We played our next two games on the same day and without a coach. They were scrub teams that we should have walked on, but we just managed to get by them. I played all right the first game. In the second game, when they found out they were going to lose, they started a lot of crap under the boards. One of their dudes was beating on me every time I got the ball, and I gave him an elbow in the face to keep him off me. When I did that, he grabbed me around the neck and threw me down, and we had a light scuffle on the floor. There were only a few seconds to go, and the referee told both of us to leave the floor. I didn’t think nothing of it.

The next day, when I got to the center, Jo-Jo was there. He said a white guy called up and wanted to talk to Cal.

“How you know it was a white guy?” Ox asked.

“He sounded like a white guy,” Jo-Jo said. “He said he wanted Cal in his office at ten o’clock Thursday morning, or else!”

“Yeah, he was a white guy,” Ox said. “Ain’t nobody else is going to be ‘or elsing’ you on the phone.”

I had sworn to God that I would never speak to Cal again. But when the call came, I was anxious to go over and see him. I called over, and Aggie said he wasn’t there anymore.

“You mean you don’t know where he is again?” I asked.

“I think he’s over at his old place,” she said.

“You want to come over there with me?”

“No.”

“How come?” I asked.

“Here we go with your ‘how comes’ again,” she said. “Well, this time the ‘how come’ is because I love the man, and I want the man, and the Lord knows I need the man. But I can’t go up to him with my heart in a shopping bag and a headful of hope anymore. I just can’t make it anymore.”

“Look, Aggie.” I tried to find the right words. “I ain’t a faggot or nothing, but … I need Cal. You know what I mean? I don’t need him for money or even for ball but …”

“How many times you got to be hurt before you know where the pain is coming from?” She spoke as if she might not have been talking to me. “How many times does it take, Lonnie?”

“I don’t know, Aggie.”

Aggie and I met at the corner of his block. By the time I got there I was doubting Cal myself. We walked up the stairs together and knocked on his door. He didn’t answer at first, and when he did, he was so stinking with cheap wine I wanted to throw up. We got some coffee into him and then told him about the phone call.

“I figure it must be O’Donnel,” I said. “Jo-Jo wasn’t sure.”

“All he wants from me is that I don’t coach,” Cal said. “And I’m not doing that.”

“Maybe it’s not that,” I said. “Johnson’s on the road, and maybe he heard we been playing without a coach.”

“I don’t want nothing from either of you,” Cal said. “And there’s not a thing I have to give you. So why don’t you split?”

“You don’t care about me,” Aggie said. “Okay, why don’t you do it for Lonnie? Or do you want him to get down on his knees and beg? You want me to get down on my knees, Cal? That make you feel better?”

Aggie started to get down on her knees, and Cal caught her and held her up. She looked into his eyes and asked him again if he would show up at O’Donnel’s office.

I found myself holding my breath. A memory came to me, something I had never thought about before. It was me laying on the bed in my room, listening to my mother and father in the kitchen. She was begging him to come back. She was begging him and crying, and I was laying there, holding my breath, waiting for his answer. When he said he couldn’t, when he had left and the door was closed and the only sound was Mama’s crying in the kitchen, I started hitting the wall with my fist. I hit it and hit it until I couldn’t feel the pain anymore.

Aggie wouldn’t let Cal look away from her. She made him look her right in the eye. She held his head in her hands and looked him in the face until he stammered that he would go up to O’Donnel’s.

“Okay,” she said, “okay.”

Cal slumped across the bed, and Aggie stood and signaled me towards the door. We went there together and looked back at Cal on the bed. I saw his scrapbook on the floor, and I went back and picked it up and put it on the dresser.

I met Cal in front of O’Donnel’s office the next morning. I was there early and waited for him in the lobby. I spoke, but he didn’t answer. We got on the elevator and went up to the ninth floor.

O’Donnel’s office still impressed me. His secretary smiled at us like she was glad to see us or something. I smiled back, and she took the smile off her face real quick, like the whole thing had been a mistake.

“How you feeling?” I asked Cal as we waited.

“Feeling?” He looked at me. “I’m feeling okay.”

“It’s a nice day,” I said, trying to fill up the space between us.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I won’t screw anything up for you.”

