The Moves Make the Man (13 page)

I would have expected him to pick up fakes along with his fundamentals, like throwing the shoulders when he cuts off of the dribble, or double pumping on the short jumper. But he never did these things, he just mastered the motion or the shot, and looked so clean that I never mentioned the fakes. But now that I watched him go through a bunch of motions and shots and dribbles and maneuvers on the court I realized that something was missing and watched and saw he did not put one single move anywhere, not one fake at all, and then I realized too that I could not remember him ever doing it.

Well, I thought, that is funny but I guess I never thought
to teach fakes, thinking they just happen naturally which of course they probably do not and I am supposed to teach them too. And probably it is better that Bix has the basic motions down before getting shifty and tricky too, because sometimes kids can fake like a magician but do not put the ball in the hole on account of all their energy is in the trick. So, okay, I guess that's the only thing left and then he can cut loose on his own. I got up.

Hey, man, I said, as he came up straight as a popsicle stick off the reverse dribble and lined a twelve-footer through. Hey, now we got to start the last phase.

Yeah? he said, and grabbed the ball from under the hoop and spun in the air and laid it in from under the other side of the net. Yeah? he said, panting a little and getting the ball again and this time sweeping back for a little left hook that smacked off the board and chingled through the chains. Man, he looked solid, in control.

Now we start learning the best part.

I got some best parts already, Bix said. How about this?

He went hard left but swung the ball between his legs and scooped it up right—and it went. It was a tricky move but it would have been better if he had put a little bit of a fake in there, made like he was going left all the way, hidden the ball more on the move between the legs, hung longer and pumped once before scooping it up. As he did it, it seemed fine, but if he were guarded his man would have not been fooled and maybe made him eat that polite little scoop shot.

Nice move nice move, I said. But not good enough.

No? Then try this, he said, and threw the ball up from about eighteen, high off the board, then charged down the lane, went up and caught the rebound, spun all the way around and flipped it up off the right board and in.

Cute, I said. Would have been better with a head fake before you went up.

I don't need a head fake, he said, hitting a ten-foot jumper left-handed. I don't need fakes at all.

I laughed. But he didn't. He was looking pretty serious. He grabbed the ball a few more times, panted hard and dribbled hard and shot with a grunt and shot again, making them all, driving and gunning it hard hard hard and I saw how in all of this his face got harder too and I knew we were coming up on some trouble.

Finally I cut in and snatched the ball coming through the net and turned and stood with it on my hip. He screeched to a stop and just stood there too, sweating and panting, looking straight at me, no expression really, but eyes clear and wide open and face set but loose, like there was something deadly underneath on his mind and he was determined to keep it cool and light.

He held out his right hand for the ball and raised his eyebrows, like to say Come on, chuck it to me and watch this. But I ignored him, and bounced it a couple of times, looking at him all the while. He gave a little smile and jumped for the ball on the bounce but I grabbed it and swung it behind my back. His smile hung there but it was not a real one and he said, What's up, man? Let me shoot.

Fakes, I said. Got to learn some moves.

His smile went and he stared at me back from the panting loose open face. Then he shrugged and spun back at the hoop and went up like he had the ball and then grabbed it as it came through and kept pretending shots and jumping hard and grabbing bounds with a snarl. I just watched. Finally he got tired, and said Whew! making it sound like he was a lot happier than he was, and flopped down on the
grass. He leaned way back on his arms and squinted up at me in the lantern light.

No fakes, he said.

Come on, man! What's the big deal? You can't be any kind of a hoops player without fakes! Why are you—

NO, he said, booming it. I stopped and watched him. His eyes were getting bad now. No fakes, no tricks, he said. I don't need them. I won't use them.

Then you won't play basketball for beans, I said.

Yes I will, he said. His eyes got wide again but this time they were hot inside and my stomach tightened up at the weirdness coming on. Oh, I will play all right. I will play better than anybody who DOES use lies.

Oh jeez, I said, smacking the ball down and letting it bounce high over my head, jeez here we are with this lie crap again. Fakes are lies, cracker pies are lies, jokes are lies, everything is a lie to you that is just a move to everybody else. What is your problem, dude?

Never mind my problem, he said. Whatever my problem is, it ain't lying. I do not spend all my time teaching my body to trick people like you do. Part of the game, you tell me. Well, if that's so, this game is not a game at all but pure bullshit. Not for me. If this game is worth playing it is worth playing straight, clean, no cockamamy mumbo jumbo in it. And if it is a good game, then the player who takes it straight will be the best player.

As opposed to whom?

As opposed to any little trickster thinks he is a hot number because he can shimmy and jiggle and wave his arms. You look so damn silly when you do all that crap, and it doesn't DO anything because lies never do.

