The game was over and some of the cheerleaders were congratulating Larson. Some guys from the school’s television channel were waiting to interview him. In the locker room I asked Skipper how many points Larson had scored.
“Sixteen,” Skipper said. “He was high man on the team. And five rebounds. You had nine points and five rebounds.”
Was I wrong? Was the game straight all the way? I didn’t know. I thought it over, but I wasn’t sure. I knew that at the end of the game it had been Larson who had iced it for us.
Colin had played for a few minutes and had scored three points and pulled down two rebounds. He had also made two fouls. I was thinking about getting on his case for that as I left the gym. My foot was sore. I hadn’t noticed it during the game. I thought about going back to the training room and having a look at it, but decided not to bother. It was a crisp, cool night, and I just wanted to get back to Orly Hall.
“Hey, Jackson, nice game.” A short guy with a lot of teeth came up to me. “We’re lucky to have you out there with Mac hurt.”
“I hope I can get some playing time when he comes back,” I said.
“I think Teufel will probably go to using three guards,” the short guy said. “Hauser’s a junior and McKinney’s a senior. He’s got to get somebody else ready.”
“Yeah, probably,” I said, feeling pretty good. I enjoyed talking with the guy. There were some chicks up ahead of us and I felt like running after them and talking with them about the game, too. Winning made you feel good.
“Say, I saw the Fat Man,” the short guy said. “He said to tell you you played a nice game. Maybe you can drop around the pizza shop tomorrow.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah, and he said to give him a call tonight.”
“I got nothing to talk to him about,” I said, “or you either. Why don’t you just split.”
“Don’t get touchy,” Shorty said. “I don’t care if you call him or not, or if you pick up your money.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying my best to breathe normally.
“Oh, well, maybe you better come with me anyway.”
He stepped in front of me and held up his hand. In the middle of his palm was a badge.
I went with the guy to the administration building. Teufel was there and Leeds. They asked me if I knew the Fat Man. I said yes. Then they asked me if he had ever given me or offered me money to change the outcome of a game. I said no. Then they told me that I was suspended from the team until they made an investigation.
I couldn’t do anything for the whole week. I couldn’t go to class, I couldn’t eat, nothing. It wasn’t that I was sick or anything, it was just that every bit of energy was drained from me. The first day or so I just sat in the room. Then my roomies started getting on my case, trying to cheer me up and whatnot, and I just couldn’t take that.
I had some money and so I went to town and sat in La Hispania and drank beer. I figured they would kick me off the team even though I really hadn’t done anything wrong. I remembered the article that Cal had shown me, it seemed a thousand years ago now, about how he had been put out of the NBA for associating with criminals, something like that.
I went back to the dorm at night for the first few days, waiting until it was late so I wouldn’t have to talk to the others. One night Colin was awake when I got in.
“Lonnie?”
“Yeah.”
“Lonnie, if you need somebody to pray with, or get drunk with,” Colin said, “I’m here.”
“Okay, farm boy.”
I got my money from the hospital center and went on a real tear. I just drank till the money ran out, and by the weekend I was in La Hispania trying to bum drinks from people I didn’t even know.
“Hi, you stand a little company?”
Sherry eased into the seat opposite me.
“What are you doing here?” My voice sounded like tires over a gravel driveway. “I thought nice girls like you didn’t belong in places like this.”
“Could be,” Sherry said. “But I heard that nice guys like you don’t belong in places like this, either. That’s why I looked everywhere else in the world for you before I came here. Colin finally found you here yesterday.”
“Colin? Here?”
“He thought you might not remember him being here,” Sherry said. “He told me he wasn’t sure whether to just sit in here with you or knock you out and take you back to the dorm. He’s been sitting here.”
I looked over to where Sherry was pointing and saw Colin seated at a table near the wall.
“Who told him to come here?” I said.
“I don’t know why he came here,” Sherry said. “But it really puzzles me why he stays. They say you called him a lot of racial names, the whole bit. You even took a swing at him.”
“Crap.”
“Lonnie, my roomie is away playing tennis this week. Why don’t you come and stay with me? They’ve extended your suspension for three days. Come on with me.”
“So you can feel sorry for me? Look, I don’t need that garbage. All I need is some dust to get me back to Harlem.”
“That really what you need?”
“That’s it.”
“You spend the three days with me,” Sherry said. “Just until the suspension ends, and I’ll give you the money to get back to Harlem. Square business?”
“You got the money?”
“I can get it from my folks.”
“Bet.”
I thought spending three days with Sherry was going to be a problem. It wasn’t my first problem. Standing up was my first problem. My head was pounding and I had more aches than I had places to keep them. Colin came over when he saw I was getting ready to leave. He tried to help me but I pushed him away. I wasn’t mad at him, not really, but being mad was the only thing I had at the time. We got a cab outside La Hispania and went back to the dorm. There were some stares in the lobby, and I stared back.
I felt dirty, and out of place and small. I let Sherry and Colin help me up to her room and fell across the bed.
