White Man's Problems by Kevin Morris Read Free Book Online Page A

translucent feeling, the God of the preachers, the long-held power of his native soul. He opens his eyes.
    â€œWill you follow me?” says Klezak.

Here Comes Mike
    1.
    I f you go back through the tunnel of time to when basketball was holy, you will find that Mike Donegan scored thirty-six points against Cardinal O’Hara in the Southeastern Pennsylvania Diocese championship game of 1966. He took over in the last five minutes, with clutch buckets, bruising defense, and a coast-to-coast three-point play that lit up the gym, got the bench dancing, and made his coach, Brother Francis, close his eyes and punch the air.
    Mike was the best player in the history of Nativity BVM Junior High. It was not just that he could shoot and was a step faster; it was his personality. Like any great ballplayer—any truly great player—he was emotionally detached, a bit of an asshole on the court. He had no choke in him. In close games against Saint James and Archbishop Prendergast or when they played public schools like Media or Eddystone, or even against the all-black teams from Chester, as the game wore down, the crowd, the scorekeepers, and the janitors would say quietly to themselves, like a pious flock, “Here comes Mike.”
    John and his mother and sisters went to every game, sitting on old bleachers in church gyms with half-moon backboards and floors of loose wood or even cement or tile. Snack stands served red licorice, Bazooka bubblegum, and hot dogs boiled in plain pots of water. The snackstand ladies wore double-knit cardigans from Sears, and their giant bosoms hit the heads of any five-year-olds standing too close. When they talked it was to say things like: “’Scuse me, hon,” and “You need another quarter, love,” and “You can’t take that soda in the gym.” John’s job was counting Mike’s points.
    Margie starting asking him, “How many does he have now, Jackie?” for the first time in the third quarter of the O’Hara game early in the season. Everyone got into it as the games went by. “How many does he have, Jackie?” they would yell. His brother wanted the ball any time it mattered. On wintery playgrounds anywhere in the Diocese, as imaginary clocks ticked down in imaginary games, boys pretended to be Mike Donegan taking it to the house.
    Mike was the oldest of Mickey and Rosemary Donegan’s five children, followed by Donny; the two girls, Annemarie and Margie; and John. Nine years from oldest to youngest, the difference between growing up in the sixties and the seventies. Rosemary Donegan loved all her kids, but Mike was her angel from God. Before church on Sunday, she stood in front with a trash can and collected food for the orphanage at Saint Ignatius. The priests knew she brought in more than anyone else in the parish. She was beautiful, with thick black hair, thin features, and a curvy cupcake of a body, which, in light of her five kids, must have been a reward from the saints.
    She was urgently, passionately Catholic, saying the Rosary every day and novenas twice a month. She was a barrel of energy, going to mass at half past five and forever visiting aunts in nursing homes. Part and parcel went a sense of doom. Rosemary could not watch the kids’ games or even the Eagles or the Phillies when things got too close, hiding her eyes or sneaking looks at the television from behind the wall. She put sugar in spaghetti sauce and salt on her oatmeal.
    Her kids loved her first above all other things. She had a special language with each, private and kind; a dialogue about bodies, clothes, schedules, favorite colors, and things wanted most for Christmas. And with Mike, whom she could not take her eyes off since the day he was born, she had quiet conversations and shared the gentle connection between Irish mother and son that ran all the way through the ages, all the way down to the sad, stubborn, and reluctantly consecrated core.
    John