Chapter #64The Hunger Game by: Seuzz   "You gotta want it," you mutter at Richards as you block him with outstretched arms. He glares back and drills the ball off the school blacktop. "You gotta want it, asshole. You gotta want it, you motherfucking piece of—"
He tries faking left but darts right even before you can jump at the feint, and you sweep the ball away as he tries to pass you. Like a fucking doofus he blinks and bobbles his head as you take it down to the half court and turn around. He lopes after you, but you dart around, race back down to the basket, and loft the ball up and over the rim. "Don't just fucking stand there, pick it up," you holler as he jogs after. He flushes and hangs his head as he gallops after the runaway ball.
It's only ten minutes into the one-on-one session Jeremy begged you play, and already you're beating him seventeen to eight. You haven't the heart to point out that though he's in shorts, you're handicapped by the tight jeans you wore for your afternoon date with Cindy. You can sense all the energy draining from him, and after another quarter-hour of humiliation he drags himself over the chain-link fence that separates the court from the rest of the playground and falls onto his ass. You bounce the ball half a dozen times, looking for something to say, then stride over to join him. He squints up into your face, then looks away.
"You don't have to be the best guy on the court come Monday, you know," you remind him. "You just have to be in the top dozen."
"I'm not even in the top fifteen," he mutters.
"There's only thirteen on the squad."
"I'm counting Robey and Stanton, too," he says, naming two of the jay-vee players. His shoulders sag. "And Bruno and Falk and Lovejoy and—"
"Fuck you, man!" You make to hurl the ball at a spot next to his face, and he flinches hard. "Fuck you if you're just gonna curl up and die! Fuck you, why'd you call me out here to fucking waste my time?" You nail the blacktop with the ball. "Fuck you and be done with you, man!"
Jeremy covers his face with one hand and looks away. He's about to start crying, you can tell, and pity and contempt fight for possession of your breast.
"You sad, sorry son of a bitch. The fuck do you think you're doing out here? What, you trying to get as good as Lebron in one afternoon? You think you're gonna get, like, a full season of training into one scrimmage?"
"I thought you wanted me to try." His voice is thick with resentment.
"I do, but to try doing what?" you yell back. "The fucking impossible? Anyway, trying isn't enough. Any fuck face can try! Ungh! Look at me!" You knock your knees together and hobble about in a circle like a retard. "I'm trying to make a basket! Fuck! You do it or you don't!"
Jeremy's head sinks further between his shoulders. "Then I guess I don't," he whimpers.
Fuck!
You weren't trying to harass him, to humiliate him, to break him. But once you got your hands on the ball, you had to put Seth's skills to work for you. Many of those skills are in the head and not the hands, so you fell into the taunting and bullying without even noticing.
But now that the wreckage of Jeremy Richards has fetched up in the corner of the middle school basketball court, you could punch yourself out for letting yourself go so far.
You squat next to him. "Look, man. Trying isn't enough. Patterson wants you to do it. Can or can't, that's what matters to the cocksucker. But that doesn't mean you gotta be perfect, doesn't mean you gotta score every layup. Sometimes you're up against better people. Fuck, it's all I can do to keep in sight of Patterson's ass when it's him and me. And Shuler and Sax and Lloyd? Those assholes? I can put them away as easy as I put you away just now."
Jeremy shoots you a brief, dark glare.
"But you know how come Patterson likes 'em? How he and Gordon never talked smack about them? 'Cos they're mean." You raise your eyebrows to emphasize the point. "'Cos they come at you with all they got. 'Cos if you don't put everything you got into stopping 'em, they'll leave their footprints on your face. You know that, right?"
"Yeah."
"So they can't take Patterson. They can barely take me. But that's only 'cos we gotta be better than them, 'cos when it comes to meanness, they're even worse than us."
"Jonas," Jeremy mutters.
"Yeah, him too." You tense all over. It took two years of alpha-dog battling before Seth got his feet planted firmly on Jonas Martin's face. "And Luke Bennett, I'd love to get that motherfucker someplace dark and quiet where I could—" You break off. Where I could give him a new face is what you were going to say, but you unnerved yourself with its secondary meaning.
