Aura and Cecil are sitting floorside in Gallagher-Iba Arena, one standing-room-only row off the Oklahoma State bench, watching colorful squads of basketballers run pre-game warm-ups over the polished maple-wood court. The Cowboys are taller than she thought they’d be, this close to the action, leaner and meaner than the team as seen on TV.
The Pokes in white are playing fellow Big Eight rival Kansas tonight, and the blue-jerseyed Jayhawks braid through their half-court weave-and-shoot drills with the relaxed, cocksure swagger you’d expect from an honest-to-goodness basketball powerhouse. Ranked second in today’s AP poll, with a lineage harking back to both Naismith and Phog Allen, KU is heavily favored to win the contest.
“I bet these boys can stretch a rubber band silly,” Cecil says.
If Aura’s patient saw that poll, he’s not letting on. Parked in an empty slot to her right, Cecil and his wheelchair intrude into the aisle but only just. A portable AM/FM radio is slung from one of the chair’s handle grips; a pair of cushioned, aviator-style headphones are cradled in the big man’s lap. What with the audio equipment, those fancy orange and black cowboy boots, the white Stetson, and that pumpkin-colored button-down, Cecil certainly stands out. No small feat in this capacity crowd.
Overhead, a behemoth, four-sided scoreboard flashes advertisements and twangs country-and-western music. Suddenly a jovial, disembodied voice introduces the manic-aggressive play-by-play announcer Dick Vitale, here to call the game for ESPN.
Aura points to the announcer’s table and shouts above the racket.
“Dick Vitale’s here!”
“Vitale’s too . . . effervescent. You can’t attach any credence to such militant affability.” He pats his radio. “I like Teegins.”
The powers that be have billed the evening as Big Monday, and word is the Cowboys booster club has planned a secret, halftime surprise. Whatever that might be, the OSU Cowgirls cheerleading squad will be on hand to ensure everyone is suitably titillated. Shrink-wrapped into black, long-sleeved midriff tops and skimpy, pleated skirts, the cheerleaders jitterbug pertly along the Cowboys’ end line, inciting further fervor from the already boisterous student section assembled there.
Sufficiently loose, both teams retreat to the benches. But as the KU starters are introduced a disapproving hush, even a catcall or two, condescends from the stands. Aura watches Kansas coach Roy Williams watching the crowd. Surely he hadn’t forgotten about the fans, that sixth man his Jayhawks would need to defeat here in Stillwater? Gallagher-Iba is one of maybe two venues in the country offering a demonstrable, statistical advantage to its home team, and when the Pokes start high-fiving their own way onto center court Aura sees—or rather hears—why that is. Everyone is contributing to the commotion, even the nosebleeders in the upper decks. There are air horns and bongo drums and war cries and primal, cinematic screams, every sound underscored by the polyphonic stylings of the Cowboys marching band, who in their black western hats and shirts welcome each OSU player with a rhythmic, attitudinal blast.
A baritone announcement booms from the scoreboard speakers:
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . geeeeeeeeeeet ready for a high plains basketball shooooootout!”
Everyone but Cecil rises for the national anthem, necks craning toward the star-spangled flag hung from the girders. Hands over hearts, land of the free, home of the brave, then both ball clubs are elbowing into position for the tip-off.
The horn honks once—a curt, skull-panging hwwaaaaaaamp!—and we’re off.
The night’s been hyped as a showdown between big men, OSU’s Big Country versus his KU doppelganger Greg Ostertag, two white boys towering a razored head or more above everyone else on campus. When Big Country is fouled during his first lay-up attempt he nets both sides of a one-and-one to get OSU on the scoreboard. Fresh off a six-game winning streak, Kansas has the deeper bench and the wind at their backs, and from the moment the Jayhawks take possession they start prodding the Pokes into an up-tempo shooting match.
Everyone remains on their feet, tennis-necking side-to-side as the teams run-and-gun the court.
“Can you even see?” Aura yells down at Cecil.
But her patient has removed his cowboy hat and clapped those giant headphones around both ears and is now fiddling the dial in search of the Cowboys radio network.
Big Country with a lay-up for two. Ostertag for two. Rutherford from the field for three. KU turns it over. Big Country for two more.
Vitale’s words scrolling across the hovering Adzillatron: IT’S JAM CITY BABY!!!
And so it goes. Fouled on a drive to the basket, Big Country converts two more free throws. KU’s LaFrentz for two. Big Country with a put-back for two. OSU’s Chianti Roberts dunking for two.
Vitale wants us all to know: CHIANTI’S SWEET AS WINE BABY!!!
