Rust and Bone: Stories

THE RIFLEMAN

LET ME TELL YOU, the pure shooter’s a dying breed. We’re talking pretty much extinct: think snow leopard, Komodo dragon, manatee. The dunk shot more or less killed the pure shooter: nowadays everyone wants to be a rim-rocker, shatter the backboard to make the nightly highlight reel. You got kids with pogo-stick legs leaping clear out the gym but these same kids cannot hit a jumpshot to save their life. Blame Dominique Wilkens, Michael Jordan, Dr. J. A few shooters still haunt the league, scrawny white riflemen hefting daggers from beyond the three-point arc; most Euros have a deft touch, skills honed in some backwater -vakia or -garia with no ESPN on the dial. A damn shame, because few things in life are as sweet as the sound a basketball makes passing through an iron hoop: we’re talking dead through the heart of the net, no rim, no glass. Called a swish, that sound, but truly it exists somewhere beyond human description—if heaven has a soundtrack, man, that is it.

My son’s going to change all that. Jason’ll make it cool to be a pure shooter again; once he’s chewing up the NBA you’ll see kids practicing spot-up j’s instead of windmill dunks. I take credit for that silkysmooth jumper of his: feet set in a wide stance, knees bent and elbows cocked at eye level, smooth follow-through with the wrist. We drilled for hours on the driveway net until the mechanics imprinted themselves at a cellular level. Read in the newspaper he went off for thirty-seven against Laura Secord High; those numbers’ll attract scouts from Div I programs, believe-you-me. Jason’s a Prime Time Player—a PTP’er, Dick Vitale would say, ole Dicky V with his zany catchphrases and kisser like a pickled testicle. My boy can tickle the twine for two, baby!

The Mikado’s the only bar open on Saturday mornings. The TRW skeleton crew usually heads down after the shift whistle blows to knock the foam off a few barley pops. While I’m not technically employed there anymore I still like to hit the Mik for a Saturday morning pick-me-up, shake off the cobwebs and start the weekend on a cheery note. This particular Saturday it’s about noon when they kick me out. I say “they” though in truth there’s but a single bartender, a joyless moonfaced hag named Lola. I say “kicked out” but in point of fact I’d run dry and Lola isn’t known to serve on the house. Once you reach a critical impasse like that, you’d best pack up shop.

The day bright and warm in a courtyard hemmed by the office buildings of downtown St. Catharines, the squat trollish skyline aspiring to mediocrity and falling well short. A warm June breeze pushes greasy fast food wrappers and pigeon feathers over the cracked concrete of an empty pay-n-park lot between a tattoo parlor and a discount rug store. Sunlight reflects off office windows with such intensity I’m forced to squint. Got to assume I’m drunk: downed eight beers at the Mik and polished off twenty ounces of gin watching infomercials last night. Haven’t slept in days but in high spirits nonetheless, though I must admit somewhat alarmed by what appear to be tongues of green, gold, and magenta flickering off the tips of my spread fingers.

A trash-strewn alleyway to my left empties onto King Street. Catching human movement and the echo of up-tempo music, I wander off in that direction.

KING IS CLOSED OFF for a two-block stretch to host a 3-on-3 basketball tournament. Ball courts staggered down the road, three-point arc and foul stripes etched in sidewalk chalk. Mammoth speakers pump out rap music: guttural growls and howls overlaid with occasional gunshots and the clinkety-clink sound slot machines make paying off. Players sit along the curb in knee-length shorts, sleeveless mesh tops, and space-age sneakers, checking out the competition or waiting to be subbed in. The staccato rhythm of ball chatter underlies all other sound: D-up! Get a hand in his face! My bad, my bad. You got that guy, man; you own him! Give you that shot—you can’t stick that shit! All day, son, all damn day. And one! And ONE!

Weave through duffel bags and water bottles and teams talking strategy, stop at a long corkboard to scan the tournament brackets. No names, just teams: Hoopsters, Basket-Maulers, Santa’s Little Helpers, Highlight Reelers, Dunks Inc. If Jason was playing, he’d’ve given his old man a call, right? I went to every one of his high-school games, didn’t I? I say “went,” past tense, due to the incident occurring at a preseason game out in Beamsville. I say “incident,” but I suppose I might as well say “brawl,” that broke out when a few Beamsvilleians—and when I say “Beamsville-ian,” I mean, more accurately, “inbred hillpeople”—took offense at my distinctive style of encouragement. I guess some punches were thrown. Well, the whole truth of the matter is that punches were thrown, first by me, then at me. Let me tell you, those bumpkins pack a mean punch—even the bitches! Thankfully, when you’re three sheets to the wind you don’t feel a whole lot of anything. Coach Auerbach politely insisted I curtail my attendance.

