Jump Shot (6 page)

He looked over at Ronde, both of them lying under the same glowing stars. “Maybe you're right,” he said.
“Maybe there's something we don't know about Sugar that's making him act like such a brat. And maybe you can find out—if you can keep him from hating you, too.”

“I'm gonna try to stay on his good side,” Ronde said. “At least for starters.”

They lay there for another quiet moment. Then Ronde said, “You know, it's too bad you're not gonna do the column. You could have given Sugar some really good advice.”

“Ha! As if he'd ever ask for my advice!”

That was the end of their conversation that night. But long after he'd heard Ronde's soft snoring, Tiki lay awake, thinking.

It's true,
he thought. Sugar Morton would never write a letter asking for Tiki's response. But maybe, just maybe, there was another way. . . .

Dear Tiki:

I don't know what to do, but I thought maybe you could help me with my problem. There is this kid, who's in this kind of group with me, and instead of being part of the group, he's always going off and doing stuff on his own, and leaving us out. It's depressing, and it's like he thinks we can't do anything right. Me and my friends are all depressed
and angry, but we can't say anything to him, because he shouts us down, and he's like the boss of the group, so there's no use arguing with him. Even the teacher who's our advisor lets him get away with everything because he likes the work this kid does. But the rest of us feel like quitting the group. What should we do?

Signed,

Tiki thought for a moment, then signed the letter
“Perplexed.”
He took it with him to school that day.

Laura Sommer saw him in the hall between third and fourth period and yelled, “Don't try slipping away again, Tiki! I know what game you're playing!”

Tiki did not try to run away this time. He let her catch him, saying, “Oh, hi, Laura—I've been meaning to talk to you.”

“
Sure
you have,” she said, frowning. “Like I don't know what you've been up to. But that's okay, I've got you now. And there are sixteen letters in my desk for you, all asking for your advice. How soon can you get on it?”

“Uh, sorry, but I've already got my first letter to answer,” Tiki said, taking out of his pocket the note
signed
“Perplexed.”
“This one,” he said, “is kind of urgent. I'll have the response for you by Monday.”

“Oh!” she said, taking the envelope he'd handed her. “Great! Can't wait! Bye!”

Now all he had to do was figure out what he was going to write. All he knew was, whatever he wound up saying, it had better speak right to Sugar Morton.

Ronde was sweating bullets. He tried to shake the stinging droplets out of his eyes without using his hands, which were busy guarding Sugar.

It was exhausting trying to stay with him—all season long, players from other teams had struggled to do it, even in a double-team—but so far, Ronde was hanging in there. He hadn't allowed Sugar a decent shot the whole scrimmage.

“Back off, Barber!” Sugar said, the tendons in his neck stretched tight with tension. “Or you're gonna get knocked over.”

“I can take it, if you can dish it out,” Ronde shot back.

He instantly regretted his words. If he wanted to make friends with Sugar, to get under his defensive armor, this was no way to get acquainted.

“Whatever. Your funeral,” Sugar said, then dashed to his left, so fast that most defenders would have been left standing there.

But not Ronde. His coverage instincts had been honed over three years on the football team as its star cornerback. Sugar was good—as good as anybody Ronde had faced in his years on the Eagles. But he wasn't going to get around Ronde that easily.

“Foul!” Sugar yelled when Ronde blocked his desperate shot.

“I never touched you, man,” Ronde said. “But hey, whatever.”

“Don't ‘whatever' me, Barber,” Morton said, turning more serious. The game went on around them until Coach Jackson blew the whistle, clapping his hands for the others to stop.

“Hey, you two!” he called out. “Get your heads back in the game!”

“Sorry, man,” Ronde said, offering Sugar his hand to shake. “My bad.”

Sugar cocked his head to one side and squinted at Ronde.
He knows I didn't foul him,
Ronde thought.
He's wondering why I'm letting him get away with it. . . .

