Childish Things
Preview of Childish Things Stories of Growing Up by Charlie Close
Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Close
Table of Contents Jeffrey’s Last Trick or Treat Roaring Crowd Reunion Books by Charlie Close Visit Charlie
Jeffrey’s Last Trick or Treat autumn night children in all colors fill the sidewalks
Jeffrey was a pro. He had been going out on Halloween night since he was four, and now that he was eleven there was nothing he didn’t know about collecting candy from the neighborhood. He had learned that it paid to be loud. If you dressed as a character that allowed you to yell, like a football player (“Hike that candy into my bag! Hut! Hut!”), or, as with this year, a pirate (“Drop the candy in or I’ll hack your arm off!”), then you could often get the neighbor to give up an extra piece or two. The first year, when he had dressed as angel (his mother’s idea), he had received more pats on the head than candy. The frustration of this had burned in him for twelve months and he demanded next year to go as The Devil. “And I want a pitchfork!” he had said. That was the year he learned that it was good to go as a character who carried a pointy weapon, which also explained why he was going as a pirate this year. Pirates carried swords, and swords were good for getting candy. What did not help, however, was parents. When he was just starting out, his mother had escorted him. He had allowed this until he was eight, when he realized that only the little kids went with their mothers. He was definitely not little any more so he demanded that she not go. Maybe it was the loudness of his argument, or maybe it was the sharp point at the end of the American flag that an astronaut always carries (“One giant handful of candy!”). Whatever it was, he had gotten his way, and from then on trick or treating with Jeffrey was Dad’s job. Going with Dad was better than going with Mom. Dad stayed on the sidewalk and didn’t say much, which let Jeffrey do what he had to do – work the houses with his sack to get the most loot possible. As far as Jeffrey was concerned, the less he saw of his father, the better. Mom had not understood this at all. She had insisted on coming to the door with him and she almost always talked to the person whose arm was attached to the candy bowl. Nothing was more boring than listening to two grownups talk about raking leaves, or the traffic driving to school in the morning. Jeffrey could not stand having his mother overshadow him, and that was another reason he got rid of her in favor of Dad. This moment right now, standing in the kitchen while Mom straightened his bandana and stooped to wipe a bit of scuff off his black leather shoes, was the last he would see of her until he came back with a full bag of sweet treasure. Dad was standing behind him, so Jeffrey could not see his expression, but he was sure it was a scowl, just like Jeffrey’s. “Okay,” Mom said, “I think you’re ready to go. You be sure to say thank-you to everyone. I want you to be the politest pirate in the neighborhood.” Jeffrey did not dignify this with a response. It was not necessary to state the fact that politeness was not part of a pirate’s code of ethics.
Mom pulled back to admire her costuming and make-up skills. “You look beautiful. Okay then, off you go!” And then she did something that Jeffrey couldn’t have predicted and therefore could not prevent. She swooped in, lifted his eye patch and kissed him right on the eye. “Good luck!” she said, then lowered the patch back down to seal the kiss onto his face. “Arrrrrrghhhhh!!! No kissing!” Jeffrey turned his good eye up to his father with a watery look somewhere between pleading and command. “Let’s go, Dad.” Dad put his hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder to nudge him out the door. “Gotta go,” he said, and kissed Mom on the way out. Once they were out in the neighborhood, Jeffrey was back in control. He strode down the sidewalks, stomping on the cracks where old tree roots had pried them up and swinging his sack in circles. His father stayed two paces behind, hands in pockets, enjoying the cool, moonlit night as if he were walking by himself. It was one of those evenings so clear one could hear everything, whether his own footsteps or the rustling of leaves in the street. Or the sound of Jeffrey passing a ballerina and her mother on the sidewalk. “Arrgh, dance, sissy!” he growled at them as he passed. Jeffrey’s father waved to the mother and smiled at the girl with her satin shoes, rhinestone tiara, and petite white sack. Jeffrey kept moving. The sidewalk was full of children and their parents, and Jeffrey growled at most of them, ignoring only the smallest children, the ones who could hardly walk and whose parents were holding the sack. A pirate’s code did include some allowance for mercy. But only a little, and none when approaching a neighbor’s house. If no one was ahead of him, he charged up the steps to the porch and, rather than use the doorbell, beat on the door with the grip of his sword. When the door opened, he leaned in and demanded “Give me some candy, swab!” Pirates did not say “trick or treat”, nor any other phrase with the word “treat” in it. Jeffrey could tell most neighbors were frightened. One man in a cardigan and socks without shoes jumped back and said, “You’re a scary little devil, aren’t you?” “I’m a pirate, you lily-livered, dirt-napping doubloon!” said Jeffrey. “The Devil can taste my steel.” “Ah,” said the neighbor, and he held out a bowl of candy. “Would you like some booty?” “Arrrgh!” said Jeffrey. He reached his fist into the bowl and opened it over his sack, and then he turned to the next house with his sword raised. Some houses already had trick-or-treaters at the door. These were the ones Jeffrey despised. Pirates should never have to wait. The first time this happened, a mother with her four year old daughter was at the door holding a plastic bucket shaped like a pumpkin. The girl was out for the first time, and judging by how slowly they were moving it could have been her very first house. Pirate Jeffrey was not amused. He intended to charge up to the door, but his father put a hand on his shoulder as he rounded the corner from the sidewalk to the walkway. “Not so fast, Blackbeard.” Jeffrey stood with his arms crossed over his chest and the sword still in his hand making little circles. He imagined that the steps up to the door were a plank, and that, as the girl and her
mother finally stepped away, they walked down it and dropped into the deep blue sea. Only Jeffrey heard the splash. “Happy Halloween,” said his father as they passed. “Happy Halloween,” said the mother. Neither the girl, who avoided eye contact, nor Jeffrey, who was already striding to the door, had anything to add. Despite the setbacks and slowdowns every pirate faces, it was the best night of trick-ortreating Jeffrey had ever had. He knew the territory: which houses had what candy, and who had the most. Rather than proceed from house to house, Jeffrey had made his father raid the fattest houses first, then swab up the lesser houses, so that by the end of two hours his sack was nearly full. Then Jeffrey noticed a house they had not attacked. In fact, he had not visited it since the year before last, before the old couple who had lived there had moved away. Time to introduce the new swabs to his steel. “C’mon, Dad.” There was no one at the door, maybe because the house was set further back than most, or maybe because it was getting late and all the other kids had gathered enough candy for one year. Still, the light was on. Jeffrey walked up to it and banged on the door. When the door opened, he knew that this encounter was going to be different. Most of the people answering the doors were middle aged, mostly husbands wearing only their T-shirts and getting up from watching the television. They participated in the Halloween ritual with practiced detachment, as if they gave out candy every day to children dressed in costumes. Not this door. This door was answered by a pair of high-heeled boots with pointy toes that were attached to smooth legs in black fishnet stockings, and the stockings were underneath an old-fashioned black lace dress that might have been for a mourning widow if it had not been cut too short for that purpose. Bosoms pushed out of the top of the dress, and not in a widow-like way. Jeffrey could not lift his eyes further, perhaps because of the red costume jewelry spider pinned to her chest. Then a voice spoke to him from above the bosoms. “Good eeeeevening,” it said in a low accent that was supposed to be Transylvanian. “Weeeelcome to my lair.” Jeffrey raised his eyes now and saw a woman made up to have a ghastly white face and black lips, eyes, and hair. “Have you come to find…candy?” said the voice, and that’s when he could see her fangs. Jeffrey did not know what to say. The pirate had gone out of him, and his eyes began to drift back downward again into the bosoms. Maybe it was the perfume that wafted from them, pulling his nose closer…closer. “You do not say much, doooo you? Are you a silent pirate?” “Um,” said Jeffrey. Although Jeffrey didn’t see it, one of the vampiress’s black eyebrows lifted in amusement. “Wouldn’t you like…a snack?” And from nowhere a black bowl of candy appeared in front of him at the end of her white hand with long black nails.
This brought Jeffrey back around, if only slightly. He reached in a shaking hand and selected a single piece and placed it gently in his sack. “Thank-you,” he said. Normally he would have raised his sword and charged back to the sidewalk, but now he stood still, as if he had forgotten the proper protocol and could not move. “You’re welcome, Jeffrey,” she said, not Transylvanian anymore. He couldn’t remember where he had heard that voice before. “Huh?” “I said you’re welcome. Are you having fun trick-or-treating?” Then he knew. “Miss Norris?” Miss Norris was his fifth grade teacher. “Good eeeevening,” she repeated, again with the Transylvanian accent. “You are a scaaaary pirate.” Jeffrey did not know what to say. The woman who stood in front of his class every day did not have fangs, did not wear black, and really, really did not have bosoms that he was aware of. She normally wore floral pattern dresses and boring beige shoes and never spoke with any kind of accent. Jeffrey was stuck. He could not look up at her face – that was too embarrassing – and he could not let his gaze drift back down. He found himself looking off to the left at the bushes by the porch and searching for words. “Um,” he said, “I haven’t done my math homework yet.” Miss Norris put one hand on her hip. “Oh, really? Well, I think that will be all right this one time because it’s not due until the day after tomorrow.” She had learned from experience that it was futile to schedule homework for the day after Halloween. “Oh, right,” said Jeffrey. Now he turned his head to the right, swinging his eyes past her and staring at the moths swirling around her porch light. “I have to go.” Miss Norris raised her arms into giant bat wings. “You must gooooooo.” Jeffrey started to step away, and then Miss Norris held out the bowl, Transylvanian again. “But first you must have another piece of candy. Capturing treasure takes soooo much energy.” Miss Norris gave the bowl a little shake. Jeffrey looked into the bowl and did not move. “Take the candy, Jeffrey,” she said in her teacher voice, “and I don’t want any back talk.” Jeffrey could not refuse this voice, so he reached in his hand and took another piece and dropped it in his sack without looking, and turned to escape the porch. The vampiress watched until he had reached the sidewalk and then withdrew back into her lair. His father was waiting in the shadows when Pirate Jeffrey returned. “Got some good treats, son? You were there for awhile.” “Yeah, fine,” said Jeffrey. He started down the sidewalk and his father followed behind. They had walked a few paces when Dad said, “They didn’t make vampires like that in the old days. Wow!” “Shut up, Dad.” “Ready to go capture some more treasure candy?” Jeffrey kept walking. “Nah. I have enough candy.”