Meander down the sidewalk checking out the games. The majority are tactless, bulling affairs: guys heaving off-balance threes and clanging running one-handers off the front iron, banging bodies under the boards for ugly buckets. It’s really quite a painful ordeal for me: a classically trained pianist watching chimpanzees bash away on Steinway pianos. Stop to watch an old-schooler with Abdul-Jabbar eyegoggles and socks hiked to his knees sink crafty hook-shots over a guy half his age; the young guy’s taking heat from his teammates for the defensive lapses.

The final court has drawn a huge crowd; can’t see more than flickering motion between the tight-packed spectators, but from what little I do it’s clear this is serious. A true student of the game can tell right off: something about those confident movements, that quickness, the conviction that lives in each and every gesture.

Push through the crowd and there’s my son.

He’s at the top of the three-point arc. Long black hair tied back with a blue rubber band, the kind greengrocers use to bind bunches of bananas. Apart from giving you the look of a pansy, long hair has a habit of getting in a shooter’s eyes. But the boy refuses to cut it so one time I chased him around the house with a pair of pinking shears, screaming, Swear to Christ I’m gonna cut that faggot hair off ! I was gassed at the time; you tend to do crazy things when you’re gassed. He locked himself in the bathroom. I told him I’d cut it off as he slept. He passed the night on the floor, those hippie locks fanned out over the pissy tiles.

He takes the ball at the top of the key and bounces a pass to Al Cousy, a thick-bodied grinder on Jason’s high-school team. Al’s a bruiser with stone hands who’s going nowhere in the sport. Way I see it, the sooner he comes to grips with this, the sooner he can make an honest go at something more suitable: he’ll make a great pipefitter with those strong mitts. However it works out, years from now Al can say, hunched over beers or gutrot coffee at some union meeting, he’d once played ball alongside Jason Mikan—yeah, that Jason Mikan.

Al pivots around his defender, gets blocked, shovels the ball out. Jason catches it a few feet beyond the three-point line, throws a head-fake to shake his defender, steps back and lofts a shot. The ball arcs through sparkling June air, a flawless parabola against a blue-sky backdrop, dropping through the center of the net.

“Nice bucket!” I call out. “Thattaboy!”

Jason looks over, spots me, glances away and claps his hands for the ball.

Watching that shot, the unstudied perfection of it, I think back to all the time we spent practicing together. Every day in good weather we’d be out on the driveway hoop, shooting until the sun passed behind the house’s high peaked roof. Before Jason could quit he had to make fifteen foul shots in a row; he’d sink twelve or thirteen easy before getting the jitters. I even built a pair of defending dummies, vaguely human plywood cutouts with outstretched arms. These I mistakenly destroyed: stumble home less than sober and spy two menacing shapes in your unlit garage—who wouldn’t kick them to splinters? One night I came back a little greased and dragged Jason out of bed. It was cold—had to knock a glaze of ice off the net—Jason there in his pj’s and I chucked him the ball. Every minute you’re not practicing is a minute some other kid is. You got to work, son—hard and every day. Now can that fucker! My neighbor Hal Lanier, beetle-legged and bucktoothed, sidled out onto his front stoop.

“Hey,” he said. “You two mind calling it a night?”

“What business is it of yours, bud?”

Hal pulled a housecoat shut over a belly pale as a mackerel’s. “Trying to sleep, is my business. Got your boy out here in his fuggin’ jammies, screaming like a lunatic, is my business.”

“Telling me how to raise my kid?”

“Telling you I got kids of my own trying to sleep.”

“Why not come say that to my face, ya fat prick ya.”

I’ll admit to being a bit surprised when Hal took me up on this offer, crossing the frost-petaled lawn in his slippers to where I stood in my grease-smudged overalls, hitting me square in the face. Well! Down on the grass we go, rolling around chucking knuckles. Shoot that goddam ball! I kept screaming at Jason. Fifteen foul shots before you go back to sawing logs!

