I turn toward Dante, and he’s holding his empty hands up in front of his face. When I turn to Feif, he’s doing the same thing.
I am the last person on the court to see that the guy with the gun isn’t Dante or Feifer. It’s Dante’s homeboy Michael Walker. While I was breaking up the fight, he must have run and grabbed it from the car.
I didn’t see him or the gun until just now, when he walked back onto the court, lifted it to the side of Feifer’s head, and with a sickening
Chapter 8. Dante Halleyville
WHEN MICHAEL PUTS that gun up beside that boy’s head, no one is more freaked than me.
Because of my promise to my grandmother Marie, I’ve got sixteen months to get through before I go into the NBA, and the only thing that can stop me is some ridiculousness like this. That’s why I never go to clubs or even parties where I don’t know everyone, because you never know when some fool is going to pull out a gun, and now that’s exactly what’s happening and it’s my best friend doing it, and he thinks he’s doing it for me.
And it’s not like Michael and I haven’t talked about it. Michael wants to have my back, fine. But he’s got to stay between me and trouble, not bring it on.
Thank God for Dunleavy. He doesn’t know this, but I’ve watched him since I was starting out. Till me, he was the only player from around here who amounted to much. I used to track him at St. John’s and then for that short time with the pros in Minnesota. He never got the big tout, but if he hadn’t got hurt, Tom Dunleavy would have done some damage in the League. Trust me.
But what Dunleavy does today is better than basketball. It’s like that poem we read in school-if you can keep your head screwed on tight, when all around you motherfuckers are freaking.
When Michael puts the gun to the white guy’s head, everyone scatters. But Dunleavy stays on the court and talks to Michael calm as can be.
Not fake calm either. Real calm-like whatever is going to happen is going to happen.
I can’t say for sure it was like this word for word, but this is what I remember.
“I can tell you’re Dante’s friend,” Dunleavy says. “That’s obvious. As obvious as the fact that this guy should never have thrown a punch at Dante, not at someone who’s about to go to the NBA. He hits Dante, maybe one of his eyes is never the same and the dream is over. So I’m sure there’s a part of Dante that would like to see you mess him up right now.
“But since you’re Dante’s best friend,” he goes on, “it’s not what Dante wants but what he needs. Right? That’s why even if Dante was screaming at you to kill this punk, you wouldn’t do it. Because it wouldn’t help him in the long run. It would hurt him.”
“Exactly,” says Michael, his gun hand shaking now even though he’s trying to cover it. “But this shit ain’t over, white boy. Not by a long shot.
Somehow Dunleavy makes it look like it was Michael deciding on his own to put down the gun. He gives Michael a way out so it doesn’t look like he’s backing down in front of everyone.
Still, the whole thing is messed up, and when I get to my grandmom Marie’s place, I’m so stressed I go right to the couch and fall asleep for three hours.
Nothing would ever be the same after that catnap of mine.
Chapter 9. Kate Costello
“OH, MARY CATHERINE? Mary Catherine? Has anyone here seen the divine MC?” I call in my sweetest maternal-sounding voice.
When there’s no answer, I jump up from my little plasticized lounge chair and search my sister’s Montauk backyard with the exaggerated gestures and body language of a soap-opera actress.
“Is it truly possible that no one here has seen this beautiful little girl about yea big, with amazing red hair?” I try again. “That is so peculiar, because I could swear I saw that same little girl not more than twenty seconds ago. Big green eyes? Amazing red hair?”
That’s about all the theatrics my twenty-month-old niece can listen to in silence. She abandons her hiding spot on the deck, behind where my sister, Theresa, and her husband, Hank, are sipping margaritas with their neighbors.
She races across the back lawn, hair and skinny arms flying in every direction, the level of excitement in her face exceeding all recommended levels. Then she throws herself at my lap and fixes me with a grin that communicates as clearly as if she were enunciating every syllable: “
The first ten years after I finished college, I rarely came home. Montauk felt small to me, and claustrophobic, and most of all, I didn’t want to run into Tom Dunleavy. Well, now I can’t go two weeks without holding MC in my arms, and this little suburban backyard with the Weber grill on the deck and the green plastic slide and swing set in the corner is looking cozier all the time.
While MC and I sprawl on the grass, Hank brings me a glass of white wine. “Promise you’ll tell us when you need a break,” he says.
“This
Funny how things work out. Theresa has known Hank since grade school, and everyone in the family, me included, thought Theresa was settling. But seeing how much they enjoy each other and their life out here, and watching their friends casually wander in and out of their yard, I’m beginning to think the joke’s on me.
But of course the best part of their life is MC, who, believe it or not, they named after yours truly, the so-called success of the family.
Speaking of my darling namesake, I think she’s slinked off again because I can’t seem to find her.
“Has anyone seen Mary Catherine? Has anyone here seen that scruffy little street urchin? No? That is just too odd. Bizarre even, because I could have sworn I just saw her a minute ago right under this table. Beautiful red hair? Big green eyes? Oh, Mary Catherine? Mary Catherine?”
So peaceful and nice-for the moment anyway.
Chapter 10. Tom
AFTER ALL THE DRAMA, a night on the couch with Wingo and the Mets won’t cut it. I head to Marjorie’s, which is not only my favorite bar out here but my favorite bar anywhere in the known universe. The Hamptons have hundreds of heinous joints catering to weekenders, but I’d sooner play bingo at the Elks Club than set one foot in most of them.
Marjorie’s definitely skews toward townies, but the owner, Marjorie Seger, welcomes anyone who isn’t an ass, no matter how bad their credentials might look on paper, so it doesn’t have that bitter us-against-them vibe of a dyed-in-the-wool townie institution, like Wolfie’s, say.
Plus at Wolfie’s, I’d never hear the end of it if I ordered a Grey Goose martini, but that’s exactly what I want and need, and exactly what I order from Marjorie herself when I grab a stool at the outdoor bar set up on the docks.
Marjorie’s eyes light up, and while she puts a glass on ice and washes out her shaker, I listen to the ropes groan and the waves slap against the hulls of the big fishing trawlers tied up thirty feet away. Kind of nice.
I was hoping one or more of my fellow hoopsters would already be here, but they’re not. I’ll have to content myself with Billy Belnap, who was in my history and English classes at East Hampton High. For fifteen years, he’s