Dad let that one sink in. “Okay. Let’s go home.” Jeffrey said nothing and let his feet do the talking. “You know your mom is probably waiting for us anyway.” Jeffrey said nothing. “And now I’ve got a few ideas,” said Dad, mostly to himself, “about what Mom should wear next Halloween.” Jeffrey scrunched his eyes tight and pretended he had not heard this. When they got home, they poured Jeffrey’s takings into a huge mixing bowl, and he took the bowl to the living room to watch TV. He didn’t say anything for the rest of the night and didn’t bother to take off his costume until he went to bed. Neither Jeffrey nor his parents knew yet that he had gone trick-or-treating for the last time. His parents were sure he was getting to that age when he was too old for it, but they assumed they would have to fight next year to keep him off the streets. As it turned out, there was no fight. Months later, as the leaves turned orange again and piled on the sidewalks, Jeffrey decided that he was too old to wear costumes and ask grown-ups for candy. He did not tell his parents about his decision because telling them would mean talking about it, and talking about things with his mom and dad was for little kids, not twelve-year-olds. Fortunately, Jeffrey’s parents also did not want to talk about Halloween because talking about it would mean having to let him go, and they were determined not to let him go, unless he demanded it. And so both the parents and the son said nothing and got what they wanted, and neither could believe their luck. When Halloween night came around again, Jeffrey sat at home in front of the television and snuck pieces of candy from the bowl sitting by the door. And he did one more thing. He jumped up and beat his father to every doorbell. He did it because he had made an exciting discovery. Standing at the door with a bowl of candy was the best way in the world to scare the hell out of all the little angels, astronauts, and pirates in the neighborhood.
Roaring Crowd roaring crowd the arc of a free throw
Stephanie spent a long time at the free throw line. At least it felt like a long time. The ref in the oversized striped shirt handed her the basketball for her second shot. The basketball was orange and the black grooves in it felt too deep, and it was too big for her hands even though she had big hands for her age. She had big everything for her age. In the class picture last fall she had been the girl in the middle of the back row standing next to the tallest boy, who was an inch shorter than her. She had been the middle girl in the back row for the last six years. She wondered what it would be like to sit down in front with the girls for the picture instead of standing with the boys. The ref stepped back into the free throw lane and blew his whistle. Nine other girls stood in front of her, some looking at her, and the others looking at the rim, waiting. For a moment Stephanie held the ball, as if not realizing that they were all waiting for her. The crowd watched her too, and they were many. Judging by their sound, every parent at Adams Elementary and Wilson Elementary had come to this game and was sitting on the bleachers to her left. They were clapping and yelling and stomping their feet. They were waiting for the next shot, which might be the last of the game and the season. She bounced the ball once on the shiny floor and caught it with both hands. The ball bounced much straighter on the floor than it did in the driveway, where the cracks could make it zing to the left or right. “Go after it! Hustle!” was all her father would say when the ball suddenly ricocheted down the driveway into the street, and she would have to chase it, looking both ways for cars and letting it roll even farther, so that she could bring the ball back and let her dad beat her some more. “Run!” he would say. She did not want to run. She wanted to stay inside with a book, but her father had set up a basketball hoop in the driveway at the beginning of summer and that was all there was to it as far as he was concerned. “You need exercise,” he had said. “Time for you to get some muscles.” She did not want muscles. If you’re twelve years old, and five-foot-seven and weigh almost a hundred pounds, muscles don’t help. They just make you look even bigger. Dad did not listen. He dragged her onto the court and made her play horse and one-on-one. It would have been torture if she had cared, since he could outshoot her from anywhere in the driveway and block any shot she tried to take.
“Come on!” he said. “Shoot it! Shoot it!” And when she tried to shoot he slapped it away and she had to chase it out into the road again. “You have to learn to shoot around me,” he called out. “Create some shooting space between you and your man. Let’s try it again.” Man? There were no men on her team, only girls, and they were all smaller and wore ponytails, and none of them would slap the ball out of her hands, and none of them stunk like sweat the way Dad did. That was how she spent an hour every Saturday last summer, trying to shoot around Dad and over him, and chasing the ball as it rolled away. He seemed to like it, though, and why wouldn’t he? He was tall, and too heavy for her to budge, and he didn’t have to run at all. He could just lift the ball over his head, out of her jumping reach, and lob it into the basket. It was easy for him. For her it was all hard work and frustration and making her sweaty like him. Stephanie bounced the ball again and watched as it came straight up from the floor into her hands. Then she looked up and there was the rim. It was a lot farther away, here in the school gym, than it was in her driveway and it looked a lot farther off the ground. Somehow she had made the first free throw. She hurled it the direction of the basket and it hit the backboard, then the right side of the rim, then the left side, and then it bounced in. The score was tied. The crowd on the bleachers had gone quiet then except for a few people who had driven across town to see her team play. It was a lucky shot. The ref grabbed the bouncing ball and gave it back to her, and the crowd in the bleachers grew loud again. Her parents made her sign up for basketball that winter. When they said nothing about sports during the fall, and she was allowed to read every afternoon after school, she thought she had put messy, tiring basketball behind her. Then her father said at the dinner table, “I think it’s time for you to turn out for basketball – get into shape and burn off some of that winter weight.” Stephanie kept her attention on the green beans on her plate, and so did not see her mother glare at her father. Men are not allowed to talk about women’s weight, even their daughter’s. Especially their daughter’s. But Father noticed. “What I mean is,” he said, “is sports are good for you.” “I have homework,” Stephanie said. “I want to keep my grades up.” She thought that would shut Dad up. It did not – just the opposite. “Strong body, strong mind,” he said. “And the competition will help toughen you up.” She was about to think of something else to say. If it was just battle of wills with her father, she might have won, but that’s when Mom spoke up. “Your father and I think it would be good for you to play. You’ll have a chance to make friends with the other girls…it’ll be fun! I’ve already brought home the sign-up form and we can fill it out after dinner.” And that was it. If Mom was on Dad’s side too, then she was going to have to play basketball.
Stephanie was not surprised to find she didn’t like it. There was way too much running, so much that she panted all through every practice. And there were drills that she didn’t understand or were too fast for her. And she couldn’t shoot very well. Of course she couldn’t, since Dad was always standing between her and the basket. Coach Arden had seen this and his solution was to put her as close to the basket as possible. “Stephanie, you’re the biggest girl on the team, so you’re our center. Your job is to make lay-ups and keep anyone else from scoring in the painted area. Center is a big job, so you’ve got to play tough.” He balled his fists as he said this and grimaced to show the toughness he wanted from her. It was the same thing her father wanted from her, and to get it Coach Arden put her in a place where she didn’t have to run, shoot, or pass as much as the other girls, and where her most important contribution to the team was her size. Stephanie tried to do what the coach wanted, and she still wasn’t very good at it. Even layups were difficult, and she wasn’t mean like he wanted. The coaches on the other team quickly figured out that the best way to score was to have their players dribble right at her and shoot over her head. Before long Stephanie spent more time on the bench watching the game than playing it, and Tammy, a girl four inches shorter and much fiercer, spent more time as the team’s center, and the less Stephanie played, the less she put on the muscle her father talked about. And the less she played, the less anyone talked to her. Her mother had hoped she would make friends with the other girls, but Stephanie learned that the best way to make friends on a basketball team is to be good at basketball. The girls who could shoot made friends, and the girls who sat on the bench did not. No one, not her mother, or father, or the coach, or Stephanie, was getting what they wanted. Stephanie looked down from the rim to the floor and bounced the ball again. The cheering and foot stomping revved back up. The bleachers rattled with noise, and the cheerleaders cheered and waved their arms, and all the parents from the home team willed her to miss this free throw. It was so much noise, and it was all for her. How had she managed to get here? Even though Stephanie was not a good player, her team was good. They won almost all their games, and now if they won this game against Adams Elementary they would end the season with the best record in the district. The Adams players were good too. They were constantly moving, passing, and shooting, and they were a handful for Stephanie’s team. Stephanie herself spent only a few minutes on the floor because it took no time at all for the other team to realize they could push her aside and get lay-ups. Coach Arden sat Stephanie on the bench after watching her stand flat-footed for the third time as an Adams girl scored.
