seven

           “Sal!”

           I hear my name being called, so I look up from the wood of the floor and see a ball hurtling its way over to my face. Quickly, my hands shoot up and I manage to catch the orb securely. I hold it against my chest and breathe, and my heart pumps fast at the sudden occurrence as I realize that maybe I should pay a bit more attention than I typically do. So then I’m running my fingers along the edges of the rutted sphere, and I finally decide to look up. Standing before me is a boy who has just exclaimed my name and looks less than thrilled at my delayed reaction.

           “Ezra,” I greet. “What the hell, dude?”

           “Rule number six in basketball: pay attention,” he tells me. I roll my eyes and then glance down at the object that I’m holding once again, and then I process the fact that I’m actually holding it—a basketball. Up until now, Ezra hasn’t let me touch a basketball once. It’s been all theory and form, sans the whole central point of the sport. But now he’s giving me the ball, so that has got to be a good sign.

           “What’s rule number one?” I question, not pushing my luck by failing at dribbling or doing that thing where you spin the ball on the tip of your finger. Instead of pursuing anything even remotely fancy, I just tuck the basketball under my armpit and hold on tight.

           He thinks for a moment with a pause and then rattles out a, “I don’t know, Sal. In my book, rule number one would probably be to never quit. But I’ve broken that rule on more than one occasion, and rule number one can’t be something stupid like ‘have fun,’ so, uh, I don’t know.”

           I nod at his indefinite answer, and then I ask another thing that hopefully comes with a more solidified affirmation: “So, um, am I gonna be using the orange thing I’m holding, or, like, no?”

           A grin stretches over his face, and he cocks his head to the side. “I don’t know, Sal. Are you ready to finally use a basketball, or do we need to do more running?” He’s taunting me, but I don’t take the bait.

           Instead of flipping out over the word “running,” which I detest so very much, I just focus on the other word—“basketball.” So I confidently say, “I was freaking born ready to use a basketball,” even though I know it’s a lie. Jay’s the one in the family who was born to play. Not me. I was born to, like, do anything but basketball. Like, I could become an astrophysicist, and that would be more likely than having an ounce of basketball dexterity in my bloodstream. Legit, though.

           Ezra puts out his two hands, signaling that I should pass the ball to him. I toss it his way as best as I can, and then upon catching it, he throws it right back to me. Then his hands are out once again, in a position to obtain the ball justly. So, I give it to him again, and again, he lobs it right back. My face contorts a bit, but then I realize what skill we’re working on right now: passing. I throw the ball to him, he throws it to me, and then we repeat it a few times, until Ezra decides to critique me on my sucky passing.

           “You’re not bending your elbows enough,” he tells me. “They should be totally bent when you have the ball—which should be close to your chest, since this is a chest pass—and then on the release, they should straighten out. Try it again.” So I have the ball, and it’s hovering by my chest, only supported by my hands. But before I can even so much as aim it in his direction, Ezra’s already nagging on me. He’s all like, “Sal, if the ball is touching your palms, then you’re doing something really wrong.”

           I let out a groan and adjust my grip, so that the ball is in no way colliding with my dear palms. Before I pass it to him, I wait for the incoming criticizing, but it never comes. The ball leaves my grasp, and travels on a set trajectory all the way over to Ezra. He catches it no problem, and then nods favorably. I smile a bit at his silent approval, and then we do the same thing about twelve more times, until I’m whining about how boring the monotony is getting. Ezra tells me that tedium builds character. I tell him to stick tedium up his ass. We continue on with our boring as heck chest passes.

           After a while, Ezra expresses that we should probably move on to something different. I temporarily get excited, falsely thinking that it’s something interesting like shooting or dribbling or not running. But Ezra disappoints me and shows me how to preform the exemplary bounce pass. I try after his demonstration, and the ball ends up rolling all the way over to the wall, about twenty feet away. Not wanting to waste time with my slow running, Ezra goes after it and returns in seconds.

           “Bounce passing is all about the angles,” he says, throwing the ball to the floor, only to have it somehow end up in my hands.

