The Sidekick, page 22
“Field goals made.”
“No way he gets seven buckets. I mean, look at him.”
“He looks all right.”
“He looks like a thirty-five-year-old guy who retired three years ago.”
Fred Rotha weighed in. “Five for twenty-one, six rebounds, six assists. Seventeen, eighteen points. Six turnovers.”
“He looks good to me,” my father said.
Overhead, and all around, a voice from the PA system called out the Lakers’ starting five … it was hard to imagine an actual five-foot-something human being sitting somewhere with a mic in hand. Like the Wizard of Oz behind the green curtain. The Statesman actually ran a piece about this guy, Larry Winfrey, who played one of the deputies in Pale Rider and had bit parts in other eighties Westerns, because he really could sit a horse and rope a steer. Then he got sick of LA and came home to Texas. His voice was one of those voices where you think, how do you even use it in private life. Kobe Bryant ran out in breakaway sweats (“From Lower Merion High School …”), and then the lights went dark and we couldn’t see our hands. It was hard to type, even with the lit-up computer screen. The ceiling seemed to open outward to the night sky, and you were aware of vast spaces and concentrations of people, and a kind of nervous restless undercurrent spreading through the crowd.
A dozen spotlights swept around the court, scattered like stars and formed again into the shape of Texas … And now for your hometown Austin SUPERsonics … Winfrey stretched the word out so it sounded like a plane taking off, and then the PA system played “Texas (When I Die),” and sixteen thousand people started clapping to the beat.
I’m almost ashamed to admit, my eyes filled. For a second I wondered who would claim the honors and come out last. Then Mmeremikwu loped on (“All the way … from Marseille FRANCE”), followed by Eddie Roundtree, Ramon Neves and Ty Jones. There was a pause, until Winfrey rolled out the phrases … “All the way from … East Austin, from Burleson High, from the University of Texas, three-time NBA Finals MVP … Marcus Hayes” while Tanya Tucker’s voice broke through the music:
When I die, I may not go to heaven
I don’t know if they let cowboys in
If they don’t, just let me go to Texas, boy,
Because Texas is as close as I’ve been …
And when Marcus walked slowly on court, everyone stood up and the spotlight followed him, and his childhood was my childhood, and there he was, twenty years later, still playing … while Tanya Tucker sang on, New York could not hold my attention, Detroit City could not sing my song … If tomorrow finds me busted flat in Dallas, … all good NBA towns … and then abruptly went silent. The ordinary stadium lights switched on and suddenly ten guys were lining up around a circle, waiting for a man in a black-and-white shirt to throw a ball in the air.
26
At six o’clock, in the half-light, the grackles woke me up.
Something Betsy once said kept rolling around my head. She said, you know, it’s really not that hard to kiss somebody. It’s really not that big a deal. In movies they make out like, it’s something you have to be good at. But nobody’s that good. It’s really kind of a stupid thing to do. What I mean is you don’t have to worry about it, if you’re worried. You’ll be fine.
But I couldn’t remember if my lips touched Shelley’s lips before she turned away or not, or if maybe I just kissed her cheek. It was like lying in bed and going over some dumb layup you missed in a game. You can’t believe you missed it and no matter what your imagination wants, it doesn’t change the facts. And actually you can’t even imagine anything better, because your thoughts keep going over and over the thing that really happened. “Please,” she said. She meant, please stop. She was trying to be nice. Sometimes even in the dark when you’re completely alone you have to physically close your eyes against other people’s points of view.
When I woke up again it was after eleven. I put on shorts and wandered into the kitchen half-naked and drank a glass of juice. Only Mom was up. I said where is everybody, and she said, “Your father has gone to the police station to pick up Marcus.”
*
Afterward I heard various accounts of what happened, but this is what the Statesman reported a few days later. “Burleson High Basketball Star in Barroom Brawl” ran the headline:
Marcus Hayes, a senior at Burleson High, was arrested last Friday night after an altercation at the El Camino Tavern on Burnet, a few hours after leading the basketball team to victory against Reagan High School in the first round of the 4A playoffs. Hayes was in a group of Burleson seniors including at least one other player and several cheerleaders. All of them had been drinking. Also arrested were Mason Kruger and Josh Haldeman, both juniors at the University of Texas. Haldeman was taken to St. David’s Medical Center with a collapsed lung and is in a stable condition. Doctors expect him to make a full recovery.
Hayes, 17, has been listed as a “blue-chip” prospect by Basketball America, and one of the top-fifty high-school point guards in the country.
The story got a number of facts wrong. Marcus wasn’t drinking that night and he isn’t a point guard.
A little after lunch, around two o’clock, my dad’s car pulled into the driveway and I waited out on the porch for them to come up the steps. Marcus wore what he wore the night before, his red-and-black Air Jordans and the Members Only jacket, which maybe he’d rolled up as a pillow, because it was covered in dust. He didn’t look like he’d slept much. A bruise on his cheek had already scabbed over, and you could see the veins in his eyes. If you saw him on the street, you might cross to the other side.