Stephanie knew the benching was coming when she saw him turn and thump his fist on the scorer’s table. There was nothing she could say. The girl dribbled at her fast and she couldn’t intercept her in time. She did not know what else she could do, and she still did not know when Tammy trotted from the bench onto the floor and slapped Stephanie’s hand. Tammy planted her feet in a defensive stance in front of the girl she was guarding as Stephanie returned to the bench. With Tammy in, Adams did not get any easy lay-ups and her team began to pull back into the game. Tammy also got rebounds, which let them play faster and score more easily. They played back and forth, now evenly matched, with neither team ever more than four points in front of the other. Stephanie watched Tammy play. She sat at the end of the bench, where the other girls did not talk with her and she did not try to talk with them. Tammy stayed in the game until the last 1:02 in the fourth quarter, when Stephanie’s team was leading by one point. That was when Tammy stepped on someone’s foot while trying to get a rebound and rolled her ankle. One of Tammy’s teammates got the ball and everyone ran back down the court, except Tammy, who alternately hopped on her good foot and tried to test the bad foot with ginger steps. Finally, Tammy started to hop to her team’s bench and when her team got the ball back and came back down the floor, Coach Arden called for a time out. The Coach first talked to Tammy to see how she was feeling. She sounded cheerful and her pony tail bobbed when she answered. He patted her shoulder and let the Adams school nurse examine her ankle, then he walked to the other end of the bench and spoke to Stephanie. “Stephanie, you’re up.” He hooked his thumb back over his shoulder. Stephanie looked at the coach and didn’t move. In now? The coach clapped his hands and spoke up, “C’mon, let’s go, let’s go, get on the court. You see that girl there? She’s your man. Get on her and don’t let her near the basket.” The girl he pointed to was the same one who had scored on her at the beginning of the game. Stephanie jogged onto the court and rejoined what felt like a different game. In the first quarter, it was just a bunch of girls playing basketball and now it was a real game that could be won or lost. She was not sure how she had wound up out here. Stephanie’s team had the ball. Melinda, the team’s point guard and best scorer, dribbled all around the court to try to get to the basket, but was stymied by the Adams defense, and finally took a shot from near the free throw line that bounced straight back off the front of the rim. One of the Adams girls caught the ball like a line drive and dribbled hard past Stephanie and down the court and to the other rim for a lay-up. Stephanie, who could not run that fast even without the ball, made it to the free throw line when she had to turn around again and go back on offense. Melinda tried to do the same thing to Adams that Adams had done to them. She dribbled down the middle of the court and straight toward the basket as if there were no defenders to stop her. Except that there were defenders. The Adams girls had time to get on defense and block her access to the rim. That didn’t stop Melinda from trying. She charged at the net with her head down – until her foot caught up short and she sprawled forward onto the floor. The ball came
loose as she was going down, right into the hands of an Adams player, and so the game went back the other way. Stephanie, who had not made it all the way back when Melinda fell down, turned around and ran back under the net, and since she didn’t have to run the whole court she was able to get to her position in time. That is why, when the Adams girl who had scored on her before received a pass and tried to bulldog her way to the basket, Stephanie was there with planted feet. The girl, gripping the ball, swung her elbow into Stephanie’s chest and knocked her to the floor. The referee blew his whistle: “Charge! Two shots.” Stephanie, who had never been knocked down and didn’t know what a charge was, got to her feet and wrapped her arms around her chest and shifted her weight from foot to foot while the other players gathered for the free throws. The ref motioned for her to stand at the free throw line, and then handed her the ball. Her team was down by one point with fourteen seconds left to play. Maybe the worst thing of all about this basketball season was that her dad came to all of her games, and saw her sit on the bench most of the time, not get the ball when she was on the floor, and miss shots and make bad passes when she did get the ball. She had to listen to him coach her on the way home, as if he thought he could make her good just by talking. “You’ve got to pass to where your man is going, not to where they are,” he said. And “The basket there is just like the one at home. All you have to do is make shots the same way.” Stephanie listened and said nothing even though she had questions. How, she wondered, could she pass to where her teammate was going when she didn’t know where that was? And: how did having the same basket at home help when she couldn’t see through his sweaty chest to shoot? Oh, Dad wasn’t satisfied just to offer advice. As if practices and games three days a week weren’t enough, Dad took her to the school gym on Saturdays now that the driveway was covered with ice and snow. He made her pass and shoot and run – always running! – while he stayed close to the basket and made it difficult for her to score. He also practiced free throws with her, standing directly behind her and holding her shooting arm to direct its motion. To Stephanie, having Dad grab her didn’t make her shoot any better. Most of her shots missed the rim and bounced loudly over to the empty bleachers, where she would have to chase the ball just so she could miss again. He could say, “Follow through” and “keep trying” all he wanted. It wouldn’t make the ball go in. When the ref handed her the ball for the first free throw she had not even considered that she could make it. This free throw was like all the others taken in the gym on Saturday, destined to clang off the rim and roll away. That was why she did not bounce the ball, or take any time to shoot. She thought she might as well get it over with. She hurled the ball in the direction of the rim and did not even look as it bounced twice, three times, then into the basket. She might not have known it had gone in except that for a moment the whole gym went quiet. The score was tied.
The only time Stephanie had heard silence like that was at home when her father was watching basketball on television. She knew it was better not to talk to him when he was watching a game, because even though he was sitting on the couch, in his own mind he was in the front row at the arena and he knew that his focus of fan support could decide the game. When things were not going well for his team, that was when he was silent. He would lean forward and stare at the screen with clenched fists. And when they were going well, that’s when you could hear him. “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!” One thing he liked to say had never made sense to her, not that she tried to pay attention to his games. “Splash!” he shouted, and the force of it pulled him off his seat as if chains were hooked to his raised arms. “Splash!” Stephanie thought that was totally stupid. The ref handed her the ball for the second free throw and the crowd started to shout and stomp its feet, and the noise of it was more than she had ever heard at a basketball game. At first she could hear each and every sound, everyone calling “Miss it! Miss it!” and the Adams cheerleaders bouncing up and down yelling “Whoooo!” and Coach Arden calling out to her teammates standing on the free throw lane, “Get ready for the rebound, get ready for the rebound!” And then… And then she did not hear each sound. Her ears seemed to close in and turn all the noises into a single low roar, one big noise without any distinction or definition. There was only her, the bouncing ball, and the wall of sound like the ocean all around her. She remembered the sound of the ocean when her parents had made her take a camping trip out to the coast. She had not liked it, sleeping in a tent in the wind and sandy, salty cold, but she had not forgotten how her ears had been filled day and night with the continuous sound of the surf. It was like that, standing at the line, only without the wind or the waves. She was standing near the water with a big orange rubber rock. Standing, bouncing…standing, bouncing, and when she looked up at the rim it stood in front of her in the middle of that sound. All she had to do was toss the orange rock into the sound, into the center of the rim in the sound. The target wasn’t the little iron circle, it was the whole sound as wide as the ocean, so how could she miss? And she bounced the ball one last time and in one motion lifted the rubber rock onto her fingertips and into the sound of the water and waited for the ocean to catch it, as she knew it would. Splash! The ball went through the center of the rim and the net lifted and snapped. It really did look like a splash. Finally Stephanie knew what her dad meant. The ocean subsided as the crowd went silent again. The ref blew his whistle and grabbed the ball from under the net and handed it to the Adams point guard.
Stephanie continued to stand at the line, not knowing what to do next even as the other girls set up to play, until Tammy ran back out on the floor and tapped her shoulder. She said, “Coach said I’m supposed to come in for you,” and jogged away to cover an Adams player. Apparently she had been able to walk off the pain in her twisted ankle. What?! thought Stephanie. She spotted Coach Arden and marched over to him. She was nearly as tall as he was and could almost look him straight in the eye. She was about to demand to know why she had been pulled out of the game when she had just made her free throws – both of them! – but she couldn’t say anything without choking up and ended up turning away. The coach put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Stephanie. We have a chance to win and every time you’re on the floor you let them score. Understand?” The ref blew his whistle to start, and Stephanie nodded and took her seat at the end of the bench. Stephanie’s team held on for the next fourteen seconds and won by the single point that Stephanie had scored. Tammy made the key play by stealing the ball from an Adams player and dribbling away from everyone until the clock ran out. When it was over, all her teammates ran onto the floor and hugged each other. Tammy even hugged Stephanie, and Stephanie, surprised and not knowing what else to do, hugged her back. Stephanie’s parents came down from the bleachers and met her on the court. Mother was beaming. “Look who made the winning baskets!” Stephanie didn’t want to smile, but she did. She looked down and hoped her mother would not see it. The ride home was quiet. Stephanie’s Dad, who would normally have lectured her in the car on the importance of setting hard screens and the underappreciated usefulness of the bounce pass, was silent behind the steering wheel. Stephanie did not know what to make of this and was quiet too. They pulled into the driveway over crunching snow next to the frozen steel basketball hoop with no net. Mother went inside and Stephanie was about to follow her when her father grabbed her arm. “Hold on,” he said. Stephanie turned to him. “Nice job with those free throws,” he said. “Thanks.” “I saw the coach take you out. That was hard, wasn’t it?” Stephanie shrugged. “I don’t know.” “I saw you talk to him. You looked mad! I’ve never seen you mad at a game before. What did you say?” “I didn’t say anything.” “Man,” he said. “That’s lousy.” He shifted his weight to the other foot. “You know,” he said, “we could fix that. You were lucky to get that charge. You have to get faster. And your footwork isn’t very good yet. We could work on that.”
Stephanie thought on this, of her father asking to help instead of demanding to, and the sound of the ocean rushed back into her ears. She almost could not answer. “Okay,” she said.
