Chapter 7

When I got to the dining hall for breakfast, my two cheerleaders were already there with an empty chair between them for me. A few minutes later, Sarah and Adrian entered deep in conversation. Sarah came over and gave me a kiss on the cheek, gave a quick hug to the two girls, and then sat next to Cherry. The still sleepy group took up all eight tables with more and more folks sitting at tables adjacent to us, participating in the conversations. The usual loud ruckus was considerably quieter at this Monday breakfast. A new addition, Susie, was sitting and laughing together with Kenny.

After breakfast Adrian walked with me toward our first classes. “Want to come over to Mandy’s after supper to study?” he asked.

I smiled at Adrian and said, “That would be neat, but there is a pretty good sized group that go to the library together. It’s kind of nice to be able to get help in almost any subject with this group. You saw it yesterday. Bring Mandy and come study with us. You can still leave early enough to enjoy Mandy for a little while afterwards.”

“Might do that. Kind of thought you and Sarah would like some private time,” he said.

“Not yet, she wants to wait until she gets her tests, then there is her period. Hope she gets it,” I said contemplating the alternative.

“No shit!” Adrian exclaimed then walked off to another building.

Practice was intense. The coach had me working every practice play. We would walk through what he wanted to do then run through it. Then he would have us walk through with defenders, before doing it at game speed. We were working on getting the ball inside as our next game tomorrow was with a good defensive team.

We also worked boards. You know, recognizing and anticipating how the ball was going to come off the board or rim. The coaches would have two people together to go up for a rebound. Best two out of three got to sit. That doesn’t seem so difficult, but you wouldn’t believe the abuse you take from elbows, shoulders, and hips. It took me three guys before I could sit. I’m just not aggressive enough on the boards, but I was still trying. Kenny had a cool move. With his height he didn’t need much, but he would hold his hands out from his body to keep guys from bumping into him. When he would jump, he would almost always use one hand on the other guy holding him down. He was so sneaky you had to see it and feel it to believe it.

Supper and library were normal. We all walked back to the dorms en masse, bypassing the student union. I wanted to get to bed early, as tomorrow was a travel and game day.

We had a blast at breakfast. Kenny started telling jokes. That meant that as soon as we stopped laughing at one of his jokes, someone else was telling another. By the time I finished eating, my sides hurt. I gave my two cheerleaders a kiss and Sarah a hug and said I would see them tomorrow morning. Adrian and I took off for the class buildings. I gathered up all my anticipated work then headed to the dorm for my bag. Kenny met me coming down stairs, so we walked to the gym together.

This time it was only a two and a half-hour drive to the game site. I did my reading and finished writing a report that once again was going to have to be typed. I went to the front of the bus and asked one of the coaches to help me find a typewriter when we got there, as we should have a ton of time before warm-ups.

There was a typewriter in the sports offices I could use. I typed my paper, then two more for other players. Both of the other players’ papers were tough as their writing and grammar sucked. I actually had to go get both of them so they could interpret what was written.

We had a real nice meal in the dining hall with the other team. Kenny started his clown routine that turned the entire hall into another joke fest.

We lay around the locker room before going out on the court for some early shot practice. The coaches cautioned us about overdoing it, so we wouldn’t be worn out for the game.

Finally it was game time. The other team was not only good defensively, but were runners. Their fast break was whenever they touched the ball. The only way to slow them down was to hustle and clog up the middle with players so they had to slow down and work the ball in. Kind of like a half or three quarter court press.

Our practice on working the ball inside was helpful as we were able to constantly post Kenny and either drive to the ball or pick someone else’s defender on a pitchout. They let me hit four consecutive shots from the corner before a defender was pushing me out of bounds every time I headed for the corner. Twice I caught a pitchout while on the line, tuning the ball over. At a time out, a coach was joking that he was going to put a dunce cap and stool in the corner for me. Kenny told me to look like I was heading for the corner, fake toward it and turn in for a push out from him at about ten feet. He said do that a couple of times then go back to my corner. Mix up my approach.

On the next offensive procession, the team was working the ball to other side, so I started for the corner, and faked the step inside at the perfect moment. Kenny had just been pitched the ball and just redirected it to my hands. Easy jumper, with the defenders hand slapping my arm. I got the free throw, making it a three-point play. A couple of times when Kenny pushed the ball out to me, I was able to just hand the ball to someone driving the open lane to the basket. To me, assists were as good as baskets. I was able to fake inside and go to the corner a couple of more times, making it a nice night for me. I had 21 points, five defensive boards, three offensive rebounds and only two fouls. Kenny ended up high scorer with 26 points and fifteen total rebounds. We won but by the skin of our teeth, 88 to 86.

We were on the road by ten, so we made it to the campus by twelve-thirty and were in bed by one. Everyone was boisterous at breakfast because of the win. I took a lot of ribbing when Kenny told everyone what the coach said about me being pushed out of bounds. They all thought the dunce hat comment was funny.

