The Moves Make the Man (10 page)

Bix was not in school for the whole next week. Miss Pimton told us he had left Home Ec class and I could work alone without a partner if I wanted or she could set up a shuffle of the girls to partner me in shifts a couple of weeks a throw, the idea being obvious that no one would want to get stuck with me forever. I said I would work alone and very glad to do so. Actually, I kind of regretted it. The girls all acted more like human beings after Bix's bad day, with less play-acting of joy at the well-made patty (hamburger this time) and no giggling at all, and generally more businesslike. We started right away making real food, burgers first and then the next week a chicken and biscuits with gravy from the pan the chicken cooked in.

For those few weeks I did not know what had become of Bix. I thought at first several times of going by his house if I could find out from the office where he lived. But then I was getting pretty busy with my cooking at home. I found out that learning to cook does not save you time. Cooking the right way takes much more than cooking slapdash. The difference is just that what you make is good, instead of
trash. I had to go to the market after school most days, never shopping for more than one or two days, which was all I could carry and us with no car. Once I got home with the groceries, I had to start right away if I was to make a good dinner, having about two hours which it took all of, most times. I got so I could follow a recipe even for things we had not made in Home Ec, because once you use a few recipes in class you begin to see how they work and what all the abbreviations mean and you get a sense of timing. The more I practiced the better the meals, until Mo and Henri were really excited every night to see what Jerome snazzed up for dinner, such as Mexican Meat Loaf and Chicken Dumplings and one night a Vegetable Curry which comes from India and quite spicy. We all like spicy food except for Momma, so we might as well dig it while she is gone.

Then, after those few weeks, I never quite got the chance to see about Bix because the biggest surprise happened one day, which was Momma came home early from the hospital, in the ambulance, but no siren, her being just fine and only along for the ride. She was doing her recovery faster than they thought, and so they let her go. The doctor called Maurice and gave him all kinds of instructions on what she needed checked and done for her, which Maurice wrote down very serious and nervous, including even things like IF BANDAGES GET DIRTY, CHANGE THEM which any fool could know without writing it down. Momma was herself but very softly so, and plus she was wearing this turban of gauze bandaging and looked quite cute actually, though it sounds horrible to say like that. Mo lost the list right away, but we took care of her fine.

We were all very happy, of course. Momma had a million questions and could not believe how we had taken care of
things and each other, and we acted so casual about it all like of course there had never been any doubt. Maurice was very serious and pulled out these secret charts he had kept on Henri and me, full of Crises Averted and Challenges Met and Orientations Adjusted and all kinds of his jive, to show that, yes, we were doing okay. Momma laughed so hard when she saw it that we all knew she was doing okay too, even Maurice finally joining in with us howling, though he expected her to take it all very solemn like the queen getting the secret documents from the spy. He left the chart for her to study at her leisure, he said. There was supposed to be a graph to go along with it, but he lost it. Henri found it later when sweeping under the bed and he threw it away.

Those days were wonderful. Momma was home. We all found out how well we could make things on our own, better even than when there was only the brothers there, because now we were using that practice to keep everything perfect and it counted for more than just us getting by. At first Momma was trying to get her hands in, to get back involved, but we did not let her and soon she watched while all the things she saw about the home were done just right.

Momma got along pretty okay with her healing up. The bandages came off in a couple of weeks and her hair started growing back in these little fuzzy tufts made her look like a six-year-old. She talked more and more like she always did, though softer, for she always had a little bit of headache and would for a while I guess. Henri and Maurice talked all the time when the three of us were cleaning up after dinner or something about how great she was and how it was fine to see she was back to herself. But I was not so sure yet.

There was only one thing I was worried about, and that was whether she had gotten a little of her smarts knocked
out. I did not think so, and I did not draw my worry from anything she showed or did. I drew my worry from knowing how fragile all the ways of being intelligent are. So many things whizzing around in there, ideas and quickness and a smell for the truth, all hooking up the right way to make you do the things you do right. I couldn't help think a crash like Momma's would maybe bust a few quicknesses, cut some of the sense for truth, and you would not be able to notice what was not there any longer. Shifts and misses, you do not see them for themselves probably when they go, like losing a half step in basketball when your ankle is a little stiff. Thought is about something and you pay mind to what it is about, not how quick and right it came.