Reunion reunion photo my long shadow joins the family
Uncle Ted, Aunt Billie, and the cousins pulled to a stop in their station wagon on Saturday afternoon. Mom and Dad threw open the screen door and went down to the sidewalk to meet them, followed by William and his best friend Sherman, who had been watching TV since the cartoons started in the morning. Mom hugged them all in a row, especially nephews Bert and Frank. William saw they were both taller than Mom now. Did Bert have a moustache? They were both wearing swimming trunks and T-shirts that showed off their arms. “They’re big,” Sherman said. William didn’t answer. Mom said, “I know it’s not like at Dad’s, but I think we’ll have some fun. There’s a basketball court in the common area, and Gene put up the volleyball net, and there’s lots of grass to run around in. Just don’t go by the Murphy’s trailer over there. They have a dog and I don’t think it’s friendly. Is that the noodle casserole?” Billie said it was. She was holding a 13x9 pan covered with aluminum foil. “William,” Mom said, “come take Aunt Billie’s casserole and put it in the fridge. That’s a good boy.” William took the pan from Aunt Billie. “When you get back, maybe you and your cousins can play something. Your dad blew up all the balls this morning.” “Yeah, maybe,” William said. “Basketball,” said Frank. “Yeah, basketball,” said Bert. “Ball’s just inside the front door,” Dad said. “Ted, you want a beer? Billie?” They both said yes and Dad told William to bring out a six pack from the fridge. Sherman followed William in and out and they found the grownups already sitting at the picnic table set up on the grass next to the common area. The cousins were on the cement basketball court, practicing bank shots into the netless hoop. “Set the beer here and go play,” Mom said. William and Sherman joined the cousins on the court and Frank said they should play some two-on-two, first to twenty-one wins. “So who’s on what teams?” William said. “Us and you two,” Frank said. William wanted to look to Sherman to see what he thought. Instead he said, “Okay, let’s go.” It wasn’t even close. The cousins were too tall and too strong. They won four games in a row and William and Sherman never got more than eight points.
Then Bert said, let’s play some horse. William, with sweat running into his eyes, agreed. At least there were no teams in horse. The cousins won all the games of horse too. Bert could shoot from the twenty feet out and Frank could do layups and spin shots. William was already knocked out of the third game and standing in the grass, and Sherman had S, when Mom called them to dinner. Dad had grilled platters of hamburgers and bratwurst, more than anyone could eat. Buns were piled in plastic bags next to colored bottles of condiments. William discovered he was very hungry. “Guests first,” Dad said, and the cousins stabbed the meat with forks and pulled it with fingers until half the mound was gone. And then Uncle Ted and Aunt Billie took even more, and then finally William and Sherman got to eat the food that was left on the bottom of the plate. “Must be hungry,” Dad said. “William, before you start, could you get us some more beer from the refrigerator?” “Get me one too,” Bert said. “Me too,” said Frank. William looked at Dad. They even drank beer? Uncle Ted laughed and pointed at William’s big eyes. “No beer. Soda’s fine.” William got the beer and sat next to Sherman to eat his burger, which wasn’t hot anymore. Mom and Aunt Billie talked the whole time about Grampa Bill and what the family gettogethers at his house were like before he died. Just the boring parts, like Grampa shouldn’t have put bananas in his Jell-O salad. Mom made William take some of Aunt Billie’s noodle casserole even though she already knew from previous summers that he would hate it. He snuck it over to Sherman when Mom wasn’t looking. Sherman must have liked it because he ate two helpings and never said a word. William and Sherman played more games after dinner with William’s cousins, first volleyball, then football, then wrestling in the grass. The results were the same. William and his friend were sweating, stained, bruised, dirty, and defeated all the way to when Dad called them over. Dad handed William and Sherman each a stick with a raw marshmallow stuck on it. “Built up another appetite?” “Yes,” Sherman said, and held his marshmallow over the grill. No, William thought, and held his stick next to Sherman’s. He wanted his marshmallow cooked before Bert and Frank stuck their sticks in and hogged all the coals. Everyone got all the marshmallows they wanted, even William and Sherman. Mom and Aunt Billie kept on talking until the sun began to slant in, until the moment when Aunt Billie looked at Uncle Ted, who said, “It’s getting time for us to go. Long drive home.” Dad said, “Let’s get a picture first. I’ve got my camera ready to go.” Dad got them all together on the basketball court, Uncle Ted and his boys standing in back and Mom, Aunt Billie, William, and Sherman kneeling in front. “Gene, you should be in it too,” Aunt Billie said.
“Someone’s got to take it,” Dad said. Mom said, “Go ask Mr. Murphy to take it.” “He’s not home,” Dad said. “Or ask their dog,” Frank said. “If it doesn’t bite you,” Bert said. Yeah right, the dog, William thought. Then he had an idea. “Or Sherman could take it. He’s not really in the family.” There was a moment of quiet, broken finally by Mom. “Honey…” William turned and didn’t quite recognize what he saw in Sherman’s face. Sherman rose to his feet and took the camera from Dad. “You go back there,” he told Dad. “In back.” Dad had picked the last good moment for the picture. The sun had almost set and Dad had stood them up facing into the sun so their faces wouldn’t be in silhouette. Sherman clicked the shutter and walked the camera back to Dad. He told William, “I’ve got to go home too,” and left just before the family gave hugs all around and Aunt Billie and her family got back in the station wagon and drove away.
Sherman didn’t come over to play the next day, or the next. William went over to his trailer the day after and his mom said he wasn’t home – staying with his father today. She said the same thing the next day. William didn’t understand it. They had played together every day since the beginning of the school year, and Sherman had always told him when he was going to stay with his father. Mom asked him where Sherman was. “He’s busy,” William said. “Busy? What’s he busy with?” William didn’t answer. “Any chance he’s mad at you?” Why would Sherman be mad at him? “No,” he said. “You haven’t seen him since the reunion. Did you maybe say something to upset him?” “No.” “I could call his mother to find out why he’s busy?” “No!” William said. “It’s fine.” “All right, then. Since he’s busy and you’re not busy, you can come with me to pick out a frame for the family picture.” They stopped at a stationary store to pick up an 8x10 picture frame, and at the drug store to pick up the pictures she had dropped off for development last week. She took him to lunch at the restaurant in the top floor of Bingham’s department store, which made the whole trip a little bit less boring and embarrassing for William. Mom framed the family picture at the barbecue and hung it on the wall above the couch. “Now we can see it every day. It turned out very well, I think. I wish your grandpa could see it.” “Yeah.” William already knew what everyone looked like.
“Your friend Sherman did a very nice job taking the picture of all of us, don’t you think?” William looked this time. There were Uncle Ted, Bert, Frank, and Dad in back, with the sun on their faces and the Mr. Murphy’s house in the distance behind them. There were Mom, Billie, and himself in front. He remembered there had been eight people that day, not seven. Someone was missing. Sherman played just as hard and gotten just as beaten up as he had, and not even by his own family. He should be here, in the picture. It occurred to him then what he might have said to make Sherman not want to come over anymore. After dinner, William, Mom, and Dad were watching TV together. William thought maybe he should ask his mom to call Sherman’s mom to ask him to come over. No, he couldn’t do it. What would he say to his mom? What would she say to Sherman’s mom? He couldn’t do it. Thinking made William restless. He stood up during a commercial and looked at the picture over the couch. He looked at every face in it, at everything in it, as if staring could make any difference. Then he saw something, and he stepped onto the couch right next to where Mom was sitting and pulled the picture off the wall. “Watch out, boy,” Dad said. “You popped a nail.” William didn’t hear. He was already out the door and headed for his bike.
William knocked on Sherman’s screen door and his mom answered the door. She let him in without speaking. Sherman came to the door and she returned to their living room to read her magazine. “Hey,” Sherman said. William answered, “Hey.” Sherman stood, quiet. William held up the picture. “See this?” He turned it away from the glare. Sherman looked for a moment. “It’s nice.” “I just wanted you to see it, cause you took it. Dad said good job.” Even though Mom said how well Sherman took the picture, William thought it would sound more impressive if Dad had said it. “Tell him thanks.” William kept his eyes forward. “It would have been better if Mr. Murphy had taken it. If he had been home.” Sherman shrugged. “Or if his dog took it.” A laugh almost got out of William’s throat. If the dog took it – He choked it down. “I mean – I mean,” William said, “you should have been in it.” Sherman shrugged. “Look at this,” William said, and he put his finger on the picture. He traced a shadow that ran all the way from the bottom of the frame, over William’s shoulder, and up Dad’s chest. The top
of the shadow was round, like a head. “See?” he said. “That’s you. You’re in it.” He hoped it was good enough. Sherman leaned in and looked carefully. “Yes,” he said. William wanted to say the next thing. He couldn’t say it. Sherman looked at the picture a long time before turning to look at William again. “Do you want to ride bikes?” “Yeah,” William said. Sherman pushed through the front door to get his bike from the garage. William followed. It was summer outside and there was still a little daylight left.
