Ultimate Sports (29 page)

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Though it is hot out, high eighties, you wear sweats to cut the grass. Bulky sweats. You wear them because they are beautiful and well cut with the logo and breezy tropical colors of the Florida Marlins. They give you the illusion of size, as opposed to the reality of just height. The illusion of fluid motion, that sleek fish cutting through the surf, as opposed to the reality of robotic jangling elbows and clomping flat feet.

You wear it because you figure she’ll be watching, and she is. Part of the time sitting on the steps, part of the time walking alongside as you push the man-powered old mower over the quarter-acre lot. She makes small talk, mostly about you and your jobs and your independence
which she envies. She may notice, but she makes no mention of the sweat running down your face all over. She sweats, but neatly, a bubbly glistening contained on her lip and brow.

You try not to, but you do occasionally steal a glance sideways to look at her, talking and moving at the same time, gesturing even, comfortable with it all, with those long long legs of hers loping along serenely like a giraffe’s. Through the fog of the heat vapors rising and the perspiration falling from the tips of your eyelashes you look, and you want to get to her. To reach out your spidery arms which aren’t good for a great many things but which could certainly reach from here and bring her in closer. You know it’s unreasonable, you know it’s very soon yet, and you know you don’t actually do that sort of thing, you know all that. You want to do it just the same. You don’t, of course.

You finish your work, frothy as a farm beast, drench yourself with the hose, and collect your pay.

She invites you. Across the lawn, with its fresh clippings sticking to the black leather sneakers you wear for the same reason fat people wear black shirts. The smell of the cut grass is a bit of a revival, filling your head, giving you the feeling, as it always does, that something has been done, that something is improved in your wake. She offers you a Jolt cola or a Gatorade, your choice, and you say that both together sounds like a good idea.

As you sit on the upturned wheelbarrow in her driveway sipping your drinks, she absently scoops up a basketball and dribbles it. Then she flicks her wrist and the ball clangs off the rim mounted above the garage door. She chases it down and lays it in. She takes it back out fifteen feet, wheels, and drops the shot.

You watch her for a while and enjoy it like you’ve never enjoyed basketball before. Because it’s not quite basketball. You watch it the way you figure people watch ice dancing. She is grace, all her moves just one long continuous extension of all her other moves. She shoots with one hand, the other hand, both hands. She looks like the Statue of Liberty for a second, then like Gregory Hines splitting in midair. Even when she misses she looks good, rebounding with an explosive two-step and putting the ball back up while she’s still in the air.

“Twenty-one?” she asks mischievously, squeezing the ball with her elbows pointed straight out in either direction.

You turn and look down the driveway behind you, to see who she’s talking to. When you find no one you turn back to see her grinning, pointing at you, with the ball on her hip now.

First you shudder. But you’ve got the Jolt in you, and the Gatorade. And you’re at least four inches taller than her.

“Take that sweatshirt off at least, will you? You’re going to die right here in my driveway.”

You laugh, but there’s no way you are going to take off your shirt in front of her. “It’s not so bad,” you say, and push up your sleeves to the elbows.

She offers to let you have first possession. You decline. You are the man, after all. And you don’t
want
first possession. She shrugs, takes the ball, doesn’t move her feet at all as she floats a shot over your head. It doesn’t go in, but by the time you’ve turned to see, she’s already blown by, picked up the ball, and rolled it in.

She takes it out again, dribbles to her right. You keep your hands up. That’s all you know, keep your hands up
like a human letter Y and keep yourself between her and the hoop. Desperately you try to do that, but you can’t manage to sidestep, sidestep, and you wind up running awkwardly cross-body, foot over foot. You manage the small victory of not falling, but watch as she passes directly under the basket to come up for a reverse layup on the other side.

She cannot believe you are as bad as this so she laughs, thinking you are toying. You laugh along, dropping your hands. As soon as you do, she races by. You chase. She stops short. You fly past. She pulls up and banks an easy jumper.

