Cataract City (18 page)

“People didn’t get divorced back then,” Mom had told me. “Oh, god, it was the very mark of shame. But Dolly didn’t care. To hell with all that, she figured. It took guts.”

My Dolly had guts, too. She’d been ripped away from her own mom and chucked in a Dumpster. For a few terrifying days she couldn’t keep the Esbilac down and became so weak she couldn’t stand. One morning I came downstairs to see a pale blue box on the kitchen table; it had once held a Hummel figurine my father had bought for Mom on a whim.

“If the poor nipper goes,” Dad said, “we’ll bury her in that. Out in the backyard.”

Mom came downstairs, spotted the box and my wounded eyes.

“Jesus, Jerry. Do you have a brain rolling around in that thick head of yours?”

“What did I do?” my dad said, genuinely shocked. “It’s the nicest box we own.”

Fact is, Dad cared about that dog. He’d hunker over her shoebox cooing softly, same as he’d probably done with me in my cradle. Later on, when Dolly was ripping up his sneakers and his flowerbed, Dad was much less kind. “That goddamn mutt won’t see her first birthday!”

When she was only weeks old I got permission to bring Dolly to school. She lay in her shoebox beside my desk as I slogged through trig and chem. In shop class I sat her atop the tool caddy while rinsing crusty gunk out of ancient carburetors.

Nobody ragged me about bringing a puppy to school. I already had a rep as a rough ticket. I didn’t really enjoy fighting, but I wasn’t afraid of getting hit and dealt a hard lick. If anybody was making jokes about Duncan Diggs, Dog Boy of Westlane High, it was strictly behind my back.

Meanwhile, girls who had no clue I’d even existed were suddenly stopping by my desk to ogle Dolly. Even Francisca Bevins, head cheerleader and a shoo-in for the Total Bitch All-Stars, was charmed enough by the Amazing Dumpster Dog to pass the time of day with me.

The dogs brought Owen and me back together. I’m not saying that was my aim. But when I found those creatures in the Dumpster the first thought through my mind was:
Owe
.

Owe’s greyhound was a boy. He named it Fragrant Meat.

“It’s what they call dogs in Mongolia,” he told me. “The ones they eat. At the supermarket, that’s what they label it.”

“Why would you name him that?”

“A dog doesn’t know any different. Fragrant Meat. Shithead. Ass-licker. As long as you say it with
kindness
.”

It bothered me that Owe chose that name. Sure, the dog wouldn’t know, but wasn’t it disrespectful all the same? Owe eventually shortened it to Frag; he probably got sick of explaining it to people.

Frag developed a life-threatening kidney problem. One morning he stumbled into Owe’s bedroom disoriented, bumping into the walls. When Owe picked him up, Frag burped up warm, white foam.

“Frothy, same as a milk shake,” I remember him telling me.

For a few days it was touch and go. Puffy red rings were permanently fixed around Owe’s eyes. But Frag pulled through. The vet put him on a special diet; Frag had to guzzle a gallon of water a day to flush his kidneys.

We used to take our dogs on walks along the river or down in the valley of the escarpment—always keeping the road firmly in sight. We talked about tons of stuff. Girls, of course, but also our friends and whatever might be waiting for us out in the great wide world—the casual bullshit that makes up the bulk of all conversations.

The dogs brought us together when a lot of things could’ve pushed us apart. We went to different schools. In the summers I worked on the horticulture crew at Land of Oceans. Those same summers Owe was at basketball camps in the Carolinas, scrimmaging against future ACC and Big Ten recruits.

That’s an important part of this story, too: how Owen “Dutchie” Stuckey became known in Cataract City simply as Dutch. For a while people knew him by that one name, the way divas are known. Cher. Whitney. Dutch.

He earned the moniker for one simple reason: the boy was straight-up
murder
on a basketball court.

Before his talent blipped on the city’s radar screen, Owen was Dutchie. Little Dutchie Stuckey with his cowlicked hair, the joints of his limbs like knots in a rope. Then Dutchie shot up a full foot and began to drain twenty-seven-foot jumpers with a defender’s hand in his face. After that he was Dutch.

His skills were an unsolvable riddle to me. I’d grown up with spazzy, knock-kneed, tangle-foot Owe. Whiff-at-kickball Owe. But put him on a basketball court and that clumsiness went away.

