Slam Dunk Read online

“Pee-wee gets posterized!” Monster said.

  “Just wait!” I said, turning my head and glaring at him. I was even more determined to try to dunk now.

  “I got all day,” Monster said with a wicked grin.

  He was trying to get under my skin, and it was working. I tried to shake it off. I had to keep my head in the game. I needed to find an opportunity to dunk — and the extra hops to do it. And I also had to figure out how to defend Wayne’s low-post game.

  I never got a chance to do either. The problem wasn’t getting my head in the game — it was getting a finger in the eye! It happened on our next possession. Daniel hit me with a bounce pass, and Jammer set a screen for me near the baseline.

  I didn’t exactly agree that I’d been “posterized” by Wayne. They don’t make posters of up-and-under moves. But I’d definitely been burned. I think Daniel and Jammer were giving me a chance to get that bucket back. Anyway, it was a good screen, and Wayne had a little trouble getting around it.

  But the thing about screens is that people kind of bunch up around them. With this one, that meant Jammer’s defender, my defender, and everyone else in the general area. And since we were in the paint, Monster was definitely in the area. He saw what was happening and sort of stuck his arm out to slow me down. His hand came up at the same time I ducked my head to start driving toward the rim.

  One of his fingers went straight into my right eye. The last thing I saw was the tip of his finger. It looked huge because it was so close. It was like the world’s least entertaining 3-D movie. And then the whole world went red and yellow and orange.

  It hurt so much that I don’t even remember falling down. I just realized I was on the ground at some point. I didn’t even try to get up. Just pressed my hands down tight over my eye. I had a sick, weak feeling.

  “You okay, man?” I heard in that familiar low voice. Even with my eyes shut tight I knew it was Monster. “Come on, kid, get up. You’re all right.”

  His voice sounded different, but I didn’t know how or why. My brain was buzzing too loud for me to really think. All I could do was sit there and hope my eye hadn’t been poked out. More voices came toward me.

  “Clear out! Clear out!” It was Coach Dunn. “Let me have a look!”

  Next thing I knew, his voice was right beside me.

  “How’s it feel, Amar’e?” he said.

  It felt awful, but I couldn’t figure out how to tell him that.

  “Can you see?” he asked. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

  I managed to shake my head: no.

  “Okay, take some time,” he said.

  I tried to calm down some. I still had that sick, panicky feeling, but I just sat there and breathed for a minute. That helped. The fireworks in my head were still going full force — bright swirling colors danced all around — but it didn’t hurt as much anymore. Slowly, very slowly, I opened my left eye.

  “Two fingers,” I said.

  The laser show in my head mixed with the view outside it in weird ways. Shooting stars flashed across the faces of the other players as they leaned in for a look.

  “Yeah, that’s good,” said Coach. “But it’s the other eye I’m interested in. Can you take your hands away?”

  “Yes,” I said, but my hands didn’t budge.

  “But?” said Coach.

  “But I don’t want to.”

  And I can’t really explain it any better than that. My hand was pressed down tight, and slick with tears slipping out from under my eyelid. But part of me was thinking: What if those aren’t tears? What if it’s really bad? So, no, I wasn’t taking my hands away.

  Coach didn’t insist. He just helped me up and started leading me off the court. I used my good eye to see where I was going as we headed toward the edge of the court.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “The hospital!” he said.

  We didn’t drive to the hospital so much as fly. Coach Dunn zoomed down the highway, swooping from lane to lane like a fighter plane. At one point, he asked for my dad’s number. The thirty-second stretch it took him to make the call was the only time he slowed down at all.

  The practice court was miles behind us by then. The rest of the kids had orders to “Shoot around or something — and don’t get hurt!”

  We arrived at the hospital in no time flat, and I was surprised that Dad was already there. He must’ve given that old truck a real talking-to. Coach said, “Good luck in there.” Then he handed me off to Dad and left.

  “Let’s have a look,” said Dad as we walked across the parking lot.

