EZ and the Intangibles Read online

  I laughed. Mostly from relief. My ordeal was ending.

  A jarring honk from the scorer signaled that the time-out was over. The veteran ref, my new best buddy, stepped to the edge of the court. He did several hasty knee lifts and a few swiveling gyrations, clockwise and the reverse. From the rear pocket of his gray sweatpants he pulled out his silver whistle and looped it over his head.

  “You know how to work the floor with a partner?”

  I was thinking that my job was done. But it might not be so bad doing it with a partner. I liked the idea of being part of a team, any team.

  Coach Rutledge stormed over. “No way, Ernie,” he barked. “Not now. Too late.”

  Ernie must have been the ref’s name. He glowered at Coach but didn’t say anything. He could not call a technical foul—not yet, anyway.

  “Needed you an hour ago, Ernie.” Coach stood nearly toe-to-toe with him. “Nice try.”

  The Nelsonville coach came sprinting over. “What seems to be the problem?”

  There were four of us now, huddling at courtside. Two refs in zebra stripes. Two coaches. A normal enough sideline scene during a break in the action, if you watch basketball on TV.

  Coach Rutledge jerked his thumb at Ernie. “Don’t need him. Kid’s doing a fantastic job.”

  Now the coaches turned their attention exclusively to me.

  The Nelsonville coach was thinner than Coach Rutledge but a full head taller. He had warm eyes and a kind voice. “What do you say? A few minutes left. You okay by yourself?”

  I was not okay by myself. Frankly, I expected the Nelsonville coach to put up more of a fight to get Ernie, the veteran ref, involved. I mean, if a valuable player showed up late but not too late to have an impact, they’d let him play, wouldn’t they? Although that might depend on who the player was, and what his impact would be.

  I glanced up at the scoreboard clock. There was 4:13 remaining. While the game felt like it might last an eternity, deep down I knew it would be over soon.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Sometimes the game just flows—the players are in the zone, the fans are thrilled, and they hardly know the refs are even out there. You hear announcers make that observation. And when they do, they always remark that those are the best types of games—for players and coaches and fans alike. No whistles, no pause in the action, no lolling around at the free throw line, just letting the players play.

  With luck on my side, this one would end exactly that way.

  After several minutes of frenzied action with the teams seemingly trading baskets, Coach Rutledge hollered for a timeout.

  At first, I didn’t hear him.

  “Timeout!” he screamed again, storming at me. “TIMEOUT!”

  I blew my whistle.

  I glanced up at the scoreboard. It was an impulse, like biting nails, which I also felt like doing.

  Visitor: 47, Home: 46.

  Time: 00:12

  Stay calm, I told myself. Stay focused. Be in the moment. Be ready. Stay loose.

  I remembered something from my career in Little League. I had only played two seasons. One year we almost won. Troy Rutledge had been on my team. His dad was not the coach, although he had been to every game and had a habit of hollering out instructions from his permanent position behind the wire backstop.

  Troy was an okay baseball player, but certainly not the best, the way he was in basketball. Every time he came to bat, his dad would bellow like a police officer commanding a suspect to drop the gun: “Relax!”

  “Relax!” Mr. Rutledge would roar. “Just relax!”

  At that age, I really didn’t know the word contradiction. But I knew there was something deeply contradictory about screaming at the top of your lungs at someone to get them to relax.

  Twelve seconds left on the clock.

  Sure, I wanted to relax. I just didn’t know how.

  We—I mean, Longview—put the ball in play from beneath our—

  I mean, their—own basket.

  As I mentioned, it’s helpful, as a ref, to use your knowledge of the game to anticipate what players tend to do in certain situations. Knowing this is not like having a blueprint. It’s not like you have any certainty about what’s going to develop. You do not have a diagram. But knowledge of the game does provide guidance about where to put yourself, physically, in order to best be able to see what’s about to unfold.

  It puts you in the best possible position to do what’s right.

