At the Center Read online

  “He’s not calling you—”

  “Move, Mr. Carter!” Coach shouts at A.C. Like Jayson, A.C. transferred to the Hills from the hood. Coach, Lex, and some others made them feel as welcome as jock itch. I don’t get their crap because I don’t gobble up game-time minutes like A.C., Jayson, and Gerald do.

  We’re no sooner on the court than Coach gives us an earful about what losers we are, even though we won the game. We beat Brook because A.C. hit a three at the buzzer, which made the crowd explode in joy. But even after A.C. won the game, Coach yelled at him like he was a dog that did something wrong.

  “Discipline, people, discipline,” Coach starts. I think he’s got a file of these court virtue speeches. We sit on the floor so we’re small, while he walks in front of us, casting a shadow like a giant.

  The players, except for Dylan, hang their heads like they weighed a hundred pounds, playing the solemn card. I’m biting my lip from laughing at Coach’s pious pose. I see A.C. doing the same. If Jayson was here, he’d be busting a gut.

  Coach breaks us up into the normal two groups, so with Jayson out, I’m in at backup center. With Lex sitting up high on the circle running the offense, everything slows to a snail’s pace. Gerald feeds Lex the ball and then gets open, but Lex can’t—or won’t—pass it back. Coach blows the whistle and tells me to play defense against him. This is not going to be good.

  “Watch me, Lex!” Coach blows the whistle again, calls for the ball, and dribbles. He turns left, but I stay square and in front. Coach head-fakes, tries another way, but I’m glue. His shoulder rams into my chest. I fall, and my back smacks against the wood with a mighty thud.

  “You see, Lex, you can draw a foul if you move quick enough,” Coach says.

  Gerald, A.C., and Dylan help me up. “That was a charge,” Dylan whispers. I nod.

  “What are you gonna do, Cody?” A.C. asks as Lex walks to the foul line. I scoop up the ball, dribble down the court, and set up at the opposite foul line. Even with Coach’s whistle blowing and people screaming not to do something stupid, I’m calm. I bounce the ball twice and sink the first free throw. It’s free all right, like playing pick-up with Jayson; there’s no real pressure to perform. I can take my mind off everything and direct it to the bouncing ball, then follow it as my second shot falls into the net.

  4

  Monday night

  December 5

  Hill Top Apartments

  “Are you suspended from school too?” I pass the ball to Jayson. It’s twilight at the apartment complex where we live. Two dudes, two moms, no dads, and one dream to get out.

  “Nah, I just didn’t feel like showing up.” Dribble. Dribble. Step. Leap. Layup.

  “Lex was trash-talking you,” I say. Jayson passes the ball back to me. I go to the foul line. Bounce. Bounce. Shoot. Swish. Here, with no coach to yell and no plays to run, everything goes in the net. “He was talking about how he took your minutes and he won’t give ’em back.”

  “How many minutes? How many points?” Jayson asks.

  “Fourteen minutes. Four points. Two rebounds.”

  “And no assists,” Jayson adds. “Ball never leaves Lex’s hands except toward the hoop.”

  We go back and forth trash-talking Lex until my phone rings. “Fight the Power”—an old song Lucy loves—is my ringtone for her. She picked it out. I didn’t disagree. “What’s up?” I ask. Jayson dribbles, dunks. It’s what he does.

  Lucy goes on about studying for Mr. Austin’s civics test. She doesn’t need to study, I do—but she holds back from saying that. Usually, she’s got a big mouth, which I like. Sometimes it gets her in trouble with some teachers, but not Austin. I hear Austin’s AP class is hard, but he’s soft on Lucy because he sponsors the debate team where Lucy and Ashley shine, like Jayson shines on the court. Maybe I’m not the best at anything, but I’m plugged into the power. I listen to Lucy for a while, which is something I never tire of, until I end with, “Later, Luce.”

  I bury the phone in my jeans. Jayson’s throwing up shots that miss to practice rebounding.

  “Jayson, can I ask you something?” He moves toward me, dribbling all the way. I point at the numbers on his sweaty, blue practice jersey that he must have worn home after Coach kicked him off the team. “How come you wear number 45?”

