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Authors: Amar'e Stoudemire

Double Team (8 page)

BOOK: Double Team
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S
o, yeah, I was feeling a little hung out to dry when I got home from school on Wednesday. I went straight for the living room. My big brother and I had reached the final level of our video game. I fired up the game and got comfortable: The final level was always superhard on games like these, especially alone.

I started out carefully, scouting out my surroundings on the new level. I knew there was an ambush coming, but I didn't know where or when. I guess I must've been really concentrating because I didn't even hear when someone else came into the room. Then Junior crashed down on the couch next to me!

“Hey, STAT!” he said.

“Aaaah!” I said, pausing the game and trying to act like he hadn't scared the heck out of me. “I thought you were a cyborg ambush!”

“Nah,” said Junior. “I'm the reinforcements. Got your back when you're under attack!”

“Cool!” I said. “I could use some backup right now.”

“What do you say we finish this last level together?”

We went back to where the game was saved and started the level over, this time with two players. It was easier this time because I didn't have to watch the whole screen myself. The action started to build. Junior blasted a drone out of the sky with his electric-bolt launcher. Then I turned a weird spinning robot into scrap metal with my laser.

“You've gotten good, little bro,” said Junior.

“You too,” I said. “Those lightning bolts are pretty fierce.”

He vaporized a wall next to us with an electric bolt, just to show off. But when he did, the space behind it was crawling with angry cyborgs. We went to work, zapping and blasting. We'd both kind of mastered this
game on our own, so now that we were together, we were an awesome team.

The action kind of slacked off toward the middle of the level. This was the part where we were supposed to find something for the end, like a clue or a piece of equipment. So we were sort of sifting through the wreckage and looking in boxes and behind doors. It gave us a little time to talk.

“Thanks, man,” I said. “I wouldn't have gotten through that last part if you weren't here.”

“Glad to help,” said Junior. “This is cool.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It's nice to have someone else here, too.”

With nothing shooting at us at the moment, Junior risked a quick look over.

“You kind of have the run of the house these days, huh?” he said.

We finally found what we were looking for. It was a crazy laser that shot three beams, each a different color. Junior swapped out his lightning gun for this new weapon and tested it out a little. Right away, we knew this thing was going to come in handy in the final
battle. I walked my guy over and picked up the electric-bolt gun, but what I was really doing was thinking of how to answer that last question.

“It's like, I don't know. It's like sometimes I come home and I yell out, ‘Hello?' Just to check, you know? And it's like it practically echoes. Sometimes this little place feels like the Grand Canyon or some big old cave.”

“Yeah, I've been there, too,” Junior said. “That's why I came home early.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Dad's busy season won't last forever, so I can cut back my hours a little until it's over.”

He paused, but it kind of seemed like he had something more to say, so I didn't answer right away.

“Don't tell anyone,” he said after a few moments, “but I kind of miss you guys sometimes.”

“Don't tell anyone,” I said, “but I kind of miss you guys, too.”

Right then, a huge space zombie filled the screen.

“Just don't miss this guy!” Junior called out, but I was already taking aim. We leveled our weapons and blasted that sucker!

We kicked it into cruise control after that, heading for the big final battle these games always had at the end. As we went along, I filled him in on what had been going on. He already knew about the Overtime Invitational, of course, but I told him about the other tourney, my talk with Mom, and the rest of it.

He was quiet for a while, and I was worried he didn't know what I was talking about. But he did. He knew exactly.

“I got some invitations like that when I was your age,” he said. “Your age and a little older, I guess.”

“Really?” I said.

He smiled: “How do you think I knew who Overtime was so quick?”

“You played in the Overtime Invitational?” I said. I was so surprised I took my eyes off the game. The only thing that saved me from being vaporized was that three-beamed laser of Junior's.

“No,” he said. “I didn't go. My friends didn't get invitations. They weren't as big or as good, and they didn't want me to go without them.”

“Wow,” I said. Talk about hearing an echo.

“And the thing is, I let them talk me out of it.” He was still smiling, but it had changed. It was kind of a sad smile. “I didn't go to that one or the ones after it. Pretty soon, the invitations stopped coming. Even today I still wonder what would've happened if I'd gone.”

We finally reached the big battle. For a few minutes, the only sounds were explosions on the screen and the sound of our fingers pounding the controllers. When the virtual smoke cleared, we'd finished the final level and I knew I'd made the right decision.

