“There is nothing wrong with dedication and goals, but if you focus on yourself, all the lights fade away and you become a fleeting moment in life.”
—“Pistol Pete” Maravich, college basketball’s all-time leading scorer, who averaged 44.2 points per game
7:58 P.M. [CT]
On defense, Malcolm is hounding the Trojans’ substitute point guard, harassing him as he tries to advance the ball over half-court.
“You can’t deal with this kind of heat,” says Malcolm, chasing him into a corner. “I know you want to be back on that bench, not out here with me.”
Malcolm can read the frustration in his opponent’s eyes, and he knows a pass is coming, just to escape all of the pressure.
A fraction of a second before the ball leaves the opposing point guard’s hands, Malcolm leaps into a passing lane to intercept it. His anticipation is perfect. But Malcolm’s legs are already in high gear, streaking towards the opposite hoop before he even secures the ball. And Malcolm fumbles it away out of bounds.
After a few more strides, he punches his open left hand with his right fist in response.
Then Malcolm scolds the hand, as if it were a teammate who’d let him down.
“That was going to be steal number seven tonight, my most in any game. You really blew that shit,” he snaps at it.
Walking back into position to defend the point guard, Malcolm tells him, “Don’t worry, another steal’s coming. I can feel it.”
Within the next twenty seconds of game clock, Malcolm steps in front of a crosscourt pass intended for a Trojan. He makes the steal and bolts for the basket at the far end of the court. Up ahead of him is a wide-open Baby Bear Wilkins asking for the ball. But Malcolm keeps possession of the rock, rocketing past Baby Bear to score on the breakaway layup.
“Sorry, Double B, I just wanted to make sure it got done,” says Malcolm.
“So long as we beat these guys, Malc,” says Baby Bear. “That’s all I care about.”
The basket gives the Spartans an 86–82 lead with 1:55 remaining in triple overtime. And in Malcolm’s mind, he knows that bucket represents his thirty-second and thirty-third points of the game.
NOVEMBER, SIXTEEN MONTHS AGO
A few weeks after giving his verbal commitment to play for Coach Barker, Malcolm and his father went to Elmwood Cemetery to visit Trisha’s grave. It wasn’t something they had planned. It was Saturday on Thanksgiving weekend, Malcolm’s senior year of high school, and his mother had taken the car to go shopping with her sister.
“Son, I feel like going to see Trisha this morning,” said Malcolm’s father, looking out of their living room window. “It’s starting to snow outside, first of the season. Your sister loved to play in the snow when she was little. You both did. Made me pull the two of you around on that Flexible Flyer for hours, like I was some kind of workhorse. So it’s got me thinking about her. You want to tag along?”
“Sure, Pop, I’ll go. Give her the news about my scholarship in person,” answered Malcolm, turning off the TV, before he grabbed his good corduroy coat from the hall closet.
Malcolm and his father rode the city bus to Elmwood.
It let them off in front of the cemetery’s big iron gates, and just outside, Malcolm’s father bought a small wreath of flowers to take to Trisha.
There was hardly any wind. The snow fell straight down in big soft flakes that settled on their heads and shoulders.
“It’s this way, past that pair of oak trees,” said Malcolm, veering to the left, off of the paved path, and heading up a small hill.
Malcolm remembered from the last time he’d been there, with his parents about a month ago.
“I know where she is,” said his father, trailing a step or two behind. “I could find her grave in my sleep if I had to.”
But within a few moments, Malcolm and his father had walked nearly twenty yards too far, searching for the small gray headstone with Trisha’s name cut into it.
They both stopped in their tracks at the same time, looking at each other, and then at the headstones around them.
Malcolm’s father said, “Must be this frosting on the ground that’s got us confused. I can’t—”
“No, Pop, look there,” interrupted Malcolm, with his brown eyes opened as wide as they could be.
Trisha’s simple stone had been replaced by the biggest, most impressive one Malcolm and his father could see anywhere around them.
“Beloved daughter. Beloved sister,” Malcolm read out loud as the two of them moved closer to it.
There were two angels on top, blowing horns, and a girl playing the snare drum carved into the granite monument.
“Did you and Mom do this?” asked Malcolm. But as soon as he asked, he knew it didn’t make any sense. His parents had barely had enough money to pay for Trisha’s funeral and the original headstone.
“You’d have been the first to know,” his father said, shaking his head in disbelief.
“Where do you think it came from, then?” asked Malcolm, pulling his gloves off to feel the polished stone with his bare fingers.
“I have no idea in this world,” answered his father, who brushed away the snow from the base of the headstone to lay the flowered wreath there.
“So somebody just took the old one away without telling us?” said Malcolm. “That’s crazy. Stuff like that just doesn’t happen, does it, Pop?”
“Not without somebody paying for it. And this headstone looks like it cost a bundle.”
Malcolm thought about what Coach Barker had said, about people wanting to buy things for him.
“You think it’s about basketball, about me going pro soon? Maybe somebody wants something in return?”
“I wouldn’t say that out loud again for no reason, son.”
“So you think it is?” Malcolm asked.
The coach had specifically told him not to take anything from anyone. But how could he return a headstone?
Malcolm’s father didn’t answer. He just brushed the now rapidly falling snow from his shoulders.
“What are we going to do?” Malcolm asked.
“I don’t truthfully know. But with God as my witness, if there’s one thing I’d hate more than seeing my baby’s grave disturbed, it would be seeing it done twice. So I’m not going to ask to have it removed. And I want to put one thing into your mind, son.”
“What’s that, Pop?”
“No matter who did it, this couldn’t be a gift to you. It’s to your sister. And she’s gone to heaven now.”
Malcolm nodded his head.
“There has to be an explanation. But it’s not on us to track down what it is. I don’t want to find out your sister’s memory is being manipulated. I don’t think your mama could live with the rage it would cause her. So let me be the one to tell her about this. We’ll put our faith in God for now, that this was done for the right reasons. We’ll keep it quiet and respectful.”
“I’m solid with you on all of that, Pop,” said Malcolm, taking his fingertips from the stone. “I won’t talk about it to nobody. I promise.”