  “Coach doesn’t like it,” he says. “He has rules that centers wear certain numbers, but I told him I wanted 45. We had our first stare-down over it, and I’m not sure why, but he let me have it. And that’s the last time Coach ever listened to what I had to say.”

  Jayson’s the best player on the team, but Coach treats him like he’s the worst. “So, 45?”

  “Everybody back in the hood is always bragging about their 45s.”

  I nod. Like Jayson, I grew up in Birmingham, but I left there in junior high.

  “So, I never wanted that life,” Jayson continued. “I decided that the first time I got a uniform, I’d want number 45 to remind me that if I don’t play hard and study, I won’t get a college scholarship and I’ll be back in the hood.”

  Jayson’s so focused on basketball most of the time, most people wouldn’t guess that basketball’s not his end goal. He’s got dreams beyond the court too.

  “So what’s Coach’s deal with you?” I ask. Jayson bounces the ball hard against the pitted pavement. “I wonder if it’s because you’re a transfer student. Maybe because you took Lex’s minutes.” The ball bouncing sounds like a gunshot. “Or maybe it’s because you’re black.”

  The ball stays in Jayson’s hand. “You think?” he fires back.

  “Coach doesn’t like it,” I say, “but he plays you, A.C., and Gerald.”

  “The way he coaches, limiting our freedom, I wonder why. Who does this old, angry guy with no game think he is, telling me how to do it? What gives him the right? Because he’s old?” Jayson hands me the ball.

  “Or wait, maybe it’s because he’s white.”

  “You think?” Jayson cracks again. I drop the ball from laughing too hard.

  “You gonna get some minutes now?” Jayson asks. I shrug. “Cody, out here you got game, but you get all caught up in the coach’s bull, trying to do it his way. Shoot, don’t pass.”

  “That’s not my job,” I remind Jayson, who can shoot and pass and rebound.

  “Then what is your job?”

  I motion for Jayson to run toward the hoop and toss him a perfect alley-oop that he slams home for two points. There is the answer: making others look good.

  5

  Thursday after school

  December 2

  Vestavia Hills High School gym

  “Pass, don’t shoot!” Coach yells at A.C. for the forty-fifth time, though that’s just a guess. We’ve lost—gotten crushed actually—our two games without Jayson. It seems Coach wants to take it out on the players putting points on the board. He gives A.C. and Gerald extra attention, but not in a good way. Me he doesn’t bother. Dylan’s getting grief instead of me. Thanks for taking the bullet.

  A.C. passes to Lex, who gathers it in, fakes left, turns right. Shoots. Misses. Yawn.

  “Why don’t you let me shoot?” A.C. says too loudly. “Least I can hit the net.”

  “I’m the coach,” Coach yells, pointing to the windbreaker he’s wearing that says COACH in all caps. A.C. is shaking his head like he’s got water in his ear or something.

  “If you don’t like it, then . . .” Coach says nothing else, leaving that “then” out there like a piñata. A.C. swings.

  “No, I don’t like it. Back at North, I always got to—”

  “This isn’t North. This is Vestavia Hills, and I’m the coach. You do things my way.”

  “Your way ain’t working.” A.C. bounces the ball hard, almost to cover the words.

  “Isn’t, not ain’t.” Coach crosses his arms. “You want to get suspended like your cuz?”

  “Cuz? For serious?” A.C. clutches the ball in both hands like he’s trying to crush it. Just like the other day
, I know that’s my cue. I stand up, step in front of Coach, and block the hard throw A.C. hurtles toward Coach’s head. I bear the brunt of the blow in my chest.

  Nobody says anything for a few seconds, then Coach blows his whistle and we’re back to the scrimmage. A.C. stays on the floor, but his shot and his spirit have left him.

  When I come onto the court for my token practice minutes, Lex gets in my face since I’m playing center against him. “I thought you were smart like that girlfriend of yours,” Lex says.

  I say nothing.

  “If A.C. sits, then you might get some minutes. Stupid,” Lex says.

  More nothing from me, but Lex is all dog to my bone. “Good luck, Domino!”

  I play a few minutes. One assist, no fouls, no rebounds. Just good team defense.

  After practice, A.C. finds me. “Thanks, Cody.” Fist bump. All good. “Can I ask you something?”