They both took off down the court, back into the scrimmage. Ronde didn't show his satisfaction, but he was smiling on the inside. He'd thrown Sugar off-balance. The kid didn't know what to make of him,
and that was a good thing. Next step was to get to know Sugar
off the court
.

Ronde was just hoisting his backpack, having showered and changed after practice, when Sugar approached him. “Hey, you've got some game, you know it? You're a lot better player than your brother.”

Ronde's first reaction was automatic—to defend Tiki. But he stopped himself. If he wanted this kid to open up to him, he couldn't be constantly arguing with him. “I'm a defensive specialist, I guess you could say,” he replied.

Sugar smiled. “Tiki can't play defense worth a dime. Plus he's streaky on offense.”

Ronde shook his head and laughed that comment off. “I've seen him go on some pretty good streaks when he gets going.” Left unsaid was the obvious—that Tiki would never get any kind of streak going on a team where he had to wait for Sugar to give him the ball.

“He's not a team player,” Sugar went on. “But I can see how you're gonna fit right in around here.”

Not a team player???

Several images rushed at Ronde all at once—times when Tiki's unselfishness as a player had saved the Eagles from disaster. If anyone wasn't a team player, it was Sugar! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

“Hey, you taking the late bus home?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Come on, I'll sit with you.”

They walked out to the car park together and got on the bus. “I live over by Exeter Street,” Sugar said.

“Yeah? That's only five blocks from us!” Ronde said, surprised. “How did I not know that?”

“Well, I . . .”

“I mean, I
never
see you on the bus. I know I'm absentminded sometimes, but I don't think I could have missed you three years in a row!”

“I, uh . . .” Sugar suddenly fell silent. Then, just as quickly, he changed the subject. “You know what's wrong with this team?”

“Me? No! I mean, how would I know? I just got here!”

If Ronde protested a bit too much, it was because he knew
exactly
what was wrong with the basketball Eagles. He was looking at him right now!

“Well, let me save you the time and effort,” said Sugar as they started up the staircase that led from field level, where the gym and locker rooms were, to the main floor, and the doors that led to the parking lot. “I'll tell you what the problem is—it's that everybody's just standing around, waiting for me to make a play.”

Finally, Ronde could agree with something Sugar said, and wholeheartedly. “You may be right about that. I did see Bobby and Rory kind of dogging it today. But why do you think they do that?” he asked, trying to draw Sugar out.

“They're just wimps, that's all!” Sugar ranted.

Ronde could feel his anger. Sugar was almost shaking with rage at the thought of it. “I get double-teamed every time, and nobody's willing to put a body on anyone! They could slam me to the ground, and none of those chickens would stick up for me.”

That's because they've had it with you, dude,
thought Ronde.
Maybe you should be nicer to them; even get them the ball once in a while.

Of course, he didn't say any of that—that would have been the end of the conversation then and there. Instead, he offered, “It looks to me like they're discouraged, kind of.”

“They're a bunch of losers, that's what they are!” Sugar thundered. He yanked open the door to the main hallway and charged through it, leaving Ronde to follow him. “They've got a negative attitude, and Coach Jackson is no better. You'll see soon enough if you haven't already. This is what I live with, and it really, really bites.”

Ronde didn't know what to say to that. Clearly, Sugar was upset about the state of the team, and he had every right to be. Everything he'd said was true, technically. What he didn't seem to get was his
own
part in what was wrong with the team.

“Well, there's got to be a way to change things,” Ronde said, determined not to give up so easily.
“There's got to be a way to get the front line and the bench involved in playing their best.”

He followed Sugar through the main doors and onto the path that led to the parking lot, where the late bus would be waiting for them. “How do you think we could get them to play better?”

Sugar laughed bitterly. “
Me?
How should
I
know? I'm not them.”

“Well, who would know better than you?” Ronde wondered. “You've seen every minute of every game from close up. You've been in the locker room, you've won with them and lost with them. You must have some ideas.”

