Keep Quiet(36)

Jake remembered what a scene that had been, when he and Pam visited a summer tournament on one weekend. The kids were in ninth grade, still in orthodonture, but a lineup of Division III and even Division I coaches had sat in the front row, notebooks in hand, and by Sunday, the “impact players” had been identified. Ryan had been one. College basketball was big business, but recruiting started before puberty.

Ryan made another three-pointer, and Jake projected forward into his son’s future. He didn’t know if the boy would be happy at a Division I school, where he’d have to live the game, twenty-four/seven. Jake doubted that he was good enough to play professionally, and Ryan was more than just a basketball player. He had a real interest in environmental sciences, and Pam would rather have Ryan use his basketball prowess to get into a better school academically, in Division III. Jake felt the same way, although now he would settle for Ryan going to any college at all, outside of a juvenile detention home.

Suddenly, Jake noticed that Ryan stopped shooting and was looking toward the garage. Pam was coming out, talking to him, and hugging herself to keep warm. Jake couldn’t hear what they were saying but he left the window to get ready. He didn’t want to leave Ryan alone with Pam any longer than necessary.

Later, Jake found himself sitting on the hard bleachers at North Mayfield High School gym, which reverberated with the talking, laughing, and shouting of several hundred high-school students, teachers, and families. Little kids ran up and down the stairs between the bleachers, and cheerleaders practiced their splits and dance moves on the sidelines. School bands ran through their fight songs, complete with tubas, trumpets, and drum solos. Student booster groups—the Chasers Nation for Concord Chase and the Cardinal’s Nest for North Mayfield, dressed in matching Tshirts and face paint—tried to drown each other out, cheering from opposite ends of the gym. Jennifer Lopez sang “Let’s Get Loud” over the loudspeaker, and its throbbing bass ricocheted off the corrugated-metal ceiling.

Jake sat alone on the row, which was still mostly empty. Pam had gone to the ladies’ room with some other Chasers’ moms, leaving their parkas, scarves, and knit hats in a perfumed clump. He exhaled a relieved sigh at having gotten Ryan through the morning. Over breakfast, they’d talked about his English homework, and though Ryan had seemed subdued, it was nothing that couldn’t be chalked up to normal stress levels before a league playoff. Once they’d picked up his teammates, the boys plopped their game sneakers in their laps, plugged into their iPhones, and chattered away, reliving the plays from their last victory, a sixty-one to thirty-five drubbing of Great Valley. Ryan hadn’t contributed much to the conversation even when he was its subject, and the others crowed about his twelve buckets, eight rebounds, and five blocks, with a dunk in heavy traffic. The consensus was that they would win today against North Mayfield, and the only time Ryan spoke was to remind them not to take anything for granted.

Game time was getting closer, and families started to fill in the remaining seats in the bleachers, mixing the Chasers’ and North Mayfield fans. A heavyset woman in a hooded parka gestured to Jake. “Sir, are you saving this seat?” she asked, before entering the row.

“No, it’s all yours.”

“Thanks.” The woman sat down at the aisle seat and took off her parka, revealing an I Heart My Corgi sweatshirt, then a short man came up behind her, a Sunday newspaper tucked under his arm.

“Sir, excuse me, is that seat taken?”

“No, you can sit down,” Jake answered, gesturing, and the man sat down next to the woman and put his newspaper in his lap. A folded crossword puzzle was on top, and Jake spotted the headline that read, NO SUSPECTS IN CONCORD CHASE HIT-AND-RUN.

“I’m Lewis Deaner. My son plays for North Mayfield.” The man extended a hand, and Jake shook it. “Are you from Concord Chase? You don’t look familiar.”

“Yes. Jake Buckman.”

“Nice to meet you. I don’t go crazy at games, even in the playoffs. I tell my son, I make up for the fathers who sit in the anger-management section.” Deaner smiled tightly behind his wire-rimmed glasses, his thin lips stretching like a rubber band. His hair was light brown, thinning at the crown, and he was on the slight side, barely filling out his blue parka and baggy jeans.

“What position does your son play?”

“He’s a guard, a sophomore. He’s only a substitute, so I doubt he’ll see any minutes today. But I come anyway.” Deaner slid a ballpoint pen from his parka, uncapped it, and looked down at his crossword puzzle, which was half-completed. “I’m divorced, so I make the effort. That’s the lay of the land.”

Suddenly the crowd noise surged, and the Chasers trotted onto the glistening wood floor, a moving phalanx of maroon long-sleeved shirts and sweat suits. The coaches jogged alongside them in order of rank; Head Coach Ronald Marsh and his uniformed assistants, then Dr. Dave running next to Ryan.

Deaner looked up from his crossword. “That’s my son, on the sideline, about to come on the court. The short one with the glasses. Number 16. Steve.”

Jake spotted who he meant, in a pair of plastic wraparound glasses. “Good-looking boy.”

“Which one’s yours?”

“The one toward the back, number 22.” Jake watched Dr. Dave put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder and felt a flare of jealousy, even though it was his own fault that Ryan was closer to his coaches than his father. The crowd noise surged again, and the Cardinals hustled onto the floor in their bright red warm-ups. The Cardinal’s Nest cheering section rose as one, flapping its arms, and singing a fight song that was unintelligible.