The crowd can’t get enough of Big Country. Whenever Reeves scores, the baseline bleachers practically seethe with teen spirit, an orange crush of hooting, hollering fans, all of them mugging for the network camera crews. There are faces smeared in greasepaint, naked male torsos brindled with orange and black, homemade posters thrust toward the championship banners dangling overhead: Everyone Shout Pokes Now!
Vitale’s astounded: IT’S CAMERON INDOOR STADIUM WEST BABY!!!
Aura watches the student mascots play-act a silent argument along the opposite sideline. KU’s Big Jay flaps a blue, feathered wing before the enormous fiberglass face of OSU’s Pistol Pete, a frontier lawman done up in orange leather boots and chaps and hat. He’s even got a silver star pinned on his vest. Pete’s stubble-cheeked, lantern-jawed headpiece bobbles down at the upstart Jayhawk. The skinny cowboy hikes a pipe-stem arm, tickles one of the six-shooters holstered at his hip. But Pete doesn’t draw on the bird, choosing instead to assault the mascot with the cowbell clutched in his other hand: clonk-clonk-clonk-clonk-clank!
A corn-fed coed in an atomic orange wig waves a poster that simply reads: NOISE.
Aura is beginning to grasp the reasoning for Cecil’s audio equipment. With life dialed to this volume there’s no point in chatting up your neighbor, much less trying to think. Closing her eyes, she tries grokking the game’s chaotic, coded undersong:
. . . awright awright awright
get BAAAACK!
pass pass PASS!
shotclock shotclock SHOOOOTit take the SHOT!
s’not ebonics its
DEEEEEEE-fense!
be ready alley alley drive the alley
look UP!
stay DOWN stay
no no nooOOO NO NO!
OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHH
ion the ball, ion the BALL
light it UP!
ESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
get that man just trust him
’TACK THE BASKET!
goddammit boy face-UP
s’ugleee
YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
GO GO GO
cocksucker call
high-low bring it down DEEP and sit up on
TIME!
Aura opens her eyes.
The game clock is paused. An avuncular Sutton confers urgently with his dripping giants. Three fresh bodies rotating in for Kansas. But Sutton stands mostly pat; he’s working his seniors hard tonight. The horn honks and Rutherford snags the inbound ball and darts by a KU screen for three more from the elbow. The handsome black guard jogs backward downcourt, bald head and shoulders jiving, a celebratory sort of moonwalk. Then KU’s Scot Pollard throws a brick and OSU’s Owens brings it in low, dribbling six inches or so off the ground. Trapped into a corner, Owens improvises an underhanded shovel-pass over to Big Country, who’s already stuffing the dunk for two.
Vitale emoting from above: LOVING THIS GREAT BIG COUNTRY BABY!!!
Pistol Pete rattles his cowbell beneath the Pokes’ basket: clonk-clonk-clonk-clonk-clank!
KU takes possession. Haase skips a pass to LaFrentz inside. LaFrentz back to Pearson in the wing. The Jayhawks move the ball inside and back out, inside and back out, hoping to free up some leeway on the perimeter. But OSU won’t take the bait and, with one eye on the shot clock, Haase tosses off a halfhearted prayer that clips the rim’s back iron with a metallic bwanggggg!
Big Country with what Vitale trumpets as his one-thousandth career rebound.
More cowbell. Pistol Pete unholsters a replica Colt cap-gun and fires twice into the ceiling—crackity-crack! The mascot dances a confrontational little heel-toe jig through the ensuing gun smoke.
At halftime it’s OSU doing the swaggering: the Cowboys lead the Jayhawks, 37-30.
While the teams amble off-court Cecil removes his headphones and points to Pistol Pete.
“My brother and I knew him.”
Before Aura can answer, the man sitting directly in front of Cecil, a fellow Aggies fan upholstered into a bright orange cardigan, turns around to ask, “What was he like?”
“That old boy was a fibber, and almost as short as his temper.”
Two pint-sized towel boys are swabbing up for the halftime show, pushing plush dry mops over the hardwoods in a practiced, headland zigzag. Several fans maneuver by Cecil’s wheelchair, headed for the bathrooms or the feed trough or both.
“If only that camera added IQ points instead of pounds,” says a deep, reassuring voice.
“I thought you were sitting this one out, brother,” Cecil replies, without turning to acknowledge the huge man standing behind him.
Big Ben Porter drops into a recently vacated seat adjacent to Cecil and says, “I came with a potential client.”
Cecil’s cheeks are burning.
Ben extends a hefty hand to Aura.
“I’m Ben.”
Aura shakes his hand.
“Aura Jefferson.”
“Let me in on a little secret, Aura. How do you get this one to do what you tell him?”
“I don’t give him a choice.”
“So? What’d I miss?” Ben asks. “Did the twin towers resort to violence yet? Any fisticuffs? The word I keep hearing on everyone’s lips is upset.”
