Free The Final Four by Paul Volponi Page B

Heartbreak City, folks.
    Color Commentator: If you could see it on radio, and you’re a Michigan State supporter, I’d tell you that this is what gut-wrenching looks like in slow motion.
    Play-by-Play Man: We’re headed to a second five-minute overtime session. And a fight breaks out on the court! It’s between the two mascots! Unbelievable! Sparty and T-Roy—two guys in seven-foot foam rubber costumes—get into a shoving match in a wild scene that’s now being broken up by security.
    Color Commentator: This is what the Final Four is all about. Emotions pushed to the limits, and even more so now as we strap ourselves in for double overtime.

“When you go out there and do the things you’re supposed to do, people view you as selfish.”
    —Wilt Chamberlain, who once scored 100 of his team’s 169 points in an NBA game
CHAPTER NINE
MALCOLM McBRIDE
    7:36 P.M. [CT]
    M alcolm sees Roko extending a hand to MJ, reaching to pick him up off the court.
    “Don’t offer your damn hand to my man!” snarls Malcolm, rushing over. “Go worry about your own players. Go save your stupid mascot from catching a beating.”
    Roko holds both palms out in front of Malcolm, like a Trojan shield.
    “No sweat,” says Roko, backing away. “You can help him.”
    Then Malcolm reaches an arm out to MJ and says, “Next time pick your own ass up. Nobody helps you in this world but yourself. And you’re not supposed to be hoisting bombs. You should be setting screens to get me open.”
    “Are you kidding me? I almost won it,” MJ tells him, rising to his feet with Malcolm’s help.
    “That
almost
crap is for losers. I’m
going
to win us this game,” says Malcolm, heading back towards the Michigan State bench alone.
    At the Spartans’ bench, Barker pulls Malcolm, MJ, and the rest of the players in around him.
    “On offense, start by pounding the ball down low to our big men, Grizzly and Baby Bear,” croaks Barker, looking almost directly into Malcolm’s eyes. “Five minutes is a long time. We want to get that last foul on their center, Rice. They’ve got no one with any size to fill his shoes. So attack him. He’s either got to foul or let us go to the hoop. Once they crumble inside, this game is over. Now, let’s get it done.”
    Ringing inside of Malcolm’s head is one contrary phrase:
Just get me the damn ball!
But of course, he doesn’t say it out loud, not in front of Barker.
    An instant before the huddle breaks, Malcolm is the last one to drop his hand on the pile, putting his at the very top.
    AUGUST, ONE YEAR AND SEVEN MONTHS AGO
    It was a few minutes past ten p.m. With his parents having just gone to bed, Malcolm grabbed the framed photo of his sister, the one of her full face smiling soft like a heavenly angel’s, from the glass table in the living room. He snuck it out of the apartment and brought it with him to a house party in one of the other Brewster-Douglass buildings.
    A basketball buddy of Malcolm’s who was running the party—another guy going into his senior year of high school along with Malcolm—told him a scratcher would be there. Not just any scratcher, but one with some real skills. Malcolm had already seen the guy’s work on somebody’s arm—a blazing basketball being dunked through a hoop of fire, a tat that caught Malcolm’s eye straight off.
    At seventeen, Malcolm was too young for a legit tattoo parlor.
    He could have asked his parents for a letter to bring with him. But Malcolm knew they weren’t going to sign off on him getting inked.
    A cousin of Malcolm’s forged a letter like that once. But the artist at the tattoo parlor looked up his aunt and uncle’s phone number and called them. So the cousin missed out on his tat and got himself an ass whipping at home besides.
    When Malcolm first saw the scratcher at the party, he started to have serious doubts about letting that guy anywhere near him with a needle. The guy had a pair of silver rings through his nose and another pair