Blind Your Ponies (44 page)

Tom fought it as long as he could, and then he broke down and cried. He didn’t notice right away, as the pain and regret poured out of him, but when he wiped his flooding eyes he saw that the team was surrounding him.

“You didn’t lose the game, Tom,” Dean said. “We’re a
team.
”

Tom wept.

Diana couldn’t leave it this way. She glared at Sam, who stood motionless and looked as defeated as the boys. She got off her knees and shouted, “Yes, we’re a team, and we’re not through!” The boys regarded her with startled expressions, still crouched around Tom.

“Okay, listen up!” Diana said. “I’m proud as hell of you, every single one of you. I watch professional athletes on television, men who receive millions of dollars to play, and they don’t give
half
of what you gave tonight! All the Birds and Jordans and Isiahs are gutless wonders and crybabies compared to you boys.”

Diana gathered herself, glancing at Sam, who seemed taken aback by her spontaneous leadership.

“Twin Bridges is an excellent team,” she said. “They could win the State Championship. They play nine men without much dropoff in talent. Well, by God, we play six men without
any
drop-off in heart! And if I had my choice, I’d take players with heart. Are we going to lie down and give up?”

“Nooooo!”
they shouted, unconsciously standing and huddling around her, sweeping Tom along with their fire.

“You want to play Twin Bridges again?”

“Yeeaaahhh!”

They joined hands in the huddle and chanted, “Win! Win! Win! Win! Win!”

The door to the locker room swung open. A short, white-haired man who looked like an old prizefighter gimped in with a batch of clean towels. He regarded the boys as they trailed off with their cheer.

“Congratulations, boys. Big win, big win.”

He set the towels on a bench and shuffled out. They regarded each other with surprise.

“The old guy thought
we
won,” Pete said.

“No,” Diana said. “He knows we’re going to.”

I
N A
D
OMINO’S
they filled up on pizza as though it were a second chance and Dean protested. “There’s a McDonald’s in Butte.”

The boys brought Dean around to the value of pizza and Sam figured that trying to sneak a McDonald’s past Dean was harder than sneaking a sunrise past a rooster. The busload rode home in the dusk of late winter with their flag tattered and dragging in the slush. They had to return tomorrow After-noon and play Harrison in the losers’ bracket, a consolation round to give the less talented teams a few more games with tournament atmosphere before they were swept aside. If tomorrow was the end of their dream, would it be over cleanly and quickly, or would it be unbearable carnage?

Around the corner and past the Blue Willow, he coasted the little bus into town. For now at least they were home, in safe anchorage, where they could bail out the ship, plug the leaks, mend the tattered sails, and prepare themselves to go back out into the storm.

“By the way, that was a terrific shot, Dean,” Sam said, glancing back at the Willow Creek freshman.

The abashed boy didn’t respond, as if uncertain that his coach realized it had been a miracle, and that to say anything might be to incriminate himself.

Despite their locker-room enthusiasm, Sam knew it would only be such a miracle that could save them now, and he feared he no longer believed.

Sam stared into the open refrigerator, contemplating eating something after the journey home. He wasn’t hungry, but maybe food would wash the bitter taste of defeat out of his mouth. The front door slammed. Diana, with her crimson matador hat tilted and her eyes flaming, found him in the kitchen.

“You’ve given
up
on them!” she shouted. “You’ve
quit!
”

Sam was taken off guard by her fury. “What are you talking about?”

“You walked out on us, me and the boys, in that locker room before the game!”

“What in—”

“Listen to yourself.
You’re a great bunch of boys, we’ve had a good season, anything more will be frosting.
You were announcing the season was over, for God’s sake! Pardon me, but I was under the illusion that the season was still going. The boys are under the same illusion.”

Diana paced in the cluttered living room.

“Yes… and look what happened,” Sam said, feeling himself going on the defensive. “Maybe it was an illusion, the difference between appearance and reality.”

“Well, just maybe the boys heard your little deathbed talk and acted accordingly, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe they sensed the season was over because you were telling them it was.”

“They did the best they could,” Sam said.