Sugar stopped walking, turned to Ronde, and looked right at him. “You're pretty smart, Barber, you know?” he said. “I think having you on the team is gonna make us better. How do you like that, for starters?”

Ronde smiled. “I like it a lot!” he said, and the two of them gave each other five.

“I'm gonna tell Coach to start you,” Sugar said, clapping Ronde on the shoulder. “You can't do any worse than Rory's doing. And unlike Tiki, you won't be chucking up shots every time I get you the ball.”

“You've got that right,” Ronde said. “That's the last thing I want to be doing is shooting. Funny, for a shooting guard, huh?”

He laughed again, but Sugar didn't join in.

In fact, Ronde noticed that he was no longer even
paying attention. Instead, his gaze was fixed on a woman standing by a green car, about halfway to the bus. She was tall and tired-looking, but she was smiling a sad smile and waving to Sean, beckoning him to come over to her.

He looked away from her. “Come on,” he said, striding quickly toward the bus. Ronde had to jog to keep up with him.

“What's up?” he asked, but Sugar didn't answer. He walked right by the woman without even looking at her.

“Sean!” she called after him. “Baby, please! Don't be like this. . . .”

Sugar ignored her. He grabbed the door handle and yanked himself up the stairs onto the bus. Ronde paused before following him, and looked back at the woman.

She had put a white handkerchief to her mouth, and her shoulders were heaving up and down. Tears ran down her cheeks. She did not move, but stared after the bus as it rode away.

Ronde sat next to Sugar, but he didn't say a word. He was afraid if he did, Sugar might explode, and all the hard work of making friends with him would go right down the drain.

I might not be able to fix all the basketball team's problems,
he thought.
But at least I've finally got a clue about what Sugar's problem might be.

Tiki had never worked so hard in his life! Hours and hours of packing and unpacking boxes, walking the aisles to take items off shelves and put them on other shelves, then having to write down what he did on two different lists, so that Mr. Landzberg, or his assistant, or his secretary, or his salesmen, could read those lists and know what was where in the warehouse.
Whew!

Ronde hadn't mentioned
this
part of the job. He'd talked about his errands around downtown Roanoke, and his visits to the house of the boy with the sick mother. But so far, Tiki hadn't left the warehouse even once.

It was kept pretty cold inside too. His floor foreman, Murray Wein, said that a lot of the merchandise kept better that way. But Tiki wondered if it wasn't because it would cost too much to heat a warehouse that size,
with such high ceilings. His mom had told the boys their electric bill at home was “outrageous,” and you could fit
ten
houses that size in this one big warehouse.

By the time Tiki got home from his first day at work, he was exhausted. And he still had to write his reply to his own “anonymous” letter to the school paper!

Luckily, Ronde wasn't around. “Oh, that's right—he's playing tonight,” Tiki remembered aloud.

He looked at the clock over the stove: 7:20 p.m. His mom wasn't home yet either. On Wednesdays, she worked both her jobs.

Seven twenty . . . It wasn't that late at all. Still, it had been dark for over an hour. To Tiki, who was sitting down for the first time since school, it felt like eleven at night.

Still, he sat down to write his advice column. He'd promised it to Laura signed, sealed, and delivered first thing tomorrow morning. He was no welcher, never had been—and he didn't intend to start being one now!

He wrote in his spiral notebook:

Dear “Perplexed,”

Thanks for writing, and I sympathize with your problem. There are lots of kids who act like the
one you mention. They don't realize that they're not just hurting themselves, they're hurting everyone in the whole group!

What to do about it? Well, the thing is, as I see it, that this kid—or, let's say, these kinds of kids—need to really look at themselves, and see themselves as others see them. I mean, sure, doing that will really rock their world. But if they're ever going to change, somebody needs to take the risk of laying it all out in the open for them. As the commercial says on TV, “Only your best friend will tell you. . . .”