Beach Road (2 page)

Then, after a dramatic beat or two, the man-child himself, Dante Halleyville, slides out from the front
passenger side. It’s hard not to gawk at the kid.

Halleyville is the real deal, without a doubt the best high school player in the country, and at six foot nine
with ripped arms and chest tapering to a tiny waist and long, lean legs, he’s built like a basketball god.
Dante is already being called the next Michael Jordan. Had he declared himself eligible for this year’s NBA
draft, he would have been a top-three pick, no question, but he promised his grandmother at least one year
of college.

The reason I know all this is that Dante grew up nine miles down the road, in Bridgehampton, and there’s a
story about him every other day in the local paper, not to mention a weekly column he writes with the
sports editor called Dante’s Diary. According to the stories, which suggest that Dante is actually a pretty
sharp kid, he’s leaning toward Louisville-so rumor has it that’s the academic institution that leased him
the car.

“You fellas want to have a run?” I ask.

“Hell, yeah,” says Dante, offering a charismatic smile that the Nike people are just going to love. “We’ll
make it quick and painless for you.”

He slaps my head and bumps my chest, and thirty seconds later the crash of collapsing waves and
squawking gulls mix with the squeak of sneakers and the sweet
pock
of a bouncing ball.

You might think the older white guys are about to get embarrassed, but we’ve got some talent too. My big
brother, Jeff, is pushing fifty, but at six five, 270 he’s still pretty much unmovable under the boards, and
Walco, Roche, and Feif, all in their early twenties, are good, scrappy athletes who can run forever.

As for me, I’m not as much of a ringer as Dante, and I’m pushing thirty-five-but I can still play a little.

Unless you’re a basketball junkie you haven’t heard of me, but I was second-team All-America at St.
John’s and in ‘95 the Minnesota Timberwolves made me the twenty-third pick in the first round of the
NBA draft. My pro career was a wash. I blew out my knee before the end of my rookie season, but I’d be
lying if I told you I couldn’t still hold my own on any playground, whether it’s a cratered cement court in
the projects or this million-dollar beauty looking straight out at the big blue sea.

Tom
PARADISE COULDN’T BE too much better than this.

Seagulls are flapping in the breeze, sailboats are bobbing on the waves, and the green rubberized surface is
bathed in dazzling sunshine as I dribble the ball upcourt, cut around my brother’s double-wide pick, and
snap off a bounce pass to an open Walco under the basket.

Walco is about to lay it in for an easy hoop when one of Dante’s teammates, a tall, wiry kid I will later find
out is named Michael Walker, comes flying at him from behind. He blocks the shot and knocks Walco to
the court. It’s a hard foul, and completely unnecessary in my opinion. A dirty play.

Now the Kings Highway squad is bringing the ball upcourt, and when one of their players goes up for a little
jumper, he gets mugged just as bad by Rochie.

Pretty soon, no one stretched out on the grassy hill beside the court is noticing the flapping seagulls or
bobbing sailboats because the informal Saturday-morning game has escalated into a war.

But then a beat-up Honda parks beside the court, and Dante’s pretty seventeen-year-old cousin, Nikki
Robinson, steps out in very short cutoffs. When I see the way Feifer checks her out, I know the Montauk
townies still have a chance to win this shoot-out by the sea.

Tom
NIKKI ROBINSON LEANS provocatively against the wire fence, and the shameless Feifer immediately
takes over the game. He uses his quickness, or stamina, or surprising strength to force three consecutive
Kings Highway turnovers.

When Jeff taps in my missed jumper, we’re all tied at twenty.

Now Nikki isn’t the only one up against the fence. Artis LaFontaine and Mammy and Sly and everyone
else on the hill are on their feet, making a lot of noise.

Michael Walker races upcourt with the ball.

With five pretty women paying attention instead of just one, Feifer swoops on Walker like an eagle bearing
down on a rabbit on one of those TV nature shows. He effortlessly strips him of the ball and races the
other way for the winning lay-up.

This time, however, he doesn’t stop at the rim. He keeps climbing, showing that Montauk boys got
ups
too. When he throws the ball down, Artis, Mammy, and Marwan go crazy on the sidelines, and Nikki
Robinson rewards him with a little R-rated dance that seventeen-year-old girls aren’t supposed to
know how to do.