Diana stopped pacing and, with her hands on her hips, she glared into his eyes. “All right, Sam, tell me the truth. Do you believe they can win? Do
you
believe?”

“You mean tomorrow?”

“I mean tomorrow and Saturday and all the way to Helena.”

Sam paused. He stuffed his hands into his pants pockets. “No… as much as I want it, as much as I pray to God for it, I don’t think five boys can survive in the tournaments.”

“Then you’ve given—”

“I won’t set myself up again, not like that.”

“Then you’ve quit living, you’re a ghost!” she shouted. She yanked off her hat and threw it onto the floor. “You’re not a loser, Sam. You’re a
quitter.
You don’t deserve these boys. You can’t ride on the same bus with them.”

“I want to believe,” Sam said. “God knows I want to believe that, in the midst of the chaos and violence and unforeseeable madness, we can win.”

“Well, it has to start with the everyday risks of getting your heart broken, like daring to hope and believe in the boys who idolize you. How many times have those boys had their hearts broken? How many times? But they keep playing, playing with their hearts, the way
you
taught them.”

“I know, I—”

“Have you ever seen one of them quit? You’ve seen them come to the bench when they were so exhausted they couldn’t stand, when they were so exhausted they couldn’t speak, and you’ve seen them go back out there, sometimes four against five, three against five, and play with every ounce of fire they can muster.”

Diana flopped on the broken-down sofa amid videotapes and magazines and month-old newspapers. Her voice dropped off as if she were overcome with sadness.

“You’ve lied to them. You’ve taught them to play with their hearts and souls and you play it safe so you won’t be hurt. You play chicken. I care about you deeply and it’s sad to see.”

She looked up at him. Sam held his breath, he didn’t know what to say, how to respond to this barrage.

“Sam, you’re afraid to take a chance, afraid to hope, to commit. Maybe I’ll have my heart broken again and again and again, but I know I have to keep trying, like the boys, because if I don’t, I’ve given my chance at life away. I know I might make another horrid mistake and the people I love will leave me and I’ll go through that terrible black hole, that awful loneliness and sorrow, but if I don’t live with my heart, if I don’t live with passion, I’ve already died.”

Sam perched on the edge of the stuffed chair across from Diana and her words spun wildly in his head and he couldn’t catch up to them. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the heel of his hand. His heart raced. He’d been found out!

“Don’t you think I know that Amy would want me to live and risk it all again?” he said. “I’m just not doing very well.”

“What kind of flowers did they have at the funeral?” she said.

“Amy’s?” Sam asked, trying to understand.

“No,
your
funeral. You’re in love with your sorrow. Your heart’s at an unremitting, never-ending funeral of self-pity.”

“No, no, it’s
not
self-pity!” Sam shouted. “Don’t you see? I know that millions of other people have had their loved ones ripped from their arms and slaughtered by monsters, torn from them by war and earthquakes and floods and tornados. That’s not it! I’m terrified that if I loved someone like that again and lost her, I’d lose my mental balance, I’d go completely insane.”

Diana looked away. “Well, the boys need you right now. Of course you’re going to lose again. Of course you’ll be crushed with sadness again. But the joy you have in the risking, no matter how short, is far greater than all the sadness.”

She stood, picked her hat off the floor, and moved toward the front door, the fury of her anger blown out. Sam followed her to the front door. He caught her by the arm. She turned and looked into his eyes.

“Sam, if you’re afraid of being devastated again, if you’re afraid to risk loving again, you’re already dead. The monster with the shotgun killed you as surely as he killed Amy, the sadness has already won.”

She closed the door behind her. Sam stood there, overcome.
She cared about him deeply!
What would he do about that? This incredible woman who would always be a physical delight to him, always a bright, intelligent mate in tune with the world, always surprising him with her insight and understanding, someone to love and cherish. Was she falling in love with a corpse? He felt the urge to find Andrew Wainwright and ride the bicycle built for two with him until dawn showed its face. He knew he wouldn’t sleep.

He walked slowly into the bathroom and gazed into the mirror. Staring back at him was an old man, already dead, a Willow Creek ghost.

