Blind Your Ponies (10 page)

“Let’s face it,” Hazel said. “Basketball is deader than a doornail in Willow Creek.”

No one replied, not even Rip, and Grandma Chapman could find no words to patch the damage.

Steeped in the community’s long-standing gloom, the townspeople had wallowed in defeat for too long. It had soaked into their bones, weighing them down into a slouching posture, turning their eyes to the ground. Losing had become so normal, so ingrained, that the students didn’t even seem to notice; they had no idea of how long it had been since their Broncs trotted off the court with a victory, and they no longer considered the possibility of a basketball win.

For the numbed townspeople who still showed up at games, the lopsided contests had evolved into a social event at which one joined the other locals in the bleachers without paying much attention to the game, like attending a movie you’d seen before and knew how it would come out. The likelihood of winning was never approached. One talked about rural things: spotted knapweed, rainfall, beef prices, and occasionally clapped when one of the hometown boys managed to score. It was hard to remember when it felt good to be a Willow Creekian.

“Well, if there’s no hope for the basketball team, maybe we’ll have a mild winter,” Hazel said. She giggled and trudged her massive body toward the front door. “I think I’m getting arthritis.”

To make things worse, Hazel passed John English on his way in, the practical, hard-headed rancher who sat on the school board and did his best to convince the other members to make basketball players an extinct species in Willow Creek.

“Morning, Vera, how’s it going?” John tipped his bone-colored Stetson and clomped toward an unoccupied table.

“Not so good, Hon,” Vera said from behind the pie counter. “We’ve been wondering if the boys’ll win a game this year.”

“Ha!” John said as he sat with his back to Grandma Chapman. “They’ll win a game the day Rip there runs a four-minute mile.”

Because of John’s outspoken opinion of Grandma Chapman—he thought her a ridiculous old coot who embarrasses the town as much as the basketball team—she and John not only did not speak, but neither of them acknowledged the other’s presence.

“Don’t care what they say, by golly,” Rip said. “Willow Creek is comin’ back, wait and see.”

John, in his spiffy Tony Lama boots, studied the menu while the others kept their thoughts to themselves. The old man’s banality seemed a pathetic reflection of all their tattered hopes and dreams.

Grandma Chapman had failed to shore up the town’s optimism for the coming basketball season, and worse, she’d found her own run into the ground.

Sam had driven himself to exhaustion, often falling asleep in his stuffed chair while watching videos and taking notes on coaching basketball. Amy appeared in his dreams less and less, although he’d still waken in a sweat, calling her name, then remembering she was gone.

On the news, he’d seen how one of the powerhouse colleges kicked off their basketball season by holding a practice session one minute after midnight on the first day the team could officially work out. Over three thousand students and fans showed up in their field house to celebrate the start of another season. Sam had hoped that emulating such a high-flown optimism wouldn’t seem ludicrous.

T
HE SHIVERING BOYS
gathered in the locker room and hustled to get their uniforms on—Rob Johnson, the senior veteran; Peter Strong, the import from Saint Paul; Tom Stonebreaker, against his father’s orders; and the quiet sophomore, Curtis Jenkins. Lastly, Dean Cutter, the 5'5" freshman, seemed more than a little uncertain about this endeavor, peering at Sam through his heavy lenses with magnified brown eyes.

Rob’s golden shirt bore the number 10 he had worn through three years of defeat. Tom’s familiar number 18, which had hung from his neck last year like an anchor, looked as though the gold had faded along with the team’s reputation.

Sam reflected on the boys and what he was asking them to do. The team was like a youngster Sam had sent to the door of a pretty girl to ask for a date. When she came to the door, the boy asked. She said, “No.” The next night Sam asked him to dress and go to the door and knock again. When the boy asked for a date, she laughed in his face. The following weekend he asked the boy to dress and go knock on the door. When he asked for a date, she slammed the door in his face. The next night Sam sent him again, up to the porch to knock on the door. Her father threw him off the porch.

