“I wanna be her manager when she goes into pro wrestling,” he calls to Sam.
Always quick to be boisterous, the Greenspark contingent responds to the Mutant’s attitude.
The Mutant herself breaks an infectious grin in their direction. For a second, she meets Sam’s eyes. He thinks he sees some softening around her mouth but perhaps it is only an illusion. Or a delusion.
He makes himself concentrate on the game. His struggle is more intense than the game itself, for the Greenspark girls take a walk all over the Weaverbirds. Over and over, his attention drifts to the rise and fall of the Mutant’s breasts as she lifts her arms to shoot at the free-throw line, or he’s riveted by the grace of her long legs, the muscular curve of her ass. It’s a relief to leave the bleachers to change.
21
The rowdy drained out of them in the locker room, the boys mill through warming up. Their sullen isolation from each reminds Reuben of news clips of prisoners chained together in the vending-machine courtrooms of the big cities. When they take the floor to play their game, the lack of byplay between the boys is another bad sign.
The Weavers come out strong and tear through the Indian defense all the way to Sammy at the post. The rest of Greenspark’s defense line is riddled with holes created by the inexplicable inattention and misplacement of Woods, Gramolini, Kasten and Bither. It seems as if they are more concerned with cutting Sammy out than they are with what the Weavers are doing. Recognizing that the Indians’ perimeter defense is disorganized, the Weavers simply go to their outside shooters and batten on an initial run of scoring.
At the offensive end of the court, the other starters play passaround with the ball, refusing to complete the plays that would bring it inside to Sammy. The only consistency is their willingness to turn over the ball to Dyer’s Mills rather than feed it to him.
Intrigued, Reuben leans forward. How will Sammy handle his team falling apart? He sees the tensing of his son’s jaw, the narrowing of Sammy’s eyes, and then Sammy breaks out, stripping an intimidated Weaver guard of the ball to pump in a twelve-footer. As it drops through the net, he is on the move again, to the relieved outcry of the Greenspark fans. The Weavers’ big forward has possession for a fraction of a second before Sam relieves him of it again. Kiss the floor, pivot, hook it in and then he’s in the middle of traffic, most of it Weavers. The other Indian starters lollygag their way toward the Dyer’s Mills goal.
Coach calls the first time-out. Though he is bent to the circled players, Reuben can hear the rise and fall of his fury, and read in his vehement gestures the riot act he is delivering to hanging heads and sulky faces. He sits down the four laggards and sends Sammy back in with Rank, Michaud, Skouros and an inexperienced sophomore guard, Shane McCleary.
Billy Rank promptly founders in flop-sweat and cramps. Coach replaces him with Woods, who seems to have undergone a bench conversion to the ways of righteousness. Rick resumes his longtime partnership with Sammy and the Indians open a second-quarter comeback in which Sammy shoots three consecutive three-pointers.
The Greenspark fans come alive with the team. In Reuben’s lap, Indy is so stimulated by the rising decibels that she pumps her way to her feet and begins to bounce on his thighs. To protect himself from her enthusiasm—she has exhibited a talent for kicking her father in the worst place—Reuben lifts her to his shoulders. Her heels drum on his chest and she squeals with delight at the improved view. When the cheerleaders take the floor at the half, she quiets and Reuben slides her back into his lap. Pearl returns from the concession stand and swaps him a paper cup of Coca-Cola for the baby.
Whatever ass-torching Coach gave the boys in the locker room, it is immediately apparent when play resumes that it has only gotten the boys’ backs up. It begins to look like a replay of the first quarter. Sammy gives a signal that he wants to come out and Coach assents and sends in Fosse. The team begins to cohere, setting a screen against Dyer’s Mills that denies a score. Then Woods steals the ball. But the Weavers block out Fosse under the post and keep Greenspark from scoring in return. The Greenspark rally stalls.
Coach calls another time and replaces all five men with the end-of-the-second-quarter lineup. The signs of rout excite the Weavers. Though Dyer’s Mills cannot control him and Sammy scores steadily, the bench players are hampered by effective blocking and their own erratic shooting. Sammy and the Skouros kid succeed in controlling the Weavers at the post but the Weavers’ forward shoots consistently from the edge of the paint over the Greenspark defense, racking three-pointers to maintain the margin gained in the first.
Again Coach calls time and when play resumes, Sammy moves from the post to screen the Weavers’ long shooter. The change is effective; tall as he is, the Dyer’s Mills forward cannot get over or around him or even pass it consistently to other Weavers. This long-shooting Weaver is tiring, clearly just trying to hang on until the end and there is no one to replace him of comparable talent on his bench. With a minute on the clock, the Indians have stopped the Weavers with the score at 64–58, in the Weavers’ favor.
The seconds tick away while Skouros struggles for possession with a heavyset opponent, lays it up and then stands open-mouthed underneath the bucket, watching his nervous shot wobble agonizingly around the rim and then stagger off. Sammy blocks the Weavers trying for the rebound to let Skouros take it back himself, only to see the gangly sophomore fumble it and squirt it directly into the eager hands of the Weavers’ center. Somehow Skouros trips—over
