Playing Without the Ball by Rich Wallace Read Free Book Online

man. I’m over it.”

TWO

Salt
    I avoided basketball at all costs for a week, but I can’t stay away forever. So I do the 5:30 wake-up thing again and get my butt over to the Y.
    There are ten of us this time, so we go full-court. I line up opposite Dana and say hello. We nodded to each other in school the other day, and I guess that’s part of the reason I’m here at this ridiculous hour.
    “You ready to run?” she says.
    “Sure.”
    She starts kind of strolling toward the foul line as play begins, and I shadow her. Then she makes the big cut, curving under the basket as I run straight into a pick set by her father. She’s wide open as the pass comes and she swishes the shot from ten feet out.
    I take the inbounds pass and turn, and Dana’s right in my face. I dribble hard to midcourt, then pass off and drift inside.
    “Somebody’s ready to go,” I say to her.
    “I’ve been here since five-thirty,” she says. “I’m warm.”
    I’ll bet she is. The ball comes to me; I turn my back to her and push toward the basket. She sticks tight to me, gives a little bump. I could shoot, but I kick it out to the corner where one of our guys is open. He shoots an air ball and we lose possession. I chase Dana back upcourt.
    By 7 o’clock guys start leaving, and by 7:15 there are only a few of us left, so the game breaks up. I’ve still got an hour to shower and get to school, so I decide to shoot some free throws.
    After a few minutes Dana comes back on the court and rebounds for me.
    “So how come you’re not playing for the school?” I say.
    She shrugs. “Too busy. You?”
    “I got cut.”
    “Too bad.”
    “It sucks,” I say. “They could use you.” Hell, the
boys’
team could use her.
    “Maybe,” she says. “I can’t. I played my first three years, but I’m concentrating on jumping this winter, so I really don’t have time.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I’m a high jumper. My college coach wants to me focus on that.”
    “You have a college coach?”
    “I got a full ride to jump at Virginia next year. So it seemed like a good idea to quit basketball. Except for this. Plus we were moving anyway, since my dad took a job up here.”
    “You must be good.”
    She raises her eyebrows a little, shifts her shoulders. “Ichoke in big meets,” she says. “I jumped five-eleven last spring, then couldn’t even clear five-ten in the states. I finished third. No way that’s gonna happen again.”
    “You gonna jump for Sturbridge this spring?”
    “Sure. But my dad will coach me, unofficially. He still jumps, too. In master’s meets. He made All American at UVA, so that’s why I’m headed there.”
    “Where do you jump?”
    “My dad drives me down to Lehigh two nights a week. See, we’re from Allentown, so we know everybody down there. So I jump twice a week and sometimes compete on the weekends. Plus lifting and running. I’ll be ready this spring.”
    Awesome. Her father comes into the gym, fully dressed now, and calls to her. “We’d better get moving, honey.”
    “Okay.” She slaps the ball to me. “See ya, Jay.”
    “Yeah.”
    I shoot a few more free throws, but I can’t concentrate. That girl is light-years ahead of me.
    Thanksgiving is the first major holiday I’ve ever spent alone. I sleep late, eat a bowl of Cheerios, listen to a couple of tapes, read
Sports Illustrated
, stare at the ceiling.
    Shorty won’t open until 3 today, so I go downstairs to the bar around noon and put on a football game. I look at the phone a few times; I have to call my father. Later, though.
    I go back upstairs at 2:30, eat another bowl of Cheerios, listen to another tape, read the sports section of yesterday’s newspaper, stare at the ceiling again. Spit asked me to come over, but I told her I had to work. It isn’t true, of course.
    I put on my hiking boots, a pair of cotton work gloves, aheavy sweatshirt and a windbreaker, go down the back stairs, and walk through the alley up to Main Street.
    I