LITMIR.BIZ

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over the years that I don’t even worry. Sometimes it’s been a pep talk. Sometimes a brutal lecture. Sometimes it’s been to take a long look at my mid-term grades.

      I knock.

      “It’s open,” a voice says.

      Then, when I duck my head in, there’s no Bolden. Instead, the other two seniors on the squad—Fuller and Chris Jones, our big who spent all summer bulking up—sit silently in folding chairs. Across from them, behind Bolden’s big old desk, sits Lou Murphy, Bolden’s longtime assistant. He points at one last chair that leans against the brick wall. “Grab a seat, Derrick,” he says.

      I do as I’m told, but my senses are on high alert.

      Once I sit and face Murphy, he clears his throat. He clasps his hands in front of him and sits them on the desk, then decides against it and lays them palms-down as he leans forward. Murphy’s always been our go-to guy, that players’ coach who strokes our egos when Bolden comes down too hard. But now he just looks too young. Instead of his smooth, copper-colored face and that nervous smile behind the desk, there should be Bolden’s hawkish scowl—dark, wrinkled, ready to attack.

      Finally, Murphy just pops up, like the seat’s full of thorns. He claps his hands. “Let’s just get to it,” he says. “I wanted to let the seniors know first. Coach Bolden isn’t coming back this year.” As he says it, he motions back to the chair. Maybe he meant it as a sign of respect—like it’ll always be Bolden’s seat—but it makes it feel like the old man’s dead.

      “What’s wrong?” Fuller asks. He’s a senior in high school whose forehead wrinkles up like a senior citizen’s. He’s a bull, always moving straight ahead, on the court and off. “Something happened to him, right?” he says, as much an accusation as a question.

      “No, no,” Murphy says. “It’s nothing like that. He just decided it was time to retire.”

      I don’t say anything, but I’m angry. I’m not sure why, but it seems like a betrayal. Jones must feel the same way, and he doesn’t hold back. “Just like that?” he yells. “The old man said forget it right before my senior year? After all the work? After all the damn suicides I’ve run for him, he just walks?”

      Murphy nods, understanding. “I hear you,” he says. Then he catches himself and takes a harder tone. “But Jones, it is what it is. Man up about it. Coach was getting up there. If he wants to spend his days doing the crossword and watching cable, he’s earned it.”

      Nobody says anything after that. We just let the news settle over us the way a January snow silences the city as it falls. There’s just the wheeze and rattle of the air conditioning unit. I start remembering all my go-rounds with Bolden—the fight over playing time my freshman year, his crazy lineups that put me at the four-spot, the heart-to-hearts during my sophomore slump, his fire-breathing lectures when I let my head get too swole as a junior. And then his patience and counsel through my recruitment and my injuries. It’s hard to imagine Marion East hoops without him prowling the sideline, chewing out officials, stomping his foot on the hardwood. Gone. Retirement isn’t death, I guess, but it kind of feels like it to the people left behind.

      “So?” Jones asks at last.

      “What?” Murphy says.

      “So who’s the new coach?”

      Murphy widens his eyes. “I am,” he says, a little too defensively. Then he softens, remembering that he didn’t exactly explain that part to us. And finally, he lets a little smile creep in. He shakes his head. “The old man didn’t really give the school much of a choice to do anything else,” he says. “He just dropped the news on them yesterday. Probably knew it all summer long, but held out so they’d have to let me have a crack at it.”

      Then he cuts us loose. We’re under orders not to tell anyone until the other players hear in person from him. The three of us walk together down the halls. Right now they’re empty, but any second that bell will ring and the whole school will spill out. Noise. Clamor. Chaos.

      “Well, what do you guys think?” Fuller asks.

      “I think it’s some bullshit,” Jones says. He’s a hulking 6’8", but when he acts this way his face sags into a mope. It makes him look soft, not menacing. “My senior year.”

      “Our senior year,” I remind him. But I don’t say anything else. Truth is, I’m as sad as I am angry. But ballers aren’t gonna sit around and cry for the dearly departed. Next man up.

      “Whatever,” Jones says. “I spent all summer banging weights and this is what I get.” He storms off, leaving Fuller and me standing under that big red sign: We Are the Hornets. Our Strength is in the Hive.

      Then the bell rings and everyone swarms out around us.

      Those slogans are flat-out lies.

      There’s no time to sulk. After school, it was just a quick Catch you later to Lia, and then I hopped in my car to trek here: the doctor’s office. One last check-in before the season starts. Lia offered. My parents offered. Hell, even Jayson offered. But I didn’t want company on this one. Some things you have to do solo. If I get a bad report now, I don’t want to have to face anyone to talk about it.

      Hanging in the waiting room about kills me. It’s worse than watching another player step to the line with the game in the balance. Nothing you can do but hope. Thing is, I should be more confident. The knee doesn’t give me any problems anymore. Not even tightness after workouts. But I don’t get to turn it loose without the doctor’s say-so.

      “Bowen. Derrick.” I look up to see a nurse with a clipboard. She looks around, then sees me rising. She motions me to follow.

      First things first. She gets me on the scales. “One-ninety-two,” she mutters to herself and writes it down. It’s a little more than I’ve weighed in the past, but no surprise. The one thing I could do while injured was add some bulk. If there’s any extra fat, it’ll burn off with a week or two of practice. Then she has me stand straight to measure my height. I’m not even really paying attention—just hoping to get this over with and get a green light from the doc—but when she reads it off I ask her to repeat herself.

      “Six-four,” she says, narrowing her eyes at me. It’s like she thinks I called her a liar or something. Then she relents. “Okay. Six-four-and-a-half. That better?”

      I nod, but she’s misreading me. I didn’t think she was cheating me of an inch. It’s just that I topped out at 6’3" before freshman year and haven’t grown a millimeter since. No wonder my kicks have felt tight. But, hey, I’ll take it. An extra inch and a half? That’s another board per game. Another bucket or two among the bigs. Maybe a dozen more blocks over the course of a year.

      Provided I get to wear a uni at all.

      After that, she ushers me to a smaller room and tells me the doctor will be right with me. Right. That means I sit there in silence for half an hour. I thumb through an SI and a SLAM, but even they can’t distract me. I look at pictures on the wall, some signed photos of semi-famous athletes this doctor’s put back between the lines.

      Finally, the door swooshes open and in he comes. He’s young, thin. His skin is honey-colored, but it’s impossible to figure out what ethnicity he is. He speaks in a clipped but cheery tone—the kind of thing that usually bothers me, but he’s been a pretty steadying force through this whole journey with my knee.

      “How we doing today, Derrick?” he asks. He extends his hand.

      I rise, shake his hand. “I guess how I’m doing depends on what you tell me.”

      No more small talk then. He knows I need him to get down to business. He measures the circumference of my leg and writes it down. He quizzes me on my workouts. Any swelling? Soreness? Am I hitting full speed running? Any problems after downhill running?

      It’s a little weird. I mean, I know what the right answers are. But I try to be honest

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