“Hey, Marcus.”
“Where’d you go last night? I was looking for you.”
“Home.”
“You left me hanging,” he said.
But he didn’t want to talk; he wanted to go to bed.
My dad staged an inquisition in the kitchen. He even closed the door, after Marcus disappeared into his room.
What the hell happened, Dad said. I don’t know. What do you mean you don’t know. Shelley drove us with this other girl to this place on Burnet where we got something to eat. Were you drinking. No. Was Marcus drinking. No. What happened then? Nothing; I went home. Alone? Yes. Why’d you go home alone? I don’t know. I didn’t want to be there anymore. Why not? Did you have a fight with Marcus? No. What was Marcus doing when you left? He was inside. I mean, when you saw him last, what was he doing? Eating chili.
The coffee pot was on the counter by the sink, half-full, and my dad poured himself a cold cup. He put a tablespoon of sugar in, too, and Mom gave him a look, and he said, “I couldn’t get back to sleep last night. After the phone rang.” His shirttails were pulled out; his pants were also the pants he gardened in. Then he started up again.
“What time’d you get home?”
“I don’t know. Not late.”
“What does not late mean?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
“Shelley drove you?”
“No, I … took the bus. Then I walked.”
“Why didn’t Shelley drive you?”
“She wanted to stay.”
“Did something happen? Did you have a fight?”
“No. No.”
“So why did you get a bus home by yourself at eleven o’clock at night when all your friends were sticking around?”
“They weren’t my friends.”
“What are you talking about? Marcus, Shelley …”
“Apart from them.”
“Something happened you’re not telling me,” he said.
“What are you bugging me for? I told you. I must have left around ten o’clock—Marcus was still eating. It’s not my fault.”
“What’s not your fault?”
“Whatever you’re accusing me of, which I don’t know what it is.”
Mom said, “Nobody’s accusing you of anything. We’re just worried, that’s all.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is. So he got in a fight with some guys, it happens.”
“This could have consequences for someone in his position. We’re just trying to figure out what to do.”
“All right, leave him alone,” Dad said.
Later that afternoon, Shelley showed up. I was in the living room watching TV. “Is Marcus around?” she said, when I opened the door.
“He’s in his room. I think he’s still sleeping.”
“Does he want to see me?”
“I don’t know. Let him sleep.” Then I said, “Do you want to go for a walk? I need to get out of here.”
The sidewalks in our neighborhood are pretty unreliable; you have to walk in the road half the time, which doesn’t matter, because there aren’t many cars.
Shelley said, “I should have just kissed you when you wanted me to, then none of this would have happened.” She started crying.
“Do you want to sit down somewhere?” I asked, eventually.
“I don’t want anybody to see me.”
“Nobody can see you.”
“Of course they can. We’re in the middle of the road.”
“They’ll think we’re just having, like … a teenage disagreement.”
Eventually we walked back to the park. The swimming pool was still empty and full of leaves, but the water fountain worked, and Shelley sprayed her face and took a long drink. Then we sat on one of the benches next to the chain-link fence. The truth is, I felt kind of happy. I felt like, you’re in the middle of something here, something real. It was cold enough, she sat with her feet under her butt and leaned against me.
“What happened last night?” I said, and she told me.
Around eleven o’clock, Marcus said he wanted to go home, so she offered to drive him. She’d only had a couple of beers, she didn’t feel drunk. But then in the parking lot outside the bar she tried to kiss him and he pushed her away. He said he needed to concentrate on basketball right now. I need to do everything right. That’s what he said. But then those guys from the bar saw him pushing her away. They must have thought … I don’t know what they thought, she said. Maybe that it was the other way around. Anyway, they told him to leave me alone, and he said, what? And they said, Excuse me. Say excuse me, or something like that. It was just … horrible. I didn’t know what to do.
“What did you do?”
After a minute she said, “I don’t think I did anything. I was just standing there. I was kind of … in shock. About everything. I was pretty upset. I mean, even before those guys showed up …” and she looked at me. “Maybe I was a little drunk. I think I did say something. I don’t know. I think I said, like, it’s all right, it’s okay, just … But also I was like, he wanted me to drive him home. And so I tried to pull Marcus away and he pushed me off again, and then one of the guys punched him.”
“Which guy?”
“Josh, I think. I don’t really know them, I never met them before. They’re Briana’s friends. Or not even her friends, her brother’s.”
“Where was everybody else?”
“They were still inside. But then Breon came out and after that … I just tried to get out of the way. It didn’t last very long. I don’t know how long it lasted. And then a cop car pulled up, and everybody ran.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran, too. I didn’t want … I was drinking and it was my car.”
Somebody was spreading gravel in the park, along the paths. He had a rake and a little cart full of gravel. You could just about hear the sound of metal on stone. It was a quiet afternoon.
“What about Marcus?”
“He was on the ground with one of the guys. In the parking lot. But when the headlights hit them, they just lay there.”
“What happened after that?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t stick around.”
For once, Shelley wasn’t wearing makeup so when she cried, it sort of opened out her face; she looked nice.