She’s into double figures and your Florida Marlins sweats with the leaping fish are soaked by the time she seems to gather that you have nothing.
Nothing
. You don’t laugh anymore, don’t smile. You try like hell. Only halfway through a game neither one of you wants to finish. But she’s kind enough not to offer, and you’re stupid enough not to quit. You sweep at the ball and actually tick it, knocking it out of her hands. She doesn’t chase, and you get it. You are an impossible twenty feet from the basket, but you heave the ball from where you are. Air ball, of course, and she looks irritated that you did it.

She stands practically in your shoes as she squares up to take the midrange jumper. You are looming over her, the shot begging to be blocked. If there is one thing you should be able to do, this is that thing. She goes up, you go up. You can see the ball, you can see your outstretched hand, you can see her outstretched hand as the ball leaves it.

It has always been this way. It has never mattered whether the shooter was a foot shorter, or could not jump, or didn’t even try to jump. It’s as if there is just
something, something about trajectory, something about time, that everyone else knows but that you do not. You have never arrived at that point in the air at the same time that the ball has. Never.

What you need here is a cold-blooded killer, someone willing to stick the dagger in, twist it, beat you soundly and quickly. What you have, unfortunately, is a girl with a heart. She tries to joke again, but the pity is clear on her face and in her game. As she creeps toward twenty-one, she tries mightily to get you some points. She dribbles the ball off her foot, expertly booting it right into your hands. You fire up another brick. She hauls in the rebound out of instinct, but stands flat-footed and lets you take it away from her. It is a gimme, but you panic and roll it off the rim.

“Why didn’t you just stick it, for God’s sake?” she yells, angry like a coach. She’s mad at having to work harder for your points than for her own. “You’re that close to the hoop with the ball in your hands, you jam it in. It’s not even regulation height.”

Out of her exasperation come more baskets. A bank shot, a hook shot, a short baseline jumper—all rain right over your head. It feels better than the charity, though.

She needs only one basket to finish it, to skunk you finally, a shutout. “Don’t forget, gotta win by two,” she says, a tired smile relighting her game face. She dribbles once behind her back, between her legs, to her right, to her left. By most standards, she is not a great ballhandler, very shaky and off-balance with the showtime moves that seem unnatural to her. But you can’t touch her.

Suddenly for no good reason she pulls up from long range. She doesn’t penetrate at all, which she has already
proven is easy enough to do. Instead she lets it fly, from three- or four- or five-point land. A line drive, a bullet. You turn to watch the shot ricochet off the front of the rim and bounce all the way straight out to you. She hasn’t moved for the hoop, so there you are with the ball and nothing but air between you and the basket.

You put the ball on the floor. It works once. You bounce if successfully a second time, then manage a third, fourth, fifth consecutive off-balance dribble as you lumber toward the hoop.

If you were alone, you would have taken some small pride in having come within five feet of the basket before having the ball trail off harmlessly in one direction while you and your empty hands go flailing off in another.

You don’t try to talk to her as you angle off the side of the driveway, across her front yard, toward home. You stare straight ahead and compulsively keep pushing your sleeves back up. They slide back down over your forearms; you push them back up.

“It’s not important, you know,” she says from right behind you. You don’t want to hear it. She comes up alongside, locked into step with you, the two of you marching along like a pair of string-bean soldiers. She marches and swings her hands, a little comedy, as she tries to catch your eyes with hers. You see her clearly in your peripheral view, but you will not turn.

“Realty,” she says, “I really don’t think it’s a big deal. I beat guys all the time. We’re not all athletes, you know.”

None of it means anything, until she touches your arm. You have just pushed the sleeve back up, again, and her fingertips feel cool and wet there. You stop walking.

“I
can
do stuff,” you say, a little desperately. “People just think because of the way I look that I’m supposed to
play ball. But I can do stuff. I can do lots of other stuff. I’m not a loser, you know. Pm not a geek.”

“Nobody said you were,” she says.

“You want to see? I have a lot of stuff, back at my house. I’d love to show you. I have a ball signed by Bill Russell, did you know that? I shook his hand. He hates this whole city, and he shook my hand. I paid the money and he signed the ball and shook my hand and laughed that spooky cackle laugh even though I didn’t say anything at all to the guy. You want to see it?”

She nods, impressed. “I’d like to see that, sure.”