“It’s a war,” Cecil answers. “Game like this, it’s only the last two minutes that really count.”
A posse of golfer types is taking the floor. One of them puts the microphone to his spray-tanned face and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to center court. We’re honored this evening to welcome some very special alumni back to Stillwater. Fifty years ago, in 1945, representing what was then Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College and playing under the tutelage of legendary coach Henry Iba, these men defeated NYU in Madison Square Garden to win OSU’s first NCAA national basketball title. That next year, in 1946, many of them returned to play on the team that won the whole thing all over again. It was the first dynasty in college hoops history. So let’s give it up for the 1945 national champions . . . the Oklahoma A&M . . . AGGIES!”
Excepting the mammoth, silver-haired Bob Kurland, who even at seventy still stands nearly seven feet tall, the stoop-shouldered group of oldsters don’t seem so supersized as today’s players. Or as diverse.
“Quite a homogenized lineup they had,” says Ben, as if reading Aura’s thoughts.
“Did you ever play?” she asks him.
“Only vicariously. Through Cecil. There was one game I remember particularly well. Cecil gets singled out for the halftime show. It was a shooting contest against . . .”
“Stow it, Ben,” Cecil snaps.
The memorial ceremony is nearly concluded. Having been given plaques commemorating their accomplishment, the brittle alums are escorted back to their seats. The emcee turns the mike over to one of his cohorts, a beet-faced car dealer calling himself Mitchell “Mac” Hogan. Mac’s voice has a singsong, reedy quality that seems to come from anywhere but that squat, pork-and-beans physique. He’s sponsoring a shooting contest this very night, Mac trills, and after he tells us about this new Ford dealership he’s erected off Country Club Road—qualified buyers can get zero-down, four-year financing, folks, at four-and-three-quarters-percent . . . that’s almost same as cash!—three members of the audience will get the chance to win a brand new Ford Mustang, courtesy of Mac Hogan’s Country Club Ford—all they hafta do is make a few buckets!
Ben regards the car dealer with glazed disdain.
“I know this guy. Biggest decision Mac makes any given day is whether to decorate his parking lot with the giant, inflatable King-Kong or the two-story Godzilla.” Cecil’s little brother uncorks himself from the narrow seatback, laboring to his feet. “Cecil tells me you’re quite the basketball player, Aura.”
“I hold my own.”
“Ben . . .” Cecil says.
But Ben has already stolen the cowboy hat from Cecil’s lap, his distant expression giving way to a diabolical twinkle. He curtsies his big head into the Stetson and grabs Aura’s hand.
“Come with me.”
Before Aura can object Ben has beelined her out to mid-court, grinning all the way, like he’s the real reason we’re all gathered here today. Mac Hogan’s almost done spelling out the rules for his shootout—three shots from three different locales on the court for a graaaand total of nine balls fer’eeevery lucky contestant and all you gotta-do folks to drive home in that candy-apple Mustang tonight is sink one little ole basket from each of these three spots and otherwise the contestant with the most baskets wins this sizeable gift certificate here and it just don’t get any easier than this—and when Ben moseys up underneath Cecil’s cowboy hat Mac doesn’t miss a beat. The car dealer greets them as if Ben’s visit was scripted.
“Looks like we have our first volunteer! What’s your name, missy?”
“Aura.”
“I like that name,” Mac turns back to the arena and sings a silvery, rising arpeggio, stretching Aura’s name into four—better make it five—syllables: “Au-hah-hah-au-raaaaa! Now. I need two more shooters besides her. So who’s it gonna be?”
Next comes a dark-skinned teen with a scissor-cut fade named Jahleemah Wallace—check that wingspan, ladies and gentlemen, this Jellyman might have my number!—and a red-headed, freckle-nosed schoolgirl too shy to tell us her name, that’s who.
Aura, Jahleemah, and Freckles queue beside a basketball cart parked beside the free-throw line where, yukking it up all the while with Ben, Mac allows each contestant to attempt three free throws in a sequential, round-robin format. Aura’s feeling limber enough—Cecil’s physical therapy has honed her set shot—and she swishes three good frees. Jahleemah sinks two. But when Freckles air-balls all three attempts Mac informs the poor kid she’s through. The little girl walks away stiff-lipped while the car dealer escorts Aura and Jahleemah to the three-point line, Ben close behind.
It’s been a while since Aura’s played before a crowd of any size. Look at all these bodies. There must be, what, five or six thousand watching? Aura can sense them pulling for her, hoping that she or Jahleemah would get over on this huckster Ford dealer. The expectation, while familiar, has her rattled. It’s the opposite of the calm she gets from a Saturday night pick-up game.
