Life with Sudden Death. Michael Downing

seen before read out ten names, including mine, and said we’d be taking even more foul shots every day. The counselors claimed he was a well-known coach. He had white hair and clip-on sunglasses, like a cop. I figured he was a public school principal they’d hired to work with the discipline problems. I tried explaining to him that I was a natural defense player who never needed to shoot the ball, and he said I should ask at home for high-top sneakers. He was wearing brown loafers and white tube socks and plaid Bermuda shorts. No one in my family ever needed high-tops or nylon-mesh jerseys or even jock straps until we got to high school.

      Out of the blue, the old man blew his whistle and announced that all the foul shots had been part of a contest, and we had the ten best records in camp, and the winner would “take home a trophy.” There was only one other kid my age in the final ten, and I knew he had a real chance of winning. His name was Jimmy M., and his father ran the CYC. Jimmy was my size but looked tougher and was not as good a student. I told him I would root for him. He said he would root for himself first and for me second. This was normal for a public school kid, so I didn’t take it as an insult.

      Joe didn’t mention anything about the contest, except to say he was glad he’d have more time to practice zone defenses. And he said he didn’t spend much time at the line because he was able to pivot around the defense.

      I was surprised to find out I was naturally good at foul shots. During the regular season on the indoor court at the CYC, Coach C. had noticed that a lot of my practice foul shots were hitting the net and sailing out into the vending machine area. He asked me if I thought I could try to hit the backboard once in a while, so team members wouldn’t have to leave the gymnasium so often. Until then, I had thought it was illegal to use the backboard on purpose from the foul line.

      Whenever I wasn’t sure about rules, I didn’t ask questions that would make strangers think they were being forced to do my dead father’s work for him. Instead, I made up very strict rules that most human beings couldn’t tolerate, and I figured they would keep me and my father’s reputation safe.

      It was relatively easy to hit the backboard compared with shooting the ball right through the hoop, and more often than not, the ball went in. This happened repeatedly during the second week of camp. By Thursday, there was a rumor that I was near the lead. Jimmy M. said he was ahead of me with one tall kid, and he privately showed me a scorecard he’d been keeping for all two weeks. It was written with different color inks for each of the contestants. It made me hope he’d win. He cared about basketball the way Joe did.

      On Friday, the coach with the clip-ons announced a shoot-off between me and Jimmy. We had to take turns for a total of twenty shots, five at a time. Jimmy’s father stood with the counselors and watched us. It was another time when having a dead father was an advantage, because there was nobody around to be disappointed or to give you some last-minute advice that cramped your style. Jimmy blessed himself before every shot. I considered this a disrespectful use of praying and just said silent ejaculations, not for me but for the souls in purgatory. I won the contest, and after we got our awards, I immediately told Jimmy it was not important. Jimmy was crying, but only from his eyes. He wasn’t making any sounds. I told him he was way better at basketball than I was, and I didn’t even care about foul shooting. At the time I said it, I was holding the trophy.

      Joe told everyone at dinner about my triumph. He tried to make it sound more important than it was, though, so instead of dwelling on the specifics, we discussed how all of the Downings had great aim and could beat other people at horseshoes. I stuck the trophy in a box in my bedroom closet with my swimming medals.

      After that, Joe attended all of my CYC basketball games, even when he was a freshman in high school. I was a starting guard for St. Teresa’s by then, though the only points I ever contributed came at the foul line. Even when I had a clear shot, I’d usually look to pass to Jimmy M. or my best friend, Joey T., who was always happy to plow into all the kids standing around in the key and shoot over anyone who was left standing. Coach C. said I was a great team player. I just didn’t want to be the one who missed.

      Even when I was in seventh grade, Joe still occasionally tried to get me to practice leg lifts or to play one-on-one, but by then I was allowed to complain right in front of him about taking things too seriously. St. Teresa’s won the CYC league championship that year. Julius Erving was playing for the University of Massachusetts, and he came and gave us our hero jackets and the team trophy, and he was supposed to give us a speech, too. Instead, his eyes rolled back into his head and he fainted and fell off the fake stage they’d set up in the CYC gym. The team was in the front row, so we were able to say we’d saved Julius Erving’s professional basketball career by breaking his fall.

      I knew about Julius Erving only from the posters Joe had hung up on his half of the bedroom. He kept them up until his sophomore year. He’d made the junior varsity team as a freshman in high school, and I went to two of his games at the Boys’ Club. He got injured trying out the next year, and when it was clear he wasn’t going to make the varsity team, he didn’t ever play organized sports again. No one at home encouraged him to play a second year of junior varsity. No one asked why he’d stopped wearing ankle weights. He started to devote more and more of his time to politics and religious activities. Everyone thought it was normal for him to quit basketball.

      Years later, Joe told me I was the only one in the family who ever saw him play high school ball. I remember being in the bleachers. The arena was really ten times bigger than the CYC, and the court was far away and shiny. I wanted Joe to do well, and I probably clapped when he did, but I’m sure I didn’t stand up and yell his name. If you’d seen me, I would’ve looked like a normal fan, not a fanatic. What you couldn’t have seen, though, was that I was also teaching Joe not to take a junior varsity basketball game so seriously.