Dad and I went to the last game of his junior year, at the height of Dutch mania. He’d posted some crazy averages that season: thirty points, twelve assists, four steals, five rebounds, one and a half blocks. We sat on risers in the Ridley Multiplex, crammed shoulder to shoulder with spectators. The crowd was ritzy: lots of elbow-patched blazers and Hush Puppies. The gym was so packed that sweat and breath caused hazy halos to form around the sodium vapour lights.

On the first play after opening tip, Owe caught the ball on the wing. He dribbled once, got his defender to bite, crossed left, got his defender going back that way and crossed
back
right—an ankle-snapper, they call that move. His defender went down on his ass as Owe pulled up for a silky-smooth jumper. The nylon gave that sweet stinging
snap
it makes when the ball barely grazes the iron.

The crowd raised a foghorn cry: “
Duuuuuuuuuuuutch
.”

I’d never seen a human being move the way Owe did back then. Tall but still gawky—the body of a muscular stick insect. He didn’t bull through defenders: he flowed around them like mercury, squirting through the tiniest seams until he was at the rim for an
underhand scoop, or whipping the ball to a teammate parked at the three-point arc for a wide-open look.

This will sound crazy, but even his eyes were a different colour on the court. They’d always been blue, but on the court they seemed brighter and colder—I don’t mean unfeeling, just the purest cold imaginable: like ice in the polar icecaps.

He went off for fifty-three points that night. After showering and giving a quote to the local hack for the morning edition, he hopped in the truck with me and Dad.

“Hell of a game,” Dad said.

“We ran up the score,” Owe said. “I asked Coach to bench me to start the fourth. Game was in the bag, right? But the college scouts were up from the States—it was my showcase game. So he kept me in, kept running plays to goose my total.”

I remembered the frown that had darkened Owe’s face after he’d canned each late-game shot. As if he wanted to miss, but couldn’t.

“It’s the zone,” he said. “When you’re in it, the hoop gets as big as a barrel. Any old junk you toss up goes in. It’s like … white light. Sounds stupid, I know, but it’s the only way to explain it. This very bright light at the edges of your vision, crowding everything out until it’s only the ball and the hoop. No sound, no distractions. It’s so easy in the zone.” He smiled helplessly. “To be honest, I’m happy when I come out of it. I really don’t think humans are meant to live too long in the zone.”

“Dutch Stuckey,” my father said dreamily after we’d dropped him off. “That boy’s going to put this city on the map.”

There was awe in Dad’s voice—probably at the fact that anyone from Cataract City could be so good at anything.

Looking back, it’s easier to spot the signs. I remember one afternoon when we were at Valour Park, shooting on the hoops. We’d taken Dolly and Frag for a meandering walk and they were leashed
to the bench next to the court, lying contentedly in the shadow of an oak tree.

I’d always been athletic and even became a half-decent slotback for our football team, but I was no great shakes at basketball. I could set screens and rebound—I’d happily do the grunt work. Owe was good but he hadn’t yet made the leap. His shot was there already, though: this smooth arc that hung forever at its peak, unbothered by gravity, before falling crisply through the net.

He’d dusted me at H-O-R-S-E when Adam Lowery and Clyde Hillicker showed up. They went to my school but I never took notice of them anymore; they were just two guys I vaguely disliked floating through the halls with the jocks and stoners, the skids and skells.

“Hey, shitheads,” went Adam.

My shot hit back iron and bounced over to Clyde. He tucked it under his arm.

“Finders keepers.”

“Throw the goddamn ball back,” I said, in no mood.

Adam took it from Clyde and lofted a shot. The ball dropped nicely through the rim and rolled back to him. Bouncing it on the tips of his fingers, he said: “We’ll play you for it.”

Adam considered himself a JV basketball badass. The coach, Mr. Weaver—everyone called him Mr. Weave because he wore a noticeable hairpiece with frosted tips—must’ve blown some top-end smoke up Adam’s butt.

Owe said, “Sure. Play you for
my
ball.”

We agreed that the first to seven points wins, all baskets counting as one point. I matched up with Clyde, who was six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than me. Thankfully he was built like a pile of Goodwill parkas, meaning I could muscle him around.

Owe and Adam guarded each other. As soon as Owe checked the ball, Adam shot.
Swish
. Owe checked the ball again, and again Adam shot.
Swish
. Owe checked the ball but this time he closed out, forcing Adam to pass. Clyde caught the ball and brought his elbows around, clipping the bridge of my nose. Red lights popped in front of my face and my brain hit
Tilt
. Clyde spun clumsily and clanged the ball in off the backboard.

