Excerpt
A Sharp Endless Need
1Pep Talk in the HuddleBefore I met Liv, before everything changed, my dad took me to a Sixers game. The whole drive into the city we were buzzing, and he kept messing with the radio trying to find a station that reflected our excitement, but there was nothing but commercials and bad pop music and public service announcements about the dangers of marijuana. There’s nothing natural about getting high, a man scolded us.
There was traffic on the Schuylkill like usual. We were going to be late. In the car next to us two men, boys really, were making out in the back seat, hands gripping the meat of each other’s necks. The two boys in the front were a silent film of laughter, heads thrown back, mouths open wide as if to swallow all the light in the city. I tried not to look at the ones kissing, though I liked it, liked what they were doing with each other. Dad didn’t notice them, he was too busy driving with his knees while he turned a map every which way, trying to find a detour, although I doubt he would have made some rude comment. I take that back—he might have said something rude like Nobody wants to see that, but it wouldn’t have been because they were gay, it would have been because they were young and happy, and he was old and unhappy.
My junior season had just ended with a loss in the district quarterfinals, not a bad run for a team made up of mostly other-sport athletes. For them, basketball was just a way to stay in shape between soccer and track, field hockey and softball. The only other serious player, serious as in trying to get a scholarship to play in college, had been this senior who never saw a shot she didn’t like. Double-teamed, feet not set, didn’t matter. All she cared about was how many points she put up, no matter how many shots it took her to get there. No matter how many points she gave up. I was glad to be rid of her, I’d be free to make more happen.
The Sixers parking lot was an absolute shit show. Every time my dad pulled over and put on his blinker, some other car would slip right in and steal our spot, and Dad would speed away, pounding the dashboard and cursing up a storm. Eventually, we found a spot by a group of people doing so many poppers it looked like a birthday party. A woman in a tracksuit did a handstand and everyone hugged her legs, pressing their cheeks to the thighs, the knees, the calves of her swishy pants. I thought about mentioning how weirdly touching I found this scene, then I thought again.
“That’s what losers look like, Mackenzie,” said Dad, though he was smiling, a wistful smile like maybe he missed being a loser, though I couldn’t imagine a time when that could have been true.
After all that, we ended up having nosebleed seats. I’m talking outer-space level. My dad double-checked the tickets like fifteen times when we got to our seats, his brows knit tightly as he turned his Sixers hat backward then forward then backward again, his eyes moving from ticket to seat. The game had already started. I watched a tiny Allen Iverson hit three jumpers in a row before Dad finally admitted defeat.
“It’s okay, what matters is that we’re here,” he said, even though I hadn’t said a word about it.
He made sure to buy us cotton candy and popcorn and whatever else we could stuff our faces with. And when he whistled and beckoned for the old guy with the hairy forearms to bring him a beer, he bought two, setting one in my cup holder and gesturing at it with a big meaty paw. It was the first time he bought me my own beer, and for some reason, maybe because I missed stealing a few sips of his here and there, missed the brush of our hands as we passed the cup back and forth, it made me want to cry. To keep from crying, I made a joke about how Mom should make note of this milestone in my baby book, but he wasn’t listening. He was already sucking down his beer and yelling at Kyle Korver to stop being such a pretty boy and take a f***ing charge.
“We get it, you hate him,” I said, laughing. He turned to me, mouth twisted in worry.
“Don’t tell me you actually like him,” he said. “My heart can’t take it.”
I assured him that I didn’t give two shits about Kyle Korver’s face or otherwise, but we did need him to win so he might as well suck it up.
He seemed satisfied by my answer. I drank my beer and made a big stink about how good it was even though it tasted like bitter creek water. I drank all the time with my friends, but he didn’t know that; he thought he was giving me a special treat.
Our section was pretty full, with tons of families around, including a dad a few seats away who kept eyeing my beer and then pulling his preteen daughter closer as if, at any moment, I might tie her up and pour it down her throat. I watched her while I drank. She crossed her legs at the knee and kept flipping her hair this way and that. She wore some cute lacy top that could have been from Limited Too or something. It looked a bit young for Wet Seal, though I was sure she’d graduate to those cleavagey tank tops any day now. Me, I was in baggy sweats and my Jordan 3s. But it wasn’t just our clothes that differentiated us. I got the sense that, on an elemental level, she was different from me. She probably had a boyfriend; she probably actually liked her boyfriend. Wanted his lips on hers, his hands up her shirt in the back row of a movie theater. I didn’t know what that was like. To desire something so dull, something so easily attainable. I wanted to want that, I really did.
“Careful, there, kid, don’t want you getting trashed on my watch,” said my dad. His beer had been replaced by a sad, dented cup. “Hey, you don’t happen to have any money on you, do you?” he asked.
I gave him a strange look before answering. “No, Coach Puck hasn’t paid me yet.”
He’d never asked me for money before. I would have thought he was kidding if he didn’t look so earnest.
Coach Puck was my high school coach. He paid me twenty dollars an hour to clean his house. It wasn’t for the faint of heart, either. None of that dusting or vacuuming shit. He was a hoarder, lived in a house with eight dogs, two kids, and a wife he loved to hate or hated to love, I was never sure which.
“My goddamn cokehead of a wife,” he was always saying, running a hand through his greasy, shoulder-length hair.
I wasn’t even sure his wife was real. I’d never seen her, and I was over there often enough that my mom started asking me what business a forty-eight-year-old man had with a sixteen-year-old girl. According to Coach, his wife spent all her time in the basement, buying and selling troll dolls on eBay, high off her ass. Anyway, one Saturday I spent all day trying to scrape unidentified dried goo from the inside of his refrigerator. I didn’t mind, more money for me. His front yard had some things going on, too. It was a mishmash of whatever the f*** didn’t fit in the house or garage, I guess. Two old, ratty couches, a few tires, a bathroom sink, a broken printer, you name it. No matter the time of year, you could count on there being falling-down Christmas lights and a blow-up reindeer. He really was an odd guy. I loved him the same way I loved my dad: with a violence that terrified even me. I would throw a right hook for them. Would stab a motherf***er.
“Well, what about the last payment?” said my dad. “What’d you go and spend that on?”
“Drugs,” I said. Then, “Tattoos.”
“Strippers.”
“Sneakers.”
Laughing, he said, “My son. My prodigal son.” I smiled, happy to be his son. He leaned closer to me and said, “I was just messing with you, by the way. I got money, don’t you worry.”
We watched the first half through squinted eyes and clapped when we were supposed to clap, high-fived when we were supposed to high-five, all the while wishing we’d brought binoculars.
“This is great. Isn’t it so great?” he kept saying, his voice going up a little at the end.
It wasn’t long before he grew restless and had begun attracting nearby listeners with talk about how I was Division I–bound. Everyone wanted to know where I was going and I said I didn’t know yet, that it was still early. Truth is, I kept telling myself I had plenty of time, but the NCAA official signing date was creeping up on me. I still had a little over a year, but most players committed well before signing day. Judging by how mixed-up I felt about choosing a school, I guessed that most players just wanted the decision out of the way so they could sit back and relax a little, maybe even enjoy their senior year.
“That’s right, she’s got so many choices,” said my dad. He beamed and threw an arm around my shoulder.
I smiled up at him. This was how he loved me best: through basketball, his pride and joy.
Three little kids climbed over their parents to ask for my autograph, shoving their Sixers programs in my face while my dad dug around in his pocket for a pen. You could always count on him for a pen and paper, though the paper was usually covered in point spreads and money lines.
All at once, the kids started telling me what I needed to do in order to make it to the big leagues.
