Swagger (20 page)

It was game time.

As I walked to center court, I sized up the opposition. Lynden High was starting four white guys and a Hispanic guy. Not one of them was very tall, crazy muscular, or amazingly athletic. They were just guys.

Levi directed the opening tip to Cash, who corralled the ball and passed it to me. I brought it to the top of the key, and Cash used a screen by Nick to pop free in the corner. I hit him with a perfect pass, and he stepped into a high-arcing three-pointer.

Swish!

Cash's gorgeous shot made a jittery Lynden team even more jittery. On their first possession, Lynden's forward fumbled a pass out-of-bounds. Cash hustled the ball inbounds; I raced into the forecourt and fed Levi, who was set up on the low block. The guy guarding me dropped down to double-team; Levi kicked the ball right back to me; and I drained a wide-open three-pointer. After another Lynden turnover, Levi grabbed an offensive rebound and stuffed the put-back, giving us an 8–0 lead fifty-two seconds into the game. The Lynden coach jumped off the bench to call time-out.

Lynden's time-out worked . . . sort of. After our red-hot start, the game settled down. They were a solid team; they wouldn't have made it into the state quarterfinals if they weren't. We didn't score on dunks and three-pointers every time down; and they didn't fumble the ball away on every possession.

Even though Lynden played better than they had at the beginning of the game, and even though we had our cold spells, we were never threatened. All four quarters, I let the game come to me. On offense, my passes were crisp, my decisions solid. On defense, I clogged the passing lanes and rotated when I was needed. I never looked at the score or the clock. I was totally in the moment, and Levi was there with me. He hauled down rebounds, blocked shots, scored on put-backs and power moves. When the horn finally sounded ending the game, cheers rolled down on us from the stands. I looked up at the scoreboard: Harding, 68; Lynden, 48.

It should have been a moment of pure elation. I should have luxuriated in the cheers washing over me. But Hartwell had stolen any joy. I hated the cheers because they meant the game was over. I wanted to stay on the court and play and play and play. I wanted to play a thousand games, one after the other.

G
ONZAGA PREP WAS PLAYING BELLARMINE
in the next game, and we'd play the winner the following night. Hartwell was staying to scout the game, which meant the bus was staying. “If you've got a ride home, and you want to leave, it's okay with me. If you want to stay and watch, that's also okay. Those of you that leave—don't celebrate too much, because we've got another game in twenty-four hours.”

Most of the guys stayed, but I asked Levi if he wanted a ride home, and he nodded. We met my parents outside the locker room.

On the drive back to Seattle, my mom and dad were talkative at first, telling both Levi and me how great we'd played. You can only do that for so long, though, so soon we all lapsed into silence. My parents were worn out from cheering; we were worn out from playing. Still, I was glad my parents were there—it made it impossible for us to talk about Hartwell. The ride to the T-Dome had seemed to take ten hours; the ride back felt like it was over in ten minutes.

My dad dropped Levi off; Levi didn't even look at me as he got of the car. Back home, I ate a microwaved burrito and followed that with a bowl of chocolate ice cream. My mom sat across from me, but we didn't talk much. When the ice cream was gone, I retreated to my room, where I checked my text messages and my e-mails. Coach Richter had sent congratulations, and so had Celia and Uncle Frank.

I answered them all and then remembered that the Gonzaga-Bellarmine game was on a local television station. I went downstairs and flicked it on—Gonzaga led by eight with five minutes to play. I didn't turn the TV off until the Gonzaga guys were jumping around at center court, celebrating. When I did flick it off, I felt completely exhausted. That was good—it meant I'd be able to sleep. And I did, until three thirty. After that I tossed and turned, wanting the night to end, but not wanting the next day to begin.

I stopped by Levi's house on Friday morning, but he'd already left for school—no surprise—so I walked alone to Harding High. As soon as I stepped inside, I felt the hallways buzzing with excitement. Our victory over Lynden had electrified the students and the faculty. Even kids who never followed sports smiled at me, slapped me on the back, and wished me luck.

