Swagger (21 page)

At last it was time to head to the parking lot to get on the team bus for the final ride to Tacoma. I checked my duffle bag to make certain my uniform was packed, and then my dad drove me to Harding High. “Whether you win or lose doesn't matter,” he said as he pulled into the lot. “The way you've hung in there, the character you've shown—that's what matters.”

I felt my throat tighten. He knew only what I'd done in the light of day; he didn't know about the things I'd kept hidden. I managed to thank him, though my voice was shaky. I climbed out of the car and then leaned back in. “After the game, Coach Hartwell wants the whole team to go back on the bus together. So I won't be needing a ride back from the T-Dome.”

He nodded. “Your mom and I will meet you right here then, in the parking lot.”

“You don't have to. I can walk home.”

“State champions don't walk home.” He smiled. “And neither do runners-up.”

After he drove off, I walked to the bus, threw my duffle bag into the loading bay, and climbed on board. Cash was in a front seat, holding the
Seattle Times
. “Did you see this?” he said, pointing to the article about Levi. “I'm going to razz him bigtime. The writer has Levi confused with LeBron James.” DeShawn and Nick were nearby, both of them grinning at the prospect of needling Levi.

I looked across the parking lot and spotted Levi heading toward the bus. “Don't do it,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Cash snapped. “I'd just be kidding him.”

“You know Levi. If you want him to play well, don't razz him. He's not the kind of guy you can razz.”

For a second I thought Cash would ignore me, but then his eyes showed that he understood. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jonas. You're right. We'll lay off him. But at least we can tell him that we read the article.”

“Sure,” I said. “It would be weird if you didn't.”

When Levi got on the bus a few minutes later, Cash and the other guys surrounded him, newspaper in hand. Cash pointed to the newspaper and said something I didn't hear. Levi's face reddened, and then Cash whacked him a couple of times on the back and shook his arm, smiling the whole time. Levi smiled back—a big, wide smile. Then Hartwell climbed on board, and Levi's smile disappeared in a blink. Hartwell told everyone to sit down and did a quick head count. The door hissed shut, and the bus headed to the Tacoma Dome.

B
Y THE TIME WE WERE
in uniform and ready to take the floor, the guys were like guitar strings wound so tightly that they were ready to snap. I was wound up too, but beneath the excitement I felt strangely calm.

Hartwell must have given us a pep talk in the locker room, though I don't remember a word. We took the court and went through our normal pregame routines, only nothing felt normal about them. Everything—the noise, the crowd, the cameras—had been ratcheted up ten notches. It was like being in the center of a tornado; familiar things were all around, but they were flying by so fast that they were hard to recognize.

Just before game time, Coach Knecht wobbled across the court to join the team. He was using a cane and had a man—maybe his son—at his elbow. The Harding fans stood for Knecht, stamping their feet and roaring. The cheering was so loud that the Garfield guys stopped their warm-ups to watch. Coach Knecht waved to the crowd. Hartwell, all smiles, motioned for Knecht to sit next to him, but Knecht tottered to the end of our bench, taking a seat next to Brandon, who hadn't played in three weeks.

The Garfield guys came out playing fast, trying to knock us out in the first minutes of the game by intimidating us with their speed and power. But the line between
fast
and
too fast
is thin, and they crossed it.

The calm I felt had stayed with me despite the roaring crowd, so I used Garfield's aggression against them. They went for my fakes, trying for steals, and in the first five minutes, Cash and Levi beat them three times for backdoor lay-ins.

We also caught some breaks from the refs. They knew about the scuffle in our last Garfield game, and they were not going to let the state championship game turn into a street brawl. That worked against Garfield, because this time around when they muscled Levi, they were whistled for fouls. When the buzzer sounded ending the first quarter, we were up, 12–10.

We had a decent numbers of supporters, though fewer than Garfield, but there were a couple of thousand people in the stands who were just basketball fans. They'd come in expecting to see Garfield run us out of the gym. Instead, the game had taken on a David-and-Goliath feel, with us playing the role of David. Most of those people came over to our side, hoping to see Goliath go down. Having the crowd on your side is a big deal in a championship game. Most experts say crowd noise is worth at least six points, and some say it's worth as many as ten.