  Anticipating these final seconds, I wondered if Coach might be thinking about what I’d told him, about our odds being slightly better when Troy draws the defenders and then passes the ball. That could make a difference in where on the court the referee (me) needed to be.

  But it was a fleeting thought. I pretty much knew who was going to receive the in-bound pass, where he would dribble once he caught it, and in whose hands the ball would eventually land prior to the all-important, last chance, game-

  defining shot.

  Maybe that was more knowledge than a referee should be allowed to possess. That’s not for me to say. What I can say is that this special knowledge of the Longview team and its tendencies gave me a heads-up about where to position myself (along the right sideline) when the ball was put into play and what to do as the action unfolded (stay tight to the sideline, closely trailing the dribbler up court).

  Would another ref who was less familiar with Longview have done it the same way? Would Ernie have known where Leo would dribble, how Troy would cut to the sideline to receive the pass? I think so. I was simply going to position myself where any experienced referee would. The only difference was that I had no experience whatsoever.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I was surprised Nelsonville didn’t put pressure on the in-bound pass. Surprised and relieved. A lot of sneaky grabbing and shoving could happen, plus there’s the risk of accidental collisions where the ref is almost forced to blow the whistle. Didn’t need that in crunch time.

  Rudy threw the ball in. He’d made a couple of three-

  pointers already, and the coach might have had Rudy in mind as a fallback option. There wasn’t much doubt about who was the primary option.

  Leo Espada took the pass and swiftly began dribbling. The clock was ticking. Leo was quick. His weakness, I knew, was his left hand.

  Crossing half court, Leo was met by a couple of Nelsonville defenders hoping to trap him. He cleverly split right between them.

  The play was designed for Troy. I knew exactly how and why it had been designed. As Leo got free, Troy bolted from the top of the key, where he’d been planted. Matt O’Neil sprinted over to help out with a pick. So long as it was legal, there was no problem. Matt had missed all three of his shots. Matt would never shoot the ball under this kind of pressure, but was trying his hardest to help out with an intangible. I needed to keep an eye on him too.

  The list of things I needed to watch for was ridiculously long.

  Troy raced to the sideline to get open for Leo’s pass.

  Scooting right, Leo shifted his dribble to his right hand and rifled a crisp pass, chest high, to Troy.

  Matt’s pick on the stocky Nelsonville kid guarding Troy by the sideline worked like a charm. Troy caught the pass, pivoted toward the hoop, and suddenly was free.

  How much time was left? I didn’t want to know.

  Trailing the play along the right sideline, I had the perfect angle. I’d anticipated correctly. I could see it all clearly, as clearly as if I was on the sofa at home watching on TV.

  After snagging the pass and pivoting, Troy planted his right foot, sprang forward, squared his shoulder…

  I saw something.

  At least I thought that I did. I wished that I hadn’t.

  As Troy pivoted for that last lurch forward before launching the final running one-hander—a sweet move
he’d practiced countless times—I thought I saw the edge of his sneaker nick the white sideline stripe.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I blew the whistle.

  It happened so fast there was no time to think. It could’ve been a dream. Too bad that it wasn’t.

  I can’t deny it. I blew the whistle. Maybe not as loudly as I should have, but I definitely put air in it. It was pure instinct. Maybe if I had given it a millisecond’s thought, maybe if I had called a time-out on myself to reconsider the matter…but why go there? Spilled milk and all that.

  As to instincts, I could just as easily have given in to an opposite instinct—the instinct to do nothing. I’ve thought about that a lot since then. After less than one hour of actual officiating, why was it my primary instinct to blow the whistle? Especially since, up until that very moment, my more natural instinct had been to stay quiet, create no controversy, cause no stir, avoid attention, and keep my thoughts to myself? I’d been doing that essentially my whole life.

  Doing nothing would have been totally reasonable. In fact, more reasonable. Certainly more reasonable than blowing my darn whistle. Why did I do it?