"Ain't nothing wrong with you, man," you continue, "except you're only eighty percent as good as you could be, and less than half as mean as you should be. You let the other guys walk all over you. Keeps you outta trouble, I know," you add with a shrug. Then you jab Jeremy in the shoulder with a long, stiff finger. "But that's how come Patterson and Black were always thinking about cutting your ass. Not 'cos you were bottom of the heap, but because you acted like you didn't even want that much."
Jeremy's head sinks lower, but when he looks up at you most of the self-pity has drained from his eyes. "So you're saying I just need to be mean? Meaner?"
"You gotta want it!" Spit flies from your mouth, so ferocious are your words. "You know who doesn't want it, who's as big a pussy as you? Frazier. Frazier and Tummler and Green. Sure, they got the skills. Fuck, sometimes I wanna break Frazier's legs, I'm so jealous of how good he is on them. Son of a bitch is a fucking ballerina."
"He's good," Jeremy admits. "He knows it, too."
"And him and Tummler and Green think that'll keep 'em on the squad after Monday. They think they're all set with their hot shit. Same as those Eastman fucks." You spit to the side. Frank and Joe Durras are their names. Naturally, you and Patterson scouted them out, along with the rest of the Eastman squad. They're good, like most of your crosstown rivals, but not so good that you're intimidated by them. "They're gonna come over on Monday and show off their stuff and figure it'll be enough to make us want them. And maybe we will, but don't fucking bet on it. 'Cos Patterson wants 'em good, but mostly he wants 'em mean. Hungry, 'cos that's how you keep getting better than good. Fuck, I told you what he told me our sophomore year?" You grin. "About how the basket is a girl's cunny, and the ball is your cock, and the whole point is to jam the one hard into the other one?"
Jeremy winces.
"That's what he wants. When he goes to the coach and tells him who he wants on the squad, that's what he'll be looking for. Bet those Eastman fucks aren't gonna give it to him. Bet Frazier and Green and Tummler aren't either." You stab him in the shoulder again. "You could. He's had lots of doubts about you—" And so have I, though I've been too much of a friend to ever say them out loud, you add silently to yourself. "But you show him on Monday that when the pressure's on, you can be just as mean and as hungry and as hot to score as he is when he's got a girl up there alone in the fuck room—" Again, you stab him in the shoulder. "That's how you make the cut on Monday."
You stand up. "So do you want it that bad, man? You want it so bad you'll fuck everyone over to get it? 'Cos if you don't, you're the one who's gonna be fucked come Monday."
Jeremy says nothing for a moment, then unfolds himself and stands. "I can try."
"Don't! Try!" Jeremy flinches from your shout. "You will make me your bitch on this fucking blacktop, or fuck you!" You thrust the ball at him. He winces as he takes it. "But," you add a little more kindly, "that doesn't mean you gotta outscore me. Just make me worry that you will."
He nods, bounces the ball a couple of times, then leads you out to the middle of the blacktop.
* * * * *
Well, you are worried when you part. Not because he harried and chased you and almost pulled an upset, but because even after that talk he was still too limp and uncertain.
But he's always been like that, and probably always will. Seth talked to his father about it once, how Jeremy always seemed to hang back when it was obvious he could give more and give harder. Why can't he give a hundred percent? you'd exclaimed. Probably, Mr. Javits said, because he's afraid a hundred percent still won't be good enough. If he only gives ninety percent, he can still pretend it would be.
Speaking of Mr. Javits: When you get home to your new place he's out front giving the lawn an end-of-the-season mow. Without being asked, you haul out the weed-eater do the trimming—you have it in your hands before you realize how in-character this is for Seth, and how out-of-character it is for Will Prescott. Gotta get the asshole outta my head, you mutter silently to yourself as you work.
Afterword, up in your new bedroom—with its shelves of trophies and ribbons—you relax on your neatly made bed with your cell phone. No text from Cindy, which pisses you off. But Catherine Muskov is asking you out to her house to an impromptu party for the Eastman guys. There's also one from Ryan Shuler, who wants to talk basketball business.
Nothing from Caleb, though.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive
story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Get MORE!
Shop Memberships
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
