The Sidekick, page 9
“Sometimes he comes down and we drive up together but it’s not like, I mean, I don’t have to read the map. It’s not that far, it takes about an hour.”
“How much do you see him?”
“Enough,” he said.
About half an hour later his mom put her head around the door. “I’m going now. Marcus, look up. Look at me when I speak to you, I need your attention for two minutes.”
“What?”
“I’m turning off the oven now, it’s Friday-night chili. It’ll stay hot for a while, otherwise turn it on again for a few minutes. Or eat it like it is, you know where the Fritos are. I don’t want you hiding out in your room all day with your friend playing on that thing. Your dad comes down to see you.”
“You’re going out.”
“That’s so you two can have some time together, without me getting in the way. Anyway, that’s my choice.”
“What about my choice?”
“You don’t get one here. Listen to me, Marcus. Listen to me.” (He had started up the game again.) “I don’t want to hear about it afterward.”
“Hear what?”
“Like, when I come down he just hides in his room. I don’t want to hear it. I hear enough crap from him anyway.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, what?”
“Okay, like, I’ll do what you want me to do, or be like what you want me to be, I don’t even really know what that is, but I’ll do it.”
“I’m sorry, Brian,” she said, in a different voice. “When you get divorced, that’s one of the things that happens, everybody sees your business.”
After she left, after a few minutes, he turned off the computer and we went into the living room. I just kind of followed him. His dad was watching TV again, and Marcus said, “Okay, Dad, what do you want to do?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mom says I have to like do something with you, so what do you want to do?”
“She isn’t here now, we don’t have to do what she says. This is boys’ time. We can do what we want.”
“Well, what do you want to do?”
“I want to sit here and watch TV.”
It was the six o’clock news and he had the volume turned up high. You had to shout over it. Soviet troops were leaving Afghanistan. Marcus said something, and his dad said what, and Marcus said, “Brian and I are gonna go shoot hoops.” Outside the window, which was over the kitchen sink at the other end of the room, you could see the sunny day going pale, the blue sky wasn’t blue anymore, it looked thin.
“Come on, Brian,” and I followed him again. The ball was in the coat closet by the front door.
“All right, all right, hold up,” and his dad got off the couch and turned off the TV. We waited while he put on his shoes, which he kind of shuffled into, and then sat down again to pull them all the way on and tie the laces.
“Do you know this guy your mom is going out with tonight?”
The stairwell felt like it was halfway outside, because the door at the bottom was really just a metal gate, which let the air in.
“I don’t know. No. Maybe it’s not a guy, maybe it’s one of her girlfriends.”
“She said she had a date.”
“Sometimes she says that stuff just to piss you off.”
The nearest hoop was five blocks away, in the parking lot of the Corinth Baptist Church. There was a high school with a full court, which was closer, but they locked the gates after hours, and we couldn’t get in. The sun actually set while we were walking, you could see it casting shadows across the gravestones of Oakwood Cemetery. It slipped moment by moment behind the trees, which didn’t offer much sound protection from the big tangled mess of the interstate on the far side. Traffic was close enough you could hear it, a lot of people going home on Friday night, heading north to neighborhoods like Hancock or Hyde Park, where I lived, or out of town to the suburbs, like Pflugerville and Round Rock. It was dumb, I should have brought a coat. Marcus had the ball and it rang hollow on the concrete sidewalk in the cold.
When we got there, after warming up, Mr. Hayes said, “How about I take you both on?” He had a funny little short-arm push shot, which barely got over the rim. Whenever he missed, he said to whoever got the rebound, “Give me another, come on, give it to me.” He missed a lot, I kept passing him the ball.
“Dad,” Marcus said. “We’re gonna kill you.”
“Let’s see about that.”