Jason’s team is up 20-13 when he hits a fadeaway jumper from the elbow to win. The teams shake hands and head to the sideline, gathering duffels and water bottles. I trot over to Jason, who’s speaking to a guy with a clipboard. For a moment I’m struck dumb with terror at what appears—and I feel a distinct need to stress this—what appears to be a cone of ghostly flame dancing atop the man’s bald head. Whoa!

“Hey,” I say a bit shakily, “great game there, kiddo.”

“Yeah,” says Jason, “thanks.”

“This your father?” The fire on clipboard-guy’s head is now mercifully extinguished. “Your son’s a helluva player.”

“Don’t think I don’t know it.” I clamp a hand around Jason’s neck, give a friendly squeeze. “Gonna redefine the game, this kid. Aren’t you?”

Wincing, Jason shrugs out of my grip. “When do we play next?”

“Championship game goes in about forty-five minutes.”

“Alrighty then,” I say once clipboard-guy has wandered off. “What do you say me and you grab a bite to eat before the big game.”

“I don’t know. We were gonna set things up—defensive assignments, rotations, that sort of thing.”

Dart a glance at Jason’s teammates, big Al and lanky Kevin Maravich. “Boys don’t mind if I steal this guy for a bit, do you?”

The two of them shrug in that mopey skeptical way kids their age have: as though, instead of asking could I take Jason to lunch, I’d suggested enrolling him in seminary college.

“Great! Have him back in time for the game. Honest injun.”

WE HEAD TO THE MIKADO and find seats on the patio. Afternoon sunlight hits the scalloped glass tabletops, splintering in blazing pinwheels and fanwise coronets. Tempered light falls through the patio umbrella, touching the beaded perspiration on Jason’s upper lip.

Lola’s dog, a nasty-looking Rottweiler chained to the wrought-iron patio fence, yammers as its owner waddles outside.

“Back again, misser?” Lola’s sun-blotting bulk towers above me, Lola tapping a toothmarked Dixon Ticonderoga against an order pad. “What’ll y’have?”

“A Bud and a shot a rye. This fella’ll have a Bud, too.”

“He gots ID?”

“Dad, I got a game.”

“Sweet Jesus, Lola, he’s got a game!” Suddenly I’m angry—furious, really—at Lola for permitting my son to drink before a ball game. “Get him a Coke and a grilled cheese—you do grilled cheese, don’t you?”

“Kin whip one up.”

“Fine. Wonderful.” Shake my head, disgusted. “He’s got a game, for Christ’s sake. The championship.”

Lola shrugs and wanders off to fill the order. I say, “Hey, got any grape soda?”

“Nope,” Lola says without turning back. “Coke and ging-a-ale.”

I wink at Jason. “Never hurts to ask. Know how much you love your grape pop.”

An inside joke of ours. A few years back Jason and some buddies had a pickup game going when I returned from a morning shift. Head to the kitchen for something to wet the whistle and on the counter spy a bottle of grape pop I’d bought earlier that week—dead empty. Don’t know why, but this pissed the almighty hell out of me; guess maybe I’d been thinking about it at the drill press—a tall cool glass of grape soda, all purple and bubbly. Sounds ridiculous, but at the time I could’ve spat nails and thundered outside brandishing the empty bottle.

“Which one a you shits drank my pop?”

The driveway game ground to a halt, everyone standing about staring at their sneakers. After a moment Jason said, “I did, Dad. Hardly any left, really.”

I stalked over and rapped his head with the bottle. Thin plastic made an empty wok off his skull.

“You drank it all? Couldn’t leave a goddam glassful for your old man?”

“There wasn’t even a glassful left.” Jason rubbed his scalp. “There was like, only enough that it filled those dents, the, the nubbins at the bottom of the bottle. And it was flat, anywa—”

Hit him again—wok!—and again—pok!—and for good measure— tok! Silence except for big Al Cousy dribbling the basketball and the hollow glance of plastic off my son’s head. Jason’s eyes never left mine, though they did go a bit puffy at the edges, skin above his cheeks pink and swollen as though some horrible pressure were building there.