I threw the ball at him. He caught it and fell back. Come
on then, I said. Show me your pure and honest stuff, baby. Let's see if I look so silly tricking your straight white ass all OVER this place.

He stared at me and his eyes were cool and smart again, the hot gone out of them, and he cocked his mouth in a smile like I was showing him things he knew more about than me. Nope, he said. He laughed. Oh no, I won't play you now. I'm pooped and besides I'm still picking it up. I've got to get myself all together on this game and you would tear me up now, but not because of your fancy jigaboo stutter crud. But I'll take you up on it. You just wait a while. I'll whip your butt, Jerome. I'll do it clean, with nothing but drives and jumpers and the straight stuff.

You do the reverse, I said. I suppose that's not a fake?

No, he said. I thought about it and decided it's legitimate. See, you take the ball with you on every motion in the reverse. You don't ever pretend to be doing one thing and then do another. Not like your goofy head fakes and when you wiggle your knees, like that would ever fool anybody. He laughed and shook his head. Oh, you look like such a creep when you do that shit.

Okay, I said. Then I walked over and swatted the ball out of his hands. He stopped laughing and looked up at me. He didn't seem upset, just a little amused and a little cocky, but still there was that secret underneath and I had not got down to it yet.

Okay, I said. Maybe it's about time I released you from having to watch so much sinful lying going down all the time.

Hey, come on…He tried to laugh but I cut him off.

Maybe you ought to be free to stick with your truth. I wouldn't want to do anything to flip you out again, you know, make you go crazy and screaming and yelling NO LIES OH
NO and picking your hands apart till you bleed, just because you're such an honest kid.

Hey, he said, frowning and getting tight, you better—

Yeah, I better. I better watch it or a head fake might shoot you off to the loony hospital, seeing as you are so sensitive. All right, sucker. You play your straight game. It stays light enough now you can have the court this time of night and practice all you want on your clean motion and honest play. Or who knows? Maybe basketball won't be good enough for you, and you'll go back to that real honest man's game, that true contest of excellence and straightness, that great terrific game of games, bounceball. Hang loose, baby.

And with that I turned and walked off the court over to where Spin Light was standing and picked it up in stride and flipped down the cover over the glass. The whole place went black, and quiet, for Bix did not speak and I did not make any more sound than I had to slipping back into the woods. It was dark and I stumbled a couple of times but I did not lift the cover. For some reason I did not want to leave in the light.

So for about two months I did not see Bix. There was just nothing for us to keep doing. I got to go back to playing earlier in the day, because Momma was better and cooking dinner now, though I kept doing lunches. I went to the court in the woods every afternoon late. I guess if Bix wanted to play his fakeless basketball he could have the nights to himself, like I told him. A couple of times I felt almost like checking, taking Spin Light or even maybe going dark through the marsh and woods, to see if he was out there in the dark by himself doing whatever he thought there was to do. But I didn't.

I was alone again, the way I liked it best. But it felt strange now. First of all, I had got used to being in the dark and not seeing any of the stuff around me, the trees and a couple of hawks and squirrels and such. I had got used to Spin Light too, and sunlight was alive by comparison, and the air felt thicker and like there were more things in it to throw off your shot. That night air and darkness let basketball be the only thing going on. Now I noticed smells and breezes and shadows and they all seemed complicated.

The main thing though was Bix, not being there I mean. I had gotten used to him and used to playing with him without feeling like I wasn't alone. That sounds funny, but it was true—playing with Bix had been as good as alone even though he was all there and I knew it all the time we played. Before Bix, when I was alone it was the way it should be, and nothing was missing. Now, after Bix, I was alone and something WAS missing, no doubt about it.

I had to get back to the game by myself, though. No fakeless ball for Jerome. So I slipped my own moves back on piece by piece like they were old clothes I had left hanging up for a couple of months and did they still fit? They felt all right after I started moving in them, but still something missed.

Once before, a long time ago, I dreamed Bix up as my mystery ghost opponent, all without thinking and I did not even know him back then. I quit and put him out of my head pretty easy. Now I tried to get him back in there. I tried to dream him up again as ghost boy to fall for my fakes but he would not come, I could not hold him up there in the brain. This scared me a little, him getting away so bad, so I forced myself not to think about him and went about my own game with no dreams.

I was in good shape. All that hoops with Bix had kept me on my toes, even though it was what he called straight. I realized now how much I missed my jukes and jives and whips and dips. I had not thrown a mess of wicked fakes in an age.