He took the ball first and backed his way in against Marcus, buttfirst, pushing and elbowing and turning from side to side. I just stood around. I felt like, this isn’t my fight. Anyway, it was too cold. Marcus kept reaching and his dad kept slapping his hand away; you could hear the slap. “Come on, Brian,” Marcus said. “Come on.” But his dad was already too deep. He spun, hooking Marcus with his left hand, and laid the ball in with an easy flip. This put some bounce in his step and he clapped his hands.
“My ball,” he said, so I passed him the ball. “Winners out.”
“That’s a hook,” Marcus said. “That’s a foul.”
“You feeling me? You feel me now? I’m teaching you a lesson here. This is what fathers do.”
Then they went at it again. The parking lot had loose gravel on the surface, which skittered around. “Come on, Brian,” Marcus said again, and so I vaguely tried to get in the way, and suddenly felt the grown-man weight of his father against me, when he turned, still pounding the ball, and Marcus slipped past and picked it clean on the half-dribble. I could feel the fat on his father’s back and hips, I could smell him, too, the smell of a guy who had spent the morning working and then an hour in the car and then a couple of hours sitting around in his ex-wife’s apartment, where maybe he didn’t want to shower or clean up, because it wasn’t his apartment and anyway what did he care. When Marcus tried to drive past him he stuck out a forearm and pushed him back hard.
“That’s a hand check,” Marcus said. “That’s a foul.”
“Come on, son. You’re better than that.”
“This isn’t football. You have to know how to play.”
“I know how to teach you how to play.”
And so it went on. Marcus passed me the ball and told me to shoot; his dad was already breathing heavy, standing under the basket, waiting for the rebound. The first time I shot I missed; my hands were still cold, they felt like baseball gloves. Nobody could score. Marcus wanted to win too bad, it was like that first game against Copperas Cove, he was too hyped up. Also, we could barely see the rim. The sun had set, and the gray light had a weird rich depth, like color by Technicolor. Our breath misted on the air, there was a streetlight by the cemetery fence that cast a distant glow. But after a while I got the feel of the space in my head, it was like mentally arranging the furniture, and the truth is, what are we talking about, eight-foot dink shots against the backboard. I should make those with my eyes closed. Mr. Hayes had just planted himself under the basket. Half the net was torn away and when the ball went through it hit him in the face.
“Brian can shoot,” Marcus said, giggling. “You can’t leave him.”
But his dad was just too tired. We beat him pretty easy. I don’t think he even cared by the end.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s getting dark, I don’t want nobody to get hurt. Let’s eat, I’ve had a pretty long day.”
Marcus wanted to keep playing, he wanted to go one-on-one. “Come on, Dad,” he said. “You’re just chicken.”
But Mr. Hayes had turned into the grown-up.
“We can play in the morning,” he said. “We got all weekend.” And then, because he couldn’t help himself, “We can straighten out that jump shot.” Which is when I should have said, he knocked down three straight last night to beat Lanier, he didn’t miss. But I didn’t say anything.
“You don’t know this guy your mom is going out with?” Mr. Hayes said.
“I told you, Dad. She just likes to piss you off.”
“I’m not just talking about tonight. I’m trying to look out for you, I want to know who she’s got hanging around.”
I followed two or three paces behind them in the dark, but I could hear every word. The high school cuts through 17th Street, so we had to walk around it, past Paquito and Alamo. Sidewalks faded in and out so we walked in the middle of the road. In those days most of the houses were still little ranch houses, with driveways and a bit of front yard. Brick siding or limestone, furniture on the porch. Most of the lights were on inside, it was Friday night, dinner and TV time. Telephone poles grew right next to the curb, leaning like trees. They talked around me like I wasn’t there.
“If you was here you wouldn’t need to ask me,” Marcus said. He sounded different around his father.
“Is that what you want? Did you tell your mother that?”
“I don’t tell her nothing she doesn’t need to know.”
“Maybe she needs to know that.”
“You have to tell her.”
“I tried, Marcus. I tried.”
After the heat of the game, in the cooling down, this is how they talked. But they also walked in silence.
“So you won last night,” his father said at last. We were coming up to Chestnut Avenue, where the traffic thickened after MLK. I could see the ivy of Su Casa apartments in the flash of headlights.