  Maybe it was because it was my dad or because we were at the hospital now, or maybe I was just ready. Whatever the reason, I finally took my hand away from my right eye. Then, very slowly, I blinked it open. It stung when the air hit it, but not too bad. There were more stars and something seemed a little off, but I could definitely see. That was good news, at least.

  “Hmmm,” said Dad.

  He didn’t sound too happy, but he didn’t seem too worried, either. I put my hand back over my eye, and we kept going. At the edge of the parking lot, there was a big sign over the sliding doors: EMERGENCY ROOM.

  The doors shooshed open in front of us and closed behind us. Once we were inside, the emergency room turned out to be a lot less dramatic than I expected. I was thinking there’d be doctors and nurses running around and shouting, maybe someone being wheeled down the hall on a stretcher at a full run, like on TV. Instead, there was a whole lot of waiting going on.

  I looked around with my good eye. A room full of people sat in plastic chairs waiting their turn. Some were holding their arms or wearing big bandages. Most of them had one or two people waiting with them, but some of them were just sitting there alone. One guy was coughing hard in a corner. There was a little ring of empty chairs around him.

  We waited a long time and both looked a little out of place. I was dressed for hoops and Dad was in his green work clothes. We were both kind of sweaty when we sat down — me from the game and him from the job. But the air conditioner was turned up to “glacier,” and we went from too hot to too cold in a hurry.

  There was a little window in the wall with a nurse sitting at a desk behind it. Dad went up there a few times to ask how much longer it would be. The first time, I thought he was really worried about me. But then he went out in the hall to call his guys at the job site. He did that after his second trip to the little window, too. I started to get angry again. Was he worried about me, or about some guy’s lawn?

  “Better make sure the new guy hasn’t mowed the flower garden or watered the weeds,” he said, getting up to make another call. It was a joke, but I wasn’t laughing. After he came back, the nurse finally looked up from her desk and called my name.

  Dad and I got up and walked through the little door. I took my hand away from my eye and even looked around with it a little as I walked. I figured if it fell out at this point, I was in the right place to have it put back in.

  “The doctor will be right with you,” the nurse said as she let us into a small white room. She left and closed the door behind her. Dad and I looked around. Things were starting to look more normal to me now. The place was so clean it shined, but I wondered how many people like the cougher in the corner had been in here already today.

  There was a piece of paper on the wall called the Pain Intensity Scale. It was numbered from 0 to 10, with a little description of what each number meant. Beside zero it said No pain; beside ten it said Worst pain imaginable.

  My eye still stung, and the area around it felt puffy, but it was probably only a two or three on that scale. Before the doctor even came in, I decided not to complain about it. What if the last person in here was a ten? When the doctor arrived, he was a lot shorter than I expected. He was also a she.

  “I’m Dr. Guntrum,” she said, closing the door behind her. She sounded very businesslike. Before Dad or I could say our names, she added: “I understand you were poked in the eye.”<
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  I wasn’t sure if I should say “Yes, ma’am,” or “Yes, Doctor.” Dad always insisted I address people the right way. “Yes, Doctor ma’am,” I heard myself saying.

  “Doctor will be fine,” she said briskly. “Let me take a look.”

  She snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and got down to business. She had a good long look at my eye with some kind of magnifying device. Then she made me try to follow her finger and then a light. I could do most of what she asked me, but she still frowned the whole time. I think that was her default setting.

  She put a little plastic paddle in front of my good eye so I could only use my hurt one. “What do you see?” she said.

  Since she was right in front of me, I said, “A doctor.”

  Her frown got bigger. “This happened during a basketball game?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “It was an accident.”

  I’m not sure why I said that last part, but she didn’t respond either way.

  “How often do you play basketball?”

  I wasn’t sure why she was asking. She didn’t seem like much of a hoops fan to me.

  “Oh, he’s always playing,” said Dad behind me.

  What did he mean by that? Did he mean playing instead of working? I wanted to turn around and see what kind of expression he had on his face, but the doctor was holding my chin with strong, cold fingers.

