’t react to his innuendo, but it did.

During lunch most of the team sat together and talked about the game that night, while we tried not to freak out. To me it was a huge accomplishment just being asked to sit with them, so I tried to stay quiet as Tommy told us about the team that was coming to play and what he knew about the guys who were playing. Everyone was excited to see how our tactic would work tonight. We were all of the same thought that this was going to be really, really good or really, really bad. Tommy was in the middle of describing a game he’d played in last year when a cheerleader walked up to us and looked at me. “Are you Danny?”

My mouth full of sandwich, I looked up and almost choked. Cody leaned over me and said with a huge grin, “He is, but I’m Cody.”

“I know who you are, Cody,” she replied, rolling her eyes. She handed me a small bundle of something wrapped in cellophane tied with a blue and black ribbon, our school colors. “This is for you,” she said shyly. “Good luck tonight.”

I nodded thanks to her retreating back; she did a little wave over her shoulder and kept on going. The other guys began to howl and nudge me as I turned redder and redder from the attention. “What did she give you?” Cody asked. I opened the plastic wrap, and I saw about a dozen homemade chocolate-chip cookies. I looked back at her as Cody sneaked a cookie from my hand. “Oh snap. She likes you.”

I pushed him back with my elbow and told him to shut up as I began to eat one of the cookies. They were fucking good! “Who was that?” I asked.

“Carol Liventry,” Tommy answered, reaching for a cookie. “She’s the sister of Susan Liventry.” When I gave him a look that indicated I had no idea who that was either, he added, “Head cheerleader? Hottest girl in school?”

I looked at Cody, and he added, “The hot redhead with the huge tits that’s in our geography class.”

“Oh, her!” I said, nodding as someone else grabbed a cookie. “That’s her sister?”

Cody took a second cookie and shook his head. “If she grows up to be half as hot as her sister….”

“She’s cute all by herself,” I said, looking over the quad at her and the other cheerleaders sitting at their own table. Not as cute as Cody, I thought silently, but cute enough.

That was the day I found out about our boosters.

Boosters were cheerleaders who were assigned a player to… well, obsess over, I suppose. Sometimes they’d decorate our locker. Other times they made these posters for the games, cheering just their player on. Also I found out they rarely gave them gifts like homemade cookies. When I say rarely, I mean once. The guys would not stop giving me shit about it for the rest of the day.

It might have been embarrassing or annoying if I wasn’t completely thrilled that the guys were giving me shit. I felt like I’d been accepted as we dressed out that evening, the gym packed for our first game. While we waited for the game to begin, we sat in the locker room, my foot tapping in nervousness as I began to doubt my plan.

Cody sat down next to me. He put a hand on my knee and stopped my foot. “Dude, you need to calm down,” he whispered. I tried not to react outwardly to him touching me like that, but inside my mind was awash in thoughts of what the gesture meant. “You’re the captain, dude. They take their cues from you. You look like you’re about to throw up, and this is
your
plan. How do you think they feel?”

I looked around, and I could see the humming thread of nervousness running through all of us. We were freaked, not just because there were hundreds of people out there in case we failed, but because our entire plan hinged on what might be the worst idea ever suggested. Cody was right, they did need some reassurance, and I supposed it had to come from me. I know I wanted reassurance, but I’m not sure where mine was supposed to come from.

“Thanks,” I said, putting my hand over his and squeezing. He cocked his head for a moment and then smiled as he pulled his hand back and joked, “Fag!”

I nudged him back. “You were the one who was feeling me up, Tinker Bell!”

We laughed together as I stood to address the team. I had a feeling he was laughing more than I was.

“Okay, so I guess I should say something,” I said, getting everyone’s attention. Everyone’s eyes fell on me, and it struck me as funny that a week ago I would have internally shrunk away from this attention, and now here I was basking in it. “We’re good,” I said, not having any idea how to handle an inspirational speech. “I don’t say that because I’m on the team. I say that because it’s true. If we lose tonight, it’s going to be because my plan sucked and no other reason. You guys rock, and I hope we can go out there and show them….”

Tommy stood up, clapping. “Okay, Danny, thanks for that speech. Any more and I think we’re going to start crying.” The guys laughed as I felt myself blush slightly. He came up and put his arm around my shoulders. “We suck,” he said flatly. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t win. I know for a fact the other team sucks more, and we have something they don’t.” He grabbed my wrist and raised my arm over my head. “We have this freak!!” he called out, and the other guys cheered with him. “If we win tonight,” he said, looking at me, “it’s going to be because of you, buddy, so don’t kid yourself.”

Cody began to softly chant “Danny, Danny, Danny.” A few other guys picked up on it and joined in. By the fifth time, everyone was yelling my name, and I felt a rush of emotion as I heard Tommy chanting my name as well. Before I could say something, the coach walked in and called out, “Do you guys plan on forfeiting the damn game because you’re not on the court?” We all froze in place. “
Get out there!
” he screamed, and we all moved as one.