“Yeah, we won.”
“Who’d you beat?”
“Lanier.”
“How many points you score?”
“Thirteen.”
“That all?” and he opened the gate to the stairwell. I guess he had a set of keys.
When we got back to the apartment, I said, “Maybe I should call my dad.”
“Don’t you want to eat?”
“I don’t know, it might take him a while to get here.”
“Where’s he live?” Mr. Hayes said. “Westlake Hills?”
But he was kidding me and I didn’t get the joke. Afterward, he took the chili out of the oven and Marcus got a bag of Fritos and we sat down. Mr. Hayes said grace beforehand. It’s the first time I ever sat at somebody’s table where they said grace—I already had a spoon in my mouth. But when he started with “Bless us O Lord and these thy gifts,” I closed my eyes and felt dumb. The chili was warm not hot but that didn’t matter, everybody felt hungry. A few minutes later the doorbell rang, and I said, “I guess that’s my dad,” but Mr. Hayes had to go downstairs to let him in. I almost followed but he said, “Finish your food.” I looked at Marcus but Marcus had his face to the bowl, he wasn’t talking. Then we heard our fathers coming up the stairs.
They looked in their own way like brothers. Two big men, overweight and overaged, as if even getting older comes from laziness or sloppy habits—men who look like … not everything has turned out their way, but maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. My dad wore dirty chinos and no socks in his loafers. Like Mr. Hayes, he sometimes struggled to put on his shoes. But he also looked happy, he liked company, he liked talking to people. All day long he sat around at home sometimes doing accounts but also watching TV and feeling, I don’t know what he felt, like a dripping faucet. Waiting for his kids to come back from school, so the second part of his working day could begin, where he made us a snack and drove us to music lessons and bugged us about homework, until Mom got home and started cooking. He said, “Hey Marcus, I hear you’re the big star.”
“What’s that?” His father answered for him.
“Marcus was Mr. Clutch last night. This is what Brian tells me.”
“Is that right? Is that right?”
Mr. Hayes’s voice when he was smiling sounded like soda overflowing or a bad radio connection, it had a kind of static in it. He offered my dad a bowl of chili, there was plenty in the pot, but I said, “I guess I’m finished already. Maybe we should just go home.”
So that’s what we did. On Monday at school Marcus didn’t say anything about the visit so I took my lead from him and didn’t mention it.
11
When Marcus and I were kids, Austin was a college town and a football town. Now it’s one of the fastest growing cities in America. The culture has changed, it’s whiter, richer, less Southern. The demographic moving in is basically a basketball demographic. Laycock was a businessman, he wanted to make money. The city had promised him a stadium, although there was still a bond vote coming up. Until then the team could play in the Erwin Center, where Marcus played in college. It seated almost 17,000, which put it at the bottom end of NBA stadia in terms of capacity, but still in the ballpark. If taxpayers voted down the new bond, who knows what would happen. But Laycock figured that if he brought playoff basketball to Austin, nobody would vote it down.
I quoted him for the story, too: Marcus Hayes Is Coming Home.
None of my pieces ever got so many hits. By the end of the month, my agent had a deal with HarperCollins for the book, and for that, Marcus had to sign off, he had to grant exclusive access. For weeks I waited around to get his signature. First, he was in China on a shoe tour, then he was training hard in LA, trying to get in game shape. Nobody could reach him; everything shuts down in August anyway, I mean, my publisher and agent, the literary types. So the deal was on hold. Meanwhile, I had to rearrange my life.
At the end of August I packed a few suitcases, put a bunch of crap in storage, rented out the apartment and drove west. My dad refused to fly because of the DVT, even though the doctors had cleared him; but it didn’t matter, we made a road trip out of it. We didn’t need any furniture because my sister said we could stay with her and help look after the kids. By that point Greg had moved out. Well, she kicked him out. She said she’d rather live with us. “It’s either you or get a dog,” she said. “That’s what I promised the boys. And I don’t want a dog.”