  After that, they took me to another room to have my eye zapped with something that looked like a space laser. I don’t know if it was an X-ray machine, a camera, a microscope, or what, but I was seeing a bright red dot for about ten minutes afterward.

  Dad and I didn’t say much, just went where Dr. Guntrum told us to. Dad always believed in letting people do their job. She wouldn’t tell me how to mow a lawn, he would’ve said if I’d asked him about it.

  Afterward, the doctor went off somewhere and sent us back to the little room to wait for the results.

  Ten minutes later, she came in. She was holding a little plastic bottle in one hand and a small cardboard box in the other. She didn’t close the door behind her this time, so I figured we’d be leaving soon. I was right. Dr. Guntrum stood there and rattled off the results with all the emotion of a teacher reading attendance. As she talked I tried to pick the important words out of her droning voice.

  “Minor injury” seemed important. So did “take these eye drops before bed.” But what she said after that didn’t seem important as much as just weird. “You’ll need to wear this eye patch” — she held up the little cardboard box — “unless you opt for safety goggles. Either way, you can’t play basketball until I say so…. Any questions?”

  You bet I had any questions.

  “An eye patch?” I said.

  She handed me the box, and I opened it. Inside was a small black patch, shiny nylon on the outside and soft cotton on the inside, with maybe some plastic in between. I stretched out the black elastic strap.

  “I have to wear this?” I said.

  “You have to protect your eye until it heals,” she said.

  “But …,” I said. I couldn’t figure out how to finish, but what I was thinking was: How can I play basketball with one eye covered?

  Dad and the doctor both watched as I reluctantly put the patch on. The strap pinched my head a little, and it felt like my eye was in a dark cave. I looked up, feeling stupid. Dr. Guntrum must’ve seen my frown, because she said, “You can get safety goggles.”

  “What do you mean ‘safety goggles’?” I asked.

  “They look like glasses, and they protect your eyes.”

  “I know what they are, I just …” My voice trailed off. I’d seen some players wear them in the NBA, like in those old pictures of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But I’d never seen a kid wearing them.

  “Where do we get them?” said Dad.

  “You can order them on the way out,” she said. “And you can have them delivered express.”

  “How long do I have to wear them?”

  “Until your eye is better. You can come back in a week, and I’ll take a look then.”

  “But a week from today is Sunday,” I said. “I’ll miss next weekend’s practices.”

  “It may be more than a week,” she said, as if I hadn’t said anything at all. “I’ll have to check my schedule.”

  “But those are the last practices before the tournament,” I said.

  Still no response. She really didn’t get it.

  “What can he do until then?” asked Dad.

  “Normal activity,” she said, turning toward him. “Just no contact sports.”

  “Basketball isn’t a contact sport!” I blurted.

  “Clearly, it was today,” she said.

  That made me so mad, I couldn’t see straight. Or maybe that part was still from the poke in the eye. Either way, I was mad.

  “But regular activities are okay?” said Dad.

  “Yes,” she said. “As long as your son avoids additional trauma to the eye, he can resume normal activity.”

  I wanted to shout, “Basketball is my normal activity!” but they weren’t even looking at me anymore. Dr. Guntrum left, and then we did, too. Dad had filled out a bunch of paperwork while we were waiting, but he had to fill out more on the way out.

  I felt dumb and embarrassed standing there with my eye patch on. I adjusted the strap over and over again, just so people would know I didn’t like the thing. Finally, Dad was done. I kept my head down on the way to the exit.

  “Ordered those goggles,” Dad said as the doors shooshed open in front of us. “Should be here Tuesday.”

  “Great,” I said as the doors swept closed behind us. “I can’t wait to stop looking like a pirate and start looking like a bug-eyed freak. I can’t believe I can’t play hoops until she says so!”

  Dad looked over at me, deciding what part of that to answer. It wasn’t even really a question. “At least you can do other things,” he said after a few moments.