“It’s not the grape pop,” I said, intent on teaching my son a valuable life lesson. “It’s the … principle. Now get on your horse—I mean right now—ride down to Avondale and pick up a fresh bottle.”

Jason pulled his bicycle out of the garage. “Guys oughta head home.”

“Yeah, why don’t you boys skedaddle. Jason’s got an errand to run.”

He rode down the street round the bend. I stood rooted like a stump until he came back, bottle swaying in a plastic bag tugged over the handlebars. By then my anger had ebbed so I only swatted him good-naturedly and made him sink twenty three-pointers. Pretty silly, when you think back on it—I mean, grape pop, right? Which is why we can make a joke of it now.

Lola comes out with the drinks. Bolt back the shot of rye, suck down half a bottle of Bud, lean back in my chair. Feeling a little calmer, more inside myself, breathe deeply and smile.

“How come you didn’t tell me about this—know how I like to watch you play.”

“Sort of a last-minute thing.” Jason cracks an icecube between his molars. “The other guy came down sick. Didn’t want to, but they were in a bind.”

“Well, good thing—woulda got creamed without you.”

“Didn’t want to,” he says with emphasis. “They were hard up.”

“Yeah, the whole tourney’s below your skill level; you’re too good for these chumps. So, any offers from down south yet? About that time of year.”

“One, from Kentucky-Wesleyan.” A shrug. “Like, partial scholarship or something.”

“Kentucky-Wesleyan? But … they’re Div II.”

Jason stares out across the courtyard, telephone wires bellied under a weight of blackbirds. “Yeah, Div II. Maybe nobody’s gonna come calling. So what? There’s other things I could do.”

“Other things? Like what?”

“I dunno … could be, like, a nutritionist or something.”

“A nutritionist? What, with the carbs and proteins? The food pyramid and … oh god, the wheat grass? Don’t be an idiot. This is just the start. You’re gonna want to hold off for the best offer—and hey, might even want to declare straight out of high school.”

“Declare for what?”

“Declare for what, he says—the draft, dopey. The NBA draft.”

Jason shakes his head and for a split second I want to reach over and haul off on him. Instead I finish my beer and when Lola comes out with the sandwich order another.

“How’s your ma doing?”

“Fine.” Jason takes a bite of grilled cheese. “She’s fine.”

“Must be weird,” I say hopefully, “the two of you roaming around that big ole house all by your lonesome.”

“Not really.”

Jason’s mother and I are experiencing marital difficulties. The crux of the problem seems to lie in the admission I may’ve married her with an eye towards certain features—her articulate fingers, coltish legs, strong calves—that, united with my own physical makeup, laid the genetic groundwork for a truly spectacular ball player. She claims our entire relationship is “false-bottomed,” that I ought to be ashamed for aspiring to create some “Franken-son” with little or no regard for her “feelings.” She refuses to accept my apology, despite my being tanked and overly lugubrious at the time of admission. I feel this not only petty of her but verging on un-motherly, what with our boy at such a crucial juncture in his development.

“Who’s gonna string up the Christmas lights this year, huh?” I ask, despite having gone derelict on this particular household duty for years. “You’ll be away at school.”

“Do it before I go, Mom asks me to.”

Lola arrives with another beer. “Well, anyway, this’ll all come out in the wash. Me and your ma just need some time apart. Lots of couples go through it, don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

Something in his tone gets my dander up: it’s the tone of a truth-hoarder, a secret-keeper and now I really am going to smack the taste out of his mouth but my hand’s arrested by the arrival of a pretty young thing who strikes up a conversation with Jason. Short but amply endowed—built like a brick shithouse, my old TRW crony Ted Russell would say—leaning over the patio rail in lavender tubetop, cheeks dusted with sparkling glitter, she says, “Hey there, cutie,” in a high breathy voice. My son smiles as they ease into typical adolescent conversation: what so-and-so said about so-and-so, so-and-so’s having a bush party tonight, so-and-so’s an angel, so-and-so’s a creep but drives a Corvette and all the while I’m staring—say “staring,” but I suppose “leering” is more apt—at the girl, picturing her a few years down the road, that knockout body grinding up and down a brass pole or something. Leering at a ditzy cocktease no older than your son, a man is forced into one of two admissions: either (a) your son is more or less grown up, or (b) you’re a lecherous perv.