Books by Charlie Close Fiction Before the Ripcord Broke: Stories Childish Things: Stories of Growing Up Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family
Very Short Stories Kites and Weddings: Very Short Stories Rough & Beautiful: Very Short Romance Stories The Art of the Very Short Story: A Guide for Readers and Writers
Poetry Sugar on Both Sides: Selected Haiku
Visit Charlie http://charlieclose.wordpress.com @CharlieClose
Copyright © 2013 by Charlie Close
Table of Contents Jeffrey’s Last Trick or Treat Roaring Crowd Reunion Books by Charlie Close Visit Charlie
Jeffrey’s Last Trick or Treat autumn night children in all colors fill the sidewalks
Jeffrey was a pro. He had been going out on Halloween night since he was four, and now that he was eleven there was nothing he didn’t know about collecting candy from the neighborhood. He had learned that it paid to be loud. If you dressed as a character that allowed you to yell, like a football player (“Hike that candy into my bag! Hut! Hut!”), or, as with this year, a pirate (“Drop the candy in or I’ll hack your arm off!”), then you could often get the neighbor to give up an extra piece or two. The first year, when he had dressed as angel (his mother’s idea), he had received more pats on the head than candy. The frustration of this had burned in him for twelve months and he demanded next year to go as The Devil. “And I want a pitchfork!” he had said. That was the year he learned that it was good to go as a character who carried a pointy weapon, which also explained why he was going as a pirate this year. Pirates carried swords, and swords were good for getting candy. What did not help, however, was parents. When he was just starting out, his mother had escorted him. He had allowed this until he was eight, when he realized that only the little kids went with their mothers. He was definitely not little any more so he demanded that she not go. Maybe it was the loudness of his argument, or maybe it was the sharp point at the end of the American flag that an astronaut always carries (“One giant handful of candy!”). Whatever it was, he had gotten his way, and from then on trick or treating with Jeffrey was Dad’s job. Going with Dad was better than going with Mom. Dad stayed on the sidewalk and didn’t say much, which let Jeffrey do what he had to do – work the houses with his sack to get the most loot possible. As far as Jeffrey was concerned, the less he saw of his father, the better. Mom had not understood this at all. She had insisted on coming to the door with him and she almost always talked to the person whose arm was attached to the candy bowl. Nothing was more boring than listening to two grownups talk about raking leaves, or the traffic driving to school in the morning. Jeffrey could not stand having his mother overshadow him, and that was another reason he got rid of her in favor of Dad. This moment right now, standing in the kitchen while Mom straightened his bandana and stooped to wipe a bit of scuff off his black leather shoes, was the last he would see of her until he came back with a full bag of sweet treasure. Dad was standing behind him, so Jeffrey could not see his expression, but he was sure it was a scowl, just like Jeffrey’s. “Okay,” Mom said, “I think you’re ready to go. You be sure to say thank-you to everyone. I want you to be the politest pirate in the neighborhood.” Jeffrey did not dignify this with a response. It was not necessary to state the fact that politeness was not part of a pirate’s code of ethics.
Mom pulled back to admire her costuming and make-up skills. “You look beautiful. Okay then, off you go!” And then she did something that Jeffrey couldn’t have predicted and therefore could not prevent. She swooped in, lifted his eye patch and kissed him right on the eye. “Good luck!” she said, then lowered the patch back down to seal the kiss onto his face. “Arrrrrrghhhhh!!! No kissing!” Jeffrey turned his good eye up to his father with a watery look somewhere between pleading and command. “Let’s go, Dad.” Dad put his hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder to nudge him out the door. “Gotta go,” he said, and kissed Mom on the way out. Once they were out in the neighborhood, Jeffrey was back in control. He strode down the sidewalks, stomping on the cracks where old tree roots had pried them up and swinging his sack in circles. His father stayed two paces behind, hands in pockets, enjoying the cool, moonlit night as if he were walking by himself. It was one of those evenings so clear one could hear everything, whether his own footsteps or the rustling of leaves in the street. Or the sound of Jeffrey passing a ballerina and her mother on the sidewalk. “Arrgh, dance, sissy!” he growled at them as he passed. Jeffrey’s father waved to the mother and smiled at the girl with her satin shoes, rhinestone tiara, and petite white sack. Jeffrey kept moving. The sidewalk was full of children and their parents, and Jeffrey growled at most of them, ignoring only the smallest children, the ones who could hardly walk and whose parents were holding the sack. A pirate’s code did include some allowance for mercy. But only a little, and none when approaching a neighbor’s house. If no one was ahead of him, he charged up the steps to the porch and, rather than use the doorbell, beat on the door with the grip of his sword. When the door opened, he leaned in and demanded “Give me some candy, swab!” Pirates did not say “trick or treat”, nor any other phrase with the word “treat” in it. Jeffrey could tell most neighbors were frightened. One man in a cardigan and socks without shoes jumped back and said, “You’re a scary little devil, aren’t you?” “I’m a pirate, you lily-livered, dirt-napping doubloon!” said Jeffrey. “The Devil can taste my steel.” “Ah,” said the neighbor, and he held out a bowl of candy. “Would you like some booty?” “Arrrgh!” said Jeffrey. He reached his fist into the bowl and opened it over his sack, and then he turned to the next house with his sword raised. Some houses already had trick-or-treaters at the door. These were the ones Jeffrey despised. Pirates should never have to wait. The first time this happened, a mother with her four year old daughter was at the door holding a plastic bucket shaped like a pumpkin. The girl was out for the first time, and judging by how slowly they were moving it could have been her very first house. Pirate Jeffrey was not amused. He intended to charge up to the door, but his father put a hand on his shoulder as he rounded the corner from the sidewalk to the walkway. “Not so fast, Blackbeard.” Jeffrey stood with his arms crossed over his chest and the sword still in his hand making little circles. He imagined that the steps up to the door were a plank, and that, as the girl and her
mother finally stepped away, they walked down it and dropped into the deep blue sea. Only Jeffrey heard the splash. “Happy Halloween,” said his father as they passed. “Happy Halloween,” said the mother. Neither the girl, who avoided eye contact, nor Jeffrey, who was already striding to the door, had anything to add. Despite the setbacks and slowdowns every pirate faces, it was the best night of trick-ortreating Jeffrey had ever had. He knew the territory: which houses had what candy, and who had the most. Rather than proceed from house to house, Jeffrey had made his father raid the fattest houses first, then swab up the lesser houses, so that by the end of two hours his sack was nearly full. Then Jeffrey noticed a house they had not attacked. In fact, he had not visited it since the year before last, before the old couple who had lived there had moved away. Time to introduce the new swabs to his steel. “C’mon, Dad.” There was no one at the door, maybe because the house was set further back than most, or maybe because it was getting late and all the other kids had gathered enough candy for one year. Still, the light was on. Jeffrey walked up to it and banged on the door. When the door opened, he knew that this encounter was going to be different. Most of the people answering the doors were middle aged, mostly husbands wearing only their T-shirts and getting up from watching the television. They participated in the Halloween ritual with practiced detachment, as if they gave out candy every day to children dressed in costumes. Not this door. This door was answered by a pair of high-heeled boots with pointy toes that were attached to smooth legs in black fishnet stockings, and the stockings were underneath an old-fashioned black lace dress that might have been for a mourning widow if it had not been cut too short for that purpose. Bosoms pushed out of the top of the dress, and not in a widow-like way. Jeffrey could not lift his eyes further, perhaps because of the red costume jewelry spider pinned to her chest. Then a voice spoke to him from above the bosoms. “Good eeeeevening,” it said in a low accent that was supposed to be Transylvanian. “Weeeelcome to my lair.” Jeffrey raised his eyes now and saw a woman made up to have a ghastly white face and black lips, eyes, and hair. “Have you come to find…candy?” said the voice, and that’s when he could see her fangs. Jeffrey did not know what to say. The pirate had gone out of him, and his eyes began to drift back downward again into the bosoms. Maybe it was the perfume that wafted from them, pulling his nose closer…closer. “You do not say much, doooo you? Are you a silent pirate?” “Um,” said Jeffrey. Although Jeffrey didn’t see it, one of the vampiress’s black eyebrows lifted in amusement. “Wouldn’t you like…a snack?” And from nowhere a black bowl of candy appeared in front of him at the end of her white hand with long black nails.
This brought Jeffrey back around, if only slightly. He reached in a shaking hand and selected a single piece and placed it gently in his sack. “Thank-you,” he said. Normally he would have raised his sword and charged back to the sidewalk, but now he stood still, as if he had forgotten the proper protocol and could not move. “You’re welcome, Jeffrey,” she said, not Transylvanian anymore. He couldn’t remember where he had heard that voice before. “Huh?” “I said you’re welcome. Are you having fun trick-or-treating?” Then he knew. “Miss Norris?” Miss Norris was his fifth grade teacher. “Good eeeevening,” she repeated, again with the Transylvanian accent. “You are a scaaaary pirate.” Jeffrey did not know what to say. The woman who stood in front of his class every day did not have fangs, did not wear black, and really, really did not have bosoms that he was aware of. She normally wore floral pattern dresses and boring beige shoes and never spoke with any kind of accent. Jeffrey was stuck. He could not look up at her face – that was too embarrassing – and he could not let his gaze drift back down. He found himself looking off to the left at the bushes by the porch and searching for words. “Um,” he said, “I haven’t done my math homework yet.” Miss Norris put one hand on her hip. “Oh, really? Well, I think that will be all right this one time because it’s not due until the day after tomorrow.” She had learned from experience that it was futile to schedule homework for the day after Halloween. “Oh, right,” said Jeffrey. Now he turned his head to the right, swinging his eyes past her and staring at the moths swirling around her porch light. “I have to go.” Miss Norris raised her arms into giant bat wings. “You must gooooooo.” Jeffrey started to step away, and then Miss Norris held out the bowl, Transylvanian again. “But first you must have another piece of candy. Capturing treasure takes soooo much energy.” Miss Norris gave the bowl a little shake. Jeffrey looked into the bowl and did not move. “Take the candy, Jeffrey,” she said in her teacher voice, “and I don’t want any back talk.” Jeffrey could not refuse this voice, so he reached in his hand and took another piece and dropped it in his sack without looking, and turned to escape the porch. The vampiress watched until he had reached the sidewalk and then withdrew back into her lair. His father was waiting in the shadows when Pirate Jeffrey returned. “Got some good treats, son? You were there for awhile.” “Yeah, fine,” said Jeffrey. He started down the sidewalk and his father followed behind. They had walked a few paces when Dad said, “They didn’t make vampires like that in the old days. Wow!” “Shut up, Dad.” “Ready to go capture some more treasure candy?” Jeffrey kept walking. “Nah. I have enough candy.”