There was a pep rally last period. The school band played the fight song; Hartwell talked about sportsmanship and effort; Mr. Diaz again lectured everyone about driving safely. “This is a great time for Harding High. Don't ruin it by killing yourself or someone else.”

When the pep rally ended, the team headed to the parking lot, where the bus waited to take us to the Tacoma Dome. Levi got on before me and hunkered down by himself in the back, so I took a seat up front.

After the locker room and Hartwell's pregame instructions, I kept waiting for the adrenaline rush, but it didn't come. I didn't really want to be there, but where else did I want to be? As I laced up my shoes, I imagined myself at Monitor College, far away from Hartwell both in space and time. I'd have new teammates and a new coach. I'd be playing in a new state, separated from everything familiar. I'd always been slightly afraid of that moment, but now I
wanted
to get away. To get away and have Hartwell and Harding High behind me. To have Levi behind me, too.

Finally it was time for Cash and me to lead the team onto the court. It was a win-or-go-home game, but the hair on my arms didn't stand up; my spine didn't tingle. The energy, the focus, the desire—they weren't there. Still, I was a leader of the team; I had to dig deep and
find
the energy, the focus, the desire. I had to suck it up and face everything—the basketball games and then what would come afterward . . . what had to come afterward.

A
S HOT AS WE WERE
at the start of the game against Lynden, that's how cold we were against Gonzaga. On our first possession, Cash crossed over on his guy, drove into the lane, and smacked into a defender who'd rotated over to draw the charge. No big deal, except Cash did exactly the same thing on our next possession, with the same result. One minute into the game, our top scorer was sitting on the bench in foul trouble.

Early in the season, when Cash had been our only true scoring threat, we would have been beaten. Nick, DeShawn, even Levi—none of them had trusted their own ability, especially on the offensive end of the court. Now we were a complete team. I sized up Gonzaga's defense, looking for a mismatch, and found one. The guy guarding Levi was huge but slow—he couldn't handle Levi one-on-one.

I set up a two-man game to see how Gonzaga would defend. As soon as I dumped the ball into Levi, my guy left me and dropped down to harass Levi. That meant they knew they couldn't cover him straight up. Once the double-team came, Levi passed the ball back to me. I was wide open for a three-pointer, but I missed long. A couple possessions later, we ran the same play and again I missed the wide-open shot.

I wasn't the only one off target. We couldn't hit the ocean with a rock, while everything Gonzaga tossed up seemed to go in. A couple of minutes into the game, we were down six, and for a third time I missed a wide-open shot, this time short. Hartwell yelled something at me, but as I backpedaled to play defense, DeShawn gave me a thumbs-up. “Keep shooting,” he shouted. From the bench I heard Cash yell the same thing.

That support gave me the boost I needed. The next time we worked the play, my release was free and easy. The ball hit the back of the rim and went down. A minute later, I hit another long three-pointer, cutting Gonzaga's lead to four points.

Those two outside shots opened up the inside for Levi. Gonzaga couldn't run the double-team at him because they had to cover me, and their big lug couldn't handle Levi's speed one-on-one. All through the second quarter, Levi took that hulk to the hoop, either making baskets or passing to DeShawn whenever DeShawn's guy rotated over to help. As those two piled up points, we inched into the lead.

We couldn't put Gonzaga away, though. The big guy who couldn't guard Levi? On the other end, Levi couldn't guard him. He'd post up down low, they'd feed him the ball, and he'd muscle up short jumpers and baby hooks. For a huge guy—he must have weighed 260—he had a soft touch. None of their other players were great, but they knocked down a decent percentage of shots, and they didn't turn the ball over.

Early in the third quarter, Gonzaga hit back-to-back three-pointers to retake the lead. Hartwell called time and used it to put Cash, who'd sat out the entire second quarter, into the game. Rested and ready, he hit a midrange jump shot to tie the game and then circled back to steal the inbound pass, made the lay-up, and was fouled. After he sank the free throw, our lead was three points.

We used Cash's hot hand to slowly push our lead to twelve late in the quarter. As the final seconds of the game ticked away, I looked at the scoreboard and realized we'd done it. We'd won a game when we weren't playing our best—any of us. We'd won it on mental toughness. Gonzaga, like Lynden, was dead. There was just one team left to beat: Garfield.