“Look at my boy,” I say, brimming with drunken pride. “All grown up and talking to girls.”

“C’mon, Dad,” Jason says nervously, as though addressing the drunken uncle gearing up to spoil a wedding. The girl, who up ’til now has treated me with the brusque inattention reserved for houseplants, seems baffled and somewhat sickened to learn Jason is the fruit of my loins: like discovering the Mona Lisa was painted by a mongoloid.

“Got to see a man about a horse.” Swaying to my feet, I add, “Forgot to hit the bank. Spot your old man a few shekels, wouldya?”

Jason sighs in a manner that suggests he’d been expecting this all along. Reaching into his duffel, he lays a twenty on the table.

“That’s a good lad. Knew your ma wouldn’t send you out empty-handed.”

“It’s my money, Dad. I like, earned it. At my job.”

“Sure you did, sonny boy.” Tip him a wink. “Sure you did.”

Stumbling through the patio doors, I hear the girl say: “So that’s your dad? Weird.”

BATHROOM WALLS PAPERED in outdated concert flyers and old cigarette signs. Piss rises wicklike up the drywall in hypnotic flame-shaped stains. A fan of dried puke splashed round the base of the lone commode, dried and colorful gobbets. Disgusting, yes, but I cannot say with utter certainty I am not the culprit: the sequence of this morning’s events remains hazy.

Relieving myself, my eyes are drawn to a snatch of graffiti on the stall: For Sale: Baby Shoes. Hardly Worn. Beneath this is written, How about ten bucks?, and under that a crude etching of a droopy phallus with what appears to be a flower growing out the pisshole. Stare up at a lightbulb imprinted with blackened silhouettes of charred insects, which for some reason remind me of the holographic shadows burnt onto brickwork at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Standing there in the piss and puke and dim unmoving puppetshow thrown by the bugtarred bulb, a sense of grim desolation draws over me—a sensation of psychological dread. Through the smeared casement window phantom shapes dart and cycle, dark tongues licking beneath the warped frame. The stall presses in upon me, walls buckle-crimping like the lungs of some great primordial beast. A trilling voice invades my skull: Weird-Weird-Weird-Weird-Weird. Reel from the stall and in the crack-starred mirror glimpse my eyes punched out and dangling on sluglike stalks and there deep in the cratered sockets spy another pair of eyes, red and raw and slitted lengthwise like a cat’s, peering back without pity or remorse.

The episode passes and everything’s a bit cheerier when I get back outside. Jason and the girl are gone. Lola’s cleared away the bottles and settled the bill. Pocket the change, leave no tip. The Rottweiler barks wrathfully—has it been trained to sniff out skinflints like those airport drug dogs? “Hush’n, Biscuits,” comes Lola’s voice from inside.

With a few minutes to spare before Jason’s game, pop into the liquor store. A homeless man squats outside the door begging bus fare. Where’s the guy need to get to so badly? He doesn’t ask anything from me. Wander air-conditioned aisles, past cognacs and brandies and aged scotch whiskies, arriving at a cooler stocked with screw-top Rieslings, boxed Chardonnays and malt liquors. Settle on a smoky brown bottle, label stamped with a snorting bull: a plucky malt best enjoyed on those occasions one finds oneself a bit down at the heel. Paying the cashier with the coins my son hadn’t bothered to pick up, it strikes me I may’ve hit a new low.

It’s not kosher to drink in public so I hunt through the liquor store dumpster. An empty Big Gulp cup—bingo! A wasp inside, big angry bastard must’ve crawled down the straw to get at the crystallized globes of Orange Crush clinging to the waxed insides. It buzzes away as I pour in the contents of the brown bottle, re-fasten the lid, and step onto the sidewalk well pleased with this subterfuge. Sucking merrily on the neon pink straw, I pause to consider who else’s lips it may’ve come in contact with. Could’ve been anybody, you got to figure—a bum’s, Christ, some scabby diseased bum, cracked lips rich with fungal deposits and now I’m wondering if 7-Eleven even sells soda to the homeless, if they conduct a brisk trade with this sort of clientele, and while I come to the reasonable conclusion that no, they clearly do not, I cannot help but feel the earlier sense of lowness I experienced was merely a staging area, a jumping-off point for this profound, near-subterranean, even lower low.