  I nod my answer and use my practice jersey to wipe the little bit of sweat from my face.

  “Why do you let Lex call you that name?” he asks. “He’s disrespecting you and—”

  “Like Coach did when he called you cuz?” I ask, and A.C. just shrugs his broad shoulders.

  “What are we gonna do?” I stare at my worn blue Chucks, then glare over at Lex’s Jordans. He uses them not only to drudge down the court but to walk on water, untouched.

  A.C. grunts in reply. I pick up a loose ball and dribble as we walk to the locker room. I see Lex and Coach staring at me. I start thinking about how much I think about stuff. I stand at the free throw line. Bounce. Bounce. Shoot. Miss. Lex laughs hard.

  “Shake it off,” A.C. says. “It doesn’t matter if you miss in practice, just in the game.”

  “I have to get in the game,” I remind him. A.C. picks up the ball, cuts to the basket, and motions for me to pass like Jayson taught me. The sphere lands in his hands as he soars through the air. The dunk rattles the basket.

  “Some people score,” A.C. declares like gospel. “And some people pass.”

  I think about Mr. Austin’s class and about how some people lead while other people follow.

  “Hey, Cody, the benches need polishing,” Lex yells from across the gym. “Guess you’ll do that next game.” Some of his friends laugh, and then they all head toward the locker room.

  I look at the folded-up bleachers, imagine them pulled out and everybody standing up. Game’s on the line, but my butt’s not on the bench. I close my eyes and imagine the scene: standing at the free throw line, noise all around me, but at the center there’s nothing but calm because I know in my mind that none of it really matters. It’s just two points in a world that’s full of big challenges, and deep down, I know I’m up to them. Bounce. Bounce. Shoot. Swish.

  6

  Monday Morning

  December 12

  Vestavia Hills High School gym

  “You have to have rules in a school so everybody can get an education,” I mumble, staring at the smartboard. Ashley went PowerPoint crazy. “And the students who wore armbands to protest the war disrupted the school, so . . . so. . . .”

  “So?” Mr. Austin prods me. Ashley clears her throat as she watches me choke. I don’t like talking in class, especially up in front.

  “So, what? A war where people are dying is more important than stupid rules,” she starts, and even though it’s supposed to be a debate between us, I let her do most of the talking as she explains how even students have free speech. She even quotes the Supreme Court opinion: “Students do not lose their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door.”

  Mr. Austin interrupts her to let me speak, but I have nothing to say. It’s silly arguing about something that happened fifty years ago at a school in Iowa when we have real problems in Alabama now.

  “In conclusion, let me quote Edmund Burke, whoever that is,” Ashley says, then laughs. Not something she does a whole lot, I noticed while we worked on the project. She is one serious student. “‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’”

  “Or as that other great philosopher, John Lennon, said in the seventies, ‘Power to the people, right on!’” Mr. Austin adds. He thanks us, and we head back to our desks.

  “Good job, Cody,” Ashley says.

  “You too.” I’m not used to anybody telling me that. I almost think she’s busting me.

  “I mean what I said,” Ashley says as she sits down near the front. “And what that Burke guy said too. If you don’t say or do anything, then bad stuff’s gonna keep happening, right?”

  “Maybe,” I shrug in utter confusion. Even as Danni and Whitney debate, I’m tuned out, thinking about what Ashley said. If I am a good man, then what’s the right thing to do?

  •••

  That quote from that Burke guy is still on my mind when I grab a seat next to Jayson at lunch. He’s got a pile of fries and a pool of ketchup.

  “Jayson, do you get to practice tonight?” A.C. asks.

  Jayson says something through a mouthful of food that we take as a yes.

  “So what are you going to do differently?” I ask him. “I mean with Coach.”

  Jayson mocks a boxer throwing right jabs. A.C. and Gerald crack up at this, but not me.

  “What’s your problem, Cody?” A.C. gives me a hard stare.

  I tell them about the project in civics and the quote that Ashley found, but they don’t seem interested in what I’ve got to say. Instead, Jayson’s going on about getting in Coach’s face.

  “Dom, are you crazy?” I ask him. Now Jayson’s got me in the hard-stare crosshairs too.

