The Eye of The Universe Read online

And I still don’t recommend you try a long shot unless the Panthers are so far ahead that missing the basket won’t matter.”

  Long shots were Sig’s weak point. He could place a ball in a basket effortlessly, backwards even, as long as it was a close shot, but if he was even a few yards away, that all changed.

  “I made a couple of long shots today.” Surprise was evident in his voice. “Somehow.” He added, honestly, “By accident.”

  “Yeah, you did.” I’d noticed and been as surprised as everyone else, including, evidently, Sig himself. “You’re great now that the season is about over. Must be exasperating.”

  “I hate to think what we’ll be like after the winter’s break. Bunch of babies.” Then he grabbed me with both arms and rolled us over so he was on top and soon neither of us gave a thought to basketball.

  I watched the weather reports carefully after that. Thankfully, the snow held off for a few weeks, so I was able to stand on the sidewalk wearing a warm coat and mittens and cheer Sig and the Panthers on. I was a faithful cheerleader, showing up no matter how cold it was even after the other girl-friends and wives had given up, yelling and screaming at the top of my voice, uncaring what a spectacle I made or that I was alone. Until the man in the overcoat arrived.

  Now, as I watched him watch the team, he did something unexpected. He moved. It was almost creepy because his movements were like those of the panther the team was named after. Like the way Sig moved. Softly sinuous, and dangerous, he went straight towards the middle of the court, forcing the game to stop. I found myself waiting for something terrible to happen when the guys realized their game had been interrupted, but nothing did. He simply waited and the Panthers simply stopped the game.

  They waited for him to speak. I moved closer to listen.

  “I know of a gym.” Words said quietly and he let them sink in. “You can use it at no charge.” The team waited, they knew there’s always a catch. “You guys are good.”

  They looked at each other, thoughts flicking among them. Could it be that there was no catch beyond that someone had noticed them? Was this man a scout who’d rented a court to see what they could do? They moved closer, surrounding him, blocking him from my view. But I could still hear him speak. “It’s a couple of blocks away.”

  Sig’s hands dropped to his hips in disgust because he doesn’t like being played and this man was obviously doing just that. “There’s no gym within five miles of here.”

  The man smiled, a slight lifting of the lips. “It’s there. In an abandoned warehouse.”

  Sig said, uncertainly, “Lots of those around.”

  The man’s smile grew somewhat. “You Panthers are good. Not good enough yet, but that can be corrected with practice if you have access to a gym. I happen to have one.”

  I read Sig’s thoughts easily, even from a distance. We almost always know what the other is thinking. So I knew he was becoming more and more inclined to believe the man was a scout. Perhaps he, or some other Panther, would be recruited if the man in the overcoat liked what he saw. He already thought enough of the team to provide a gym in which to strut their stuff.

  The rest of the team also read Sig’s thoughts and they liked the way he was thinking so it took only moments to gather their belongings, after which we all followed the stranger a block and a half to what until then had been a potato warehouse.

  Signs of recent activity were evident. There were tire tracks in the dust, and someone had cleaned up the debris that always accumulates around abandoned buildings. We went inside and I gasped.

  The building was in better repair than I’d have believed possible, and the basketball court that took up the entire main room would do justice to any professional team in the country. It filled the room from wall to wall. The only decoration beyond the baskets consisted of a clock and a huge calendar and even those things were on the wall so as not to take up any floor space. No room for spectators. The only place from which to watch was the short entrance hallway where I stood, holding back when the others went inside. I hugged the wall and watched.

  The man in the overcoat waved the Panthers towards the center of the court, indicating a door behind which there was everything a professional team could wish for. Then he simply folded his arms and indicated that they should begin. As soon as they’d arranged themselves into practice teams, he joined me in the hall and leaned against the wall near me to watch. He turned to me as soon as he was comfortable with their play. “My name is Yaxun.”

  The accent was slight but it was there. I didn’t recognize it but something about him put me off enough that I decided not to ask where he was from. I merely nodded. “Beth.”

