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regal nonchalance that I would later understand as the defining trait of all the great players who’ve come out of SoCal, from John Williams to Paul Pierce.
    â€œWe’re fucked,” said Overton.
    At Sizzler, Coach Boyd paid for three all-you-can eat buffetdinners and everybody took turns with the plates. The waitresses looked annoyed, but they didn’t say anything. I couldn’t eat. I kept looking up and seeing Trinity’s press in front me. Back at the motel, we played cards for a couple hours, and then Coach Boyd suggested we all go to bed. He was sleeping down in the van. A few minutes after we turned out the lights, Tully and Overton shuffled out the door. I couldn’t sleep, so I spent most of the night in the bathroom, trying to finish The Call of the Wild , but my mind kept drifting to the game. At dawn I went out on the landing and saw Tully and Overton passed out in lounge chairs by the pool. They spent the rest of the morning smoking out in the bathroom.
    On our way to the game, I had trouble breathing. When we got to the gym, a few Trinity players came down from the bleachers to say hello and wish me luck. In the locker room, I kept lacing and relacing my high-tops. The buzzer sounded and everybody went out for warm-ups. I couldn’t move. Coach Boyd asked what was wrong, but the words were stuck in my throat. “I think you’re hyperventilating,” he said. “I’ll go find you a bag.”
    He came back with the whole team. By this time I was sobbing.
    â€œJesus Christ, Higginbottom. You’re worse than Weaver.”
    â€œFuck you,” said Weaver, and everybody laughed because he never cursed. He grabbed a ball and walked out of the locker room.
    â€œI couldn’t find a bag,” said Coach Boyd, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Just take it easy, okay? This is all part of . . . remember that thing I said on the beach?”
    â€œI don’t want to go out there,” I said.
    â€œNeither do I,” said Tully. “Should I pull the fire alarm?”
    â€œCome on, now,” said Overton. “We can do this.”
    â€œYeah, it’ll be our one shining moment,” said Tully.
    â€œYou’re right,” said Overton, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. “I’m fucking high.”
    â€œHey,” said Coach Boyd, in his sternest voice. “You guys really shouldn’t be getting high before games.”
    I sat there for a while, with everyone waiting on me. Coach Boyd kept assuring me that he had “been there.”
    â€œFuck it,” said Tully. “I’m pulling the alarm.”
    â€œMight as well,” said Pham.
    â€œAll I want is a nap,” said Overton.
    Coach Boyd looked at all of us. “Are you guys serious?”
    Tully disappeared. The next thing I heard was the hammering of a fire bell, and we all evacuated the gym.
    The game only got postponed for an hour—I ended up with six points and twelve turnovers and Jelani Curtis dunked twice on my head—but during that hour, in the parking lot, as Coach Boyd apologized to tournament officials, I felt a miraculous sense of relief, because I knew it was all over, my future. Later that night, while everyone went to Sizzler, I sat alone in the room, watching the local news. The plan was to relax and “collect” myself, as Coach Boyd suggested, and I guess that’s what happened, because instead of thinking about basketball, I focused all my attention on the local news anchor, her lips and the curve of her neck. I felt something rising in me, a sense of life maybe, this life, here, in a motel by the sea, and just like that, my Gnostic phase was over. I jerked off three times in an hour. Ad majorem Dei gloriam.

Bermuda
    I once chased a girl to Bermuda. Her name was Karen and we met ten years ago, by accident, shortly after she moved to Los Angeles. At the time I was twenty-three and living with too many friends in Echo Park.