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There are always distractions that can stop you. You’ve got to fight through and keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the ball in your mind and watch the court. See it develop. I’m going to work now. Keep working on the stairs, and maybe tomorrow will be your day.”

    It wasn’t the next day that I won the stair challenge, nor was it the day after that. Looking back now I can’t remember how long after the Michael Jordan’s nose debacle that my accomplishment came, but I do remember when it happened I kept my mouth shut and took care of business.

    There was that time in life when things fell into place. When if you worked hard you beat the stairs. It was a great theory, that is, if you worked hard you got what you needed. Then there came the time that no matter what happened and how hard you tried, the stairs beat you. Looking back, I can’t remember the day I beat the stairs, but I can point to the minute in time when all the stairs of the world started beating me, when everything changed and never went back, no matter how hard I tried.

    My mother was running some errands and my father took my little sister Katie and I into town to get a few things to start the new school year. I needed a haircut and Katie needed shin guards for her first season playing soccer. While I was getting a haircut, my sister was combing her doll’s hair. The doll, Karen, was wearing the same pink skirt and white shirt as my sister. The doll also had the same blonde curly hair that Katie and my mother shared.

    As I sat in that chair getting my haircut, in the mirror I could see Katie grooming her doll and I saw my father staring at the newspaper in his lap. I don’t think he turned one page. His eyes were on the New York Times but his mind was back in his office, working. We caught his mind there all the time.

    After my haircut, Dad bought Katie’s shin guards and she and I conned him into getting us some big sloppy ice cream cones. Then we were ready to go home. We went back across the plaza, and when we were about to cross the street to our car, my father warned Katie to be careful not to get any ice cream on her doll. But Katie had left Karen in the ice cream shop. When she realized her loss, Katie let loose a shriek that I swear could have melted our ice cream faster than this unusually hot late August day.

    I told them both, “It’s no problem. I’ll get Karen and meet you back at the car.”

    “Thanks, Kevin,” Dad said. “We’ll wait for you right here.”

    “Naw, you don’t have to do that,” I insisted. “You guys wait in the car and get the air conditioner cranking,” I suggested.

    Katie screamed. “No, I want to see Karen.” Her face was red and her eyes glistened with tears. She was past the point of no return, so there wouldn’t be any reasoning with her.

    “Okay,” I said to them both. “I’ll get the doll and wave to you from the ice cream store and then you guys get the AC going.”

    “That sounds like a plan,” my father agreed. “Hey,” he added, “make sure you’re careful crossing the street.”

    “C’mon, Dad, I’m almost 11. I know how to cross a street.”

    “Of course you do,” he said and smiled. “I’m just saying it because I care about you.”

    I sprinted over to Chico’s Ice Cream and saw Karen perched on the counter. I grabbed the doll and stepped outside. I waved it in the air back and forth and my father and Katie waved back. I couldn’t see Katie’s face but I try to remember how relieved she must have felt. She knew Karen was safe and she could enjoy her sloppy ice cream cone. I also always remember what my father said about caring about me.

    A black car zoomed around the corner faster than any I had ever seen. Oddly enough, everything happened in slow motion. The windows on the car were smoked dark, but one window wasn’t completely closed and you could see long red brittle hair in contrast to the dark car. There was screaming and hollering coming