Lay-ups and Long Shots by David Lubar Page A

or bowling ball? No, I don’t want you to answer that. Just take a seat.”
    Why did I want to play a game for which I had no natural ability? I guess there’s only one word to explain it.
Swish!
That’s the sound a ball makes when you shoot it from ten or twenty or even thirty feet away and it arcs up—a hook or a two-handed foul shot or a one handed fall-away jumper, it doesn’t matter—and falls right through without touching the rim.
Swish!
The sweet sound it makes as it ripples through the net.
    I’d done that. Swished the ball. It was almost always when I was alone in the gym or shooting with Grampa at the old nailed-up hoop. And I only managed it about one shot out of a hundred. Never twice in a row. But when it happened, it was like an electrical current shot through me from the top of my head on down to my toes.
Swish!
Pure magic. My fondest hopes in basketball were first to hear that
swish
, and second to play a real basketball game on a real court with Grampa watching and telling people proudly, “That’s my grandson.” Making him proud of me was as important as anything.
    So I tried to stick with it, even though on the second day after practice when I came back to my locker I found my shoes with no laces and my street clothes tied together in knots. And on the third day, I got tripped by somebody—it might have been Pat Harley, who I’d accidentally elbowed in the nose—so that I ended up falling over a bench, cracking the left lens of my glasses and skinning my knee. I don’t think the other players meant to be cruel. I was just the obvious target for the instinctive response of adolescent jocks confronted by absolute incompetence in their chosen field. You couldn’t criticize them for their behavior any more than you’d fault a pride of lions for pulling down a wounded wildebeest.
    Being hopelessly inept at such small details as passing, catching the ball, dribbling, and shooting also got me noticed by the coaches. Not only was I creating havoc whenever I was allowed on the floor, they saw something that I didn’t. If I kept on bumping into, tripping, and elbowing the other players—even in drills—the next time I ventured into the locker room after practice with eighteen larger, resentful fellow players, I might not come out alive.
    Partway through my fourth day, Coach Dalyrymple walked out on the court, took the ball from my hand, and tossed it to another player. He put one arm around my shoulder and led me over to the stands by the back door to the gym.
    “Bruchac,” he said in a soft voice, “I know your grandparents. I know you’re a good kid. But this game’s not for you. Maybe next year if you get six inches taller. Hit the showers.”
    “But practice isn’t over yet,” I protested.
    “It’s over for you, son,” Coach Dalyrymple squeezed my shoulder as I lifted one hand to push my glasses—which now had two cracked lenses—back up my nose. He spoke slowly, to make sure I understood. And though the tone of his voice was kind, those words hurt. “You are not going to be on the basketball team. Go home.”
    When I got off the late bus that afternoon, my grandparents weren’t home. The store was locked and there was a note from Grama on the house door. Doc Magovern had come to the house because Grampa was “having trouble with his blood.” Now they were off to the hospital and I “wasn’t to worry.” This had happened before. Grampa had pernicious anemia and sometimes was very sick. So, naturally, it worried the pants off me. I actually thought about taking my bike down the dreaded 9N the three miles to the Saratoga Hospital. Instead, I did as I knew they wanted. I opened the store and waited for customers. None came, though, and my eye was caught by the basketball stowed away as usual behind the door. I had to do something to take my mind off what was happening to Grampa. I took out the ball and went around the side.
    When I started, I wasn’t thinking about playing a