           “I think I failed geometry,” I joke, though judging by the concerned look he wears, I don’t think that he takes it to be all that funny. In actuality, I didn’t fail geometry—I just didn’t exactly excel like my parents would’ve wanted. But when Jason had to take geometry, he was getting C’s, so as long as I never stooped that low, my parents were happy as clams about my B’s. Math has never been Jay’s thing. Or school, for that matter. He’s a bit of a blockhead, but that’s one of the reasons that I occasionally find myself loving him. Stupid (and a total jerk), but lovable. That’s my big bro.

           “If you’re standing farther away from someone,” Ezra continues, taking a few steps back, “then the angle of the pass has to be a larger one, because the ball is traveling a longer distance.” He demonstrates by passing the ball to the floor, and then it bounces up to me. I copy what he has just done, but obviously, the ball barely makes it over to him before colliding with the hardwood once again and rolling the rest of the way over to Ezra. I let out an agitated sigh as Ezra picks it up, offering me more sage advice: “And if you’re a close distance apart, then the angle should be a shorter one.”

           “Sorry, dude, but angles aren’t really my thing,” I say casually, but he ignores me.

           Alas, he shows me his angle thingy by moving in a few paces, and throwing me the ball. I catch it and mirror his motions, and this time it actually makes it to him. Though I’m wholly shocked, I try not to show it, and stifle the incoming grin that threatens to grace my face. But I’m happy that I’ve made a successful bounce pass, and Ezra seems to be, too, for there aren’t any negative reinforcements that follow the pass. Unfortunately, my joy is only transitory, for Ezra then wrecks it all by causing us to practice the art of the bounce pass about another twenty-seven times. When he deems us done, my arms feel like jelly from lobbing the ball to the ground and catching it. But it’s only been about fifteen minutes, so I know that we’re not actually done.

           Ezra introduces a new (and hopefully the last) form of passing to me. He doesn’t give it a name, but basically says that it’s just whipping the ball overhead with either one hand or two. Then he shows me, and I don’t catch it. We unsuccessfully go through that for a while, and Ezra explains that this type of passing is for extremely long distance or when you’re being guarded and need to get the ball to someone who isn’t, like, guarded. I don’t like this type of passing, because it really does a number on my shoulders, and I’m just not really in the mood for basketball right now. It was a long day, and while the excitement of finally getting to use a ball is thrilling, I’m just not as into it as I could be.

           So, after the ball is safely with Ezra, I collapse onto the floor, unable to tolerate any further instructions. My back is pressed up against the glossy wood, and I try my hardest to overlook the crayon-y smell infused with sweat. I draw a few fingers over my eyes, blocking out some of the fluorescent lighting of the gym. Then, I breathe. It’s one of the first things that Ezra taught me, and since has been a pretty important thing in the sport. Breathing. Though Ezra says that he doesn’t know what Rule Number One in basketball is, I do. It’s to breathe. So I’m lying down, and that’s exactly what I do. In and out. Out and in. I shut my eyes, and can faintly hear the sound of Ezra’s sneakers squeaking across the ground, coming increasingly closer to my line of hearing.

           “Get up, Sal,” he commands.

           “No,” I groan out.

           “Sal.”

           “Ezra.”

           “C’mon,” he encourages, “we’re going to move on to dribbling now.”

           I hesitate for a moment, unsure if what he’s saying is merely a ploy to get me up or the cold hard truth. My eyes flicker open, and I see Ezra looming over me in his mesh shorts and perspiration-drenched tee. He pulls up the collar of his shirt and wipes his face, looking down at me expectantly. I gaze into his eyes for a short while, trying to read him. But like always with Ezra, reading him is nearly impossible. He’s not giving anything away, and just looks distant and uninterested—distantly uninterested. Though the lack of tension in my body that’s often there when I’m standing feels nice, I will myself to get up and buy into Ezra’s words.

           He lets out a small smile, and I can’t help but smile back. Then he’s back to his basketball mode, rapidly dropping the ball to the ground, only to have it come back up into his hand like a yoyo. He does this a few times, and then decides to get fancy by passing it through his legs a few times. My stomach tightens at the realization that it’ll soon be my turn to embarrass myself with my nonexistent dribbling abilities, but then releases as I remember that it doesn’t matter. I’m alone with Ezra. He’s the only one judging me, and while his judgment is harsh and severe, it’s the only one that currently matters. So when he throws the ball to me (in a pretty bounce pass with a small angle and all that crap), I try to dribble.

