God's Kingdom by Howard Frank Mosher Page A

towns were slugging it out all over the common, and a fair number of womenfolk joining the affray as well.

    â€”PLINY’S HISTORY
    It’s still very early in the morning but Crazy Kinneson, Jim’s cousin, is already practicing on the outdoor court at the Academy playground, as he does every morning, winter and summer, fall and spring. Today Crazy’s working on his crossover move to the basket. He starts about twenty feet out from the hoop with a head-fake right, then two low, fast dribbles diagonally to his left. Switches the ball to his right hand inches above the feet of Straw Man One: a worn-out broom taped bristles-up to the back of a battered metal chair to resemble an opponent with one hand raised on defense.
    Crazy dips his left shoulder and blows by Straw Man One with two dribbles toward the hoop. But watch out, kiddo! Straw Man Two’s camped in the lane directly in front of the basket, waiting to jam that lopsided old Wilson right down your throat. Not to worry, though. Head up, head always up, seeing the whole court in front of him the way Old Lady Benson, the town busybody, sees the entire village green from the porch of her second-story apartment over the Monitor, Crazy’s spotted Two.
    He pulls up just inside the free-throw line and oh, my, he’s airborne. Up and up and up, releasing the ball in that moment of hang time when the shooter and all the world around him seem frozen in time like the grainy, black-and-white photograph of Crazy shooting his jumper in Jim’s yearbook dedicated to his cousin: “To Philmore Kinneson. October 8, 1937–December 12, 1953. Our Hardwood Hero . ”
    *   *   *
    The villagers of Kingdom Common and Kingdom Landing had despised each other since time out of mind. As is often the case in these situations, the origin of the trouble was unclear. Of course, there were all kinds of explanations. All of these tales were lurid, and many were absurd. But no one, even Jim Kinneson’s grandfather, knew for certain how the feud had started. Perhaps it dated all the way back to Gramp’s father, Charles Kinneson II, rerouting the outlet of Lake Kingdom to flow north toward the Common.
    In the summertime the Landing had something of the character of a resort community. Wealthy families from Boston and New York had vacationed at the Lake Kingdom House, a slightly down-at-the-heels summer hotel, for generations. Kingdom Common, for its part, was home to the American Furniture factory, and more of a mill town. Academy kids regarded their peers from the Landing as stuck-up. Landingites dismissed their enemies from the Academy as hicks.
    It will come as no surprise to anyone who has ever lived in a small town to learn that the feud between the villages reached its peak each year during basketball season. The Academy gymnasium, especially, lent itself well to the rivalry. A cracker-box affair located in the basement of the school’s south wing, it was less than half the size of a regulation basketball court. There was no out-of-bounds space around the perimeter. Players in-bounded the ball by placing a sneaker on the walls, which were flush with the sidelines. Sprained and even broken ankles were far from unheard of. Moreover, it was rumored that the north basket of the Academy gymnasium was only nine feet, ten inches high. The south basket was said to be ten feet, two inches. If so, the Academy players had no trouble making the adjustment. Not so their opponents, whose shots routinely bounced away long off the back of the north basket and fell short off the front of the south rim.
    As for the fans, they crowded into a wraparound balcony overlooking the court below. Academy supporters usually sat in the east, north, and south bleachers. Away fans jammed themselves into the west balcony. Substitute players and coaches from both teams stood on the narrow flight of metal stairs leading down to the court from the south balcony.