Next - Kevin Waltman D-Bow High School Hoops

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stargazed. People parted for him, like traffic making way for an ambulance, and Hibbert looked straight ahead like he was the only one in the mall, immune to all those stares. But there they were, grown men with their jaws hanging open, women frozen stock still with their Christmas gifts about to fall from their hands, cashiers stuck between ringing up sales. Even my dad, who tries not to make too big a deal out of hoops, grabbed me by the coat sleeve and pointed in Hibbert’s direction. Then my dad looked over at my mom, who was staring a bit too boldly. He drummed up some mock anger and said, “Oh, come on. He’s just a basketball player,” and we moved on down to the next store. But I’ll always remember how that whole mall just froze, astonished at the very existence of an NBA player in their presence.

      That’s not the reaction I get when I walk down the halls of Marion East. At least not yet. Sure, people stare. Some squint and the edge of their mouth curls up and they might whisper something to the person next to them, but for a lot of them I’m just the freshman who’s six inches taller than the rest, something to be figured out, but nothing special. The most ink I ever got was last year this time, when I got my picture in The Indianapolis Star in their pre-season hoops section, and even then it was just a tiny picture of me squeezed into a corner for middle schoolers, about fifty words on the “kids” in a section labeled What’s Next. So instead of Hibbert’s posse following a few paces behind him, I’ve just got my boy Wes Oakes next to me as we make our way to Algebra, where I’m plain old Derrick Bowen, not “D-Bow.”

      Then, as we round the corner, I see Nick Starks, the red and green of his jacket popping against his smooth brown skin, coming the other way. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s getting the Marion East version of the Hibbert treatment.

      “Look at him,” Wes seethes. If Nick Starks is the man between me and a starting spot at the point, then he’s Public Enemy #1 for Wes too. “It’s like he thinks he owns the place.” He puffs out his chest like he’s ready to throw down, never mind that my man Wes is all of 5'5" on a good day. You gotta love Wes, though: the heart of a warrior in a miniature body.

      You’d think Starks was royalty even though he hasn’t been able to get the Marion East Hornets out of Sectionals—hardly anyone has since my uncle played. Still, everybody’s head swivels as Starks struts along, the guys angling for fist-bumps or nods of recognition. The girls whisper to each other, eyeing first Starks and then his girlfriend Jasmine Winters. Personally, I can’t figure out why someone like Jasmine Winters would hook up with Nick Starks. She’s cool, but not stuck-up. Fine as hell, but not air-headed. Whenever I see her caramel face coming down the hall, always smiling like she knows some secret, I get to feeling a little wild. She’s only a sophomore, but she just seems better than Starks. As she walks down the hall, she seems a little detached from it all. Her eyes flash here and there, and she’ll smile at someone she knows, but she seems just over the whole scene.

      Some of the other starters make a little semi-circle around Starks as if they’ve just broken a huddle and he’s leading them out onto the floor. There’s Devin Varney, the two, who depends on Starks for all those open looks he gets, and Royce Bedford, the three-man who’s a senior and best friends with Starks. And then there’s Moose Green, a junior. His real first name is Gavin, but nobody’s called him that in years. The man is Moose. Six-six and a good 250. He’s Marion East’s best post man and—there’s no two ways about it—the man is fat. Not “pudgy” or “bulky.” Fat. And nobody—I mean, nobody—can get around him in the paint. He gets gassed after three times down the court, but Moose catches it down low and he’s taking somebody for a ride.

      Starks gives me the slightest of nods and says, out the side of his mouth, ’Sup, the last curl of ink of one of his tats edging above his collar when he nods. His hair, like always, looks just the slightest bit nappy, like he’s trying to show how little he cares, and he can’t be bothered to really even look at me before he rolls on down the hall. Jasmine looks me up and down once, and I could swear her eyes linger, but she gets swept away with the rest of them.

      Moose stops, though, lingering large in the hall like some Indianapolis version of Shaq, only seven inches shorter and with a babyface that would make him look younger than Wes if he weren’t so big. “Little man!” he says and throws his arm around my neck. He’s the only person who can call me that and not make me get my back up. “We gonna see you on the court tonight?” He’s talking about the first practice of the season, immediately after school.

      Before I can answer, Wes chimes in: “You know D-Bow’s gonna be there. He’s gonna be the best player you got.”

      Moose rears his head back and laughs. “I see you got a fan club already!” He reaches out to shake hands with Wes, and it looks like a big bear offering a paw to a cub. “I’m Moose,” he says. Wes squeaks out his name in return, almost coming off the ground with the force of Moose’s shake. “You all right,” Moose says. “I like a guy who talks a little shit.”

      Wes breaks into a broad smile, which is pretty much the reaction everyone has around Moose. Even during games, I’ve seen the team in a huddle so tense the sweat beads on Coach Bolden’s forehead. He’ll shout orders to them and concentration is carved into everyone’s face, but they’ll break that huddle and Moose will make some crack only the other players can hear. You can see them trying to hold back their laughter even if the game’s tied with 15 seconds to go.

      He turns to me now. “All I can say is you got some hype to live up to.” He smacks me on the shoulder and then points down the hall to Starks and his crew. “They’ve all been hearing about this great D-Bow who’s gonna take us to the promised land. They just never gonna show it. Especially Starks.”

      “Fine with me,” I say. And it is. Sure, I want the starting spot. I want the attention in the halls. I want my name splashed in headlines. But I know it won’t happen through hype alone. I’ll have to earn it.

      “Good,” Moose says. He leans in. “All I care about is one thing. I get open in the post, you get me the rock. You feel me?”

      He’s laughing, but I know he’s dead serious. “I feel you,” I say.

      Moose pops me on the shoulder again, then gives Wes a playful bump—almost knocking him into his locker—and then he’s off, bellowing for his teammates to wait the hell up, his voice deep and loud as an amped bass.

      I look over at Wes. We’ve been friends since first grade. There’s nobody as constant as he is. I always hated it when my middle-school teammates would brush him off just because he didn’t ball. He’s still smiling from our encounter with Moose, though.

      “That guy’s cool,” he says, which is a pretty solid verdict on Moose Green. So we don’t have to say another thing as we head on to Algebra. But I have to rein myself in—just that encounter with Moose, just the mention of practice, has me playing out the season in my head, dreaming up all the ways my hype will become reality. I’ve just about mapped out the whole season, right down to me hitting a game-winner to beat Lawrence North in Sectionals, plus one more to drop Hamilton Academy in Regionals and send us to State. Then we walk through the door to Algebra, where Mr. Jenks, who probably hasn’t cracked a smile in a quarter century, has a stack of quizzes he’s handing out as students file in. An Algebra quiz—a reality check if there ever was one.

      Coach Joe Bolden keeps a somber locker room, I can tell you that. In middle school, we used to be blasting Jay-Z before practices, getting ourselves loose. In the Marion East locker room, the sound system is a beat-up old stereo stuck in the corner collecting dust. The thing’s so old it’s still got dual cassette players in front. So the only beats here are coming out of Moose’s earbuds, and even Moose turns his sound down when Coach Bolden enters.

      Bolden—his first year at Marion East was my Uncle Kid’s last. He hasn’t changed a single bit in those two decades except that once his hair started to go gray, he decided to just shave it all off. So now the locker room lights reflect on his bald, brown dome as he paces through the locker room, his almond eyes squinting so hard it forces deep wrinkles into his face as he takes stock

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