Dad let that one sink in. “Okay. Let’s go home.” Jeffrey said nothing and let his feet do the talking. “You know your mom is probably waiting for us anyway.” Jeffrey said nothing. “And now I’ve got a few ideas,” said Dad, mostly to himself, “about what Mom should wear next Halloween.” Jeffrey scrunched his eyes tight and pretended he had not heard this. When they got home, they poured Jeffrey’s takings into a huge mixing bowl, and he took the bowl to the living room to watch TV. He didn’t say anything for the rest of the night and didn’t bother to take off his costume until he went to bed. Neither Jeffrey nor his parents knew yet that he had gone trick-or-treating for the last time. His parents were sure he was getting to that age when he was too old for it, but they assumed they would have to fight next year to keep him off the streets. As it turned out, there was no fight. Months later, as the leaves turned orange again and piled on the sidewalks, Jeffrey decided that he was too old to wear costumes and ask grown-ups for candy. He did not tell his parents about his decision because telling them would mean talking about it, and talking about things with his mom and dad was for little kids, not twelve-year-olds. Fortunately, Jeffrey’s parents also did not want to talk about Halloween because talking about it would mean having to let him go, and they were determined not to let him go, unless he demanded it. And so both the parents and the son said nothing and got what they wanted, and neither could believe their luck. When Halloween night came around again, Jeffrey sat at home in front of the television and snuck pieces of candy from the bowl sitting by the door. And he did one more thing. He jumped up and beat his father to every doorbell. He did it because he had made an exciting discovery. Standing at the door with a bowl of candy was the best way in the world to scare the hell out of all the little angels, astronauts, and pirates in the neighborhood.
Roaring Crowd roaring crowd the arc of a free throw
Stephanie spent a long time at the free throw line. At least it felt like a long time. The ref in the oversized striped shirt handed her the basketball for her second shot. The basketball was orange and the black grooves in it felt too deep, and it was too big for her hands even though she had big hands for her age. She had big everything for her age. In the class picture last fall she had been the girl in the middle of the back row standing next to the tallest boy, who was an inch shorter than her. She had been the middle girl in the back row for the last six years. She wondered what it would be like to sit down in front with the girls for the picture instead of standing with the boys. The ref stepped back into the free throw lane and blew his whistle. Nine other girls stood in front of her, some looking at her, and the others looking at the rim, waiting. For a moment Stephanie held the ball, as if not realizing that they were all waiting for her. The crowd watched her too, and they were many. Judging by their sound, every parent at Adams Elementary and Wilson Elementary had come to this game and was sitting on the bleachers to her left. They were clapping and yelling and stomping their feet. They were waiting for the next shot, which might be the last of the game and the season. She bounced the ball once on the shiny floor and caught it with both hands. The ball bounced much straighter on the floor than it did in the driveway, where the cracks could make it zing to the left or right. “Go after it! Hustle!” was all her father would say when the ball suddenly ricocheted down the driveway into the street, and she would have to chase it, looking both ways for cars and letting it roll even farther, so that she could bring the ball back and let her dad beat her some more. “Run!” he would say. She did not want to run. She wanted to stay inside with a book, but her father had set up a basketball hoop in the driveway at the beginning of summer and that was all there was to it as far as he was concerned. “You need exercise,” he had said. “Time for you to get some muscles.” She did not want muscles. If you’re twelve years old, and five-foot-seven and weigh almost a hundred pounds, muscles don’t help. They just make you look even bigger. Dad did not listen. He dragged her onto the court and made her play horse and one-on-one. It would have been torture if she had cared, since he could outshoot her from anywhere in the driveway and block any shot she tried to take.
“Come on!” he said. “Shoot it! Shoot it!” And when she tried to shoot he slapped it away and she had to chase it out into the road again. “You have to learn to shoot around me,” he called out. “Create some shooting space between you and your man. Let’s try it again.” Man? There were no men on her team, only girls, and they were all smaller and wore ponytails, and none of them would slap the ball out of her hands, and none of them stunk like sweat the way Dad did. That was how she spent an hour every Saturday last summer, trying to shoot around Dad and over him, and chasing the ball as it rolled away. He seemed to like it, though, and why wouldn’t he? He was tall, and too heavy for her to budge, and he didn’t have to run at all. He could just lift the ball over his head, out of her jumping reach, and lob it into the basket. It was easy for him. For her it was all hard work and frustration and making her sweaty like him. Stephanie bounced the ball again and watched as it came straight up from the floor into her hands. Then she looked up and there was the rim. It was a lot farther away, here in the school gym, than it was in her driveway and it looked a lot farther off the ground. Somehow she had made the first free throw. She hurled it the direction of the basket and it hit the backboard, then the right side of the rim, then the left side, and then it bounced in. The score was tied. The crowd on the bleachers had gone quiet then except for a few people who had driven across town to see her team play. It was a lucky shot. The ref grabbed the bouncing ball and gave it back to her, and the crowd in the bleachers grew loud again. Her parents made her sign up for basketball that winter. When they said nothing about sports during the fall, and she was allowed to read every afternoon after school, she thought she had put messy, tiring basketball behind her. Then her father said at the dinner table, “I think it’s time for you to turn out for basketball – get into shape and burn off some of that winter weight.” Stephanie kept her attention on the green beans on her plate, and so did not see her mother glare at her father. Men are not allowed to talk about women’s weight, even their daughter’s. Especially their daughter’s. But Father noticed. “What I mean is,” he said, “is sports are good for you.” “I have homework,” Stephanie said. “I want to keep my grades up.” She thought that would shut Dad up. It did not – just the opposite. “Strong body, strong mind,” he said. “And the competition will help toughen you up.” She was about to think of something else to say. If it was just battle of wills with her father, she might have won, but that’s when Mom spoke up. “Your father and I think it would be good for you to play. You’ll have a chance to make friends with the other girls…it’ll be fun! I’ve already brought home the sign-up form and we can fill it out after dinner.” And that was it. If Mom was on Dad’s side too, then she was going to have to play basketball.
Stephanie was not surprised to find she didn’t like it. There was way too much running, so much that she panted all through every practice. And there were drills that she didn’t understand or were too fast for her. And she couldn’t shoot very well. Of course she couldn’t, since Dad was always standing between her and the basket. Coach Arden had seen this and his solution was to put her as close to the basket as possible. “Stephanie, you’re the biggest girl on the team, so you’re our center. Your job is to make lay-ups and keep anyone else from scoring in the painted area. Center is a big job, so you’ve got to play tough.” He balled his fists as he said this and grimaced to show the toughness he wanted from her. It was the same thing her father wanted from her, and to get it Coach Arden put her in a place where she didn’t have to run, shoot, or pass as much as the other girls, and where her most important contribution to the team was her size. Stephanie tried to do what the coach wanted, and she still wasn’t very good at it. Even layups were difficult, and she wasn’t mean like he wanted. The coaches on the other team quickly figured out that the best way to score was to have their players dribble right at her and shoot over her head. Before long Stephanie spent more time on the bench watching the game than playing it, and Tammy, a girl four inches shorter and much fiercer, spent more time as the team’s center, and the less Stephanie played, the less she put on the muscle her father talked about. And the less she played, the less anyone talked to her. Her mother had hoped she would make friends with the other girls, but Stephanie learned that the best way to make friends on a basketball team is to be good at basketball. The girls who could shoot made friends, and the girls who sat on the bench did not. No one, not her mother, or father, or the coach, or Stephanie, was getting what they wanted. Stephanie looked down from the rim to the floor and bounced the ball again. The cheering and foot stomping revved back up. The bleachers rattled with noise, and the cheerleaders cheered and waved their arms, and all the parents from the home team willed her to miss this free throw. It was so much noise, and it was all for her. How had she managed to get here? Even though Stephanie was not a good player, her team was good. They won almost all their games, and now if they won this game against Adams Elementary they would end the season with the best record in the district. The Adams players were good too. They were constantly moving, passing, and shooting, and they were a handful for Stephanie’s team. Stephanie herself spent only a few minutes on the floor because it took no time at all for the other team to realize they could push her aside and get lay-ups. Coach Arden sat Stephanie on the bench after watching her stand flat-footed for the third time as an Adams girl scored.
