Authors: Kevin Waltman
Pull
PULL: D-Bow's High School Hoops
. Copyright © 2015 by Kevin Waltman. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written consent from the publisher, except for brief quotations for reviews. For further information, write Cinco Puntos Press, 701 Texas Avenue, El Paso, TX 79901 or call 1-915-838-1625.
FIRST EDITION
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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IBRARY OF
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ONGRESS
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ATALOGING-IN
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UBLICATION
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Names: Waltman, Kevin.
Title: Pull / by Kevin Waltman.
Description: El Paso, Texas: Cinco Puntos Press, 2015. | Series: D-Bow's high school hoops;
[3] | Summary: “Junior year. Derrick âD-Bow' Bowen has worked hard for two years getting ready for this season. He earned his coach's trust and his role as the starting point guard for Marion East. But dissension and selfishness are threatening to tear the team apart.”
âProvided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015024953 | ISBN 9781941026281 (e-Book)
Subjects: | CYAC: BasketballâFiction. | High schoolsâFiction. | SchoolsâFiction. | African AmericansâFiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Sports & Recreation / Basketball. | JUVENILE FICTION / Boys & Men. | JUVENILE FICTION / People & Places / United States / African American. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / General (see also headings under Family). Classification: LCC PZ7.W1728 Pu 2015 | DDC [Fic]âdc23
LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015024953
Book and cover design by Anne M. Giangiulio.
Bubba always has his opinions, right, Anne?
Special thanks to Rick Ray and John Kitch for their advice and consultation.
You are both good men and good friends.
And thank you, of course, to the good people at Cinco Puntos Press for giving my work a shot. âKevin Waltman
For Holling Fordham Waltman
Contents
It's a crime to make us go back to school this early. August 2?
Crazy
. I bet some sadistic guy sitting behind a desk just hating on people thought that one up. Probably hasn't been outside in months, gets no female attentions, gets cracked on from his boss, then thinksâ
Yeah, I'll show everyone. Kick kids back to school on August 2.
So it's the last night of freedom for me and Wes. We just cruise. It's a sweaty, still night. The a/c in this old Nova handed down to me from Uncle Kid can barely keep up.
“Wanna hit 38
th
?” I ask. “Get our feed on?”
“Nah. Ain't hungry.”
The summer ripped past us like a driver barreling baseline. Just
gone
. I tore it up in AAU again, making all the scouts' eyes bug. But it meant the same oldâless time at home, less time with Wes, chasing Jasmine with no good luck. At least I found time to get my license this time around.
“What about the mall? See what's up there?”
“Nah,” Wes snorts. “What are we, twelve? No mall, D.”
Wes sags down in the passenger's side, sneering at the night like it's insulted him somehow. He doesn't mean it with me, I don't think, but he's just always sour. He's barely got fifteen more pounds on that frame from when we started high school, but it's like everything he's added has been attitude.
“Well, what then?” I ask. I sound a little snippy, I know, but hanging with Wes isn't supposed to be some chore. It's supposed to be easy. Fun.
He points to his phone, which just thrummed with a text. “JaQuentin's got something happening,” he says.
Now he's really killing me. JaQuentin Peggs? I wish I'd never heard his name. It's like he's re-shaped my boy Wes into some wannabe banger. And I know what it'll be at that placeâa half-dozen guys blazing up until some worse idea makes its way into one of their thick skulls. I smell it on Wes again, tooâweed. Not that anyone gets themselves worked up over that, but I'm tired of picking up Wes and seeing his eyelids at half-mast, tired of that sweet-sick dope smell on his clothes.
We cruise up College, making one side of our square that goes up to 38
th
and then back down to 22
nd
. I know where JaQuentin's isâjust a couple blocks over on 32
nd
if I hang a left, but I've got no interest. Then we're past 33
rd
âa right there and we'd be at Moose's place, right at Carrolton. But no more. He's packed off to Ball State, trying to walk on to the team. His absence just makes the night feel heavier, more oppressive. Every block we pass seems desolate, maybe just one or two people out, sweating on their porches and giving menacing looks as we cruise. It's the kind of night where one wrong word would be like gasoline on a fire.
“D, if you gonna punk out on JaQuentin's, then just drop me there,” Wes says.
“What the hell, Wes?” I snap. “Last night of summer and you want to spend it in a bad mood?”