  At first, I wasn’t sure anybody heard my meek little screech. There was so much whooping and yelling, with players—Lynx players, that is—scurrying like crazed chickens and yelping with glee.

  Troy’s running one-hander as the clock ticked down had arced with storybook grace high above the court and straight down through the hoop. Nothing but net! It was an incredible shot.

  There was no hiding from the consequences of my action. There was no way to pretend that it didn’t matter. It did. Big time. My whistle had cancelled the game-winning basket. But with all the commotion, had anybody heard my whistle? Was it possible for me, just maybe, to pretend that it had never happened?

  If a tree falls in a forest, and there’s nobody around to hear it… If a referee blows his whistle and nobody…

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Nelsonville coach came barreling my way. He’d heard me. He’d heard my whistle. And I was afraid that he knew exactly what it meant.

  Coach Rutledge had both arms raised in triumph and was dashing around in tight circles, happier than I’d ever seen him. Walk-off, last-shot endings can have that effect, even on grumpy grownups. Longview players were mobbing Troy in a joyous pig-pile at center court. All you could see of him were his Nikes poking out sideways.

  I tried to remember where referees were supposed to go once a game was over, especially a game ending in cont-

  roversy. Somehow they vanished. Vanishing sure would’ve been nice. Or, as an alternative, an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter’s.

  The truth was, refs had always been invisible to me. Wasn’t that how it was supposed to be? Wasn’t that best for everyone?

  I scuttled past the scorer’s table up to the second riser. I gathered my snow boots, my hat, gloves, and coat—which was sadly lacking in invisibility powers.

  The Nelsonville coach was there in a flash, looming over me. “Doesn’t count, right.” It was not a question.

  Coach Rutledge, hopping with joy, noticed that something was up. He spotted the Nelsonville coach approaching me, and this was not a conversation Coach Rutledge was going to be left out of. Two seconds later, he was there on the riser beside the Nelsonville coach, both of them towering over me.

  Coach Rutledge cheerfully extended his hand with sportsman-like congratulation. “Good game. You guys gave us a run for it.”

  The Nelsonville coach ignored the handshake offer. He stared at me with fierce eyes. “Tell him, kid,” he snarled. He wanted me to say it out loud.

  Coach Rutledge patted my shoulder. “Nice job, EZ. Game over. Right?”

  That part was true.

  “He whistled it dead before the shot.” The Nelsonville coach’s blazing eyes were fixed on me, and did not move. “Right, kid?”

  I was in a dark cage with iron bars, trapped with the walls closing in.

  “Game over,” asserted Coach Rutledge.

  “Got that right. We win.”

  “That’s bull!”

  “Tell him, kid.”

  I was too frightened to speak. Not that I wanted to. I’d foolishly agreed to pinch hit as the ref. I’d not agreed to this.

  “Tell this jerk. Basket’s good.”

  “Lay off the kid, or…”

  “Or what, tough guy?”

  The Nelsonville coach cocked a fist. “Or else!”

  It looked like a fistfight would be next. I sure wasn’t going to prevent it. Like two boxers at center ring seconds before the opening bell, the two coaches pushed closer. And they were too close to me—just a foot or two away—for comfort. Something bad was going to happen.

  And then suddenly they parted. Or rather, they were pried apart. Troy—his hair matted with sweat and his gold-and-blue jersey ripped from one shoulder—shoved into our tight little huddle. He actually pushed the two coaches aside.

  I expected Coach Rutledge to promptly put his son in his place, but Troy was too quick.

  “He got it right, Dad.” Troy said this firmly, like someone who has given a matter plenty of thought and is finally sure of his convictions. “My foot nicked the sideline.”

  It took Coach Rutledge a moment to process this. He blinked, looked away, and blinked again. A scowl crept across his face, and the scowl hardened. It was a good thing for Troy that this was taking place in the gym, and not in the privacy of their spacious home with the swimming pool.