A TEEMING THRONG rings the championship court. Shove through the mob with an air of boozy entitlement—it’s my son they’re gawking at, isn’t it?—to find the game’s already started. Jason’s team is matched against a trio of blacks whose voices betray an upper New York lilt: “trow” for throw, “dat” for that, “dere” for there, “dear” for dare, so what you hear is Trow dat shit up dere—go on, I dear ya! Up from Buffalo with their dusky sunpolished skin, cornrowed hair and trash talk, figuring they’ll take these pasty Canucks to school. Some bozo with a megaphone, the announcer I guess, does not call the game so much as cap each play with an annoying catchphrase: “Boo-YA! ” or “Boom-shakalaka!” or “Dipsee-doo dunkaroo!” or “Ye-ye-ye-ye-ye-ye-YEAH!” or just “Ohhh, SNAP!”

The other team is up 7-4 when Jason takes the ball at the top of the key. He dribbles right and bounces a pass to Al Cousy on the low block. Al rolls off his man, elevates and fires a one-legged jumper that clanks off rim.

“Don’t pass to stone hands!” I cry. “Jesus, son—use your head! ”

The other team’s point guard executes a smooth crossover dribble— an ankle-snapper—catching Jason flatfooted. Kevin Maravich shuffles over on helpside defense but the guard flicks the ball to Kevin’s check, who dunks two-handed and gorilla-hangs on the rim.

“Biggedy-BAM! ” hollers the announcer.

Jason keeps passing to his tits-on-a-bull teammates. Kevin gets blocked twice and big Al puts up enough bricks to build a homeless shelter. Their opponents dish out a constant stream of trash: Don’t go bringing that weakass shit in here, bitch—this is my house! Hope you got an umbrella, son—I’m gonna be raining on you all day! Boy, my game’s so ill I make medicine sick! The ref, a balding old shipwreck in frayed zebra getup, lets the Yanks get away with murder: pushes, holds, flagrant elbows. I give it to him both barrels.

“Hey ref, if you had one more eye you’d be a cyclops!”

“Hey ref, Colonel Mustard called—he said get a clue!”

“Hey ref, if your IQ was any lower someone’d have to water you!”

Spectators snorting and laughing, a beefy mitt slams between my shoulder blades and someone says, “Thattaboy—stick it to the man!” Take a haul on my drink and for a long vacant moment feel nothing but relentless seething hatred for the ref, the opposing team, Jason’s teammates, anyone and everyone trying to stop him from reaching the goal he’s destined for, stifle the gift that’ll take him out of this rinkydink town, far from the do-nothing go-nowhere be-nobody yokels surrounding me.

The score’s 13-4 and Jason hasn’t taken a shot. He kicks the ball to Al who kicks it back, a stinging bullet hitting Jason in the chest. “What are you doing? Take it, man.” Jason stab-steps his defender, gives him a brisk shake-n-bake, shoots. As soon as the ball leaves his hands, you know it’s good. It passes through so clean the net loops up over the hoop and that sound—dear god, almost sexual.

“This guy’s dialed in long distance!” the announcer brays.

Jason picks the point guard’s pocket on the next possession, clears beyond the three-point arc, fires. Swish. 13-9.

“He’s shooting the lights out, folks!”

The point guard muscles past Jason but Kevin gets a hand in his face and the shot misses short left. Al gobbles up the rebound and shovels it to Jason. The defensive rotation’s slow and he gets a clean look from twenty-two feet, burying it. 13-12 and now the other team’s a bit frazzled; “C’mon, naa,” the point guard says. “D-up. We gut these bitches.”

But it’s too late: Jason’s entered some kind of zone. Wherever he is on the court, no matter how tight the coverage, he’s draining it. Running one-hander from the elbow—good. Fadeaway three-ball with a defender down his throat—good. High-arcing teardrop in traffic—good. In my head I’m hearing Marv Albert, longtime New York Knickerbockers play-by-play man and purloiner of women’s undergarments: Mikan takes the ball at the top of the circle, shakes his man, hoists up a prayer— YESSSSS! Twisting circus shot around two defenders—good. Step-back three launched from another zipcode—good. The lead’s flipped, 22-17; the Yanks’ faces are stamped with grimaces of utter disbelief.