Momma soon showed me some stuff, though. She saw into me even though I did not even know I was hiding anything, and made me sit down one night and talk about school and then we got around to Home Ec and before I knew it I was telling her all about Bix, or at least everything in Home Ec. I did not tell her about seeing him play shortstop and him being the same and not the same. Home Ec was enough. I was telling her and I hardly knew but I was all of a sudden all full of crying. It was something sad, I didn't know.

She hugged me, the first time she did that since coming home. It made me cry worse. I busted all up. She let me go on and bawl, which what else could she do? It was over pretty fast, and then I was okay and felt even a little weird because it hit so sudden and left so sudden and I did not see it coming or see where it went. Momma did not say anything about it. Instead she said, Tell me, have you been shooting around like you do?

I told her no. She asked how long since I had been playing basketball every day. I told her a few weeks.

She nodded and told me to go get Henri and Maurice. When we were all there she asked them if they had been doing their things they liked, Henri being football and Mo the orphans downtown. They both said no, same as me. Momma looked very worried for a minute and we looked at each other like Uh-oh we should not have told. But it was okay. Momma just said, very serious, she appreciated how dedicated we were and how good at our work too. But from now on we had to get in at least an hour a day of what we wanted most to do besides taking care of her. She told Henri, talk to Coach Poindexter and explain and see if he would let Henri back on the team (which he did and Henri even played the last three games and intercepted two passes). Maurice said he could slip back in at the orphan place easy, and in time to prevent most of the kids from falling into the pre-winter despair syndrome that was just around the corner. Me she told to shoot some hoops. Henri said yes, so I would not be such a crab. I had yelled at him that morning for putting ketchup on my cheese eggs, which taste fine by themselves and not under red goo until you cannot tell they might as well be paper mache. Maurice told Henri not to be chiding me, I was simply displaying a post-primary love object deprivation symptom, and Momma told Henri to go put some ketchup on Mo's head. We all laughed, even Mo. There wasn't going to be any pre-winter despair syndrome in this house anymore.

So I started slipping out for some hoops. But it was not the same as I liked it, the same as it had been. I could not get out until after dinner had been made and we ate, which by that time it was dusk, being late fall and the days getting shorter. I was lucky to get out even at dusk and no darker, because Henri and Maurice let me off any cleaning up, taking over so I could be free to scoot out.

I did not have time to go all the way to my court in the woods, far away across the marshes. That court was also darker than others at night, because those evergreens were still thick in the winter surrounding the court and blocked out all possible light until it was black as a hole. I would have had more time later at night to play and could have taken the trip across the marshes and all, but by then everything was completely dark everywhere.

So I found myself the lightest possible court at the time of day I could play, and where I could be alone. When you have only an hour you do not want to be wasting it shooting at the same basket with clutzes talking and juking and wanting to play Around The World. You want to practice.

The place I found was this old tar half court in the other direction from town, which you find if you walk through the poor part of colored town and suddenly you are out where nobody lives anymore. There are not even any streets, and the only things alive are a few wild dogs but the bouncing ball scares them for some reason, and I was glad of that.

There used to be a school out here and the court was for the school kids, a county school but it burned down years ago. Now there is only the old black busted foundation pieces sticking up out of the ground looking like the rotten teeth of Old Man Earth.

There is never anybody there. Even if everyone knew about the court they would not come. The burnt place is scary and still smells funny and some kids were burned in the fire and probably people think their ghosts are there or hogwash like that. The court is out in the open with nothing for miles it seems, so you get the moonlight clear but the winds too, and it can get pretty cold.

The other thing that probably keeps kids away is the railroad track. The train that comes down from Washington DC to Florida comes right by the side of the court, maybe twenty-five feet away. It really wails when it blows through and makes a draft that sucks your shots off center, but so what? You can wait it out. It is gone in a few seconds.

So this is where I shot. It was not what I wanted, but it was a rim and a chain net and a ball to bounce on the hard tar. Every night I would run upstairs and put on my gray sweat suit which Maurice had brought me from when he went up to have an interview with his college. It was pretty big on me, but I grew and will grow yet. It has a hood and on the back in dark green the words PROPERTY OF BOSTON CELTICS. Then, on the front, like it was hardly worth
noticing, there is a small green circle with the number 6 left out so it shows gray through the green. Just a little old 6, no big deal, but of course it is supposed to make people who know think that this is Bill Russell's practice suit, while other kids must be running around in suits belonging to number 38 or 72 or 5. Of course this is just foolishness, there being probably two thousand of these suits with 6 on it, and anyone could never think it was Russell's anyway, he being very large and people like me quite small. All the same, I liked the suit and it was nice of Maurice.