The pretty girl enjoyed the boy’s mortification. Sometimes she’d have girlfriends watching in the window and giggling when he would come to the door. Sometimes the father would beat him up. Eighty-seven times he had sent the team out to knock on the door. Eighty-seven times they were belittled, beaten up, and thrown off the porch in dishonor. And now he had it in his foolhardy head not only to ask them to go back on the porch and knock on the door, but to ask for the girl’s hand in marriage!

It was five minutes before midnight. He hoped the absurdity of a team who hadn’t won a game in half a decade waiting up until midnight to start another season wouldn’t be as obvious to others as it was to him. In their right minds, they’d put off the first practice as long as possible. But he wanted to begin with a flare, just once, even though he feared becoming laughable.

“Men, I’m glad to see you here tonight. In one minute the basketball season will begin.”

Sam looked for any hope in their eyes, any fire, but found only confusion and uncertainty.

“I believe that this season will be different from what you’re used to. I want it to be a season you’ll stick in your scrapbook.”

The boys shuffled their feet and glanced into one another’s faces.

“I don’t have a scrapbook,” Dean said.

“Oh, well …” Sam coughed. “I meant it would be something you’d like to remember.”

“I’m sure trying to forget the last three,” Tom said.

“You got that right,” Rob said.

“I know what you mean,” Sam said. He checked his watch. The loud blaring of the Notre Dame fight song, the school’s adopted battle hymn, reverberated from the gym.

“I hope you’re ready to have more fun than you’ve ever had. Okay!” Sam clapped his hands. “Once around the floor and then shoot layups.”

He handed Rob the ball. The boys charged out into the gym, clapping and shouting. They hesitated a beat in turn when they saw the assembled towns-people in the bleachers, as though astonished that any sane person would be sitting along the unheated basketball floor in the middle of the night.

Sam came through the door behind them in shirtsleeves and tie, topped
off with a new Acme whistle around his neck. He hoped his attempt to muster the town’s support would not turn out as tragicomic as Truly Osborn had said this silly spectacle would be. Sam had promised those he invited that he would have a surprise for them.

Besides Scott Miller, the chubby freshman who would be the team’s manager and who had played the fight song at exactly twelve o’clock, there were ten people in the cold stands. With Tripod peering from her partially unzipped coat, Grandma Chapman hooted and cheered as the boys lined up and ran layups. Rob’s parents, the ever-faithful Ben and Alice Johnson, were there. The quiet and unassuming Painters, who were known as faithful fans, raised no suspicions by appearing at this ridiculous hour of the morning. Massive Hazel Brown was present to see if her ten-dollar bet was safe. And bleary-eyed Axel Anderson, who made every attempt to support local functions without expressing how laughable he thought they might be, sat in the bleachers with all the excitement of a tree stump.

Andrew Wainwright was there, the talc plant executive and school board member who lived alone in town and almost singlehandedly had fought to keep the town from giving up on the basketball team. Truly Osborn, like a spectator at the Indy 500, was there only to witness a disaster. Rip Van Winkle, not to be left out of anything, perched in his usual seat at the top of the bleachers—four rows up—where he could lean back against the wall.

Sam had wanted the whole town out, but still thought it miraculous that there were ten. Many of the people he approached actually laughed at him when they realized he was serious.

“Come to the gym at
midnight
? For a
practice
?
”

After each response, Sam lost a pound or two of confidence and almost called the whole thing off. Now, as he observed the mixed bag of spectators and the minimal team of five, he could see the comedy in it all. Dashing toward the basket with his cockeyed Kamp Implement cap pulled tightly over one ear, Dean fumbled a pass from Rob and drop-kicked the ball against the wall with the detonation of a cannon shot.

Sam intercepted the bouncing ball and halted the layup drill. He nodded at Scott Miller and the freshman shut off the fight song. The scattered band of players stood around their coach out on the court as he turned toward the bleachers.

“Thank you for coming out at this late hour to honor the team,” he said. “I promised you a surprise. I thought I’d serve you all lemonade and cake …” Sam paused, noting several disappointed exchanges from the weary spectators and a nearly inaudible groan. “But I came up with a better idea.”