  “You and Sig are together.” Not a question, a statement, which meant he’d done his homework, which in turn meant the Panthers were important enough for him to have learned everything about them. My hopes for the future rose along with thoughts of Sig being picked up by a professional team.

  “You can’t be a part of his future, Beth,” Yaxun said bluntly.

  His words caused actual pain. When I recovered, instead of accepting what he’d said, I got angry. I opened my mouth to ask why in his opinion I wasn’t good enough for Sig, but he’d turned away and was headed for the court to talk with the team, who in the short time since his arrival, had accepted him as a kind of de facto coach.

  I watched the game. At first I watched because I like the dance-like moves that are the precision ballet that is basketball. But as time passed, I found myself watching Yaxun more then the Panthers. His concentration on the team was complete. Eerie, even. Eyes sharp, lips pursed. He saw every move they made. Sometimes he nodded, sometimes he frowned. But always, he watched.

  Only when they took a break, did he turn to me, seemingly forgetting our earlier exchange that had put me on the outside of Sig’s future, and said, “They may be good enough. I hope they are.” Then, in a scratchy voice that turned somehow scary, he added, “They have to be. They just have to.” Then his attention was caught once again by the Panthers, and I might as well not have existed.

  I saw the Panthers play as hard as they’d ever done, but as I watched, my gaze roved over the newly-renovated warehouse. How had this been done without anyone knowing? And I’d have known, no question there. The neighborhood was a tight-knit community in more ways than just generations of the same families living in those few blocks. It was also a physical place consisting of streets and buildings. The kinds of buildings depended on what streets they fronted. Deering Street was single story brick bungalows, Fifth was more recent frame two-story homes, Main was stores and apartment buildings and the street just past Main, Newton street, was warehouses. Everyone knew everything that happened in the neighborhood. Someone would have started a rumor that would have reached Mom, and she’d have told me. The fact that she hadn’t meant that this new minted gym qualified as the best kept secret since the atom bomb.

  When the game ended, the Panthers were ecstatic, laughing and giving each other high fives over this lucky break that had somehow just fallen into their laps. As Sig and I left, the last two people to do so, I wondered whether there would be payment expected for this gift. If so, what form would it take? Then I shook all negative thoughts away and began planning for a future of following a pro basketball player around the country.

  Sig fell into bed as soon as we reached the apartment and into sleep immediately. As I lay against his warm body, I thought back over the day. It could be my imagination but the Panthers seemed to play better, sharper in just those few hours since arriving at the gym. And they improved the next day, playing long into the night. And the night after that. And the one after that, going on practically no sleep until they were walking Zombie.

  “You can’t afford to lose your job,” I said to Sig over our usual Friday night spaghetti dinner. “Unless Yaxun has mentioned going pro.” Sig shook his head, shrugged as if it didn’t matter, and twirled
more spaghetti around his fork, gulping it down the way marathon runners do when they are packing carbs before a race. “What’s going on, Sig? Don’t you care about anything except basketball any more?”

  I rose and stood behind him because this had to be discussed. If there was no future in basketball, then Sig had better start getting more sleep. I gave some thought as to how to open such a delicate conversation. “Yaxun is a very strange man.”

  “You got that right.” Sig laughed so abruptly I jumped. “The guy’s wacko.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely. He says things. Crazy things.”

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Nothing to worry about.” He didn’t look at me. “It doesn’t matter, anyway, all that’s important is that he got us a place to play.” He was deliberately avoiding me which mean there was more and he didn’t want to tell me what. He finished his dinner, rose and brushed past, and the next thing I heard was the shower running. By the time I’d cleaned up the kitchen and joined him, he was asleep.

  But the next day I cornered Yaxun. I looked him straight in the eye. What’s going on that you haven’t told me?”

  If need be, I’d pin him to the wall but that proved unnecessary. He took a long time before answering. “Are you sure you want to