Because of the previous early night, we had a light practice working on a couple of plays for the coming Saturday game. When we went out on the court, one of the cheerleader megaphones had been wrapped with black construction paper and was sitting at one of the right corners of the court. White cut out letters spelling “Dunce” was pasted on the side. My face was red but one tall cheerleader came over to me and wrapped her arms around me and gave me a big smooch, causing all the guys to hoot and holler.

Misty said when unwrapping around me, “But you’re a sweet dunce.”

The coaches had a good laugh before telling me I needed the weight room so I could shove defenders and cheerleaders away from me.

Supper was fun, but Sarah and Adrian were not there. We all did the library, then the student union for cokes and before we were off to bed. I was bushed.

Thursday was pretty much a repeat. Sarah was at breakfast, but I didn’t get to talk to her. She wasn’t at super again and didn’t show at the library. Friday came and went pretty much the same as the day before except no Sarah at breakfast Friday or Saturday.

Saturday’s game was an early home game right after lunch, so our meal was real light. The JV played at ten in the morning, and the varsity game was at one. The regular senior guard was feeling okay, so he started. Before the first quarter was over, he was dragging, and I was sent in. The forward and Kenny kept calling plays to my side, so it looked like I was being a ball hog. Kenny kept directing traffic my way until at half time I asked him to stop.

“Why, rookie? You’re playing shooting guard,” Kenny said. “Those guys think you’re just a flash in the pan and think you will start making mistakes in your little corner and on your side. If they try to stop you like the one guy did, you just pitch it back to me for an easy lay-up. Don’t worry about it. The coaches are signaling me to go to you, so you are it when you’re in there.”

The senior started the second half but only lasted about three minutes. Our guys were fast breaking on every one of the opponent’s offensive blunders. That wears out everyone. As soon as I went in, the forward motioned me to the corner then pitched around until Frank was open who forwarded the ball to me for an open look at the basket. I played most of the remaining third and fourth quarter. Because I was being fed the ball all day, I had twenty-eight points, making fourteen of eighteen attempts. I wasn’t fouled once but did have two fouls and collected six defensive rebounds. No offensive rebounds as I was always shooting. We won handily 90 to 74. Since I was high scorer, everyone was slapping me on the back and yelling praise. I was embarrassed.

The head coach came over to me and put his arm around me. “You know, if you would just shoot the damn ball instead of passing it all around to everyone else, you might be a basketball player one of these days.” He laughed and added. “I’m serious Johnson, you passed up at least a dozen good looks. When you’re open, shoot. No one is going to think ill of you if you win the game single handedly. Especially if the other team thinks you have BO. So from now on, no more deodorant for you and take the damn shot.”

Son of a gun, the coach actually talked to me and wasn’t yelling.

We showered, dressed, and walked out to a mob of people clapping and yelling. Nice, this was very nice. We all walked back to the dining hall to fill up on what we had missed for lunch. Again, Sarah wasn’t there. My two cheerleaders bracketed me and kept me embarrassed with all the praise they were heaping. I finally stood up, hollering for quiet.

“Kenny, stand up,” I asked. “Today, every time I looked up that giraffe was throwing me the ball. Hey, you other first five stand up too. All of them, every one of them were passing me the ball yelling for me to shoot. I shot a bunch, and they are all bitching at me because I didn’t shoot enough. These guys are the team; I’m just a guard. So it’s Kenny’s fault. Congratulate Kenny and the other guys because it was the team that won the game.”

I sat down to a barrage of applause. Clown Kenny took a couple of bows, and then threw a roll at me saying, “Shoot it Rookie, shoot it.”

No one felt like studying, so the library was out and dancing was in. The girls wanted to dress up, so I went for some dressier clothes too. I wore slacks, open shirt with a sleeveless sweater, and corduroy sport coat. It was warm enough, so I didn’t have to wear a heavy coat over the sport coat.

We danced and drank free punch all evening. Cherry was dancing with another cheerleader most of the night. Misty said Cherry was hot for that little girl. I raised an eyebrow at Misty but she just said, “Don’t worry about it, you’re mine for tonight.”

When we tired, Misty and I said goodnight to everyone and headed back to the dorm. She sat me in the parlor on our favorite loveseat then left for a few minutes. When she came back, she took me into her room and locked the door. “Susie has her ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door, so she’ll be busy for a while. It’s only eleven, and they don’t lock the doors until two on Saturday nights so we have lots of time.”

We played and made love for two solid hours. Then finally instead of making love, we fucked. Bone grinding, body banging, fucked. When we came that last time we just collapsed. I pulled the blanket over us as we were sweating pretty heavily.

Bad move.

I woke up groggily with Misty wrapped around me. I looked at her electric clock and went into shock. It read four ten. Oh shit. I tried to wake up Misty but all she said was to go out the window or wait and go out the door in the morning. I looked at Cherry’s bed to see it was empty. I went back to sleep until Cherry came bouncing into the room at seven.

“Holy shit, Chuck. Did you stay all night?” Cherry asked.

“He sure did and darn near screwed me bow legged,” Misty said while sitting up rubbing her eyes.

“If you want to leave, do it now, the parlor is empty and Susie still has her sign up,” Cherry told us.