When I woke up it was dark. I could smell food, but I couldn’t remember where I was. I tried to get up and my head started swimming again.
“Lonnie?”
It was Sherry’s voice and I remembered where I was. She switched on the light. There were french fries and a cheeseburger on the table between the two beds. She must have brought them for me but couldn’t get me up. I got up and stumbled past her to the bathroom. I felt better after coming out of the bathroom, but when Sherry saw me she winced. She got a towel out of one of the drawers and handed it to me.
It was probably the first time I had had my clothes off that week. In the shower the hot water was running over my body and felt good, even when it found the small scrapes I had accumulated. It revived me somewhat. I dried off, rinsed my mouth out with some Listerine that Sherry had, and came out of the bathroom feeling halfway decent again.
“You look vaguely human,” she said. “Nothing to brag about, I mean, but vaguely human.”
I got back into her roomie’s bed and tried to think of something to say to this middle-class black girl. I didn’t know anything more about middle-class black people than I did about white people. I had put her into a category, had framed and labeled her, and she was coming out of a different bag altogether. I got myself up on one elbow to say something, but she just put her fingers to her lips and shut out the light.
When I woke in the morning it was just in time to dash out of bed and into the john, where I puked my guts. I threw up until I was weak. Sherry was there with a towel and helped me clean myself. I felt dizzy and ashamed of myself. I saw some of my clothes neatly folded on a chair, and started to put them on. Sherry stopped me.
“Baby, don’t,” she said. “Just lie down until you feel better. That’s all you have to do.”
“You feeling like a mama today?” I asked.
She nodded. “I guess so,” she said. “I feel like taking
care of you. You’ll be all right soon. Maybe even tonight. Just let yourself relax for a few more hours.”
I got back in the bed and let Sherry pull the covers over me. She let me rest for a while and then got some toast and eggs from the cafeteria. I managed to deal with the toast, but just barely. Then she asked if I minded if she read to me.
“I have to read this book for English lit anyway,” she said. “They’re short pieces by Larry Melford. This first story is called ‘The Meetings.’ ”
She began to read. Her voice was clear and warm and I could tell she was enjoying the story. I was enjoying it, too. But more than that, I was enjoying Sherry. I had been feeling sorry for myself, and I still was. But no matter how things turned out at Montclare I had done some cool things and met some cool people. Colin was one of them, and Sherry was something else again.
I drifted off to sleep, and when I woke she was still there. The shades had been drawn and she was reading by the light from the lamp.
“Is it late?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “It’s a little chilly out. I thought closing the drapes would keep the room warmer.”
“Oh.”
She continued to read. I couldn’t tell if it was the same book or not. I had lost a sense of time and I wasn’t feeling well enough to concentrate on the story. But I concentrated on her voice and the fact that she was still there. I took my arm from under the cover and put it on her leg. She stopped reading and looked at me.
“Hey, girl, I think I love you,” I said.
She put her head down, and when she lifted it there were tears in her eyes. “How do you expect me to read to you if you’re going to get me all upset?” she said.
I kissed her hand, and she began to read again.
I must have dozed off again, because the next thing I knew Sherry was shaking me by the shoulder and calling my name. There was a phone call for me and she pushed the receiver into my hand. A voice on the other end of the line said that the investigation was over and that I should come over to the administration building at once.
I told Sherry what it was all about and she said she would come with me.
“Uh-uh,” I said. “Because I’m not going.”
“Why not? Don’t you want to find out what happened?”
“No,” I said, “I don’t.”
“Lonnie, are you scared?”
“Nope.” I sat up and took the clothing from the chair. “I’ve seen a lot badder turkeys than these out here, mama.”
“Then why are you putting on your bad-Harlem-cat act?” Sherry asked. “If you’re not scared, why don’t you go over there and face them? I think you’re scared out of your mind.”
“Maybe I am,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“Lonnie, you’re so good, you’re really so … so real now.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You can tell me that you’re scared,” she said. “That’s great. You couldn’t have done that when you first came here. And you said that you loved me before. You remember that? You weren’t just being sick and talking out of your head, were you?”
“No, but don’t talk too much about that,” I said. “Because that’s scarier than going to the administration building.”
“Lonnie, go,” Sherry said. “If it doesn’t come out right, we can get a lawyer or something. We’ll fight it together.”
“You a fighter, too?”
“No,” she said. She ran her fingertips down the side of my face. “But I think you are.”
Leeds was waiting in the office talking to the secretary when I walked in. He looked at me and pointed toward one of the chairs. I went and sat in it. It was a silly thing to do, but I had to smile. The secretary picked up her phone and dialed a number. I heard her tell somebody I was there. Then she nodded and hung up the phone.
“You can go in now,” she said, looking from me to Leeds.
What I wanted more than anything else was to go to the bathroom. All the courage I had gotten up when I was talking to Sherry was in the pit of my stomach waiting to slip out. I walked behind Leeds into the large office. There was one of those long desks that reflected the windows. Teufel was sitting at the desk, the president of the college, two secretaries, some guys I had never seen before, and Abdul Rashid, from the Brotherhood. I wanted to just go over and kiss him for being there.