During the break at the end of the quarter, I studied the faces of the Garfield guys. Their jaws were clenched, but there was doubt in their eyes. The longer we hung with them, the tighter they'd get. We didn't have to be in the lead, but we had to stay close. If they ever pulled ahead by ten, then they'd relax and their talent could easily push the lead out to twenty.

Throughout the second and third quarters, we used the best parts of Hartwell's style and Knecht's—fast breaking when we had an advantage, working the shot clock when we didn't. We stayed out of foul trouble, didn't turn the ball over much, shot a decent percentage. The Garfield guys made the sensational plays, but every basket counts the same—sensational or ordinary. They were better than we were, but we were more in sync, and I was the director, setting up each play.

At the end of the third quarter, we led, 41–40.

I
N THE FOURTH QUARTER
, the game completely changed. On their first possession, a Garfield player came flying down the lane. He soared in the air for the lay-up, knocking me flat on my back on his way to the hoop. I looked to the ref, wondering if he'd call a charge or a block. To my astonishment, he called nothing. And that's how it went. The refs had held a tight rein for three quarters, but they didn't want to determine the final outcome, so in the fourth quarter they swallowed their whistles and let us play.

I struggled to adjust. More than once after I got knocked to the ground, I growled at the ref for not calling anything. And the Garfield guys went after Levi even more than they went after me. My frustration kept growing by the minute.

About midway through the quarter, Hartwell called a time-out. He used it to complain about a non-call on a slashing drive to the hoop by Cash. While Hartwell was arguing with the officials, Coach Knecht motioned for me to come down to him. When I was a couple feet away from him, he grabbed me by the elbow and yanked me to him. “Stop begging for calls,” he shouted at me, gripping my arm so tightly it hurt. “No one is going to give you a championship. Get out there and take it.” There was elation in his voice.

Hartwell had finished complaining to the refs and was madly motioning for me to join the huddle. Knecht let go of my arm, and I hurried to join my teammates. Hartwell yelled something I couldn't hear just as the horn sounded, calling us back to the court.

The final four minutes of the game were a war. Cash muscled up a jump shot, banking it in off the glass; Garfield answered with a put-back down low, the Garfield guy grunting like an animal after stuffing the ball through. Back and forth, up and down the court, one play after another. The T-Dome was electric loud; you could feel the place sweat. I heard the roars of the crowd, but somehow I didn't hear them—or at least they didn't affect me. With just over a minute left, I crossed over on my guy, went up and under, scored the hoop, and was fouled so hard I ended up flat on my back. Even then there was no whistle, so I scrambled to my feet and ran back to play defense, peeking at the scoreboard as I did.

Garfield ran a set play, isolating their guard against me down low. He bumped me and bumped me, working closer and closer to the hoop.
I'm going to stop you; I'm going to stop you
. That's what I thought, but just when I was certain he was going to spin right, he stepped back and swished a jump shot over me.

Game tied.

Twenty-two seconds remaining. Everyone in the gym was up, screaming. I brought the ball into forecourt and passed it to DeShawn. He looked shocked to get it and passed it right back to me as if it were on fire. I worked my way to the top of the key, keeping my dribble alive. If nothing opened, I'd drive to the hoop.

That's when I spotted Cash down low, setting a back screen for Levi. Ten seconds were left in the game. Levi faked like he was coming to right wing and then broke to the hoop. I flipped the ball up toward the backboard. Levi rose into the air and—in one motion—caught it and slammed it down.

The place erupted.

Could it really happen?

Could Harding really beat Garfield?

Garfield's coach immediately signaled for a time-out. While we huddled around Hartwell, the refs checked the television monitor and put four seconds on the clock.

