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In Amongst Trees Only time I ever saw him, he was shooting free throws
At that basket they used to have in the parking lot behind the Mt.
Moriah Church of God.
It was blackberry time, so hot the flowers drooped over on the bricks,
But he kept swishing
Them in, fourteen straight shots while I stood there,
Sweat pouring off of him and the veins on his arms stuck out thick
as pencils.
"Better not get too used to that thing, mister," I said, "that hoop
Is not regulation, it's three
Inches too high, person that put it up was some kinda Mexican or something."
He went on shooting and didn't even look at me when he answered, like
I was a heckler messing at him
from behind the bench.
"You blong to this church?" he said.
"No, sir," I said, "I live over on Harris Street, we're sort of Presbyterians."
"I thought so," he said. "Well, if you think I give a hoot for regulations, you are
sadly mistaken, and if you were
Any kind of Presbyterian at all, you would put
Your faith in the spirit, not the law."
As if to prove it, he pumped in twenty-seven more, and not one of them so much
as touched the rim.
"How many is that?" he said.
"Forty-one," I said.
"I thought so," he said, and he gave a tiny, private kind of smile and tucked
the ball under his arm, turning
To look me straight
In the eye. "How many you think I can do?" he said. "Think I can make
it a hundred?"
"Mister," I said, "what I think is I know
A hustle when I hear one, and besides, all I got on me is some pocket change so don't
waste your time."
He frowned, but the smile hung there like somebody had pasted it on, and the flowers
Jerked straight up like scared
Draftees, and a whole bunch of crows swooped down to strut in the trees, crying
Out worse than Knicks fans at the garden, and the sky,
the sky,
One minute it was
Clear and the next, it was lightning playing
from one end to the other.
"Be not afraid," the shooter said.
"I ain't being afraid," I said, "it's just I'm having trouble catching my breath."
"Tell you what," he said, "I didn't come here to take your money, because this material
World does not interest me, so here's the thing: If I don't make it a even
hundred, without a break,
You can ask me anything you want to, and I will answer, cross
My heart, and if I win it won't cost
You a red cent"
Behind him, a rainbow jumped up,
And the sun was rising and setting all at the same time.
"What's the catch?" I said, but what I was really thinking was I wished I had gone
On to work instead of laying out and calling in sick.
"No catch," he said. "But if everybody bleeved in me from the start, where
would be the fun of it?"
"Okay," I said, "only if you don't mind, I got
to sit down cause it feels like my legs don't want to work right."
"I thought so," he said, and when he stepped back to toe
The line, dead bees
Started falling all around me, spattering on the blacktop like hail. By the time he had
it up to seventy-three, I was burning
With fever, and the goal kept wobbling like a mirage, like I was looking at it through
the flames.
Off in the dunes somewhere, I could hear
Him talking to his self, saying "What father among you, if his son
Asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent,
Or if he asks for an egg,
will give him a scorpion?"
"How many is that?" I said, because along
With everything else I discovered I had lost the gift of sight.
"Ninety-eight," he said.
"I thought so," I said, and laid back in the sand and started splashing
it all over me, trying to break down the fever.
"You ort to see yourself," he said, "I seen some poor
Losers in my time, but you take
the cake.
"Go on," I said, "get it over with, you take
Some kind of pleasure out of torturing people, is that it?"
All of a sudden, the air grew soft and balmy, and a breeze lifted up from Buffalo Creek,
And the sky,
the sky
Was so clean you could see way off to the bell tower at the university.
I stood up, and instead of feeling weak, I knew right off that inside
My body I was fourteen years old again, restless
And crazy, and so full of life it took my breath away. "Here we go," he said, "Ninety-
-and-nine."
But as he went into that flat-footed
Wide-legged crouch
Of his, a jump-jet from Cherry Point came looming in over the pines, stopping almost
on top of us and twirling
Around in a slow circle, so close overhead you could see the pilot,
Glancing around inside like somebody that wanted to ask which way
was Charlotte.
The ball banged
Off the rim and caroomed into a lilac bush next to the Fellowship
Hall, and no sooner did it happen than the Harrier lifted
Away again,
Wobbling off toward Albemarle with little puffs of smoke like something
from a Buck Rogers serial.
"Cheater," the shooter said, "anything I hate, it is a low-life cheat."
"Hey now lissen," I said, "I didn't have anything to do with that, that was
the U. S. Marines."
"Liar!" he screamed, and he raised
His arms and called forth the 1812 Overture and serpents twining
round my legs and whirling grackles
To peck at my privates. But it was all just a shuck
And he knew it, and when he saw I wasn't going to beg, he put a halt
To it right quick, and stumbled over
to the sidelines
And sat down with his head on his arms. "Go on," he said, "I'm a man
Of my word, ask your stupid question."
"Well," I said, "there is one thing that always
Bothered me a little bit and it's what happened there on Golgotha, if it isn't too painful
for you to talk about."
"No, no," he said, "that is my favorite part."
"Kay," I said, "thing is, if you were trying to die for our sins, how come you couldn't pick
something meaner
Than hanging on the cross?"
"You think that wasn't hell?" he said. "You just name me something worse."
"What about," I said, "a miniŽ ball in your guts and you go down
At Gettysburg and you lay there for seventeen
hours before you give up? What
About you just been born and your mama throws
You in a dumpster with the
cord
Wrapped around you and the snow falling in your face and you aint even got a name?
What about
You are the prettiest girl in your class and you come
down with polio just
When they come up with a cure and you flop
Around for twenty-three years more dying every day of your miserable life? What
About you're trying to shoe your favorite mare and
she up and kicks your brain in on
The left side and you have to have somebody thereafter to change
Your diapers
Three times a day and wipe the drool off your face? And what
About, what say you
Get sentenced to
Five years in Central Prison and on the very morning
You're supposed to be released, five of them that hate you and revile you and say
all manner of things against you
Manage finally to lock you up in the shower and butt-fuck you over and over not
Just with their
Dicks but with fists, with bottles, with sticks, and they leave
You with your teeth smashed out on
the tiles
And your arms broke
and you get infected and die from your own
Shit because this is a Friday
And the doctor don't even come around till Monday."
"Was that last one you?" the shooter said.
"None of your beeswax," I said, but the tears were going slow-motion
down my cheeks and some things it don't take a fortune
Teller to guess
What the truth is. "I thought so," he said.
"I'm terribly sorry what happened, but don't everybody think that their life
Is the worst one of all? Where is the wise man? Where
Is the scribe? The Jews demand signs
And the Greeks seek wisdom, but the foolishness of God is stronger than men."
"Is that your answer?" I said. "What kind of damn
Fool answer do you call that?" He shrugged and pulled his sweatshirt back
On and gave out with a kind of loopy grin. "Let him who boasts,"
he said,
Boast of the Lord."
And he picked up the ball one last time and lobbed
In a three pointer from thirty feet out. "Drop around again sometime,"
he said, "we'll go a little one on one."
But he knew better
And so did I: what was the use? So I unbuttoned my shirt and let loose my wings
And they came unfolded like a pair of crossed
flags, pinions
Pumping to vault me on high
way out past the eaves of heaven, back over
Yonder to Harris Street, where the angels and the serpents walk
hand in hand
And the Sons of Man never have to pick apples
Or eat humble pie
And the unbaptized babies have a place to go home to when they die.
James Lineberger |