“I’m getting too cold, I have to keep moving,” she said. But in the end she just walked me back to my house and went home.
*
In the morning, Coach Steuben showed up. I don’t know how he heard about it; the story hadn’t hit the papers yet. Maybe Caukwell called him. The first thing he said was, “I had to pull up behind the Olds. Let me know if you need to get out.”
On Sundays, because of the church, there was nowhere to park.
His cowboy boots clicked on the wooden floor. Mom offered him a cup of coffee, and he said, “Black, two sugars, thank you, ma’am.” Then we all sat down at the kitchen table.
“Is Marcus around?” he asked, and I said, “He’s at the court.”
My dad told me to get him, so I had to put on my shoes. As I walked out, Steuben said, “Maybe it’s just as well if we talk first.”
Marcus was shooting around by himself, in jeans; sometimes when you watched him from a distance it looked like, he’s just messing around. With his head down, shuffling a few steps, feeling the ball in his hands. But a lot of time he was working on footwork. Two steps right, then hesitate, and go right again, but lead with the left foot, to put your body in the way … over and over again. Then when you shoot you have to plant left-footed, too. But from the outside it doesn’t look like much. It looks like a kid who wants people to leave him alone, which is also what it was.
“Coach Steuben’s here.”
“What does he want?”
“You.”
“What does he want with me?”
“I don’t know, Marcus. I’m just the getting guy.”
You could still see the bruise under his eye, but the blood had washed off.
When we got home, nobody asked me to sit down at the kitchen table, but I sat down anyway. Steuben said, “You got a nice shiner coming along,” and Marcus said, “Yes, sir.”
“So what the heck happened Friday night?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? You were there, right, when those guys beat the crap out of you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you start the fight?”
“No, sir.”
“I need to know what kind of trouble you’re in, so I can figure out what kind of trouble I’m in if I stick my neck out for you. Did you pick a fight with those boys?”
“No, sir.”
“You were just minding your own business.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you drinking that night?”
“No, sir.”
“The El Camino is a bar, right? They serve alcohol there?”
“I just wanted something to eat. It was after the game—I get hungry. I don’t know what anybody else was doing.”
“You don’t know if anybody else was drinking?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you see out of that eye?” Steuben asked.
“Marcus, why don’t you tell him what happened,” my mother said.
“I told him. I don’t know.”
“Something must have happened for those boys to pick on you.”
“Brian, maybe you can enlighten us,” my father said.
“I went home early.”
Steuben took another sip of coffee. He had big hands, like baseball gloves, and could barely fit his finger through the handle. “How do those boys look now? You make ’em feel you?”
“There was two of them,” Marcus said.
“Sounds like a fair fight.” And that part of the conversation was over.
Later, Steuben said, “The phone’s gonna go quiet over the next few weeks. All those recruiters who say they love you gonna get real quiet. There’s nothing you can do about that. The only thing you can do is play basketball, if they let you. I’ve already had a word with the Blums about getting a lawyer. Let the lawyers do their thing but you’ve got to stay ready to do yours. I’m talking about Friday night. Maybe if you win a few games, if you make it to State, the phone starts ringing again. But when it does I want you to remember something, I want you to remember who knocked on your door the day after.”
It was really two days ago but who’s counting. “Will you do that for me, Marcus?” Steuben said, and then he stood up and shook everybody’s hand, and walked out, slipping a little on his hard-heeled boots. We watched him from the living room, backing out carefully onto the road in a shitty dirt-white Chevy Beretta with California plates. He was twenty-five years old and this was his first real job.
After he left, Dad said to Marcus, “Have you called your mother?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, have you called her. Have you told her what happened?”
“I got in a fight. I don’t know what the big deal is. I got in fights before.”
“The big deal is, if this affects your recruitment. Marcus, she’s going to find out. Maybe even from the paper. She should find out from you.”
So Marcus pulled the kitchen phone into his bedroom on a long cord and closed the door.
*
On Monday, after school, Coach put Marcus and Breon on the B team, with me and a couple of other stiffs. So Marcus and I played together; he never passed me the ball, not once. But he didn’t really pass to anybody. He took every shot and we won every game.
Dad came to pick us up. Caukwell wanted to talk to him so after practice we met in his office, still sweating and juiced up.
“When’s the arraignment set?” he asked, and my dad told him, “Next Monday.”
Marcus had been charged with a class A misdemeanor, which carried a maximum sentence of a year in jail and a four-thousand-dollar fine. The Haldeman kid might have died; his lung collapsed several hours after the fight, which can happen sometimes. At three in the morning, he felt these stabbing pains and thought he was having a heart attack. They took him to Dell Seton Medical Center, where they shoved a tube in his chest and reinflated him. Josh got off with scratches and bruises. The boys claimed they were just messing around with a bunch of high-school kids, you know, for being where they shouldn’t be and doing what they shouldn’t be doing, and Marcus jumped them in the parking lot afterward. Apparently, it was a he-said he-said problem—there were no other witnesses. So far Shelley’s name hadn’t come up.