Then I would look in on Momma and say I was off to shoot and act all excited, which I was not that much, on account of that ugly old court. But still it was basketball and I was alone again, my body getting lighter and faster while I ran out of colored town, throwing a couple of fakes at trees to see how I moved off the shift, snapping my wrists and the cold air smelling like you could take a handful and crackle it like sycamore leaves.

My routine was to shoot as long as I could still see the hoop clearly, and then for the last fifteen minutes or so while it was getting darker to practice passes off the run. The way you do this is, you are dribbling and you make your move and draw your man but then instead of firing it up you whip the ball away from the direction you are looking or behind my back or something, to the open man underneath. The way you tell if you made the good pass is if you hit the metal pole holding up the backboard. It makes a good noise PONG if you smack it center, and a little TING if you nick it, which counts too. You can tell your pass was good even when it is dark, and probably it is even better to practice passing in the dark because you will often want to make passes while not looking in a game.

Most kids do not practice passing when they play by themselves, only shoot shoot shoot. Most people do not have any idea what you are doing when you cut loose of the ball while driving with the obvious intention of gunning it up—though that is just the point, looking like you are going to pop but instead you dish it and it's a snowbird for the dude under. A pass is a sharp gift to a shooter.

One day I invented a new pass to practice just before I had to leave. That happens—you do something new out of a sudden feeling and then you see that it could work if you got it down, maybe changed a little motion or put something new in, and this is very exciting. But I had to leave before nailing this new pass technique, and I thought about it all the next day, itching to get back and work it out. So when I got to the court that evening I did not start with shooting, but went straight into my pass.

It was a pass slung off the backhand dribble, and very tricky. I drift off slowly to the left from the top of the key, stutter step, speed up and beat my man left and it is obvious I am going up to slip the five-foot lay-up off the boards just an iota ahead of him catching up. But I slow down at the last minute and let him catch up and then with him in the air I snap the ball backhand to the low post. It's complicated, lots of pieces, and no room for showing off though there are several places where you make your man think you are doing something you will not. I was really working hard at these pieces, going over everything bit by bit, caring more about getting each step right and in tune, often going through the other steps sloppy until I could get to them in turn.

After a while I was getting the pieces together, and getting so I could repeat the whole process, which is a big important point for getting these little genius things under control. I
drove stuttered speeded slowed and whipped, and I started nailing that pole PONG TING TING TING, crisp and clean sounding. It was still light out too.

I heard the train coming, but paid no mind, being at that important point of putting it together. I even heard it slowing down and stopping, but did not bother to check it out. The trains did that sometimes. There is a switch yard just on the other side of Wilmington and I guess the men there radio out to this engineer and tell him to take it easy if they are backed up there, and he cuts his speed or even stops and kills a few minutes if he needs to, until they radio him Come on in. Big deal. A train is a train. I kept practicing.

Then this voice, a real teasy colored whine, came wailing out of the train—Hey boy, it said, it works better if you put the ball through the hoop instead of chucking it at the pole.

Then the voice laughed and another voice sounded like a kid laughed with it but a little behind and too loud like a dumb kid that did not get the big funny joke but just went along anyway.

I ignored whoever it was. I was at a big moment, working out my stutter step and slipping the ball from my right across to my left in front, which is when a sharp defender can swipe the sucker without blinking an eye. I had to get it just so quick he would barely see it. I practiced it about five times very fast, just the stutter step switch drib, stutter step switch drib, again again again. The voice came back.

Look here folks, here's a colored can't even dance!

There was a murmur from more people, some chuckling. I finished my series and went through the whole move. My pass missed the post.

Now I had to chase the ball toward the train, so I thought I might as well look up and see who was doing all this jiving.
If you ignore somebody too much it is worse than looking at them.

There was a black man in a blue uniform with a stiff blue cap and black bill pushed back off his forehead, leaning out the top half of a window in the train. Those train windows work funny, you can open only the top. This dude was leaning there, his elbows hanging out, hat shoved back, a toothpick wiggling in his lips, very sassy. He looked about twenty I guess, maybe older, hard to tell in a uniform. At the rest of the windows stretching back off to his right were all these white faces looking out at me, all these northern city people sitting there comfy as bugs on a dog, with their mouths closed and little smiles on their faces, on their way down to Florida to get a suntan and suck up some o.j., riding this nice train on a winter's day and getting a little extra entertainment from a little nigger outside and a big nigger inside.