D
IANA WOKE WITH
a surge of panic in her stomach, facing that familiar black, bottomless pit where she stood utterly alone, again. She realized how much she cared about Sam by how scared she was of being abandoned by him. Had she driven him away, back into hiding? She had been harsh, even cruel.

The panic followed her all morning as they went through the motions of holding classes. She found excuses to go to his classroom twice and he seemed normal, friendly. She didn’t find the courage to bring up her tirade. The word had spread that the boys and cheerleaders should bring extra clothes and personal things to stay overnight. They were playing the second Afternoon game in the losers’ bracket. If they won that game, they would stay in a motel in Butte as a reward from the school board, saving them from rising at the crack of dawn at home Saturday morning to reach the civic center in time for a nine-o’clock game. Diana figured Andrew Wainwright was behind the motel money, and she guessed that several of the boys had never stayed in a motel. Dean’s entire baggage for the overnight was a toothbrush and a comb.

When the gang gathered around noon outside school, Diana, as a token of apology, told Sam that she would drive the bus. He looked at her for a moment but recovered quickly as if to keep her secret safe. She figured she had to put her money where her mouth was, and if she expected Sam to overcome his terror, she had to start working on hers. It was a leap of faith for her. Instead of being responsible for one passenger, she bore the burden for a dozen. She strapped herself in the driver’s seat and caught several of the boys rolling their eyes and crossing themselves.

The sixty-mile drive went without incident except for a few comments from the kids that if she didn’t step on it, it would be the baseball season. The boys seemed normal, horsing around at times and at others withdrawn into their private thoughts.

“Banging your head against a wall uses a hundred and fifty calories an hour,” Curtis said to break a quiet spell and the gang almost threw him off the bus.

“Stop the bus, Miss Murphy!” Rob called. “We have some road kill here.”

“Open the doors, Miss Murphy!” Tom shouted. “We’ll throw him in the ditch.”

Just a joke, just a joke. Steady, steady.

Diana held course, caught her breath, gripped the wheel, and slowed.

Sam seemed his normal self, sitting directly behind her and commenting on what they’d have to do to beat Harrison. Just the sight of the civic center rattled her already queasy stomach. Was Sam right after all? That it was
dangerous as well as foolish to allow hope to set you up with expectations? Maybe she’d overdone it, maybe she’d been carried away with her obsession to win, to win against the madness, to win Jessica’s forgiveness.

Is
that
what this was all about, to win Jessica’s forgiveness?

She pulled into the parking lot and shut down the bus. She had gotten the team there safe and on time. She sighed with great relief and realized her armpits and forehead were wet with perspiration, her hands ached from gripping the wheel. Jessica’s memory momentarily broke her concentration and she tried to refocus on the present. The foreboding civic center appeared as though it would chew up and spit out their lost-looking little bunch, and she joined them as they walked into it.

T
HEY’D GONE THROUGH
their warm-up rituals when Sam gathered the boys in the locker room.

“You’re a better team, but they have more players. So it’s crucial that everyone stays in the game. We can’t afford to lose anyone. We’ll play a tight zone, give them the long outside shot, then everyone on the boards. Have fun and learn something.”

He clapped his hands and they shouted their chant.

“Win! Win! Win! Win! Win!”

The boys broke for the door and Sam glanced at Diana. She couldn’t decipher what she saw in his eyes, but there was something different there.

When Diana walked into the arena, she spotted Denise Cutter at a balcony rail in her wheelchair at one corner of the stands. Sally Cutter and Andrew Wainwright flanked her in the nearly empty building. The handful of fans for either team clustered near midcourt on either side of the floor.

Both teams desperately scrambled to find their basketball legs as well as their shooting eyes. They were trying too hard. They knew that if they lost, their season was over, and the seniors knew their chance to play organized basketball was most likely over for life.

Diana lived and died with each turn of events on the floor, like an emotional yo-yo. Rob and Pete were keeping the team in the game with their spectacular outside shooting, but Pete went down with five fouls near the end of the third quarter and Dean had to fill the gap. It was the old scenario that always brought them down.