He leans back just a little further in his seat. It takes an effort, but he manages to lodge his foot up on the dash, just to piss me off. I know this car's a bucket, but it's still mine. I smack him on the shoulder. “Get your foot down. Have some respect.”
Wes just grumbles and then, the seat squeaking under him, gets his left foot up there too. It's a crazy uncomfortable position, and I have to almost respect him for going to those lengths just to get under my skin. Still.
This time I reach over and grab his ankle, lift it off the dash and throw it down where it belongs. We swerve to a stop at the Fairfield light. Wes unbuckles and makes like he's going to get out. “You gonna be that way?” he says. “I'm out.”
Before he can open the door, I mash it. In the Nova, that only means we lurch ahead and then almost stall out when the transmission shudders under the strain. It's enough to send Wes flopping back in his seat though. Point made.
“I'm not trying to cause static,” I say. “I just thought we could hang like we used to.”
“Used to ain't⦔ But then Wes trails off. He was going to keep after me, but maybe he's thought better of it. Maybe I can get the old Wes back after all. He sighs. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him grin. “Used to be you didn't get yourself in a hissy fit just for a brother propping his feet up.”
He makes a big show of it now, bending his knees and plopping those Timberlands on my dash with two successive thuds. This time it's all play. I do my part, acting like I'm going to rip his feet right back where they belong again, but he swats at my hand. I try again, shouting at him that he better get those boots off my dash if he wants to keep his feet attached to his body, but I'm laughing as I say it.
It's all good, until I hear it: that quick
whup-whoop
behind me. Then the interior of my car gets lit in flashing red and blue. I know what's up, but I check the rear view just in case, hoping that the cop is after someone else, maybe responding to a call from 38
th
. No luck. He's right on my tail. We weren't doing anything wrong, but both Wes and I instinctively straighten in our seats. As I ease to the side of the road, I feel my heart pound. My tongue gets thick in my mouth.
Wes fidgets in his seat, getting more nervous with each second. I know the officer's just checking tags, biding his time. But Wes keeps whipping his head around to look, squinting into the glare of lights. “You weren't doing shit,” he says. “This is profiling, man. This is bullshit.” There's a jangling anxiety in his voice, and it infects meâlike the more he claims we're the ones being wronged the more I think I might be in real trouble.
“Just be cool,” I say. I really don't want Wes to go all thug mode on a policeman. The way he's been acting lately, you never know.
The officer approaches. I roll down the window and look up at him hopefully. Here I am, all 6'3” of me crammed into this Nova. If I stepped out, I'd tower over that officer. But as is, I feel like a child, impossibly small under his gaze. He gets closeâhe's thick through the body, some dough on his gut but a big broad chest that says you don't
want to mess with himâand leans down. He flashes his light into the car. Wes and I both look away.
“Been drinking tonight?” he asks.
“No, sir,” I say.
“Then what were those swerves back there?” He tilts his head back toward the blocks behind us. He must have seen us veering all over the place. My shoulders relax a little.
That's it.
Just those swerves and the sudden start. Hell, maybe it means I get a ticket, but if that's all he's after then I can relax. It's not like we even
did
anything, but you get that police cruiser on your tail and you start imagining crimesâlike somehow you robbed a bank and just forgot about it.
“I'm sorry, sir, we were messing around.” I start to explain what had happened, but I realize the officer isn't even listening to me. Instead, he's locked in on Wes.
Wes won't look up. He's got his hands in his lap now, nervously picking at one of his nails.
“You have some marijuana in there?” the officer asks. It's more a statement than a question. I start to stammer out a
no
, but he asks to search the vehicle before I can get out word one. Wes tries to tell me something under his breath, but I can't hear it. I just tell the officer
okay
. As soon as that's out of my mouth, Wes lets loose a big, disappointed sigh, like I'm the stupidest guy on the planet.
He makes us wait until a second cruiser arrives for backup. It makes it look like some big bust, so everyone passing slows to a crawl and stares. I hope like crazy nobody recognizes me. That's all it would take to get Twitter popping in the worst way. Then the second officerâhe's not as muscular as the first, but he's got a military stare in
his eyesâinstructs us to sit on the curb while the first one searches my car. Sure enough, once he's been rummaging around the passenger side for a minute he gives this real pleased shout to his partnerâ“Well, look here!”âand holds up a cellophane bag.