“First one’s free, Clyde,” I said, rubbing my nose. “The next one’ll cost you.”

They were up 3–0. Adam dribbled left, nearly had it stolen, and hoisted up a clumsy jumper that barely grazed the iron. I collected the rebound and fired it out to Owe, who immediately fed it back to me. I pump-faked Clyde, who bit, then blew past him only to bank the ball too hard off the backboard.

Adam took the ball at the top of the key, passed inside, got it back, stutter-stepped right and hoisted a rickety jumper that toilet-bowled around the rim and in. 4–0. A clumsy fadeaway by Clyde—he tossed it just over my outstretched fingertips—made it 5–0. We were getting skunked.

On the next possession Owe checked the ball, timed Adam’s jumper and blocked it cleanly.

“Foul,” Adam said.

“Bullshit!” I shouted.

“Honour the call,” Owe said.

Clyde missed a desperation hook shot. I collected the rebound and passed it out. Owe passed it back in. I whipped it out and growled, “You take it.”

It was as if he’d been waiting for permission. He jab-stepped Adam, got some space and lofted a shot that dropped through. 5–1.

“Lucky shot,” said Adam.

Owe took the ball at the top. That coldness I would come to
know well was in his eyes. He crossed Adam over, sending him sprawling. He drove and kicked the ball to me under the rim. I banked the open shot in off the backboard. 5–2.

Adam’s road-rashed knees wept blood. He got right up in Owe’s face, barking, “Take that shot, punk. Go on and shoot that weak-ass shit.”

Owe dribbled back until he was thirty feet from the hoop. Adam put his hands on his hips. “You really going to take that?”

Owe did. The ball barely grazed the back iron as it fell through. 5–3.

Next, Owe dropped a pair of long bombs and a fadeaway that banked in softly. His second shot led to a dispute: it dropped through the netless rim so cleanly that Adam argued it was an airball. Owe just shrugged and canned his next shot from the exact same spot.

“Was that an airball, too?” he asked Adam.

“Fuck off, Stuckey.”

After a nifty up-and-under move where he faked both Adam and Clyde out of their shorts, he shovelled the ball to me for a final easy bucket.

Final score: 7–5.

Adam snatched the ball after the game-winner. “We’re keeping it, anyway. You fuckers cheat.”

“You can leave with the ball,” I said evenly, “or you can leave with your teeth.”

Our dogs were barking at the commotion.

“Shut up, you fucking
mutts,”
Adam hissed.

I punched him in the gut and he fell back like he’d been pole-axed, dropping the ball. Clyde stepped in uncertainly and when I cocked my fist he flinched like the big marshmallow he was.

Owe collected the ball. Adam grabbed at his chicken-chest like an old woman clutching her pearls. A venomous look came into
his eyes. He scrounged a nickel out of his pocket and flipped it onto the concrete.

“Take that home to your daddy,” he wheezed. “You two melt it down, win yourselves another Kub Kar Rally.”

The incident with the Kub Kars was years past—but because this was Cataract City, it may as well have happened yesterday. The city’s got a wet-sidewalk memory: press something into it and the impression remains forever.

Things were gearing towards a scuffle when Owe noticed Dolly had slipped her collar. It lay empty on the grass beside the bench. The park bordered the heavily trafficked Harvard Avenue. I knew greyhounds had zero road sense—most of them figured they could outrun a car.

I sprinted over the grass, shouting her name. “Dolly!
Do-lly!
”

I ran down the sidewalk, dodging people, imagining every horrible outcome: she’d been hit by a car; she’d been attacked by another dog, a raccoon, a skunk; she’d been stolen by a dog-thieving prick in a white cube van.

I rounded the corner where Harvard met Brian Crescent and there Dolly was, cradled in the arms of Edwina Murphy.

“Lost something, Diggs?” she said, laughing as Dolly licked her chin. “She’s a quick little bitch. You ought to race her down at Derby Lane.”

Our mothers had a nickname for Edwina Murphy: the Jezebel.

Owe and I first got to know Edwina—everyone called her Ed—when she was fifteen, three years older than we were at the time. Owe’s folks hired her to babysit.

Ed lived down the street, in a house of boys. The Murphy brothers were known hellions; more than a few nights I’d wake to the light of police cherries washing my bedroom windows as
one or more of the Murphy boys was dropped off or picked up.