Stephanie knew the benching was coming when she saw him turn and thump his fist on the scorer’s table. There was nothing she could say. The girl dribbled at her fast and she couldn’t intercept her in time. She did not know what else she could do, and she still did not know when Tammy trotted from the bench onto the floor and slapped Stephanie’s hand. Tammy planted her feet in a defensive stance in front of the girl she was guarding as Stephanie returned to the bench. With Tammy in, Adams did not get any easy lay-ups and her team began to pull back into the game. Tammy also got rebounds, which let them play faster and score more easily. They played back and forth, now evenly matched, with neither team ever more than four points in front of the other. Stephanie watched Tammy play. She sat at the end of the bench, where the other girls did not talk with her and she did not try to talk with them. Tammy stayed in the game until the last 1:02 in the fourth quarter, when Stephanie’s team was leading by one point. That was when Tammy stepped on someone’s foot while trying to get a rebound and rolled her ankle. One of Tammy’s teammates got the ball and everyone ran back down the court, except Tammy, who alternately hopped on her good foot and tried to test the bad foot with ginger steps. Finally, Tammy started to hop to her team’s bench and when her team got the ball back and came back down the floor, Coach Arden called for a time out. The Coach first talked to Tammy to see how she was feeling. She sounded cheerful and her pony tail bobbed when she answered. He patted her shoulder and let the Adams school nurse examine her ankle, then he walked to the other end of the bench and spoke to Stephanie. “Stephanie, you’re up.” He hooked his thumb back over his shoulder. Stephanie looked at the coach and didn’t move. In now? The coach clapped his hands and spoke up, “C’mon, let’s go, let’s go, get on the court. You see that girl there? She’s your man. Get on her and don’t let her near the basket.” The girl he pointed to was the same one who had scored on her at the beginning of the game. Stephanie jogged onto the court and rejoined what felt like a different game. In the first quarter, it was just a bunch of girls playing basketball and now it was a real game that could be won or lost. She was not sure how she had wound up out here. Stephanie’s team had the ball. Melinda, the team’s point guard and best scorer, dribbled all around the court to try to get to the basket, but was stymied by the Adams defense, and finally took a shot from near the free throw line that bounced straight back off the front of the rim. One of the Adams girls caught the ball like a line drive and dribbled hard past Stephanie and down the court and to the other rim for a lay-up. Stephanie, who could not run that fast even without the ball, made it to the free throw line when she had to turn around again and go back on offense. Melinda tried to do the same thing to Adams that Adams had done to them. She dribbled down the middle of the court and straight toward the basket as if there were no defenders to stop her. Except that there were defenders. The Adams girls had time to get on defense and block her access to the rim. That didn’t stop Melinda from trying. She charged at the net with her head down – until her foot caught up short and she sprawled forward onto the floor. The ball came
loose as she was going down, right into the hands of an Adams player, and so the game went back the other way. Stephanie, who had not made it all the way back when Melinda fell down, turned around and ran back under the net, and since she didn’t have to run the whole court she was able to get to her position in time. That is why, when the Adams girl who had scored on her before received a pass and tried to bulldog her way to the basket, Stephanie was there with planted feet. The girl, gripping the ball, swung her elbow into Stephanie’s chest and knocked her to the floor. The referee blew his whistle: “Charge! Two shots.” Stephanie, who had never been knocked down and didn’t know what a charge was, got to her feet and wrapped her arms around her chest and shifted her weight from foot to foot while the other players gathered for the free throws. The ref motioned for her to stand at the free throw line, and then handed her the ball. Her team was down by one point with fourteen seconds left to play. Maybe the worst thing of all about this basketball season was that her dad came to all of her games, and saw her sit on the bench most of the time, not get the ball when she was on the floor, and miss shots and make bad passes when she did get the ball. She had to listen to him coach her on the way home, as if he thought he could make her good just by talking. “You’ve got to pass to where your man is going, not to where they are,” he said. And “The basket there is just like the one at home. All you have to do is make shots the same way.” Stephanie listened and said nothing even though she had questions. How, she wondered, could she pass to where her teammate was going when she didn’t know where that was? And: how did having the same basket at home help when she couldn’t see through his sweaty chest to shoot? Oh, Dad wasn’t satisfied just to offer advice. As if practices and games three days a week weren’t enough, Dad took her to the school gym on Saturdays now that the driveway was covered with ice and snow. He made her pass and shoot and run – always running! – while he stayed close to the basket and made it difficult for her to score. He also practiced free throws with her, standing directly behind her and holding her shooting arm to direct its motion. To Stephanie, having Dad grab her didn’t make her shoot any better. Most of her shots missed the rim and bounced loudly over to the empty bleachers, where she would have to chase the ball just so she could miss again. He could say, “Follow through” and “keep trying” all he wanted. It wouldn’t make the ball go in. When the ref handed her the ball for the first free throw she had not even considered that she could make it. This free throw was like all the others taken in the gym on Saturday, destined to clang off the rim and roll away. That was why she did not bounce the ball, or take any time to shoot. She thought she might as well get it over with. She hurled the ball in the direction of the rim and did not even look as it bounced twice, three times, then into the basket. She might not have known it had gone in except that for a moment the whole gym went quiet. The score was tied.
The only time Stephanie had heard silence like that was at home when her father was watching basketball on television. She knew it was better not to talk to him when he was watching a game, because even though he was sitting on the couch, in his own mind he was in the front row at the arena and he knew that his focus of fan support could decide the game. When things were not going well for his team, that was when he was silent. He would lean forward and stare at the screen with clenched fists. And when they were going well, that’s when you could hear him. “Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah! Oh, yeah!” One thing he liked to say had never made sense to her, not that she tried to pay attention to his games. “Splash!” he shouted, and the force of it pulled him off his seat as if chains were hooked to his raised arms. “Splash!” Stephanie thought that was totally stupid. The ref handed her the ball for the second free throw and the crowd started to shout and stomp its feet, and the noise of it was more than she had ever heard at a basketball game. At first she could hear each and every sound, everyone calling “Miss it! Miss it!” and the Adams cheerleaders bouncing up and down yelling “Whoooo!” and Coach Arden calling out to her teammates standing on the free throw lane, “Get ready for the rebound, get ready for the rebound!” And then… And then she did not hear each sound. Her ears seemed to close in and turn all the noises into a single low roar, one big noise without any distinction or definition. There was only her, the bouncing ball, and the wall of sound like the ocean all around her. She remembered the sound of the ocean when her parents had made her take a camping trip out to the coast. She had not liked it, sleeping in a tent in the wind and sandy, salty cold, but she had not forgotten how her ears had been filled day and night with the continuous sound of the surf. It was like that, standing at the line, only without the wind or the waves. She was standing near the water with a big orange rubber rock. Standing, bouncing…standing, bouncing, and when she looked up at the rim it stood in front of her in the middle of that sound. All she had to do was toss the orange rock into the sound, into the center of the rim in the sound. The target wasn’t the little iron circle, it was the whole sound as wide as the ocean, so how could she miss? And she bounced the ball one last time and in one motion lifted the rubber rock onto her fingertips and into the sound of the water and waited for the ocean to catch it, as she knew it would. Splash! The ball went through the center of the rim and the net lifted and snapped. It really did look like a splash. Finally Stephanie knew what her dad meant. The ocean subsided as the crowd went silent again. The ref blew his whistle and grabbed the ball from under the net and handed it to the Adams point guard.
Stephanie continued to stand at the line, not knowing what to do next even as the other girls set up to play, until Tammy ran back out on the floor and tapped her shoulder. She said, “Coach said I’m supposed to come in for you,” and jogged away to cover an Adams player. Apparently she had been able to walk off the pain in her twisted ankle. What?! thought Stephanie. She spotted Coach Arden and marched over to him. She was nearly as tall as he was and could almost look him straight in the eye. She was about to demand to know why she had been pulled out of the game when she had just made her free throws – both of them! – but she couldn’t say anything without choking up and ended up turning away. The coach put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Stephanie. We have a chance to win and every time you’re on the floor you let them score. Understand?” The ref blew his whistle to start, and Stephanie nodded and took her seat at the end of the bench. Stephanie’s team held on for the next fourteen seconds and won by the single point that Stephanie had scored. Tammy made the key play by stealing the ball from an Adams player and dribbling away from everyone until the clock ran out. When it was over, all her teammates ran onto the floor and hugged each other. Tammy even hugged Stephanie, and Stephanie, surprised and not knowing what else to do, hugged her back. Stephanie’s parents came down from the bleachers and met her on the court. Mother was beaming. “Look who made the winning baskets!” Stephanie didn’t want to smile, but she did. She looked down and hoped her mother would not see it. The ride home was quiet. Stephanie’s Dad, who would normally have lectured her in the car on the importance of setting hard screens and the underappreciated usefulness of the bounce pass, was silent behind the steering wheel. Stephanie did not know what to make of this and was quiet too. They pulled into the driveway over crunching snow next to the frozen steel basketball hoop with no net. Mother went inside and Stephanie was about to follow her when her father grabbed her arm. “Hold on,” he said. Stephanie turned to him. “Nice job with those free throws,” he said. “Thanks.” “I saw the coach take you out. That was hard, wasn’t it?” Stephanie shrugged. “I don’t know.” “I saw you talk to him. You looked mad! I’ve never seen you mad at a game before. What did you say?” “I didn’t say anything.” “Man,” he said. “That’s lousy.” He shifted his weight to the other foot. “You know,” he said, “we could fix that. You were lucky to get that charge. You have to get faster. And your footwork isn’t very good yet. We could work on that.”
Stephanie thought on this, of her father asking to help instead of demanding to, and the sound of the ocean rushed back into her ears. She almost could not answer. “Okay,” she said.