I felt someone slap me on the butt as we headed out. “Let’s kick some ass, Captain.”

The crowd exploded in cheers as we galloped onto the court.

I felt Cody pushing me from behind as I paused at the wall of sound that reverberated in front of me. “Keep moving, Jolly Green!” he screamed behind me. I saw my dad in the stands cheering with everyone else. He was on his feet, and I tried not to feel even more nervous that he was there watching. It was different than in Germany because this wasn’t just for fun, this was for a school.

We headed to our side of the court as the coach huddled us together. “Okay, we have this.” He looked at me. “I need you to go out there and ham it up.” I gave him a confused look, and he explained. “You’re the ringer, Danny. I need you to go out there and sell it.” I nodded, and he looked around at the rest of the guys. “Take your cues from him. He is going to have to decide on the fly if he’s taking the shot or passing it off. Keep on your toes and be ready for the ball at any time.” He put his hand in the middle. “Tigers on three.” We put our hands in and counted to three and called out “Tigers” as loud as we could.

When I turned around to the court for tip-off, I ceased being Danny Monroe, nervous and apprehensive teenager, and allowed my instincts to wash over me. As I stood at center court, a part of me realized that I never felt as alive as I did while playing basketball. It felt like the person I was most of the time, stumbling through my life not knowing what came next, was an act. A mask I wore to hide the person I was on the court. The guy from their team walked over to stand across from me, and I smiled. He looked up at me and swallowed hard. I was six three in sneakers, and he wasn’t.

“I want a clean game,” the ref said, holding the ball between us.

“Take a long look,” I said to him as we both crouched. “Last time you’re going to see the ball this close for the rest of the night.”

His eyes grew wide as the ref blew the whistle and threw the ball up into the air. We both launched ourselves skyward at the same time, but as the ball began to fall back toward us, I was a full five inches over him easy. I batted the ball to Tommy and saw him spin around, trying to lose his shadow. He passed it to Cody, who passed it to me. I turned, looking like I was going for a layup, and saw the guy guarding me bear down to block me. I dodged past him, blew past another guy, and went up for the shot.

By the time my sneakers hit the court, we were two points ahead.

I scored another eight points before the other team called a time-out. We headed over to the coach, who seemed incredibly pleased. “Okay, he’s about to tell them to double-team Danny and most likely pulling a guy off of Paul.” He looked over at the shortest guy on the team, who seemed deflated by the action. “So, Paul, get ready to teach them the error of their ways.” He looked at me. “Paul is it, got it?” I nodded, and he actually laughed in glee. “Okay, this is going to be fun. Our game starts now. Pay attention.” We called out “Tigers” and trotted out to the court. Cody was next to me and asked before he moved off to his spot, “You could probably score even with two of these guys on you, couldn’t you?” I looked over at him and gave him a sharklike grin that seemed to answer his concerns.

Sure enough, as soon as the ball was in play, the guy who had been guarding Paul moved off to join my guy. I saw Paul station himself over by the basket, and I nodded to Tommy, who shot me a grin. I burst into movement. Their guy was trying to find a guy open to move the ball forward when I came at him. He began to dribble sideways for a moment as he glanced over at the shot clock. He had less than ten seconds to take a shot or lose possession of the ball. So he had ten seconds to either try to take a shot and have me steal it or stand there and do nothing and give it to me anyway.

He decided on the first one and dodged to the left, trying to get past me. I took the ball from him and went to drive forward. My two shadows tried to stop me, and I passed it to the first open guy I saw. I feinted to the left, looking like I was setting myself up for a layup, my two guys on my heels. Tommy had the ball, and I indicated for him to pass. He threw the ball to me and when I turned, looking like I was going to take the shot, I saw another person shift to block me.

I tossed it to Paul, who was literally standing under the basket by himself.

It was the easiest basket I’d ever seen made. Three more like that and the panic began to descend on the other side. Each time they moved back to man-on-man, I would blow past my guy and score. When they grouped to block me, there was always someone else waiting for the ball. By halftime it was obvious we were running the game, and the other team was just struggling to keep up.

In the locker room during the break, we were ecstatic.

We were already celebrating when the coach came back and began to yell at us. “Did they call the game and not tell me?” he asked as everyone grew silent. “Did they decide to cut the game in half and just forget to announce it?” We were silent now as he began to pace. “We haven’t won yet, you idiots, so stop celebrating. So far it’s working, but I can assure you they are in their locker room right now and their coach is trying to find a way around it.” He looked at me. “Am I wrong?” I shook my head, knowing he was right. “So trust me when I say the second half is going to be all uphill. They are going to move to zone defense, which means we need to try working around it. Switch to a ground game, try and keep the passing to a minimum. Danny, time for some bombs.” I nodded, knowing he meant I needed to try for as many three-pointers as I could.

I looked over at Tommy and said, “Your guy is paying too much attention to me.” He nodded. “Lose him. Every time I move towards the basket, he ignores you.” I could tell he hadn’t seen that, but he didn’t say anything out loud.