Spencer could tell that Sal was still pissed at him as they played basketball. The court was one he’d found during his nighttime wanderings. It was surrounded by a grove of trees, which served as a kind of courtyard for a nearby cluster of university administrative buildings. The offices were closed for the weekend, but their burning white surveillance lights threw strangely angled shadows onto the court.
The two of them were warmed up and had stripped down to their t-shirts, jeans, and work boots—Spencer’s a clean pair of Timberlands his mother had bought him before the beginning of the new school year, Sal’s a beat-up pair of Wolverines stained by oil and grime from a year of doing oil changes. The glaring lights from the nearby buildings made outside shooting dicey, so they both looked to get to the hoop. Sal, wiry and quick, dribbled from the outside, looking to blow past Spencer. Spencer—who had about four inches and thirty pounds on Sal—would methodically back Sal into the paint, then drop step around him and lay the ball in over his outstretched arms.
The game soon became a stalemate. They’d been playing each other for as long as either could remember, and each knew the other’s moves, countermoves, and counter-countermoves just as well as they knew their own. Spencer started overplaying Sal’s strong right hand, forcing him to go to his weaker left side. Sal began placing one of his meaty forearms into the small of Spencer’s back and bracing his wiry-strong body against the concrete court, stifling Spencer’s attempts to back him into the paint. The game got chippy: Sal slapping away Spencer’s hand checks, Spencer throwing elbows in the post.
The night air and exertion had initially sobered Spencer up. But as the drug continued to course through his body, the court began to feel like it was undulating under his feet, as though he’d just gotten off an hours-long trip on his father’s pontoon boat. He began to feel disconnected from his own movements, his mind now a pilot trying to operate an increasingly sluggish and resistant body.
About twenty minutes into their game, Sal took the lead and it was game point. Sal was out past the three-point line, dribbling the ball from hand to hand, his eyes flicking side-to-side as he calculated his best angle to the hoop. Spencer, winded, rested his hands on the tops of his knees. Fearing Sal’s crossover, he tried to keep his eyes on the ball, but it was beginning to multiply and blur before his eyes.
Sal, seeing Spencer falter, looked down at Spencer’s feet and grinned. “Nice work boots. Clean. New.”
Spencer gritted his teeth and took a swipe at the ball. Sal easily dribbled it out of Spencer’s reach and laughed. “Shit, man, those boots are so nice and clean, you can probably wear them working at daddy’s car lot after you flunk out.”
“Fuck you.” Spencer dropped lower into a defensive crouch. “Fucking Army reject.”
“Is that the best you can do? I thought you’d go with ‘dirty kid.’”
Spencer lunged again at the ball, but Sal dribbled around him and drove toward the basket. Spencer realized he was beaten by a full step and lurched forward to try to block the ball from behind as it left Sal’s hands. But his body wasn’t responding to his mind’s directions anymore and he toppled into Sal, sending them both to the concrete. Spencer was dimly aware of the ball swishing through the basket as they sprawled to the ground.
Sal leapt up, then gathered the ball and hurled it down, bouncing it off Spencer’s prone body. He stood over Spencer, who laid immobile on the concrete. “Score one for the dirty kids, bitch.” Then he walked off into the darkness.
After a moment, Spencer collected himself. The world spun around him now, but he managed to get to his feet. He staggered past the edge of the court and into the wooded area surrounding it. Ten feet past the tree line, he slumped down to the ground, propping his back against a tree. He could feel the earth spinning beneath him, and as the breeze picked up and rustled the leaves, he could hear them whispering to him: buy the ticket, take the ride.
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