Reunion reunion photo my long shadow joins the family
Uncle Ted, Aunt Billie, and the cousins pulled to a stop in their station wagon on Saturday afternoon. Mom and Dad threw open the screen door and went down to the sidewalk to meet them, followed by William and his best friend Sherman, who had been watching TV since the cartoons started in the morning. Mom hugged them all in a row, especially nephews Bert and Frank. William saw they were both taller than Mom now. Did Bert have a moustache? They were both wearing swimming trunks and T-shirts that showed off their arms. “They’re big,” Sherman said. William didn’t answer. Mom said, “I know it’s not like at Dad’s, but I think we’ll have some fun. There’s a basketball court in the common area, and Gene put up the volleyball net, and there’s lots of grass to run around in. Just don’t go by the Murphy’s trailer over there. They have a dog and I don’t think it’s friendly. Is that the noodle casserole?” Billie said it was. She was holding a 13x9 pan covered with aluminum foil. “William,” Mom said, “come take Aunt Billie’s casserole and put it in the fridge. That’s a good boy.” William took the pan from Aunt Billie. “When you get back, maybe you and your cousins can play something. Your dad blew up all the balls this morning.” “Yeah, maybe,” William said. “Basketball,” said Frank. “Yeah, basketball,” said Bert. “Ball’s just inside the front door,” Dad said. “Ted, you want a beer? Billie?” They both said yes and Dad told William to bring out a six pack from the fridge. Sherman followed William in and out and they found the grownups already sitting at the picnic table set up on the grass next to the common area. The cousins were on the cement basketball court, practicing bank shots into the netless hoop. “Set the beer here and go play,” Mom said. William and Sherman joined the cousins on the court and Frank said they should play some two-on-two, first to twenty-one wins. “So who’s on what teams?” William said. “Us and you two,” Frank said. William wanted to look to Sherman to see what he thought. Instead he said, “Okay, let’s go.” It wasn’t even close. The cousins were too tall and too strong. They won four games in a row and William and Sherman never got more than eight points.
Then Bert said, let’s play some horse. William, with sweat running into his eyes, agreed. At least there were no teams in horse. The cousins won all the games of horse too. Bert could shoot from the twenty feet out and Frank could do layups and spin shots. William was already knocked out of the third game and standing in the grass, and Sherman had S, when Mom called them to dinner. Dad had grilled platters of hamburgers and bratwurst, more than anyone could eat. Buns were piled in plastic bags next to colored bottles of condiments. William discovered he was very hungry. “Guests first,” Dad said, and the cousins stabbed the meat with forks and pulled it with fingers until half the mound was gone. And then Uncle Ted and Aunt Billie took even more, and then finally William and Sherman got to eat the food that was left on the bottom of the plate. “Must be hungry,” Dad said. “William, before you start, could you get us some more beer from the refrigerator?” “Get me one too,” Bert said. “Me too,” said Frank. William looked at Dad. They even drank beer? Uncle Ted laughed and pointed at William’s big eyes. “No beer. Soda’s fine.” William got the beer and sat next to Sherman to eat his burger, which wasn’t hot anymore. Mom and Aunt Billie talked the whole time about Grampa Bill and what the family gettogethers at his house were like before he died. Just the boring parts, like Grampa shouldn’t have put bananas in his Jell-O salad. Mom made William take some of Aunt Billie’s noodle casserole even though she already knew from previous summers that he would hate it. He snuck it over to Sherman when Mom wasn’t looking. Sherman must have liked it because he ate two helpings and never said a word. William and Sherman played more games after dinner with William’s cousins, first volleyball, then football, then wrestling in the grass. The results were the same. William and his friend were sweating, stained, bruised, dirty, and defeated all the way to when Dad called them over. Dad handed William and Sherman each a stick with a raw marshmallow stuck on it. “Built up another appetite?” “Yes,” Sherman said, and held his marshmallow over the grill. No, William thought, and held his stick next to Sherman’s. He wanted his marshmallow cooked before Bert and Frank stuck their sticks in and hogged all the coals. Everyone got all the marshmallows they wanted, even William and Sherman. Mom and Aunt Billie kept on talking until the sun began to slant in, until the moment when Aunt Billie looked at Uncle Ted, who said, “It’s getting time for us to go. Long drive home.” Dad said, “Let’s get a picture first. I’ve got my camera ready to go.” Dad got them all together on the basketball court, Uncle Ted and his boys standing in back and Mom, Aunt Billie, William, and Sherman kneeling in front. “Gene, you should be in it too,” Aunt Billie said.
“Someone’s got to take it,” Dad said. Mom said, “Go ask Mr. Murphy to take it.” “He’s not home,” Dad said. “Or ask their dog,” Frank said. “If it doesn’t bite you,” Bert said. Yeah right, the dog, William thought. Then he had an idea. “Or Sherman could take it. He’s not really in the family.” There was a moment of quiet, broken finally by Mom. “Honey…” William turned and didn’t quite recognize what he saw in Sherman’s face. Sherman rose to his feet and took the camera from Dad. “You go back there,” he told Dad. “In back.” Dad had picked the last good moment for the picture. The sun had almost set and Dad had stood them up facing into the sun so their faces wouldn’t be in silhouette. Sherman clicked the shutter and walked the camera back to Dad. He told William, “I’ve got to go home too,” and left just before the family gave hugs all around and Aunt Billie and her family got back in the station wagon and drove away.
Sherman didn’t come over to play the next day, or the next. William went over to his trailer the day after and his mom said he wasn’t home – staying with his father today. She said the same thing the next day. William didn’t understand it. They had played together every day since the beginning of the school year, and Sherman had always told him when he was going to stay with his father. Mom asked him where Sherman was. “He’s busy,” William said. “Busy? What’s he busy with?” William didn’t answer. “Any chance he’s mad at you?” Why would Sherman be mad at him? “No,” he said. “You haven’t seen him since the reunion. Did you maybe say something to upset him?” “No.” “I could call his mother to find out why he’s busy?” “No!” William said. “It’s fine.” “All right, then. Since he’s busy and you’re not busy, you can come with me to pick out a frame for the family picture.” They stopped at a stationary store to pick up an 8x10 picture frame, and at the drug store to pick up the pictures she had dropped off for development last week. She took him to lunch at the restaurant in the top floor of Bingham’s department store, which made the whole trip a little bit less boring and embarrassing for William. Mom framed the family picture at the barbecue and hung it on the wall above the couch. “Now we can see it every day. It turned out very well, I think. I wish your grandpa could see it.” “Yeah.” William already knew what everyone looked like.
“Your friend Sherman did a very nice job taking the picture of all of us, don’t you think?” William looked this time. There were Uncle Ted, Bert, Frank, and Dad in back, with the sun on their faces and the Mr. Murphy’s house in the distance behind them. There were Mom, Billie, and himself in front. He remembered there had been eight people that day, not seven. Someone was missing. Sherman played just as hard and gotten just as beaten up as he had, and not even by his own family. He should be here, in the picture. It occurred to him then what he might have said to make Sherman not want to come over anymore. After dinner, William, Mom, and Dad were watching TV together. William thought maybe he should ask his mom to call Sherman’s mom to ask him to come over. No, he couldn’t do it. What would he say to his mom? What would she say to Sherman’s mom? He couldn’t do it. Thinking made William restless. He stood up during a commercial and looked at the picture over the couch. He looked at every face in it, at everything in it, as if staring could make any difference. Then he saw something, and he stepped onto the couch right next to where Mom was sitting and pulled the picture off the wall. “Watch out, boy,” Dad said. “You popped a nail.” William didn’t hear. He was already out the door and headed for his bike.
William knocked on Sherman’s screen door and his mom answered the door. She let him in without speaking. Sherman came to the door and she returned to their living room to read her magazine. “Hey,” Sherman said. William answered, “Hey.” Sherman stood, quiet. William held up the picture. “See this?” He turned it away from the glare. Sherman looked for a moment. “It’s nice.” “I just wanted you to see it, cause you took it. Dad said good job.” Even though Mom said how well Sherman took the picture, William thought it would sound more impressive if Dad had said it. “Tell him thanks.” William kept his eyes forward. “It would have been better if Mr. Murphy had taken it. If he had been home.” Sherman shrugged. “Or if his dog took it.” A laugh almost got out of William’s throat. If the dog took it – He choked it down. “I mean – I mean,” William said, “you should have been in it.” Sherman shrugged. “Look at this,” William said, and he put his finger on the picture. He traced a shadow that ran all the way from the bottom of the frame, over William’s shoulder, and up Dad’s chest. The top
of the shadow was round, like a head. “See?” he said. “That’s you. You’re in it.” He hoped it was good enough. Sherman leaned in and looked carefully. “Yes,” he said. William wanted to say the next thing. He couldn’t say it. Sherman looked at the picture a long time before turning to look at William again. “Do you want to ride bikes?” “Yeah,” William said. Sherman pushed through the front door to get his bike from the garage. William followed. It was summer outside and there was still a little daylight left.
Books by Charlie Close Fiction Before the Ripcord Broke: Stories Childish Things: Stories of Growing Up Burning Embers and Other Stories of Marriage, Work, and Family
Very Short Stories Kites and Weddings: Very Short Stories Rough & Beautiful: Very Short Romance Stories The Art of the Very Short Story: A Guide for Readers and Writers
Poetry Sugar on Both Sides: Selected Haiku
Visit Charlie http://charlieclose.wordpress.com @CharlieClose