But now I was hungry for some good old swift deceit, and if the body would be avenged for its servitude to untruth, then I was set to suffer and Egglestobbs and Braxton Rivers the Third could play one on one on my grave, baby. I flat cut aloose. For those two weeks you would not believe your
eyes if you saw me, for I never once moved straight, never once went up and shot directly. I never dribbled with one hand only or pivoted the same way twice. I pumped and shuffled. I threw head so nasty my neck felt like it stretched two inches a day. I slung myself through space blind with speed and could not think for cunning, never sure on the way into a shot just exactly how I would shoot it, left hand high arch or maybe switch back to right and scoop it, getting glass or twirling twine, which one? or maybe dishing it at the last second underneath to my main man the pole for the assist of assists. Every time I went up was pure adventure, I was pure mystery to myself and as long as it stayed that way I was the greatest basketball player on the face of the place in space with grace.

Mysterious. I had never been mysterious to me before. I liked it. I always liked other people who surprised me with good stuff because I thought I was smart enough to expect everything before they showed what they had. Now I could like myself the same way. It was like meeting this new dude, invisible, who was made by the moves, and what they made was, he was me. I played harder and harder every night, no stopping me now, cutting through things I never knew could be done, pushing it and forgetting everything else for hours until I would suddenly notice my feet were hot as half-smokes or I would not be able to breathe if I ran to the hoop once more. During that time, all those hours, I was one thing only—the moves. Move and move and move, making me up after every twist and spin, all adding up until the end of the day, when I walked home, I felt so great because I was made up of so many fine things. I would walk home and I would feel the sweat still hot and I would begin to recall them as if I had not noticed while they were going on, in
snatches. Oh yes, there is that new sidestep spinback, and that is Me. And yes, there is that hanging switch from scoop to push, hitting nothing but bottom, and that is Me too. The moves piled up and combined into each other and every night I was a new set added to the old, complicated but smooth as air.

I took to calling myself the Jayfox again, which is what dudes I used to play with called me when I used to play with more people and had the moves to beat. Hey, the Jayfox can fly, the Jayfox can sneak, they said, here come the Jayfox and havoc he wreak. I even signed it to a spelling test at school instead of the usual
J. FOXWORTHY
and the stuffy old white lady teacher gave me no credit for it, pretending she did not know any Jayfox, and as for me she could find no paper with my name on it, even though the Jayfox got a 100 which was sign enough that it belonged to Jerome. I got an A for the grading period anyway even with that zero. You cannot hurt the Jayfox.

I could have kept up like this forever, I bet, and would have turned pro by fifteen if I wanted or gone to Carolina on scholarship and whipped up on Duke and Wake Forest. But I got cut off right in stride, for one day just after I had started to get warm out there, about six shots into my moves, I felt somebody watching me and turned around and there was Bix, off standing at the edge of the woods.

I stopped and stared at him. I probably was frowning and looking pretty fierce. I felt mean as a copperhead most of the time on that court, not really bad or angry but pumped up to beat. Bix just looked at me like normal, though, not scared even when I looked like as to bite him if he came near. He sort of smiled and said, Oh, hi Jerome.

What do you want, man? I said.

He shrugged, picked a couple of pine needles off a tree like he'd seen me do and stuck them in his mouth but he stuck the wrong end in and got no pitch, so threw them down after a second and shook his head.

How come you can come here? I said. How come you are so free all of a sudden?

He shrugged. I could not tell just which way he was being, whether the shy wimp or the straight playing shooter or what. If it was the shy wimp, it went a long way back—he had not been him since before we started playing ball.

What's the matter, man? I said.

Nothing, he said. Hey, can I shoot around for a minute?

Sure, I said, though not really wanting him to. My feet were twitching to gyrate, and I knew if he got on the court it would be for some slow shooting. But all the same I snapped him a two-handed chest pass, maybe a little harder than need be, knocking him back a step right at the corner of the court. I knew he would just go up from where he caught it so I gave it to him there, for it is the toughest spot on the court to shoot from, being behind the backboard which you got to arch it high and come over the board and straight down into the hoop just on the other side. Sure enough Bix went straight up the second he got the ball, and I have to say I was surprised for sure enough too he popped off a shot arched perfect and dropping like bird doo, PIM through the basket.

All of a sudden when it snapped through the net I got sad for I recalled the weeks we played and thought it was gone now and I missed the dude, for he was a good one though screwy on the subject of moves. Somehow, seeing him hit that shot so naturally, it seemed funny he could be apart from me and yet be good even still.

Nice shot, I said.

Sure, he said. He was already not thinking about it. Nobody says Sure when you tell them nice shot.

Whatever he had on his mind he would not talk for a while, so we just shot around. I hung a few of my recent moves, putting on a show, but the shots were not falling and the moves felt funny with him there, shooting his straight up and down jumpers from twelve and hitting them all from anywhere, pure and true as a spelling champion, like there was only one way to put together the parts of a shot the way there is only one way to do the letters in a word and that's how he did every one, j-u-m-p s-h-o-t. Doing my in-the-air-behind-the-back-loopy-loop-under-scoop off the board in the face of his straight stuff made me feel like when you slip and say God dog! in front of a preacher.