This provokes Michael Walker to shove Rochie, Feif to shove him back, Dante to shove Feif, and Feif
to
really
shove Dante.

Ten seconds later, on the prettiest day of the summer, Feif and Dante are squared off at half-court.

At this point, both sides should jump in and break it up, but neither does. The Kings Highway crew hangs
back because they figure the white surfer boy is about to get a whupping and don’t want to bail him out.
We stand and watch because in a dozen barroom brawls we’ve never seen Feif lose.

And right now, despite giving up a foot and more than fifty pounds to Dante, Feif’s holding his own.

But now I really have seen enough. This is bullshit, and I don’t want either of them to get hurt.

But as I jump between them, catching glancing blows from both for my trouble, the court falls silent.

There’s a high-pitched scream, the blur of people scattering, and then Artis yells, ”
Tom, he’s got a gun!
”

I turn toward Dante, and he’s holding his empty hands up in front of his face. When I turn to Feif, he’s
doing the same thing.

I am the last person on the court to see that the guy with the gun isn’t Dante or Feifer. It’s Dante’s
homeboy Michael Walker. While I was breaking up the fight, he must have run and grabbed it from the
car.

I didn’t see him or the gun until just now, when he walked back onto the court, lifted it to the side of
Feifer’s head, and with a sickening
click,
thumbed back the hammer to cock it.

Dante Halleyville

WHEN MICHAEL PUTS that gun up beside that boy’s head, no one is more freaked than me.

No one!
Not even the bro with the gun to his head-although he looks plenty freaked too. This is my worst
nightmare coming true.

Don’t pull that trigger, Michael. Don’t do it.

Because of my promise to my grandmother Marie, I’ve got sixteen months to get through before I go into
the NBA, and the only thing that can stop me is some ridiculousness like this. That’s why I never go to
clubs or even parties where I don’t know everyone, because you never know when some fool is going to
pull out a gun, and now that’s exactly what’s happening and it’s my best friend doing it, and he thinks he’s
doing it for me.

And it’s not like Michael and I haven’t talked about it. Michael wants to have my back, fine. But he’s got
to stay between me and trouble, not bring it on.

Thank God for Dunleavy. He doesn’t know this, but I’ve watched him since I was starting out. Till me, he
was the only player from around here who amounted to much. I used to track him at St. John’s and then
for that short time with the pros in Minnesota. He never got the big tout, but if he hadn’t got hurt, Tom
Dunleavy would have done some damage in the League. Trust me.

But what Dunleavy does today is better than basketball. It’s like that poem we read in school-if you can
keep your head screwed on tight, when all around you motherfuckers are freaking.

When Michael puts the gun to the white guy’s head, everyone scatters. But Dunleavy stays on the court
and talks to Michael calm as can be.

Not fake calm either. Real calm-like whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

I can’t say for sure it was like this word for word, but this is what I remember.

“I can tell you’re Dante’s friend,” Dunleavy says. “That’s obvious. As obvious as the fact that this guy
should never have thrown a punch at Dante, not at someone who’s about to go to the NBA. He hits Dante,
maybe one of his eyes is never the same and the dream is over. So I’m sure there’s a part of Dante that
would like to see you mess him up right now.

“But since you’re Dante’s best friend,” he goes on, “it’s not what Dante wants but what he needs. Right?
That’s why even if Dante was screaming at you to kill this punk, you wouldn’t do it. Because it wouldn’t
help him in the long run. It would hurt him.”

“Exactly,” says Michael, his gun hand shaking now even though he’s trying to cover it. “But this shit
ain’t over, white boy. Not by a long shot.

This shit ain’t over!
”

Somehow Dunleavy makes it look like it was Michael deciding on his own to put down the gun. He gives
Michael a way out so it doesn’t look like he’s backing down in front of everyone.

Still, the whole thing is messed up, and when I get to my grandmom Marie’s place, I’m so stressed I go right
to the couch and fall asleep for three hours.

Nothing would ever be the same after that catnap of mine.

Kate Costello
“OH, MARY CATHERINE? Mary Catherine? Has anyone here seen the divine MC?” I call in my sweetest
maternal-sounding voice.