It seems like no one is home when you bring her in through the front door. “Mom,” you call out tentatively. You get the no-answer you hope for.

“You have a very nice place,” she says. “It’s so clean and airy. Really nice.”

“My mom,” you say, leading her up the stairs. “My mom is wild for cleaning and straightening. This is nothing, though. Wait’ll you see my room.”

It was something you hadn’t thought much about, something you just took for granted after so long. You smile at her as you stand for a second before your door, which is almost entirely taken up by a life-sized poster of Evander Holyfield, who is perfect and sculpted and smiling and a half foot shorter than you. The poster is signed. You own Evander Holyfield.

But as soon as you swing the door open and look at her astonished face, you remember. You feel yourself go flush as she beams.

“This is unbelievable,” she says, scanning the brilliance of the room. “It’s like opening a door on the Academy Awards show.”

“Oh, never mind that,” you say, but it is too late. She
rushes to the tall chest of drawers, covered with trophies. She careens over to the dresser, blinding with the trophies themselves and their reflections off the mirror behind them. The nightstands on either side of the bed, covered. Small brass loinclothed men standing atop pedestals, arms raised triumphant, at attention all along the baseboard of four walls.

“Hey, let me show you that ball,” you say, even your voice sweaty now. You make for the closet.

“Track.” She points at one modest third-place plaque hanging on the wall. “Tennis?” She points at a trophy, the player bent over backward in midserve. “Football, boxing, hockey. Sailing? Who
are
you?” Her voice, momentarily filled with awe, changes as soon as she gets up close and begins reading. You are buried in the closet, but you can tell. You take your time.

“Wait a minute. Oh, I know who you are. You’re Sven Lundquist. Oh no, you’re Eamonn O’Rourke. Wait, wait, you’re Jamaal Abdoul.”

When she starts laughing hysterically, you come out of the closet.

“This is soooo cute,” she says, delighted. “You’re a funny guy.”

“No it isn’t,” you answer coolly. “And no I’m not.”

“Come on now, you’re kidding me, right?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Well, then, what? It’s a hobby, right? It’s a cool idea, I think. You’ll probably wind up with an unbelievable collection, the way you’re going. A real conversation starter, to say the least.”

“No, they’re mine.”

“They’re yours. You
won
them? All?”

You nod.

“Stop pulling my leg. Okay, so you won, ah”—she browses—“the American Legion baseball championship in 1990? You also won… the New England regional Golden Gloves middleweight title in… oooh, you were a busy boy in 1990, huh?”

“They’re mine,” you say.

“Sure they’re yours, because you bought them, or swiped them, but not because you
earned
them.”

“Please. I earned them. I did, I earned them. Can we not talk about them anymore? Look, here’s the Russell ball.”

“Just, okay, for my peace of mind, before we move on, just can I hear you tell me you know these are somebody else’s awards?”

You know the stakes, you know the true facts. You know you don’t want her to leave, and you know the appropriate answer. You open your mouth, and some words come out.

“They are mine. Really. They belong to me.”

She backs toward the door, talking calmly, sadly. Pity again. “Being a geek is okay, you know. Being a psychopath is not. You can
be
a lovable geek….”

“They really are mine,” you say, almost following her. She’s on her way down the stairs. You get to the threshold of your bedroom but you don’t cross it, unable to go out even though you’d like to bring her back.

You hear your mother say hello as they pass each other at the front door. The response is a polite but rushed hi as she speeds out.

When your mother reaches your room you are rapidly tearing open all your remaining 1994 Upper Deck Collector’s Choice packs. You are certain that the prizewinner is in there, the ticket that puts you on Griffey’s card for
the millions of hobbyists and girls to see next year. As each pack comes up a loser, you drop it to the floor. Your mother looks at your face and she knows the story. You can see your fractured heart in hers.

“Son, I told you. I told you you shouldn’t let anyone in here.” She stands in the doorway holding a crinkled brown shopping bag. She pulls out a small but different-looking prize, the figurine on top made of white marble instead of metal. “This was at the thrift shop today. I thought you’d like it, thought you could make room for it. You don’t already have anything from soccer, do you?”