“I wasn’t worried, man.”

I could smell the liquor on Cal’s breath from the night before. I figured O’Donnel would, too. We waited a while longer, and then O’Donnel came out. He took a quick look at us and then went back into his office. A moment later his secretary came over, with that same smile. This time I didn’t smile, though.

“Mr. Jones, Mr. O’Donnel would like to see you now,” she said. She sounded like somebody making an announcement about a bus being delayed or something. “May I get you a magazine, Mr. Jackson?”

I said okay. Cal went on in, and I sat on the couch wondering what was going on. Now I knew why Mr. O’Donnel’s secretary was smiling. Anybody who could chump you off like that, with a smile on their face and making it sound like they were doing you a favor, had to be pleased with themselves.

It seemed like forever that Cal was inside with Mr. O’Donnel. Once Miss Smile went in and I tried to look past her into the office. No way. I couldn’t hear anything either. After a while I had to go to the bathroom. I went over and asked Miss Smile if they had one, and she gave me a key and told me to go outside and to the left.

“Second door down,” she said, with that same smile on her face and that same voice.

The door didn’t say nothing. It was just a blank door, and it was locked. I opened it, and all it was was a bathroom. I couldn’t figure why they kept it locked unless they thought somebody was going to steal a free pee or something. But I felt good when I went inside. I went to the toilet; then I washed my hands and put on some of the after-shave lotion they had sitting on the sink and checked myself out in the mirror. Not bad.

I went in, and Cal was still inside with Mr. O’Donnel. I gave Miss Smile the key back, and she gave me another smile. A few minutes later Cal came out.

He didn’t say nothing to me. He just started out the door, and I had to hustle to catch up with him. All the way down on the elevator he looked like he didn’t even know me.

“He say you couldn’t coach?” I asked.

“No,” Cal said. “He said you couldn’t play!”

The sun was really bright when we hit the street. I didn’t know where we were going. Here I had asked Cal to come because I needed him to come and because I thought maybe, if he went, things could work out. Then I ask him what went on with O’Donnel, and he gives me this crappy answer. We went to the train station, and he told me to go on up to the center and wait for him there.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I got some thinking to do and some phone calls to make,” Cal said. “Get the guys together. We got a game at five o’clock tonight.”

“We ain’t playing until tomorrow,” I said.

“We’re playing,” Cal said, “tonight.”

I still didn’t know what was going on. Cal acted like he was going to coach. I couldn’t figure it.

I went uptown and called around until I got everybody. I told them we had a game tonight. They were as surprised as I was. But by one o’clock the word was all over the neighborhood. The television company had called the center. Not only were we going to play that night, but we were going to be on television.

“This is how it goes,” Cal said as we sat in the center. “There was supposed to be two more games for everybody to determine who the two best teams were, and then they were supposed to play for the championship next Saturday afternoon. But what happened was that the television network dropped a movie, and they’re going to run the game on television. So they wanted to make it a championship game, and they picked the two best teams. At least, that’s what they said.”

“Us and who?” Ox asked.

“Us and Manhattan,” Cal said. “What I think it is, is that they want to get Tomkins on television because it’s going to look good for the tournament to get a good white player on television.”

“Lonnie got him before,” Paul said. “Lonnie’s going to get him again.”

“Yeah.” Cal looked away. “You guys meet me here at three. We’ll go downtown together.”

It was only an hour before we were supposed to meet, and no one really wanted to leave. Some of the guys started drifting out into the center, playing pool or Ping-Pong. I went with them. I didn’t think that Cal wanted to talk to me. I was talking to Jo-Jo’s sister when Cal called me over.

“What I said earlier was true,” Cal said.

“What you said about what?” I asked.

“They don’t want you to play.” Cal went over and closed the door and locked it. “That’s why O’Donnel called me into his office. He said you were already thrown out of one ball game. If you play, we have to forfeit.”

I couldn’t say anything. I just sat there and looked at him. I didn’t know whether to be mad or just break down and cry.

“And what did you say?” I asked.

“All the things you thinking of now,” Cal said. “Things like why can’t you play? Things like who the hell is this tournament for in the first place? That’s what I said. And after I finished saying all that, I looked at him and he looked at me and he said no, that’s not how it’s going to be.”