It’s a two-day drive if you drive all day; we took three.
I own a Corolla, the trunk size is not really adequate. We had to fill the back seat with luggage. Not even suitcases but just stuff we couldn’t fit anywhere else. Like, how many shoes do you really need to take? We put them in paper grocery bags. It feels weird locking the door for the last time. You think, did I leave a coffee mug in the sink? Does it matter? But it’s also like, when you get in the car, and everything you actually need is in the car, and you can really go anywhere in the world or at least America (even if the place you’re going is your hometown, and the person you’re going with is your father, who you still live with), you feel light, you feel happy, you feel like, fuck everything, who cares, I’m basically okay, which is what I felt.
Of course, we argued most of the time. The plan was to reach Knoxville by dinnertime, where my dad had a fraternity buddy. I said, Dad, this guy does not want to see us, he does not want to put us up. Of course he wants to. He’ll be excited to see you again. Steve reads your stuff all the time, he told me so. You’re famous. Dad, I said, Dad …
Steve turned out to own several furnished apartments in Fort Sanders, near the university. That’s actually where we stayed the night, in one of his student rentals—because the semester hadn’t started yet, he had a lot of empty units. He brought sheets and towels from his own house and took us out to dinner. And, in fact, it’s true, he had read my article and wanted to discuss Marcus Hayes.
My dad said, “Brian is writing a book about him, he signed a six-figure deal.”
“Well, I still have to get access.”
“He requested you specifically, you’re the only reporter he trusts.”
The poor guy had to listen to all of this, maybe he got a kick out of it, I don’t know. Dad also talked about Betsy. My daughter is having a temporary break from her marriage. I’m moving back just to help out; she’s got two small boys. Since I’m retired anyway. And Brian has the book to write. After fourteen hours on the road, when you just want to go to bed, you don’t even bother to correct him. The waiters started putting chairs on the tables.
On the drive the next morning, we argued about Greg.
“There’s something going on that I don’t understand. Every interaction I had with him was pleasant—he was the kind of guy, if Betsy was in high school, I would have been happy for him to escort her to the prom.”
When my father took the wheel, he pushed the seat back so far it was almost like he was sitting in the row behind. He laid his forearm on the window frame; to check the mirrors he adjusted his eyes. The impression he gave was of expertise and control.
“She never dated guys like that in high school.”
“Yes, well.”
“Probably because that’s not the kind of guy she likes.”
“Somebody who respects her, somebody who treats her like a serious person.”
“He bores her.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” my father said. “At her age, in her position, who has time to be bored. When she gets home from work, it’s put food on the table, wash the clothes, brush the teeth, get the boys to bed. Go to bed yourself so you can do the whole thing again tomorrow. If this life bores you, you should sign up for a different life.”
“Maybe that’s what she wants to do.”
“This is not a realistic option. When you have kids. That is your life. And by the way, what she’s signed up for is not rock and roll. It’s living with you and me. I think, after a few months of us, she may reconsider.”
“Listen,” I said. “I don’t even really disagree with you. But I don’t want you to show up at the house with false expectations. What you said to your friend about a temporary arrangement—that’s not the sense I get from Betsy. The sense I get from her is, this has been a long time coming.”
We stopped at the Arby’s just after the exit to Lebanon and picked up sandwiches to eat in the car. They’re even good cold the next day, we bought enough for two meals. The weather was summer hazy, and sometimes you could see a storm cloud waiting for you at the highway horizon, a sort of stain on the air, which you slowly approached and then entered, the light changed, rain slashed the windshield, and then you emerged again. We passed Nashville and Memphis and crossed the border into Arkansas. From time to time we got gas and switched seats. My dad had a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke, which he nursed the whole trip—the sound of the built-up carbonation releasing every time he twisted the cap was one of the sounds you get used to in the car. It slowly flattened as the miles rolled away beneath us but my dad drank it anyway.
