Better for him is what I want for him if better for him exist.
The coach sends the team out minus KJ. He stomps to my brother’s distant seat and screams. KJ drops his eyes. Do you hear? Coach says. I know you hear. He grabs a clutch of KJ’s jersey and yanks him to his feet. He pulls him so close it’s lash to lash. Get out of here! he says. Get out of here now, he says. Go!
KJ snatches away. He turns and kicks an empty seat legs-up. He marches into game play and stands at center court. He tears off his jersey, slings it across the floor towards his bench, balls his fists, and seethes — at his coach, his teammates, the boys sprawled by the baseline, the adults who’ve peeked in from concessions; he seethes with his muscled gut swelling and the veins standing out in his neck.
Mom springs to her feet, but I catch her wrist and hold her still, feel her pulse as a song in my palm.
Don’t, I say.
She stills a beat, a beat and shakes free. She scrambles down the bleachers, leaving her coat back, as if she isn’t as old and harmed as she is.
Me chasing her.
She chasing him.
KJ a hurricane now whirling outside.
We keep it alive.
It was Big Ken and his brothers (my pimpish uncs), it was Uncle Sip, who made me dream and kept that hope buoyed as best they could. It was them who bought me mini-balls and mini-hoops for birthdays, who drove me to Biddy Ball camps, who would take me to the park for one-on-ones and practice. It was them who talked of the neighborhood legends, the city’s rare semi-pros, the small few who got a chance to see the lights. It was those men who preached to me, Make them all know your name. But it ain’t them and me no more. Or it is me. But me and my bros. Me prodding KJ, prodding Canaan. Doping them with this dream. But tell me this, will you, is it so wrong? Is it? What kind of solipsistic black-hearted robot would I be to wish against my brothers succeeding in ways that I failed?
FIRST ZION BAPTIST CHURCH
Est. 1863
4304 N. Yancouver Ave.
Portland, OR. 97212
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Chapter 15
One of those places you think can save you
if need be, from yourself.
It’s more a drone than singing that fills the room when I walk in. It’s a warble and then not one. The deacon approaches the podium and I make my way past a white-gloved usher woman to a pew near the back. The deacon’s suit coat hangs knee-length. He reads announcements and when he’s done he calls up Pastor Hammond. The pastor, a freckle-faced man with black backcombed hair, rises from his seat and strolls up to the pulpit, where a massive Bible rest under a bent microphone. Amen, he says, offering a glimpse of a gold-capped front tooth. He nods at the choir and they stand and the choir director moves out in front with his hands at his sides and his head down. The director lifts his head and the choir hums the first notes of “Amazing Grace.”
Pastor Hammond — he was a guest speaker at my last church — asks the church to be seated. He clears his throat and sips from a goblet. Today, saints, he says, I want to speak to you about temptation. He unbuttons his jacket and grips the lectern and gazes out. The devil tempted Jesus to make stones into bread, he says. But Jesus refused. I said, the devil tempted Jesus to make stones into bread but Jesus refused. And when Jesus said no, the devil took him to the highest mountain and said he’d give him all the kingdoms and the glory if Jesus would get down on his knees. But Jesus, the pastor shouts, told that devil, I only worship one God. Jesus, amen, told that devil, I serve one God and one God only. And surely, the pastor says, and slaps the lectern, if Jesus could pass up all the world’s glory, then we can forsake the tiny temptations of our lives. He goes on and while he does the pews fill up and the members clap and here and there shout amen. The pastor stops and wipes sweat from his neck and face and waves his handkerchief and calls up his wife, the first lady. He fades to a seat pushed against the wall. The first lady takes the podium, looks out at the church, lays her Bible on the lectern. Today, saints, I’d like to speak to you about marriage, she says. The Bible tells us not to count another’s blessings. It warns us not to live beyond our means.
Not often, but sometimes talk of marriage makes me think of my ex, a man I met in NA — this should have been my first clue! — of the time I fell in starry-eyed love and married his non-working self at the courthouse months later. His name was Larry and he smoked and drank. The day after we exchanged vows, Larry earned a key chain that might as well have been the master key for every liquor store in the land. He jumped right back on the bottle, and before long, before I’d relapsed myself, he fell right back into puffing too. The man was an expert if ever there was one. He left on a hunt for his potion one October night and we didn’t see him until after New Years, the cold day he strolled in whistling as if the world had wound to a halt while he was gone.