Whitechurch Read Online Free PDF Page B

passing the
    ball back and forth,
    first easy, gradually with more pepper.
    Like, you want to be buried alive with her, or will one of you be dead
    and the other one’s supposed to just
    jump in?
    He sighs, whips me the ball.
    Oh, I don’t know, he says. Just more
    the spirit
    of the idea that I like,
    more than the
    practical side of it.
    Know what I mean?
    Well, I whip it back, and tell him I do. He truly
    can’t see
    life post-Lilly.
    But I still don’t think the answer
    is Lilly post-life.
    There is no practical side, Pauly.
    Pauly withdraws, backs away,
    stretches his hands out toward the sky.
    He wants the ball.
    I pull back and heave it.
    Passing, we do fine.
    We are excellent passers.
    He gathers it in, does his one well-rehearsed
    move,
    a quick three steps
    and two dribbles east-west across the lane, and up goes his hook shot.
    Doesn’t hit the net,
    the rim,
    the backboard.
    If it were possible to miss the ground,
    that shot would have.
    Pauly looks at me and I look at him and I smile my good-bye.
    I don’t see why people have to leave, he says.
    We don’t need that, you and me.
    It’s like the whole world
    happens to us right here, doesn’t it?
    I catch the hard throw and I throw the hard
    throw
    and he throws again harder still.
    I ratchet up.
    He ratchets up and up again.
    I don’t want to throw the ball this hard
    anymore.
    It is stinging my hands,
    and the last one very nearly broke
    through my grip and bashed me
    in the face.
    But I keep on, pushing up the speed.
    I don’t know, Paul. Maybe it’s not such a bad
    thing,
    even if it means friends,
    and well, friends ,
    gotta split.
    What is a friend for, after
    all?
    Is it to make the bad parts of life
    feel a little better
    by smoothing them over?
    Or is it to help a person through
    the truth
    as painlessly as possible
    while still
    allowing it to be
    the truth?
    I want my friend to feel better,
    not worse.
    So why do I throw the ball as hard as I possibly
    can?
    He laughs as he catches it, and
    whips it back, harder.
    I rear back, more like a pitcher than a
    basketball player.
    As soon as it leaves my hand I know
    this is it, this is the one, this is the break-through ball that he cannot catch, and it is deadly
    face-high
    and I don’t know why I did it
    and I want to pull it back.
    I can even feel my body language,
    the way you do that when you throw something
    but you still need to control it as it flies.
    I’m pulling it,
    then steering it,
    past his head one way,
    then the other then over
    his head, but it will not listen
    and I am sick.
    As Pauly drops his hands to his sides.
    Not even attempting
    to catch it.
    Ducking it instead, at the last instant.
    Ping , ping , and ping over again
    as the ball bounces off away
    beyond Pauly.
    I must have my face all screwed up, because he
    is there,
    squatting on his haunches, laughing.
    He stands, runs down the ball, and returns. He smiles.
    Checks his watch.
    Gotta go, kid.
    Got a date.
    He acts like this is not important.
    I can’t allow it.
    I’m happy for you, Paul, I say calmly. Happy for me?
    How ’bout, for a change
    you be happy for you?
    He smiles more intensely,
    like to show me the way,
    of happy.
    Happy you be,
    light you see,
    when finally
    Oakley makes three.
    Pauly likes rhyme. Good for Pauly.
    No, thank you, I say more calmly,
    but not a lot more calmly.
    You want Lilly, he says. Bounces the ball once.
    No, I want the ball. Give me the ball.
    You want me, he says happily. Bounces the ball
    once.
    I want the ball.
    And Oakley makes three.
    No. I just
    want
    the ball. Paul.
    Give
    me
    the ball
    Paul.
    It’s my shot.

Just Talkin’
    I ’M NOT MY BROTHER’S keeper, I have to keep reminding myself. I’m barely my own. “I am so psyched,” Pauly says.
    “Cool,” I say.
    “Psyched,” he repeats. He keeps chattering his teeth together on purpose, making a castanet sound. But he repeatedly nods, nods at me, trying to force the same kind of enthusiasm out of both of us. As he