“This cat’s got the skills to pay the bills, ladies and gentlemen!”

Throughout this shooting display Jason’s expression never changes: a vacant, vaguely disgusted look like he’s sniffed something rank. He doesn’t follow the ball after it leaves his hand, as though unwilling to chart its inevitable drop through the hoop. If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think he wants to miss. Scan the crowd for a familiar face, my shitheel supervisor Mr. Riley maybe—See that, asshole? That’s my son! My good genes MADE that! What did your genes ever make, Riley? Oh, that’s right—a few stains on the bedsheets and a PUSSY TAX CONSULTANT!

The game-winning shot’s a doozy. Jason passes down to Al, who is blocked but corrals the ball and shuttles it to Jason. The other point guard’s tight to his vest and Jason backs off, dribbling the ball high. Maybe it’s just the malt liquor but at this moment he appears to move in a cocoon of beatific light: glowing sundogs and sparkling scintillas robe his arms and legs. He goes right but so does his defender, swiping at the ball, almost stealing it. They’re down along the baseline, Jason’s heels nearly out of bounds and he shoots falling into the crowd, a dozen arms outstretched to cradle him and as he’s going down I hear him say, in a small defeated voice, “Glass.” The ball banks high off the backboard and through the net.

“The dagger!” screams the announcer. “Oh lord, he hits the dagger! ”

The crowd breaks up, drifting away in twos and threes to bars and parks and restaurants. A work crew dismantles the nets and sound equipment, packing everything into cube vans to truck to the next venue.

“Great game, son.” Somehow I’ve managed to slop beer down myself so it looks I’ve pissed my pants. Try to pawn it off as excitement. “A real barnburner—look, you got me sweating buckets.”

Jason’s sitting on the curb with his teammates. “Yeah, guess it was a pretty good one.”

To Kevin and big Al: “Lucky Jason was here to drag your asses out of the fire, huh?”

They don’t reply but instead pull off their shoes and socks, donning summer sandals. Big Al’s toenails thick yellow and thorny, curling over his toes like armor plating.

“What say I take you boys out for dinner?” I offer breezily. “A champion’s feast.”

“That’s okay,” Jason says. “Kev’s parents are having a barbecue. They’ve got a pool.”

“A pool? How suburban.” Jam one hand in my pocket, scratch the nape of my neck with the other. “So Kev, where’s your folks’ place at?”

Kevin hooks a thumb over his shoulder, an ambiguous gesture that could conceivably indicate the city’s southern edge, the nearest town, or Latin America.

“Could I tag along?”

Jason sits with his legs spread, head hanging between his knees. “I don’t know. They sort of, like, only did enough shopping for, y’know, us three.”

“Well, wouldn’t come empty-handed. I could grab some burgers, or … Cheetos.”

“You see, it’s like, we kind of got a full car. Y’know, Al and me and all our gear and stuff. Kev’s only got a Neon, right?”

“We could squeeze, couldn’t we? Get buddy-buddy?”

“I don’t know. Gotta do some running around first.”

“I love running around. It’s good for the heart.”

Without looking up, Jason says, “Dad, listen, Kev’s still on probation—his license, right?—so, it’s like, he can’t have anyone in his car who’s been drinking. If the cops pull us over, Kev’ll get his license suspended.”

“Oh. Alrighty then.” Stare into the sky, directly into the afternoon sun. Close my eyes and the ghostly afterimage burns there as a sizzling imprint, searing corona dancing with winking fairylights.

The boys gather their bags and waterbottles. Shake Kev and Al’s hands, hug my son. His skin smells of other bodies, the sweat of strangers. Used to love the smell of his hands after practice, the scent of sweat and leather commingled. When I let him go the flesh around his eyes is red and swollen and it gets me thinking of that distant afternoon, grape soda and a sense of horrible pressure.

“Great game,” I tell him. “You’re gonna show ’em all one day.”

He walks down the street, hitching the duffel up on his shoulder. Charting his departure, it’s as though I’m seeing him through the ass end of a telescope: this tiny figure distorted by an unseen convex, turning the corner now, gone. Sun high in the afternoon sky, brilliant and hostile, beer’s all gone and it’s the middle of the day though it feels like it should be later, much later and near dusk and it dawns on me I’ve nothing to do, nowhere to be, the day stretching out bright and interminable with no clear goal or closure in sight.