           “Again with the palms, Sal,” Ezra sighs out a laugh. My eyebrows scrunch together as I watch myself dribble, unsure as to what I could possibly be doing wrong. But then Ezra comes over to where I am, and we’re standing a mere few inches apart from each other. He takes the ball from me and drops it to the ground, stabilizing it with a single foot. Then he reaches out for my hand, and loosely grips my wrist, so that my palm is up. “In basketball, if you’re using your palms, then you’re sucking. Majorly.”

           “Gee, thanks, Ezzhead,” I roll my eyes in annoyance at his candor.

           “You want make varsity, don’t you?” It isn’t fair of him to ask me something like that, so I pout and don’t reply. Since what he has just asked is about as rhetorical as questions come, he takes my silence as the affirmation that it is, and then says, “Don’t use your palms, Sal.”

           So I counter with a loaded, “Then what am I supposed to use, Ezra? My feet?”

           “No, that would be soccer. We’re playing basketball,” he replies lightly. “We use our fingertips.”

           “You sound like a guitar teacher who’s trying to be all metaphorical and crap, but failing.”

           “Thanks. That’s what I strive for.”

           I let out an undignified snort of some kind of laughter-like noise, and then I’m all like, “Don’t I know it…”

           Ezra grins, bites down on the edge of his lip, and then repeats a word that I never thought I’d be associating with this particular sport: “Fingertips.”

           Then, he picks up the ball that’s being held by the weight of his leg, and gives it to me. I stare at the orb for a while, contemplating my next move. Gulping, I toss it down, and wait for it to come back up. When it does, instead of smacking it down with my entire hand, I’m about to daintily push it downwards with the use of my fingertips, but Ezra stops me. He takes the back of my hand with one of his own, and uses his other to press the ball to my fingers. My digits are arched, and I’m trying my hardest to segregate my palm from the action.

           “There should be about a centimeter of space between your palm and the ball,” he tells me.

           I nod, and then he lets go, and I’m on my own again. So I drop the basketball, and when it comes up to my hand, I do the best I can at isolating my palm and only using my fingers. This time, though, I don’t get interrupted, and manage to go through a few intervals of the action before I pause on my own. I’m waiting for Ezra to say something disparaging about what I’m doing, but he never does. Instead, he’s just watching intently, ready to pick up on any flaw in my form.

           More seconds pass of a muted Ezra, but then he’s speaking once again, and instructing me with a, “Lift your head up, Sal. When a defender is running towards you, you’re going to lose possession of the ball if don’t look up. Try it again.”

           So I do. And this time as I’m dribbling, I manage to look up for a few seconds, before growing nervous and having to glance down at the position of my hands and the basketball. I suck in a breath, upset that I’ve succumbed to looking down due to nerves, but Ezra isn’t upset. He just mouths, “Again,” so I do. I’m dribbling it again, and this time instead of staring off into the unexciting walls of the gym, I’m staring at Ezra, and he’s staring at me. Our eyes are connecting, and instead of apathy, I see nothing but reassurance in them.

           “Now switch hands,” says Ezra, still staring into my freaking soul. It’s as if he says to jump off a bridge dressed as a clown and not die physically or of embarrassment, because upon his request, I freeze up, and the ball slips from my possession and tumbles to the ground, unable to get back up again. I reach down to procure it, but Ezra beats me to it. He shakes his head with a bit of remorse, and then dribbles on his own for a while. He isn’t looking down at the ball, but he isn’t looking at me, either. His eyes are fixated past me and go through me like a gust of wind. Then, as he’s dribbling with his right hand, he somehow switches the position so that the ball is now being dribbled by his left hand.

           “See, I could never do something like that,” I sigh, knowing that it’s only half true.

           “You can and you will,” he determines resolutely. “It’s just a bounce pass with yourself, Sal. Nothing more than a steep angle.”