Who cared about them. I'm not shy. They did not seem mean, just sort of foolish sitting there like watching television. But that cocky ticket puncher or whatever he was, the jigaboo with the big-time stripe on his pants and cap with a badge, he was irritating and I had to try hard to make myself ignore his act. I got the ball and went back to the court.

I guess I did not ignore him completely, for I gave up on the passing, which looked kind of silly, and commenced to shoot a bit, which I knew looked better. I popped a few jumpers, showing I knew where the ball should go, then put on a couple of hanging spin moves down the lane and banked in a deuce, flipped a reverse under the boards with the left hand, stuff like that, very cool but quick, feeling pretty pleased with myself.

But this dude was set to strut for the crackers so of course he pretended not to be impressed. He said, Pretty easy to
look superbad when you play with yourself.

Some of the crackers tittered when he said play with yourself. I hit a jump hook.

If you cannot play with yourself, I said, you cannot play with other people. Then I missed a double pump from the lane.

You make a better phi-los-o-pher than you do a hoop player, he said. He pretended the word philosopher gave him all kinds of trouble, like poor woolly-headed niggers never had call to use such smart big words and were out of their league. The crackers loved it. They laughed while he acted struck with himself.

I kept shooting, but he did not let me alone. He started doing the most bush thing you can, which is yell Short! or Off left! when somebody lets fly a shot. He hollered and was right a couple of times though wrong the more, but the white folks did not notice his percentage, laughing all along like he was such an expert. So, annoyed and mad at him for being such a coon as much as for messing up my game, I walked over toward the train.

As I came closer his eyes got a little thin and crafty, watching me for tricks, and the white people looked quite alarmed behind their glass like they had never been this close to a wild country jig before and I might just eat them if I got a whiff of how delicious they smelled. The colored ticket puncher's toothpick stopped wiggling when I stopped walking and faced him.

Okay big man, I said. Let's get it.

Then I snapped a chest pass at him hard as I could snap it WHAM! smack against the plate glass window's lower half he was leaning on, right between his hanging elbows. I guess I knew the plate glass would not break but it was crazy to
do anyway, so I must have been mad out of the usual control. The window shook terribly and the crackers all jumped back from theirs and said Ooh! But the ticket puncher handled himself better. He hardly moved. He must have wanted to jump back by instinct like anyone would, but he hung in there and looked the tougher for it like I could not faze him. My ball bounced right back to me and I caught it and stuck it on my hip.

You maybe asking for a game? he said quietly, raising his brows and jerking his chin at me.

If that's what will shut you up, I said. He smiled, and the toothpick commenced to jiggle again. You could see he was glad I was the country savage again and him the civilized shine. It burned me up.

As to your in-vie-tation, he said, I am on duty and must regret to say I decline. A man must do his duty.

Sure, I said. Plus there's your pretty sailor suit. A man like you does not want to go getting his pants uncreased.

A couple of the white folks laughed. I was not especially trying to get them on my side or anything, but I was not sorry to get a nod or two.

You're a smart little black Sambo, ain't you? the puncher said.

Yes, I said. So get your bad tiger self out here and let me make some butter, I said.

He looked at me for a second and then snapped his fingers. Immediately this big black kid popped up beside him. The kid was probably fifteen and tall, and he had that fake mean stare that city slicks come up with because they think it is the opposite of looking like soft country folk.

This is Bobo, said the uniform dude. Say hello, Bobo.

Bobo did not say hello.

Bobo, said the dude, is a star forward on the Takoma Park Junior High triple-A metropolitan greater Washington league runner-up champion Blue Devils.

Bobo grunted.

I hope Bobo has a wonderful career, I said. I bet the Celtics are already keeping an eye on him and in case they miss no doubt he can repeat the ninth grade until they catch his act.

The dude said, Bobo can kick butt on the hardwood, can you not, Bobo?

Whip your black ass, boy, said Bobo. He said it too low for all the crackers to hear, like this was real dirty talk just between us dirty colored folk.

Well then commence to whipping, Bobes, I said. What are you waiting for? Got to change into your blue devil costume or something? Come on, let's get it.

Bobo sort of snarled and tried to look like a streetwise alcoholic junkie robber, then started to come over to where the car ended and there was a door, but the ticket punch held him back.

Wait, he said. Just wait a sec. We got to make this more interesting.