Finally we took a break and let the ball roll away and we just stood there, him sticking his hands in his pockets and me on my hips, and just looking at each. It was still chilly enough for the breath to frost a bit.

All right, Bix, I said. What's up?

He looked away, shook his hand in his pocket to make some coins jingle. Then he stopped. You won that lantern in a game, right?

You know I did.

Yeah, he said. Well, I got a game with something to win too. A prize. And I got to win it too.

What kind of a game? You mean basketball? You going to play somebody a game of hoops for a prize? I was pretty amazed at this.

But he was looking away and did not answer me. You know where my dad is? he said. Everything got very quiet all of a sudden.

No, I said. Where?

Dead. Somebody shot him out walking the dog when I was one year old in Washington DC, where we used to live. My momma says it was a mistake, some killers too dumb to get the right man and the next week they killed a guy in the next block. She says they shot the dog too, my dad's dog, and it was dead too, beside him. I never believed her about my dad until she told me about the dog. Somehow makes it seem real, you know?

I'm sorry, Bix.

It's okay, he said. I never saw him, or least I can't remember. Don't you think it's funny how the dog thing works like that?

Yes, I said, it's strange.

He looked at me and then away. This was the first time he ever talked about himself but he did not seem nervous or even very shy. Bet you don't know where my mom is, either, he said.

No, I said. Where is she?

She's alive. She's up in Duke hospital. Know why I have to come out only at night? Because I have chores. I have to cook and clean and wash clothes and do dishes and rake the snake-sap cones off the lawn so they don't kill the grass. Takes me until about eight every night. My stepfather falls asleep in front of the TV then or else I wouldn't get out at all. I get back before the loud movies come on at eleven.

I did not say anything. He just looked around at the trees on the edge of the woods, and watched a little hawk fly over the clearing.

They put these things on her head and shock the shit out of her, he said. I'd have thought that was a pretty good way to go about killing a person.

Who? I said. Your mother?

My mother. They put these things, in the hospital, these electric suckers or something, strap her down and put them on her head and turn on the juice and let her rip. My stepfather would not tell me but I looked it up in the town library. They call it shock treatment. They have to strap the person down, my mother down. Keeps her from breaking all of her bones, thrashing around out of control and her muscles not holding the bones protected like usual on account of the shock running through them. The shock makes a person so they almost fly, it says.

He nodded and looked around, still not nervous, just not particularly wanting to look at me. What's the matter with her, I said, keeping it cool, that they got to do this thing?

He looked at me right in the eyes for the first time and watched me hard. Crazy, he said.

Yeah, I said, it does sound crazy, but what is the—

No, he said, still watching me. No, I mean her. My mom. She's crazy. She went crazy.

What do you mean, crazy? I said, like it was MY momma or something he was talking about. I couldn't help it—hearing that word, which everybody uses like a cartoon, hearing it used straight and accurate was all of a sudden too much and especially nobody uses it for their momma. I was upset for a second and even mad at Bix, saying his mother was crazy like that. But then I went back in my mind and I saw her there at the Seven-Up game, in her black dress, on the sideline where nobody else would think to go, jumping and hollering BIX BIX BIX. And I shivered hard, for I knew Bix was telling the truth and I knew even worse that I had seen it even back then, something about that woman that was pitiful and going wrong, and the adults saw it then too
and shook their heads. It made me feel very weird that you could see it in a person headed for trouble like that and yet nothing to stop it even though you knew: crazy.

Bix said nothing. So I said, How…how does everybody know for sure she is?

He made a little laugh but not like anything was funny, and jingled his change and looked off into the woods.

Okay, I said, thinking I had maybe better move away, okay, so what is this game you got scheduled?

He looked back at me and there was a moment of liking me very much because I knew enough to move away with my question, and it was like we were back for that second playing ball and lots of silent communication. Well, he said, she is up at Duke, in Durham. They got a big hospital at the college, you know. She's been there since she went crazy five or six months ago, whenever it was we got into that class where they teach you to cook.

All that time in the hospital, getting shocked like that?

I guess. Every Friday in the evening my stepfather comes home from work and gets me and we drive up to Durham and he drops me at my aunt's house, my mother's sister, name of Maysie. Aunt Maysie. She's got six kids. None of them play anything but war, they don't even have a mitt or a bat in the house, can you believe that? I stay there all weekend. On Sunday we all go to church, and they even let the littlest kid wear his favorite gun in a holster! Man, it is embarrassing. Anyway, so then my stepfather, he comes back Sunday evening and picks me up and we take off back here and get in late and then it's school Monday morning as usual. He, my stepfather, he stays with his mother. She lives in Durham, it's where he grew up. But all during the days he sees my mother in Duke.