“And that’s that?”

“I asked him could you suit up and sit on the bench if you don’t play,” Cal said. “And he said it would be okay if you kept your mouth shut during the game. No yelling at referees, no nothing!”

I couldn’t even see him through the tears. I didn’t want him to see me either. I turned away from him.

“What game did you give away?” I asked. “This ain’t no damn game. This is just a lot of crap piled up making itself look like a damn game.”

“Look, Lonnie, the game is more than what goes on out on a basketball court. That’s just the way we play it, running around in sneakers and bouncing a ball. Everybody plays the game with what they got. Trust me, man.”

“Why the hell should I trust you?”

“How about because I need you to? How about that being the best reason to take a chance on me?”

“I trust you,” I said. “It ain’t your fault.”

“Some of it is,” Cal said. “But trust me anyway.”

“The games they play,” Cal said, picking up the phone, “sometimes they forget that anybody can play them once they learn it. And even the losers learn something.”

He dialed a number and asked for Jack. I looked up at him, and he looked away. He picked up a Coke that was on the table and drank from it while he waited.

“Who you calling?” I asked.

“Hello, Jack?” He spoke into the phone. “This is Cal. Look, I’ve been thinking about what you said the other day. Look, man, I don’t want any trouble from you. All I want is to get out of this mess, man.… Yeah.… Yeah. You heard?… Yeah, well, we’re playing tonight at five o’clock. Uh-huh, it’s going to be on channel seven. Yeah.… Look, can I get some action on the game someplace?”

I started out of the small room, and Cal grabbed me by the arm. He pushed me back towards a chair.

“Yeah, I think I got a pretty good team,” Cal said into the phone receiver. “But I want to put a few dollars the other way. I know everybody thinks we can take them. But what they don’t know is that Lonnie has a bad ankle. I’m sitting him out.… Yeah, yeah.… I got two thousand dollars going.… Okay, right.”

He hung up.

A thousand thoughts came through my head all at once. If I couldn’t play and the team lost, he was going to make two thousand dollars on us.

“Hey, Cal, the money means that damn much to you?” I asked. “All that talk about throwing away your game, was that just a lot of bull? If this is what you’re all about, why don’t you go get your wine and find a hole to crawl into?”

“Thought you trusted me, man.” Cal looked at me. “Thought we were playing it to the bust this time.”

I just sat looking at him, wishing at that minute I had never even seen the dude. Somebody was knocking on the door. I didn’t move, and neither did Cal until the knock changed to pounding.

Cal got up, still looking at me, and opened the door. It was Paul. He had Mary-Ann around her waist. At first I thought she was asleep, and then I saw something was the matter with her. Paul put her on the chair, and she almost fell off.

“Mary-Ann! Mary-Ann!” I yelled into her face. She didn’t respond. “Mary-Ann!”

“Tyrone,” she said, weakly. “Tyrone figured out the money.”

“What?” I tried to get closer to her to hear what she was saying.

Cal pushed me to one side and looked into her eyes. Then he took her jacket off and looked at her arms. There was dried blood in the crook of her left arm.

“Get her to the hospital!” Cal said. “It’s an OD.”

“I’ll call for an ambulance,” Ox said.

“No time.” Cal picked Mary-Ann up in his arms and started for the street. “Flag down a cab!”

We got Mary-Ann into a cab, and Paul and a couple of other women from the club went with her to the hospital.

“I didn’t even know she used anything!” I said.

“She probably don’t,” Cal said. “Somebody gave her a veinful of skag to make it look like she did it herself.”

All I could think of was finding Tyrone and killing him. Cal grabbed me and held me and dragged me back to the center. When we got in the clubroom, he threw me against the side of a locker and put his forearm up against my neck and pushed until I thought I was going to pass out.

“Listen to me, fool,” he said. “I’m going down the tubes. You can’t stop it, and nobody else can. But I’m picking who I’m taking with me and who I’m leaving behind. Now you get your stuff together and get on over to the gym like I told you. Come on, son, please.”

I looked at him for a long time, and then I nodded. He stepped back away from me, and I got my stuff from the locker and went on over to the gym.