When there’s no answer, I jump up from my little plasticized lounge chair and search my sister’s Montauk
backyard with the exaggerated gestures and body language of a soap-opera actress.

“Is it truly possible that no one here has seen this beautiful little girl about yea big, with amazing red hair?”
I try again. “That is so peculiar, because I could swear I saw that same little girl not more than twenty
seconds ago. Big green eyes? Amazing red hair?”
That’s about all the theatrics my twenty-month-old niece can listen to in silence. She abandons her hiding
spot on the deck, behind where my sister, Theresa, and her husband, Hank, are sipping margaritas with
their neighbors.

She races across the back lawn, hair and skinny arms flying in every direction, the level of excitement
in her face exceeding all recommended levels. Then she throws herself at my lap and fixes me with a
grin that communicates as clearly as if she were enunciating every syllable: ”
I am right here, you silly aunt! See! I am not lost. I was never lost! I was just tricking you!
”

The first ten years after I finished college, I rarely came home. Montauk felt small to me, and
claustrophobic, and most of all, I didn’t want to run into Tom Dunleavy. Well, now I can’t go two weeks
without holding MC in my arms, and this little suburban backyard with the Weber grill on the deck and the
green plastic slide and swing set in the corner is looking cozier all the time.

While MC and I sprawl on the grass, Hank brings me a glass of white wine. “Promise you’ll tell us when
you need a break,” he says.

“This
is
my break, Hank.”

Funny how things work out. Theresa has known Hank since grade school, and everyone in the family, me
included, thought Theresa was settling. But seeing how much they enjoy each other and their life out here,
and watching their friends casually wander in and out of their yard, I’m beginning to think the joke’s on
me.

But of course the best part of their life is MC, who, believe it or not, they named after yours truly, the so-
called success of the family.

Speaking of my darling namesake, I think she’s slinked off again because I can’t seem to find her.

“Has anyone seen Mary Catherine? Has anyone here seen that scruffy little street urchin? No? That is just
too odd. Bizarre even, because I could have sworn I just saw her a minute ago right under this table.
Beautiful red hair? Big green eyes? Oh, Mary Catherine? Mary Catherine?”
So peaceful and nice-for the moment anyway.

Tom
AFTER ALL THE DRAMA, a night on the couch with Wingo and the Mets won’t cut it. I head to
Marjorie’s, which is not only my favorite bar out here but my favorite bar anywhere in the known
universe. The Hamptons have hundreds of heinous joints catering to weekenders, but I’d sooner play
bingo at the Elks Club than set one foot in most of them.

Marjorie’s definitely skews toward townies, but the owner, Marjorie Seger, welcomes anyone who isn’t an
ass, no matter how bad their credentials might look on paper, so it doesn’t have that bitter us-against-them
vibe of a dyed-in-the-wool townie institution, like Wolfie’s, say.

Plus at Wolfie’s, I’d never hear the end of it if I ordered a Grey Goose martini, but that’s exactly what I
want and need, and exactly what I order from Marjorie herself when I grab a stool at the outdoor bar set
up on the docks.

Marjorie’s eyes light up, and while she puts a glass on ice and washes out her shaker, I listen to the ropes
groan and the waves slap against the hulls of the big fishing trawlers tied up thirty feet away. Kind of nice.

I was hoping one or more of my fellow hoopsters would already be here, but they’re not. I’ll have to
content myself with Billy Belnap, who was in my history and English classes at East Hampton High. For
fifteen years, he’s been one of East Hampton’s finest.

Belnap, in uniform and on duty, sits on the stool next to me smoking a cigarette, sipping a Coke. That
could mean he is drinking a rum and Coke, or a Jack and Coke, or, unlikely as it may sound, a plain old
Coke.

Either way, that’s between him and Marjorie, who is now concentrating on my cocktail. And when she
places the chilled glass in front of me and pours out the translucent elixir, I stop talking to Billy and give
her the respectful silence she deserves till the last drop brings the liquid to the very rim, like the water in one
of those $200,000 infinity swimming pools.

“I hope you know I adore you,” I say, lowering my head for my first careful sip.