“I'm definitely going,” I said.

“You bet you are,” he said. “I'll drive you there myself. But be careful. You've got to do your thing, but you don't want to hurt anyone along the way. Those guys who talked me out of going? I might have some regrets, but they're still my friends. They're still some of my best friends.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Mike and Deuce have been my friends since forever. And they're good guys.”

“Yeah, that's the other half,” he said, shaking his head. “I don't know, little bro. It's tough. If only it were as easy as this game …”

We watched a funny little scene, with two cyborgs doing a dance as part of the on-screen victory celebration. One of them got dizzy and fell down and we both laughed. And right then, I realized something.

“Maybe it
is
that easy,” I said, putting my controller down and standing up. “Maybe that's exactly it.”

“Huh?” said Junior, looking over at me.

“Thanks, man,” I said. “I'll explain later. Right now, I gotta go!”

I
hopped on my bike like it was a rocket. You can't really burn rubber on a bike, but I at least warmed it up as I tore down the street. I was headed straight for the basketball court. Mike and Deuce were usually there on Wednesdays. But I wasn't sure how long they'd stay, and it was already hours since school had let out. I put my head down and pedaled hard.

I reached the little park and biked right up the walkway to the court. A few squirrels had to jump for their lives, but I made it to the court in no time. I was relieved to see my friends. From the looks on their faces, it didn't seem like the feeling was mutual.

“Well, look who's here,” said Deuce, doing a little crossover dribble.

“I see him,” said Mike, shooting a lazy jumper.

I leaned my bike against the fence. “Hey, guys,” I said. “Just shootin' around?”

“Yep,” said Deuce. “Doesn't make much sense to practice for a three-on-three tourney with only two players.”

He'd been taking shots at me all week. And I'd been letting him because I felt bad. But it seemed ridiculous now. I just looked at him and kind of tilted my head, like,
Really?

“So why you here anyway?” said Mike.

They were both listening. Deuce even picked up his dribble, waiting for my reply. I needed to say what I'd come here to say. I could give them a big speech, but it was so simple.

“So, you guys know Junior has a job after school, and I barely see him these days,” I said.

“Okay, but I don't see what that's got to do with anything,” said Deuce.

“Well, today he came home early and we finished up a video game together. It was cool.”

Deuce started dribbling again. He wasn't talking, but the ball was saying,
Get to the point.
So I did.

“It reminded me of how much I like just hanging out with him. It reminded me that we're brothers, but we're boys, too.”

“Sounds like a real nice moment,” Deuce said. But he said it with a little smirk on his face like he didn't really mean it.

“Let him talk, D,” said Mike. Mike and Junior were tight. They had that big-guy bond. Still, it was time to make my case.

“Well, that reminded me of how much fun it is to just hang out with you guys, too,” I said. “I was sitting there just playing around with my bro, and I realized that the three of us don't really do that anymore.”

Deuce picked up his dribble again. He wasn't smirking anymore. He had a look on his face like he was remembering something. I just needed to make sure he was remembering the right things.

“It's like we've gotten so caught up in winning these tournaments …,” I began.

“That we forgot to just play the game,” said Mike. “Forgot to have fun.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I mean, I knew you guys would be here today because Wednesday is practice. But come on, practice? We used to be out here just about every day. Because we loved playing.”

“Yeah,” said Mike. “You guys remember, we used to just come out here and mess around and play hoops until the sun went down?”

“I remember,” I said.

Now we both looked at Deuce.

“Yeah,” he said. “I remember.” And then he smiled. “I mean, it was only a few months ago.”

We all smiled. It seemed amazing that we'd gotten so serious so quickly.

“I mean, I like the tournaments,” I said. “But what I really like is hanging out and shooting some hoops with my friends. With you guys. It's why I started playing in the first place.”

“Yeah,” said Mike. “Absolutely.”

“I've, uh, I've been kind of a jerk this week, huh?” said Deuce.

“You know what?” I said. “I remember a lot of things, but that part? I've already forgotten.”

Deuce and I slapped our hands together, and we squeezed tight.

“All right, you two,” said Mike. “Break it up before you hug.”

We all laughed.

“What d'ya say we just have some fun out here?” I said. “Like we used to?”

BOOK: Double Team
2.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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