NIGHTTIME AT THE KNIGHTWOOD ARMS subsidized housing complex. My bedroom window overlooks a dilapidated basketball court, tarmac seized and buckled, nets rotted from the hoops. Early mornings I’ll head down and shoot baskets beneath a lightening sky, mist falling through the courtyard’s arc-sodium lamp to create a cool glittering nimbus. Often someone’ll crack a window in one of the overhanging units, Knock it off with the damn bouncity-bounce. Don’t make much fuss anymore, just go back to my room.

Eleven o’clock or so and the bottle’s almost empty when the phone rings.

“Hey,” Jason says. “It’s me.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Yeah, well, wanted to talk to you about something.”

Good news, I’m guessing: Duke, Kentucky, UConn. “Your old man’s all ears.”

“Well, it’s like, I’ve decided to not play ball.”

“You mean you’re going to take the year off?” Try to remain calm. “Don’t know that’s the best idea, kiddo—gonna want to keep in the mix.”

“No, I sort of mean, like … ever. I mean, forever.”

“Forever? Don’t get you.”

The mouthpiece is shielded. Jason’s muffled voice, then his mother’s, then Jason’s back on the line. “I’m sick of it. Sick of basketball. Don’t want to play anymore.”

“Well,” I struggle, “that’s … sort of a childish attitude, son. I don’t always like my job, but it’s my job, so I do it. That’s the way the world … works.”

A sigh. “You know, there are other things in life. Lots of jobs out there.”

“Yeah, well, like what?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I was thinking maybe … a vet?”

“You mean … a veterinarian?”

“Uh-huh. Like that, or something.”

“Oh. Well, that’s … y’know … that’s grand. The sick cats and everything. A grand goal.”

“Anyway. Just thought I’d tell you.”

“Yeah. Well … thanks. What say you sit on it a bit, Jason, let it stew awhile. Who knows—might change your mind.”

“No, I don’t think so. Alright, goodbye.”

“All I’m saying is—”

But the line’s already dead. Hang up and lie back on the mattress, stare out at the starblown sky.

When Jason was a kid I bought him this mechanical piggy bank. You’d set a coin in the cup-shaped hand of a metal basketball player, pull the lever to release a spring and the player deposited the coin in a cast-iron hoop. Jason loved the damn thing. Sit him on the floor with a handful of pennies: hours of mindless amusement. Every so often I’d have to quit whatever I was doing to unscrew the bottom, dump the coins so Jason could start over. The snak-clanggg! of the mechanism got annoying after the first half-hour and I would’ve taken it away if Jason wasn’t so small and frail and I so intent on honing that fascination. There were other toys, a whole closetful, but he chose basketball. Right from the get-go. And yeah, I encouraged it—what’s a father supposed to do? Guide his kid towards any natural inclination, gently at first, then as required. If that’s what your kid’s born to do, what other choice do you really have?

All I’m saying is, I’m no monster, okay? As a father, you only ever want what’s best for your boy. That’s your job—the greatest job of your life. All you want is that your kid be happy, and healthy, and follow the good path. That’s all I did: kept him on the good path. I’m a great father. A damn fine dad. Swear it on a stack of bibles.

So my boy wants to be a veterinarian, does he? Well it’s a tough racket, plenty of competition, no cakewalk by a longshot. Don’t I know a guy out Welland way who’s a taxidermist? Sure, Adam somebody-or-other, stuffs geese and trout and I don’t know—bobcats? Ought to shoot him a call, see if me and Jason can’t pop by, poke around a bit. I mean, you want to be a doctor, got to know your way around cadavers, right? It’s the same principle. Adam’s one easygoing sonofabitch; doubt he’ll mind.

Yeah, that’s just what I’ll do. Finish off this bottle, hunt up that number, make the call. I mean, hey, sure it comes as a shock, but nobody can call Hank Mikan a man of inflexible fiber. When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Life offers sour grapes, make sweet wine. A veterinarian, huh? Well, that’s noble. Damn noble. And hey, money ain’t half-bad either.

Let’s finish this last swallow and get right on the blower. It’s a long road ahead.

Like the shoe commercial says, right? Just Do It. Hey!