By
Donald L. Vasicek
Perhaps it was the touch. You know the kind. Sort of a gentle tug like a puppy would yank on your pant leg. Playfully, but with purpose. With design, but loving. I looked around. It was Elsie. Elsie was stocky, particularly for a middle school student. “Coach, coach, you know what happened in school today?” she said as she pushed some French fries into her mouth.
“You passed the math quiz,” I said. Her hair was styled and cut at about the ears like a pageboy only her bangs were curled. They danced about like springs and disguised her age. Possibly her face too, which was round and more wide than long. She came into view as an old soul of twelve years particularly when I gazed into her eyes. She cuffed my arm and giggled like a girl of her age. “No, silly, I beat Marty in the spelling test.”
I gawked at Marty standing at Elsie’s elbow. Strange thing, they were one year apart, Marty being older, but Elsie was two hands taller. Marty blinked her dark eyes at me in a “so what” manner.
I smiled. Marty’s raven hair glowed from the lights in the cavernous gym at Aurora, Colorado North Middle School. Her ruffled dark eyes pecked at me like a chicken.
“What’s wrong, Marty?” I said as a roar swelled in the brimming stands at one end of the basketball court. Parents, relatives and friends cheered our team, the Jaguars. It was tournament time. The smell of sweat, cologne, hot dogs, potato chips, cherry cola soda, mustard, pickles, onions, M&M’s, berry licorice ropes, popcorn and a host of other concession goodies rode the wind and no one was going to miss out.
Marty actually was quite small for thirteen. Her peers spiraled over her. Somewhere within her mind though, I suspected, height meant nothing to her.
“He’s pushing me. He hit me. He won’t let me shoot the ball. I hate him.” Tears puddled in her eyes. “Who?” I asked. Her arm and finger shot out like an arrow. “Him.” I followed her point of the compass to a male kid about six feet with dusty blond hair that looked like rats got into fight in it. With very little body fat, if any, his boxy shoulders made him appear powerful and intimidating. Just then, he pushed a runt of a kid, Little Carson, we called him, to the floor.
I straightened out as Little Carson’s big, round brown eyes, actually, out-distancing his emaciated face, woofed at the bully.
“You pushed me.” The big kid laughed. He didn’t know that Little Carson was developmentally disabled. Actually he probably wasn’t really that aware that he was also developmentally disabled, as were all of the kids on his team and our team. He was playing in the Colorado Special Olympics Basketball Tournament, and that’s what mattered to him. Little Carson was in the kid’s face, or in fact, looking up at him like he was peering at a redwood tree.
“Little Carson,” I shouted. Little Carson seeded his hands to his boney hips. He formed the word, “but”, when the ball popped him in the chest. He grabbed it and started dribbling it around and around in a circle; a beetle bug in the middle of a bunch of kids of all dimensions trying to chase him down.
“See, see,” Marty said. “He hurt Little Carson and I hate him.” Marty’s eyes spit out the feeling of disappointment. Elsie hauled on my arm. This time it had more urgency in the touch.
“Put me in, put me in, coach.” A basketball rolled out onto the court from behind me. I looked at Sara who sat on the bench with Dustin, a gaunt autistic kid, intelligent, but who could only spit when he tried to speak and Jarod, an inky-haired kid with a face that emerged like one side of it had been run over by an SUV. Sara toyed with her hands like they belonged to someone else.
I grabbed the ball just as the teams, like a tidal wave, swept down the court after Little Carson. I glanced at Sara. If it hadn’t been for her Down Syndrome disability, I could’ve sworn she was grinning at me.
I squatted by Marty. I placed my hands on her shoulders. I looked her squarely in the eyes. “Marty, you don’t hate him. After the game’s over, I want you to congratulate him on playing a good game. Okay?”
I looked at the scoreboard. Jaguars 4 Vipers 32. I shot a glance at Little Carson. Tall Vipers swarmed him.
Elsie chewed on her fingernails. She moved about like she had to go to the bathroom. “Put me in, coach, put me in.”
Then Jarod was at my arm. And Dustin. Jarod spoke first. “I’m a pro, coach.” Dustin spewed drool at me. He held his folded hands down, his arms crossed. Then, I noticed he had wet his basketball shorts, or at the least, spilled water on them.
“There’s just a few seconds left.” I investigated each kid like I wanted to give them everything they desired and more. They only wanted one thing. To play basketball.
And Marty was quietly crying. “It’s not fair,” she said. “I could’ve made the winning shot.”
“So could I,” Jarod shouted as he mimed a shot.
And now, Dustin, crossed his legs like he really had to go to the bathroom. “Dustin, do you have to go to the bathroom?” He stared at me. Right through me. Then, his father appeared. A tall, skinny, distinguished looking man of about 40, took Dustin’s hand and they headed for the bathroom.
The horn blared the end of the game. Little Carson continued dribbling the ball. I watched Marty as the two teams walked single file past each other high-fiving. When Marty got to the big kid with the boxy shoulders, she whispered something in his ear. He nodded unremarkably.
The gym had emptied out. I had managed to collect all of the Jaguars’ basketballs and put them in the net bag. I was heading for the exit when I heard someone call out, “Coach.” I turned. Marty beckoned me with her pint-sized finger. She stood right in the center of two full-sized courts. They absorbed her like a sponge.
I walked over to her. She turned and indicated the route of the grandstands. We faced them. She installed her arm around my waist. “That’s my Dad.”
I looked at a broad man with a head of hair like a male lion’s mane, step out in front of us several feet away. “Okay, Dad,” she said. He directed a camera at us. Marty took my hand. She held it. Her dad snapped several pictures.