Jahleemah goes one-for-three from the field and then she’s dribbling the ball, spinning it on her palm, psyching up for that first perimeter shot. She looks to Cecil for encouragement. There he is behind the OSU bench, he’s talking with that man in the cardigan again, licking his lips now, watching with all of his being . . .
. . . saw that tic of his a few weeks ago and then conveniently forgot. The way Cecil licks his lips before shooting. Just like Carl. Her little brother was always trying to be like Mike. They’d play in the church parking lot and he’d soar like some new species of bird before the big blue . . .
She misses one three-pointer before snapping out of it.
Remember to breathe. Slow your breath, slow your heart, her coach would say. The next attempt circles the rim, hesitates, drains uncertainly into the hoop. But her third three sails cleanly through the net with a satisfying swoosh.
Mac relocates the show to half-court. But when she and Jahleemah both miss all three half-court shots, Aura is handed a fifty-dollar gift certificate to Blockbuster Video, never mind she doesn’t own a VCR.
Ben removes Cecil’s hat, he’s whispering something at Mac Hogan.
The car dealer muffles his microphone and whispers back, “We square now, Ben?”
But Cecil’s brother won’t give the poor emcee a thing. He hands the hat to Aura.
“Give that to Cecil for me, I’m going and say hi to Boone.”
Aura moseys back to the stands. She’s thinking it could feel good, finally, to talk with someone about her brother Carl. And why not start tonight, with her new, sort-of-friend, Cecil Porter?
The contest having run its course, a student in an orange zoot suit, top hat, and sunglasses is now prowling the floor. Equipped with a bazooka-sized pneumatic air cannon, he begins mortaring the cheap seats with balled-up T-shirts. Thhhhhhhhhhhooomp! A cheerleader broom-handles another shirtball into Zoot Suit’s cannon: Thhhhhhhhhhhooomp!
Cecil’s still gabbing with the gentleman in the cardigan.
The Cowgirls drill team is mobilizing into a taut chorus line at center court where, to the sound of a squealing rap beat, they urge everyone to stand and jump-jump-jump around, hip-popping their black-sequined booty shorts and thrashing their orange-papered pom-poms.
Aura flips the cowboy hat onto her head and strikes a Pistol Pete pose before Cecil, both arms scarecrowed above an imaginary holster.
“I coulda’ been a cowboy,” she drawls.
But her patient is distracted, breathing hard, mumbling to the man sitting in front of him. When Aura takes her seat Cecil is saying, “. . . these niggers getting back to Africa with their long-ass names and these haircuts in your face . . .”
Wait, Aura is floored. What?
“I mean . . .” Cecil continues, unaware, “. . . these names don’t even fit a jersey. Mutumbo. Olajuwan. Anikulapo-Kuti? Jahleemah? I mean. Come on.”
Thhhhhhhhhhhooomp!
The rappers bragging about the gauge of their shotguns and the upper deckers stretching for those bindles of incoming spirit wear. Another amplified voice is addressing the arena. But she can’t make out the words. There’s an urgent pulse in her ears, a slow-drumming no-sound which nullifies the surrounding din.
Breathless again. Somehow she’s standing, has apparently taken two steps toward the aisle, around and away from her patient, and in the process almost fallen over Cecil’s bemused neighbor, whose orange sweater is now dandruffed with popcorn kernels.
Excuse me.
“Aura, I . . .” Cecil is stammering, he has finally made eye contact and is now trying to explain: “. . . I mean, if you’re going to move here, be here. Don’t expect me to pronounce a string-a-foreign consonants like this . . .”
He wants to make it better but they both know it’s only getting worse. Cecil can’t seem to shut himself up: the lips keep moving. A look of actual fear pinches his face until finally, weakly, he says: “Takes all kinds, I guess.”
Aura is beset by a passionate desire to hide. She considers fleeing. Away from Cecil, along the length of the cramped row, maybe? But people are staring, staring at her, smiling now and pointing, too. The game has become a circus, and Aura at center ring.
What’s going on here?
Aura wills herself around Cecil’s wheelchair and runs quickly from the arena.
She changed this man’s diaper, for Christ’s sake! Wiped his emaciated little ass-crack! And he calls her a nigger? Well. That cracker can go beg another ride home tonight. She’s done.
It’s not until she has crossed the wind-chilled parking lot—the night so cold her eyes are leaking freely down chapped cheeks—not until she sees the reflection in her car window, that Aura understands all the finger-pointing. Cecil’s Stetson is still on her head. Folks aren’t used to the sight of a big angry black woman wearing a white man’s cowboy hat.
Honky wants his hat back, she guns the engine and tosses the Stetson into her backseat, he’ll have to come get it.