Chapter Eight

Turned out that Jason was the go-to drug dealer in B Dorm, but since I was “a righteous jock,” he freebied me all the weed I cared to smoke. And I did righteously avoid getting stoned before practices and games. Although Jason routinely conducted his business in his room, he was careful to make sure I was elsewhere whenever his deals went down.

And even though the school had a zero-tolerance policy toward drug use, Jason wasn’t worried.

“No sweat, man. I give the dorm monitor a free zee every week, a juicy bag with no seeds or stems. And, as you can see, I stuff a wet towel under the door and one above it so the smoke and the smell don’t leak into the hall. And my roomie’s my runner, man. So I got it all doped out. Dig it? I got the dope doped out.”

I most often turned on with him and some of the other dopers on the football field at night. “Don’t worry,” Jason told me. “None of these dudes will turn you in ’cause they’re just as vulnerable to getting kicked outa here as we are. I mean, if you can’t trust a weed buddy, then who can you trust?”

In addition to his seemingly endless supply of pot, Jason was a good stoner partner because he had a high-trilled laugh that was infectious, and he had lots of funny stories. Like the night before a game when he and a couple of his friends got into the football team’s locker room through a window that was left unlocked by a dopie who was one of the trainer’s student interns.

“We put red-hot pepper powder in all of the jock’s jocks. When the powder kinda melted, like when they were warming up before the game, alla them guys were hopping around like their dicks was on fire. When they finally figured it out, they had to delay the start of the game while the dudes ran into the locker room, washed their dicks, and got new jocks. They got penalized fifteen yards for delay of game. They claimed it was food poisoning, but it’s still a secret about what really happened.”

Then he’d do an imitation of a player with hot nuts.

Jason was a sociology major in his junior year who was well acquainted with my brainiac roomie.

“Man, that’s one nutty, fucked-up dude. Some of his chinko buddies are my best customers, but him? He’s a straight arrow.”

Just to be sociable back in high school, I had smoked an occasional joint at a few parties, but my obsession with basketball had kept me straight. However, under Jason’s game plan, I soon discovered there were several advantages to my newly developed stoner stance.

I was much more relaxed during practice sessions, and although I still hadn’t appeared in any of the games, during the intrasquad scrimmages my shots were falling, my passes were on-target, my defense was tight, and I was having a good time.

The intensity of my focus in classes and in my studying greatly increased. Everything was interesting. Even the fact that the ideal temperature for a locker room was 72 degrees.

To augment my studying, I also lit up before our bus and plane trips to road games. Somebody had taken notes during the classes I had to miss, then typed them up, printed them out, and put them in my mail box. Reading somebody else’s view of what the teachers had said was more interesting than it would have been had I been straight.

Also, Jason set me up with several willing girls, including one cheerleader, who all loved to smoke and fuck. My being a bona fide ballplayer seemed to make me particularly desirable to them. Jason also had the key to an empty room in Dorm A, where I spent several nights “making the beast with two backs.”

Then, one fateful rainy postpractice afternoon, Jason’s roommate had the flu and the otherwise empty room in Dorm A was occupied by a shortstop and his babe. So, in desperation, we went up to my room in the slim hope that Brainiac was elsewhere—which he was, so that’s where we got high.

“Here’s another one,” Jason said. “I mean, I usually don’t like jocks. Present company not included. But especially I hate football players. Right? So, you know those little containers, whatever the fuck they’re called . . . ? The ones with the spouts on the bottom that are filled with . . . I think it’s Gatorade? With plastic cups stacked up next to them? So the football dudes can get a drink during games? Well, I got one of my customers to dose the tanks with this stuff called Dulcolax, right? It’s one of them diuretics, but he could only do it for a practice. So, since it was a really hot day, guys couldn’t get enough to drink. Then, guess what? They started shitting in their—”

Suddenly the door was unlocked, and in walked Phillip Brianiac with a big bag of Mickey D’s. Even as the wet towel above the door fell on his head, he gave us one look, sniffed once, then left.

“Oh, shit,” said Jason. “Let’s get the fuck outa here, pronto.”

Three days later there was a message from the dean of students in my mailbox. I was thereby summoned to a specially convened session of the Ethics Committee, which was composed of three students and three faculty members. They would address the charge that I had “imbibed illegal drugs” in Room 313 in Dormitory B at 7:35 p.m. on Thursday, November 10. In the face of a sworn statement by an anonymous eyewitness, I would be questioned as to whether there was any reason why I should not be expelled as per the school’s zero-tolerance drug policy.

I had three days to prepare my defense.

Jason had also received the same summons. “No fucking problem, man. I already got enough bread to last me for a few years. But lots of potheads around here are gonna be pissed. And how. Good luck, man. And adios, amigo.”

I never saw him again.

But I did make a beeline to Coach Lee’s office to show him the message.

“That sucks, Elliot,” he said. “You should have known better. What can I say? There’s nothing I can do about this. Just hope that the committee lets you slide. But we’ve still got two games and a few practices until the meeting, so I’ll expect you to show up and be ready to play.”

Yeah. Yeah.

Nothing he could do for a fourth-string guard.

So I went to the practices and played hard in the minimal time I was allowed on the court. And the next game was against Arizona State, our first conference game and a potent team.

“Our biggest game of the year,” CW said in the pregame locker room. “Absolutely a must-win.”

But then, not five minutes into the action, Marwane Wright rose for a monster dunk in a crowd and landed on an opponent’s foot. Just watching his ankle splay out into a right angle from his leg gave me a shiver of sympathetic pain from the many sprained ankles I’d ever suffered.

Wright was still screaming as they lifted him onto a gurney and wheeled him off the court.

LaGerald Monroe replaced him, and simply stunk up the court. His primary (and only) asset was his bull’s-eye shooting, but Monroe was so tight that he shot three bricks and an air ball. Rodney Lopez was even worse, turning his head on defense, fumbling a rebound, and missing a point-blank layup.

We trailed by 13 at the half, and CW was spitting mad as he loudly cursed us during the intermission. “You’re a bunch of choke bastards! A bunch of fucking pussies! I don’t even want to be in the same room with you losers!”

And he simply stormed out.

Coach Lee then started to spout some bullshit about never giving up.” The game’s not over until . . .”

When?

The final buzzer? The fat lady sings?

But before he could choose the appropriate cliché, the trainer came up to him and whispered something in Lee’s ear. Loudly enough, though, for us to hear the word “fracture.”

“Fuck,” said Lee. Then he silently stalked around the room, stopped for a moment to stare at Monroe, then at Lopez, shook his head both times, and came over to me.

“You’re starting the second half, Elliot. Don’t fuck up.”

And I certainly didn’t.

In fact, I shot 6-of-8, including 2 treys, netted all of my 5 free throws, had 2 steals, recorded 3 assists, nary a turnover, and totaled 19 points in leading “us” to a furious comeback that culminated in a 71–66 win.

The next day I received another message from the dean of students, notifying me that my appearance before the Ethics Committee was canceled and that, although a warning was put on my record, I was still “a student in good standing.”

***

It’s me. . . . Fine. Yeah. Everything’s really good. . . . I know. I’m sorry but there was such a—”