The horn sounded and both teams returned to the court. This was it—the final play. Levi was jumping up and down trying to distract Garfield's inbound passer, but he still managed to heave the ball two-thirds of the way downcourt. I tipped it, the ball bounced once, and then a Garfield guy grabbed it and in one motion flung the ball toward the hoop. The horn sounded while the ball was in the air. My heart sank: I was sure it was going to be one of those shots that end up on YouTube, a miracle game-winner that would be seen by millions.

Instead, the ball missed the backboard entirely, ending up in the lap of a man sitting four rows up. A couple of Garfield guys fell to their knees and then dropped to their elbows, heads down. I caught Levi's eye, and we just stared at each other for a long moment.

We'd done it.

A second later, Cash grabbed me from behind and swung me toward center court. Suddenly all the guys were there, and we jumped around for a while, a crazed mob, all of us as one. Every once in a while, I peeked back up at the scoreboard. The numbers didn't change. We'd beaten Garfield.

We were state champions.

T
HE TROPHY CEREMONY AT CENTER
court was chaotic. Photographers shoved cameras into my face as I shook hands with a bunch of people I didn't know, most of whom said things I couldn't hear. Somebody from the state Athletic Association handed a trophy to Hartwell, and then Hartwell handed it to Coach Knecht. Knecht tried to hand it back to Hartwell, and finally the two of them together raised it up into the air. The Harding fans who had hung around cheered wildly, and they cheered again when Levi was named MVP of the tournament. A man from the state Athletic Association gave a short speech, and then somebody from the Dairy Farmers Association thanked a whole bunch of people, and at last the ceremony was over.

Back in the locker room, Hartwell told us that he'd arranged a pizza party for us in Seattle. “You can phone your girlfriends and parents, but we can't have the whole school. Okay?”

For the first few minutes, we were loud in the locker room, but we were too exhausted to keep the high going. I was glad to climb on the bus; a long ride back in the dark was just what I wanted.

I sat next to Levi. I had him pull the MVP trophy out of his duffle bag so I could look at it. “You deserved this,” I said. “You were great in every single game.”

He took the trophy back from me and zipped it up again.

“You could go to Shoreline Community College next year,” I said in an excited whisper. “I looked it up; they've always got good teams. You could play for them for a couple of years, and then transfer to UW or someplace like that. You're way better than me, you know.”

Levi shook his head. “Come on, Jonas. What would I study in college?”

“You could be an art major, for one thing, with the way you draw. Or you could study forestry or something like that. I don't know what I'm going to study, but I'm going.”

“You can study the forest in college?”

“They have forestry classes at Monitor College. If Monitor has them, then UW would have them too.”

“You really think I could go to college?”

“Yes, I do.”

There was a long pause. The lights of Tacoma were behind us; we'd entered a dark stretch of freeway. “You're not going to let it drop, are you?” Levi said, his voice low.

My mouth went dry. I swallowed. “I've told you. I can't. And I've told you why. But I'll be with you every step of the way. We'll do this together.”

He turned away from me and looked out the window; I closed my eyes and let the time pass. There was nothing left to say.

When we pulled into the Harding High parking lot, about fifty people were waiting for us, and they cheered when we stepped off the bus. My dad hugged me and told me how proud he was. My mom kissed me before giving me the keys to the Subaru. I told her that parents were invited to the party, but she shook her head. “It's for you and your teammates, not for us. Enjoy yourself.”

I drove with Levi to Zeeks Pizza on Phinney Avenue.
“Let's forget about everything and just have a good time tonight,” I said.

He nodded. “Sure, Jonas. Whatever you say.”

After I'd parked the Subaru, I realized my sweats didn't have any pockets, so I shoved the keys under the floor mat and left the doors unlocked.

Before we'd gotten on the bus, Cash and some of the other guys had texted their girlfriends about the party. I'd texted Celia, though I didn't think she'd show. But as I got out of the car, I saw her across the parking lot. She waved to me and smiled, and I walked quickly over to where she stood.

As I neared her, she reached out and hugged me. “That was so exciting, Jonas! Congratulations!”