“Lonnie, we’ve held a thorough investigation of some allegations that were brought before us. There were suggestions that some of the players were being tampered with. Do you have any knowledge whatsoever of anything to this effect?” the president asked.
I wasn’t ready for the question. I thought of saying that I thought Larson might have been doing something, or what the Brotherhood had told me about how a game would go if someone was shaving points, but I figured that Rashid could speak on that if he wanted to, and I really wasn’t sure about Larson.
“No, sir,” I said.
“Mr. Leeds, you’re the assistant coach, is that correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you have any knowledge of any tampering with the athletes or illegal contacts?”
“No, sir, I do not.”
“Well, our investigations have indicated that there has been some illegal contact. Now, this is a very unfortunate situation. However, I don’t think it will affect the school in a major way. Mr. Lydell here is with the investigation unit of the state police, and he’ll fill you in on the details.”
“At first we heard a number of rumors.” Lydell was a tall guy with a pointy head. He looked like a policeman. “We tracked down some rumors about point shaving and about fixing games. We came up with no significant findings along these lines. We did, however, discover that a certain Mr. Alfredo Corsi had talked to some of the ballplayers and that one of them for a monetary consideration signed a letter of intent to play for an Italian team.”
“That letter of intent”—the president took it from there—“has effectively terminated Bill Larson’s amateur status and his eligibility at Montclare. We thought for a while that Lonnie had been involved with this as well, but we’re glad to find that he wasn’t. So we’re reinstating Lonnie on the team.
“Frankly, I don’t care how much this is talked about on campus. This kind of thing does nothing but hurt the athletes, so the more it’s known about, the better. Lonnie, I heard you went through some rough moments as a result of the suspension, and I’m sorry. But the fact that your name is clear is as much a relief to the school and to me personally as it must be to you.”
We all shook hands, and Leeds talked about how much Larson would probably get to play with the Italian team and even some compliments about how well I was playing.
“You know that since you’ve missed a week of practice you’re going to have to work twice as hard to catch up,” Leeds said.
“Yeah,” I said.
I was numb by the time I got back to the dorm. I hadn’t known anything about Larson and the Italian team. I hadn’t remembered him at the tryouts, just Ray.
“Hey, no-count, you buying the Cokes?” Rashid Abdul put his elbow on top of the Coke machine.
I went through my pockets and found that I didn’t have a penny and told him.
“You ain’t good for nothing!” Abdul said. “You ain’t never gonna be a ballplayer because you’re lame. How you walk around with no money in your pocket when you know I might want a Coke?”
“I was just in a—”
“Man, shut up, you ain’t got nothing to say anyway,” Abdul said. “What you think about that hearing?”
“I didn’t know that he was thinking of going to an Italian team,” I said.
“Neither did he,” Abdul said. “He’ll be in the NBA in a year or two.”
“Wait a minute—” I said. “You mean—”
“What I mean,” Abdul said, “is that they started sniffing around, and when they found where the stink was leading them, they stopped sniffing before they found the doo-doo. They came up wit
h a reason Larson had all the money he was sporting and the case was closed. The Italian team thing was a compromise. The Italians went for it and Larson didn’t have a choice. They really didn’t have anything on you, and the Brotherhood was there watching so they couldn’t push anything on you.”
“Man, I got to thank you cats.”
“There you go running your mouth again,” Abdul said. “That all they teach you in this school? Here, I got something for you.”
He reached into his inside coat pocket and handed me a white envelope.
“Go on, fool, open it up. It’s from the Brotherhood.”
I opened it and found a small metal mirror.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
“That’s so you can start watching your own rear end for a change.” Abdul grinned. “The Brotherhood can’t watch it for you all the time.”
Some co-eds came over and asked Abdul for his autograph. He took out his pen and told me to get away from him because I was hurting his image. The guy was a snap.
I hurried back to the dorm to tell Sherry what had happened. She took one look at my face and figured the whole thing.
“How do you feel?” she said, smiling.
“Like half past nine on Christmas morning,” I said, taking her hands in mine.
“You tell Colin yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, let’s go tell him before you start feeling too good, Mr. Lonnie Jackson.”
Without Larson we lost to Rice, but it wasn’t a conference game. Hauser said we played all right and that we’d really be tough by the time Go-Go had a little more experience.
“Teufel might even switch him to forward down the stretch,” Hauser said. “With you and me in the back court and Mac coming off the bench, we’ll be okay, bright eyes.”
“Yeah, okay.”
The next game I got seats for Eddie Brignole and his mother. I worked my tail off and we won with Bobby scoring big from the inside. After the game we felt good in the locker room. There was a lot of kidding around, a lot of jokes. We were winners and everybody was happy. They were kidding Sly about a play that he had made. He had got the ball near the foul line and taken four steps to the basket without ever dribbling the ball and for some reason the refs didn’t call it.