  I waited for the explosion.

  Troy did not back away, far from it. He seemed to stand taller and puff out his chest. First, he addressed me directly. “Good call, EZ.”

  Then he turned to face his father, who was slowly turning purple with fury. “He got it right. Takes guts.”

  With that, Troy extended his right arm straight at me with clenched hand—an invitation for a fist bump. And he kept his arm extended, waiting as the two flabbergasted coaches watched, waiting until I reached forward to meet him halfway.

  Were referees allowed to accept congratulations from players in the game they’re officiating?

  I had no idea what the basketball rule book had to say on that point. But I was too relieved, and far too happy, to care.

  Chapter Forty

  A few days later, we received another letter from Dad. Per usual, Mom read it first. Per usual, I had to read it out loud to ZZ.

  ZZ had moved on to another Redpost book, this one titled Alone In His Teacher’s House. ZZ was completely capable of reading without assistance, but he continued to insist that I sit beside him on the sofa, and he continued to fidget, nudging me and smacking his lips.

  It drove me bonkers. “You know, ZZ, it is actually possible to read a book to yourself without making a racket.”

  “Sorrrryyy,” he simpered, drawing out the word for several seconds in exaggerated sarcasm. All ZZ’s expressions were drawn from cartoon shows. He was basically a walking cartoon himself, a Saturday morning cartoon with uncanny athletic ability.

  “You really should try it, ZZ. Silence. It goes great with reading.”

  “You’re just jealous.”

  “Oh, yeah? Of what?”

  “I’m enjoying my book more than you’re enjoying yours.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. I was hunched over The Way Things Work. It was fascinating, but I had to re-read each section to absorb the complicated information about the inner workings of computers and other machines. I supposed that seemed like drudgery to ZZ.

  I pulled Dad’s letter from my back pocket. There was always a tinge of sadness in seeing his return address on the envelope, that eight-digit prisoner registration number followed by the chilling phrase, Federal Corrections Institution.

  “Dear ZZ, EZ, and my beloved BZ…”

  ZZ shu
t Marvin Redpost without marking the page. How can a person not mark his place when closing a book?

  Dad began with how much he was looking forward to spring. He wanted to “hear the cheery trills of the songbirds” and “feel the sweet balm of the warm sun.” It was a relief to hear him sounding chipper, as if he were dashing this off before heading out for a hiking trip in the mountains. I guess if you’re in prison, you can’t let the truth take over everything.

  Then he came to his main point.

  “EZ,” he wrote, “do you remember that game in third grade when they put you in near the end and you got the ball deep in the corner?”

  Did I remember it? I’d thought about it nearly every day of my life. Except, come to think of it, these last few days.

  ZZ could sense this subject made me squirm. Gleefully, he edged nearly onto my lap. I shoved him away. You’d think he’d have more self-respect, being the most promising athletic prodigy in all of Longview, or whatever.

  I resumed reading. “Remember that accidental basket you made? I told one of the other prisoners about your reaction. Don’t ask me why. We just have a lot of time to talk about a lot of stuff here. Maybe I thought he’d be amused. Anyway, telling him the story, I suddenly saw it in a different light. I saw something I’d overlooked before, about you, and me, and all of us. Being honest with yourself and with others is…”

  “BORING,” ZZ yowled like he was being stabbed by a sharp stomach pain. “This is the most BOR-RI-ING letter Dad ever wrote.”

  Fine. I was happy to stop. ZZ was uncomfortable with the direction of this letter—too much about me, was my guess—and maybe I wasn’t ready for it either.

  I slipped Dad’s letter back into the envelope. I would read it later, in peace and quiet. My mind was already churning with what I was going to write in reply.

  The time had come to confess that I’d never made the basketball team, and probably never would. I think Dad was finally ready to handle that.

  It probably wasn’t in the cards for me to become Troy Rutledge’s teammate. But I had a hunch, based on another intangible, that we might become friends.