I've never touched weed in my life, but any fool knows what it is. And any fool knows where it came from. I steal a glance at Wes. He looks away. He better not believe for a second that I'm taking the fall for him.
The police finish with the car and then start on us. We get the full treatmentâhands laced behind our heads while they frisk us top to bottom. You hear about things like thisâhow humiliating a pat-down isâbut it's just noise on the news until it's happening to you. The first officer does me, and he's not exactly gentle about it. He just gets all up into me. But I'm clean. And so is Wesâprobably since he deposited whatever he was holding in my passenger seat.
Finally the first officer addresses us both. He holds up the weed. “This belong to both of you or just one?” he asks. I don't want to rat Wes out, but he doesn't seem too eager to step up. The officer must see me glance Wes' way, because he takes a step in his direction. “This yours, little man?” he asks.
Wes looks down at his shoes. I can see his shoulders tense on that
little man
. I'm afraid he's going to say something stupid. He shakes his head a couple times in disgust. Then, at last, he mutters something. The officer asks him to repeat himself and speak up. Wes lifts his chin about an inch and mumbles, “I don't know where that came from.”
Wes doing me dirty like that is the biggest disappointment of all. He must know it, because he won't even turn his head my way.
“Fine,” the officer snorts. “We'll sort this out at the station.”
There's no excuse in the world that will work on my parents. I mean, I could have documented proof that the CIA planted the drugs on Kid two decades ago and it was still in the car through none of my own doing, but Thomas and Kaylene Bowen aren't gonna hear it.
Back at the station, Mom waited in the car. Dad came in and was about to bust. To anyone in uniform he was all
yes, sir
, but he turned that gaze at me and it looked like he'd been stung by a wasp. And he's the easy parent.
We got out of the station without much more hassle. I didn't see Wes again, but he finally manned up before I had to turn on him. All I got was a charge of Unsafe Lane Movement, plus a couple lectures. As we walked out of that station, Dad practically shook with anger. “Derrick, your mother,” he seethed at me, “is aboutâ.” And he trailed off, unable to even finish the sentence.
I climbed in the backseat, right behind my mom. Squeezing in back there pushes my knees up near my chest, but I knew that ride wasn't designed for my comfort. We cruised a couple blocks in silence. Then my mom slowly turned in her seat to look at me. Even in the dark, I could tell she'd been cryingâbut I could also tell she was ready to kill.
Now it's super late. Last I looked at my watch it was 1:00, but even that glance got Mom mad. “Pay attention, Derrick,” she said. So I don't dare look again. We're at the kitchen table, still hashing it out. There's a single lamp on. My parents pace through the shadows.
“What were you
thinking?
” Mom asks. It's now about the fifth time she's hit me with it. She stares at me intently, her face like a sphinx.
Again, I try to explain. “It wasn't
mine
. Wes even told the police.”
“Oh, I
know
that,” Mom snaps. “Believe me, if it was yours, you'd be in for a lot rougher night than this one. But there were drugs in your car, Derrick. That's on you.”
I've had about enough. My shoulders get tighter and tighter each time we go around the same conversation. Finally, I just put my head down on the table. I turn it to the side, staring across the kitchen at the refrigerator. It used to be decorated with drawings from Jayson or report cards from me. “How is it on me?” I ask. “I can't be in charge of what Wes does.”
Mom
flips
. “You're in charge of who gets in your car!” she shouts. “You've been raised to have enough sense to know what your friends are up to! And you should know that if Wes is fooling around with drugs then he's not your friend.”
“Mom,” I say, “Wes is the best friend I've got.”
“Not anymore!” she shouts.
This draws Jayson out from his room. He rubs his eyes to give the impression that he just woke up, but I bet he's been eavesdropping for a while. It's not like our house holds back sound that well. He doesn't say anything, but when he sits on the recliner there's a little squeak from the springs.
Both our parents turn. Dad points toward the hallway. “You've got about three seconds to get back down to your room,” he says.
Jayson's eyes widen. He looks genuinely worried. He's usually one to aggravate things further, but this time he does as he's told. He pops
off that chair and slinks back toward his room. Now both Mom and Dad shake their heads. I realize the look instantlyâthey're sorry for having jumped Jayson when he didn't really do anything wrong.