           “You should talk to my freshman math teacher—he’d tell you how crappy I was at shapes,” I joke, though I’m not actually being all that funny. Again, I’m being serious. Freshman geometry was a freaking hell for me. All those homework assignments and the test grades and the retake test grades and that final. Ugh. It gives me chills just thinking about it.

           “We’re not talking about shapes, Sal,” exhales Ezra.

           “Sure we are!” I refute. “Basketballs are, like, circles or whatever, and you’re bringing in the whole angle thing. We’re totally talking about shapes!”

           Before offering any words of advice or encouragement, Ezra corrects me on my terminology, and it takes everything I have in me to not roll my eyes at him: “Basketballs are spheres, actually.” I’m about to say something about how he should probably shut up, actually, but I don’t because I know that it would be rude, and also because Ezra just has to keeping on jabbering the heck away. “Sal, we’re talking about angles right now. Angles that are going to help you become a better basketball player.”

           “Are we, Ezra?”

           “Sal, I know you’re not into this right now, but I swear, when we start shooting, angles are going to be as important as they are now, if not more,” he promises earnestly. I don’t really believe him, though, because I’ve shot basketballs before. Not well, but I have experience. Lots of experience. Not once when I’m shooting have I ever considered angles, though. I don’t stop and think about if my shoulders are at a thirty degree angle to the basket or if my feet are forty-eight degrees away from the free throw line. Because it’s basketball, and if there’s one thing I know other than the fact that breathing is essential, then it’s that there isn’t a lot of time to think. Your mind is always racing and thinking about the here and now, and you don’t have the luxury to think about details and perfection. You don’t think—you just do.

           “Whatever you say, Ezra,” I reluctantly reply eventually. He hands the ball over to me, and he doesn’t even need to say anything for me to know what I need to do. I start dribbling the ball with my fingertips, and then after a while I toss it down at an angle, so that it ends up in my non-dominant hand. Then I attempt to dribble with the said non-dominant hand, and it all goes downhill from there. I’m a righty. Rarely do I ever use my deprived left hand. Now, though, I begin to realize just how handy being able to utilize my other hand may be.

           “Coaches like when you can dribble with both hands well,” Ezra tells me, “it shows versatility.”

           “And how would you know, Mr. I’ve Never Been on Basketball Team,” I scoff, trying the switch off between my two hands once again. I’m shifting my vision from Ezra to the ball and then to Ezra again, awaiting a response.

           “Who says that I’ve never been on a basketball team before?”

           “Uh, you did.”

           “When?”

           “I don’t know,” I shrug, vaguely recalling Ezra saying something like that. “Like, a while ago.”

           He nods in recognition, but then shakes his head in a contradictory manner. “If I remember correctly,” and I want to but don’t interject something about how I’m sure he does, because Ezra just seems like the type to always remember correctly, “I said that I’ve never played varsity, but been offered to.”

           “Oh. So then have you played for, like, JV or something?”

           He regards me with an expression of pure horror, as if what I’ve said has offended him. But to a basketball fanatic like Ezra, being asked about a possible linkage to junior varsity is about as bad as insults come. If I were to ask Jay the same question, he’d probably refuse to talk to be for an entire week or more. Once Ezra has partially recovered, he stumbles out, “Uh, no. Never played JV. When I was younger I used to do teams. But then I got older and learned that I’m not really a people person.”

           “You used to be, though.”

           “I used to be what, Sal?”

           “A people person.”

           He lets out a humorless laugh, and then says, “Good one, Sal.”

           “I’m serious,” I insist. “You used to have a lot of friends, Ezra.”

           “Oh, yeah?”

           “Yeah.”

           “Then where are they now, Sal? Where are my supposed friends?” His voice has cracked to a somber tone, and I know that we’re both treading in dangerous waters. I shouldn’t be pursuing this topic, but I’m in too deep, and it wouldn’t make sense for me to turn back now.

           “What happened between you and Jason, Ezra?” I ask.

           “You happened, Sal,” he whispers.

           And though I don’t know what he means, I don’t dare to inquire further. His eyes are closed and he’s trying hard to regulate his breathing back to a normal pace. I look past him, and just continue to dribble, switching it up between my hands with those damn angles. All that can be heard in the reverberating gym is the sound of my dribbling and Ezra’s breathing.