Free Lay-ups and Long Shots by David Lubar Page B

game. My one thought was “If I make this one, Grampa is going to come home.” Then I hit a two-handed shot from the foul line we’d scratched on the cracked black top. Not only that, for once the ball actually bounced straight back to me.
    “If I make two in a row,” I whispered to myself, “Grampa is going to live for . . . two more years.” Then I took four steps back and put up an awkward left-hand hook. It hit the side of the building, scraped off the rough shingles, rattled around the rim and fell through. Two in a row! I took a deep breath. My heart was in my throat as my fingertips stroked the rough texture of the orange ball’s surface. Some superstitious part of me felt as if I was holding my grandfather’s life in my hands.
    “If I make this one,” I said out loud, “Grampa is going to live for another ten years.” Then I tried my special trick shot. I threw the ball down as hard as I could onto that flat piece of pavement. It thwanged off the blacktop as if it was alive, so high that it was actually above the roof of the store. It flew in a rainbow arc, down, down,
Swish!
Straight through without touching the rim.
    I raised both my fists up in the air. “Yes!” I shouted.
    It would’ve been better if I’d kept my hands down. The ball richocheted off the rough surface and flew past me so fast that all I could do was hit it with my knee as I tried in vain to grab it before it reached the slanted part of the drive way.
    Thwonk! Thwonk!
It was picking up speed, the distance between bounces getting bigger while I watched with my mouth open.
Thwonk!
One huge final bounce as it soared into the uphill lane of 9N.
    Whomp!
I felt as much as heard the impact between the ball and the Eggleston Transport truck speeding north toward Corinth. The ball didn’t bounce off, but lodged in the wide grill. And the driver of the big rig, who probably never even saw it, just kept going—taking my basketball and my wish with him.
    And all I could do was smile.
    Three hours later, Grampa and Grama pulled into the driveway in their old blue Plymouth with Grampa Jesse behind the wheel. He looked a little tired, but wasn’t so pale now that they’d given him a transfusion. They both hugged me and thanked me for being so responsible and taking care of the store.
    “We got time for a game a HORSE before supper,” Grampa said. “It’s getting dusk, but I could turn on the side lights.”
    I shook my head. “Let’s just watch
Gunsmoke
,” I said.
    Somehow, my grandparents never noticed that the basketball was gone. And I didn’t mind. The way I’d lost that ball had been like a sacrifice, a transaction in which I gave up a childish dream in exchange for something more important. I felt—satisfied.
    I did get my growth—enough of it so that I stood 6'2" tall my senior year in high school. However, my grandfather never saw me play basketball on a team. No, it wasn’t because my wish for his survival failed. Instead, I’d discovered a sport I truly was good at, its season the same time as basketball—wrestling. My senior year in high school I was the varsity heavyweight and actually won the Regional Tournament while my grinning grandfather watched in the stands, telling everyone within earshot, “That’s my grandson.”

Lynea Bowdish
    Lynea Bowdish grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where the most common sports were stick ball (played in the street), and stoop ball (played against the front stoop). No one seemed to mind not having uniforms, or teams, or regularly scheduled games with parents on the sidelines. The game started when someone came outside with a ball. It ended when most of the kids had been called home to dinner.
    That doesn’t mean Lynea doesn’t like organized sports. She loves swimming and enjoys watching hockey (except for the fighting). Having grown up as one of the “large” kids, she also firmly believes that bird watching and computer games should qualify as sports when it comes to school