He struggled to prevent the snicker dancing in his mind from showing off on his face, savoring the moment briefly. Then he blew his whistle, his new chrome Wile E. Coyote whistle. From the girls’ locker room, where he’d been holed up since eleven-thirty, Olaf materialized. He was a gangling giant in oversized game shoes and a bright new jersey, number 99, striding toward the south backboard with a flimsy confidence and a glimmer of hope in his innocent blue eyes.

He dribbled once, jumped, and jammed the basketball down through the netting. He turned and regarded his audience with uncertainty.

Everyone in the gym sat gawking, silent, catching their breath. Then, breaking out of this trance, they rose, hooting and clapping and shouting in shocked surprise.

“Are you going to
play
?” Rob asked.

“Why didn’t you
tell
us?” Pete said, looking up into Olaf’s boyish mirth.

“Olaf and I have been working together for a while,” Sam told the meager company. “He wanted to try it and see how it felt. He’s never played before, he’s learning. We’re all going to learn to play basketball together.”

Sam turned to his team.

“We’re going to learn how to run together, rebound together, play defense together. Men, we’re going to learn how to
win
together.”

“Yo!” Rob shouted.

“Sweet!” Pete yelled.

“Bodacious!” Dean shouted, and a fresh enthusiasm lit up their faces.

“By God, we’ll beat those son-bitches!” Rip shouted hoarsely, and everyone in the gym echoed his sentiments.

“All right, let’s scrimmage for five minutes or so,” Sam said, tossing the ball to Rob, “and then we’ll all go home and get some rest.” He divided them evenly, with Sam as the ref, and they played half-court. They went at each other with a fiery frivolity. Olaf dropped passes, missed shots, and stumbled around, making it evident that he had no experience with the game. But he made one deep, unexpected impression on Sam. The long-armed boy
batted more than one shot away, and his reactions were quicker than Sam had hoped.

Wearing a bright, multicolored ski jacket and a Padres baseball cap, Diana scrambled into the gym looking sleepy-eyed and out of breath. Sidling up to Sam, she caught him off guard.

“I’m sorry, I fell asleep,” she said. Then she noticed Olaf out on the floor. “My God, is he going to
play
?”

“That was my surprise,” Sam said, feeling flushed beside her.

“
Can
he play?”

“I hope so.”

“Wow,” she said, then ran up into the bleachers to watch. Peter Strong, in this first glimpse, was all that Grandma Chapman boasted, and then some. If Olaf could do it—and seeing him in action for the first time gave Sam severe doubts—they would have a formidable attack that would send the opposing coaches digging through their duffel bags for their antacid.

Sam blew his whistle. An outburst of clapping came from the bleachers.

“I want to thank you for coming out tonight. Neither the boys nor I will forget your kindness. They’ll change and be right out.”

Scott turned on the Notre Dame fight song, a ludicrous footnote to this unlikely gathering, and the handful of players hustled into the locker room.

“I told you so,” Truly said to Sam. “Didn’t amount to a rat’s ass.”

The superintendent marched triumphantly from the gymnasium. Sam glanced up at Rip and couldn’t help but wonder if all this was a divine omen of the season to come. The frail old man had fallen sound asleep, snoring loudly from his toothless mouth.

Into the first week of practice, Sam recognized he was caught up in a newfound insanity. He was dropping into bed near midnight and he feared he was driving the boys beyond their limits like some NCAA coach obsessed with national rankings. Sam even faltered in English class on more than one occasion, standing before his students in the middle of a lecture without a notion as to where it was going.

Some things were obvious, even to a coach who had never won a game. It was critical that the boys had to stay out of foul trouble because there would be no relief from the bench. They would have to endure the whole game without substitution. And when fatigue set in, they’d make mistakes and foul more. And by the fourth quarter, the Broncs would find themselves playing against teams of ten or twelve rested players. If one of the four fouled out, there would be a glaring vulnerability that their opponents would quickly exploit. To win they would have to be in better shape, play harder, longer, and with more heart than those teams who annually used Willow Creek to blow the carbon out of their tailpipes. What could he possibly conceive and bring forth out of his fruitless and infertile life to inspire them to give in blood? And how could he convince them to believe they could win when he knew his faith in the matter was utterly impoverished?