We were in the finals.

I
WAS DOG-TIRED AFTER THE GAME
. My head hurt. I wanted to go home with my parents, but Hartwell insisted that the whole team stay to watch the Garfield game. “These guys aren't as good as you think,” he said. “You watch them closely, and you'll know you can beat them.”

We sat together as a team on the second level. I found a spot as far from Hartwell as possible, but before the tip-off he called me over to him. “I want you to hear what I've got to say about the individual players. It'll help you tomorrow.”

My body broke into a sweat. In the locker room before the game, during time-outs, at halftime—at those times I was able to block out everything except basketball. But the Hartwell who joked with the fans around him, the Hartwell who ate a hot dog and drank a Coke and cracked peanut shells in his teeth—that Hartwell wasn't a coach. That Hartwell was the man who'd done those things to Levi.

I sat at his elbow—my jaw clenched, my stomach in knots—and listened as he analyzed Garfield's strengths and weaknesses. He saw so much; he knew so much. But his knowledge of the game made everything worse. He'd been more than a coach to me; he'd been like an older brother, a person I'd trusted completely.

On the ride back to Seattle, I sat alone in a seat in the middle of the bus. When we were about ten miles from Harding High, I moved back next to Levi. I didn't say anything for a while, but after a few minutes I spoke, my voice hushed so that no one else could hear. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah, I'm doing okay.”

“I mean with Hartwell? You managing okay?”

“I don't see him anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. I look at him, but I don't see him.”

I nodded, even though I only half understood. “Listen, Levi. Here's what we'll do. We'll play it out tomorrow—you and me. That's how we started, remember? Back in the summer—you and me. Once the title game is over, then we'll get help—you and me. We'll go to the principal or a counselor or whoever you want. It'll be your choice, but I'll be with you every step of the way. I promise. Okay?”

He looked out the window. “No, it's not okay.”

“What's not okay?”

“I'm not going to anybody about this. I keep telling you that, but you won't listen to me. What happened with Hartwell is over—nothing like that is ever going to happen again, so nobody has to know. Just keep your mouth shut.”

Right then Hartwell turned in his seat and looked back at us. I quickly looked out the window. “Levi,” I whispered, once Hartwell had again faced forward, “he'll look for somebody else; you know he will.”

He shook his head. “I don't know that, and neither do you. Not for sure you don't. So forget I ever told you anything. Just wipe it out of your mind. Go to that college and forget you ever knew me.”

With that, he got up and moved to a seat toward the front of the bus. I stared out the window, thinking back to the night I'd heard about my scholarship, the night we'd gone to the Good Shepherd Center and what he'd told me there.

I wished that I could do what Levi wanted. With every atom in my body, I wished that I could erase those five minutes from my memory. But how could I ever wipe that night out of my mind? I should have told somebody right away. I don't know why I didn't—fear maybe, or shock, or because Levi didn't want me to, or maybe because I didn't want to blow up the season. For whatever reason, I'd chosen not to do anything.

Now I'd play out the season and then speak with Levi one final time. If he wouldn't go with me to the principal, then I'd go alone. Mr. Diaz would call the police, and they'd question Levi. Once that happened, the truth would come out. Because Levi wouldn't lie. Once someone asked him what had happened, he'd tell the truth.

That's who he was.

L
EVI'S PICTURE WAS ON THE
front page of the sports section of Saturday's
Seattle Times
. The photo was tucked away in the bottom right corner, but it was on the front page. The headline read:

 

LEVI RAWDON LEADS HARDING HAWKS INTO FINAL

 

The story talked about how he'd come on strong as the year had progressed, emerging from nowhere to become a star. I read the article twice, both times knowing he'd be embarrassed, but hoping that he'd also feel good about himself.

I ate breakfast and then prowled around all morning, watching TV, playing video games, flipping through magazines. The nerves started around noon; I had to force myself to eat lunch. After that I watched more TV and played more video games. It was as if the minutes and hours were stuck in mud.