  “What are you saying?” Two big fries drowned in ketchup disappear into his mouth.

  “Einstein said the definition of crazy was doing the same things but expecting different results. So next time Coach gets up in your face about something, what are you going to do?”

  Even though the cafeteria is crazy-loud, it is almost like somebody muted our table. Everybody’s looking at Jayson. We’re going one-on-one, but we’re not in his court.

  “Well?”

  “Maybe I’ll remind him that without me, he’s got no team,” Jayson answers.

  “Thanks a lot, Jayson!” A.C. and Gerald say at the same time.

  “That’s not what I mean.” Jayson offers fist-bump apologies. “I came to the school to be safe and play ball, that’s it. I won’t let anything get in my way,” Jayson says. He stuffs the last handful of fries into his mouth. But Jayson’s words aren’t going to be enough, I think. When they go one-on-one, Coach wins because he controls the net, the ball, the court. We live in his world.

  Jayson stands, tosses his garbage. He’s not somebody I want as an enemy. I make sure we’re good before I go. “All good, Cody,” he says, but I wonder if he’s right. Am I all good?

  7

  Tuesday after school

  December 13

  Vestavia Hills High School gym

  “Great game last night,” I whisper to Jayson before we start Coach’s silent stretching exercises. First-teamers normally go up front, but Jayson, Gerald, and A.C. hang with me in back.

  Jayson nods, starts stretching, but starts talking too. “I didn’t get all my minutes.” With Jayson starting last night, we had the game by the end of the first half. Coach pulled him for Lex. I bet Coach wanted to grind Jayson down. Jayson spent the last minutes of the game joining me as a pine jockey.

  “No talking during stretching exercises!” Coach yells our way. I bite my bottom lip.

  Jayson looks over at me. No winks this time, just a hard stare. “I can’t do this, Cody.”

  “Does somebody not understand my English? No talking during my exercises.”

  “You were right, Cody, this is crazy.” Jayson’s volume goes up a notch.

  “Do I need to use smaller words?” Coach glares bullet holes in Jayson’s chest.

  “The people on TV talk when they do their exercises,” Jayson says, just loud enough.

  A.C. cracks up.


  Coach blows his whistle and moves like a bulldozer toward us. “Bleachers. Up and down, ten times.” He blows the whistle again. A.C. takes off like a sprinter.

  Jayson stands in place, big hands on powerful hips, not moving a single hard muscle.

  “I’m sick of your attitude.” Coach is back in Jayson’s face. “I let you—”

  “And I’m sick of your crap,” Jayson returns fire. “Attitudes don’t win games. Coaches don’t win games. Skills like mine win games, so get out of my face and let me play my—”

  “Give me your uniform.” Coach reaches out his right hand. I see it’s shaking slightly, but Jayson is icy like January. In fact, he’s breaking out a rare smile. The smile disappears only for a second when he lifts practice number 45 over his head. Jayson places the jersey softly into Coach’s hand like he’s putting his head on a pillow.

  “If you want his uniform, you can have mine too.” Gerald rips off his jersey and hurls it.

  The two stand in front of Coach: a wall of iron muscle and stronger will. I look up at A.C., who retreats from the bleachers. Lex and his buds are laughing it up like this minor mutiny is some comedy. The scene reminds me more of one of those action movies where everybody’s got guns pointed and you wonder who will fire first. I wish I was like Lucy, always with phone in hand, because this would make a great vid. Hashtag showdown at the not-OK Corral.

  “That wasn’t ten times up and down,” Coach barks at A.C.

  “I know how to count.” A.C. pulls the jersey over his head, uses it to wipe away his sweat, and then tosses it at Coach’s feet. “And I also calculate that you’ve lost sixty percent of your starters.”

  Coach starts to blow his whistle, but Jayson, Gerald, and A.C. turn their backs to Coach and walk toward the locker room, wearing no shirts, but a thick skin of self-respect.

  •••

  “Dang, Co, that’s a story,” Lucy says after I tell her what happened at practice. I’m at her house, which is like four times bigger than my crib. We study at the dining room table. Her mom’s just in the next room, pretending to load the dishwasher, but she’s really listening in and playing guard.