  I remembered him asking the doctor about that. Then something occurred to me.

  “Wait,” I said. “Do you mean work?”

  “What?” said Dad. I was too mad to wait for him to finish.

  “You’re glad this happened, aren’t you? I can’t play hoops, but I can sure help you work! That’s what you meant in there, wasn’t it?”

  I couldn’t believe it. But I remembered our long, silent trip to practice the day before, and then I could. I stormed ahead, but all I could do was climb into the truck and wait. Home was too far to walk, and I wasn’t sure which direction to go, anyway.

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Dad said as he climbed in his side.

  I’m being ridiculous? I thought. Take a look in the rearview mirror, Dad.

  I didn’t say a word all the way home, I just looked out the window. Even with one eye covered, I could see a sunny day going to waste.

  Dad dropped me off at home and then headed back to work. Just a few minutes after he left, there was a knock on the door. That’s it, he changed his mind, I thought. He wants me to “resume normal activity” behind a lawn-mower. But then I realized that Dad wouldn’t knock on his own door. I got up to check it out.

  “Hey, One Eye!” said Mike when I opened the door.

  “What up, Cyclops?” said Deuce, standing next to him.

  “How’d you find out?” I said.

  “Small town,” said Mike as I stepped aside to let them in. He had that right. Everyone pretty much knew everyone else’s business down here in Lake Wales. They were both leaning in and looking at my eye patch.

  “Not too bad,” said Mike.

  I figured he was just being nice.

  “Kind of spy-ish,” said Deuce. I figured he was pretending to agree. Then he added, “Let’s have a look underneath.”

  I flipped up the patch and opened my eye as wide as I could so they could see. It still stung a little, and the sudden light made me blink. Once I stopped, things still looked a little off. All in all, it wasn’t too bad. But I wa
sn’t thinking about how it looked.

  “Oh, man!” said Mike.

  “That is red-eye times ten,” said Deuce. “You look like a bad photo!”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said. “Nice to see you, too!”

  “Least it’s still in your head,” said Mike.

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I said, but I felt better already, just having my friends there.

  “Check it out, STAT,” said Mike. He pulled a plastic case out of the big pocket of his cargo shorts.

  I read the cover: Air Scare. It was a new fighter plane video game.

  “Nice!” I said.

  “Sure you can play in your, you know, condition?” said Mike.

  “Yeah, no problem,” I said. “I can beat you two with one eye tied behind my head!”

  “I seriously hope that doesn’t happen,” said Mike.

  I put my patch back on and really did play the game with one eye. I didn’t win, though. Mike ruled the air that day, but he was cool about it.

  After that, we went and sat in the folding chairs in the backyard. The afternoon had cooled down a little, and it was a nice day to just sit and talk about whatever. No surprise we wound up talking about hoops.

  “Think we might have a tourney of our own coming up,” said Deuce, nodding over toward Mike.

  “Oh, yeah?” I said. These two were the main reason I started playing in tournaments myself.

  “Yeah,” said Mike, “it’s two-on-two, just local stuff, down at the rec center.”

  “That sounds pretty cool,” I said. “Maybe I’ll come watch.”

  “Sure you can fit it into your calendar?” said Mike, a little smile appearing on his face. “Big star like you …”

  Sometimes these guys busted on me about being invited to the bigger tournaments. I knew they were just joking, so I played along.

  “Hey, I’ve always got time for the little people,” I said, looking at Deuce, who was close to a foot shorter than Mike and me. “I’m not all me-me-me.”

  “No,” said Deuce, pointing at my patch. “But today you’re all eye-eye-eye!”

  Deuce and I got a pretty good laugh out of that, but Mike didn’t get it at first. That seemed even funnier, so we got a laugh out of that, too. Anyway, it was a nice afternoon, and I kind of needed it. Practices hadn’t been going that great even before I got poked in the eye, with Monster calling me “Pee-wee” and all that. And then there was the thing with Dad.