I Am Charlotte Simmons Page 5

  The Shirt named Mike said to Jojo, “So whatta you say to him?”

  Jojo hesitated. “Nothing.” Pause … mind churning … “I’m just gonna fucking kick his ass all over the fucking court.”

  “Yeah? How?”

  “I don’t know yet. It’s the first time I’ve ever been on the court with the fucking guy.”

  “So what? Seems to me you’re the one who told me how you grew up taking no shit from—” Mike gestured in the general direction of the black players who were standing around. Mike had a swarthier complexion than Jojo and short, curly black hair. At six-four, he was the second shortest man on the court.

  Jojo twisted his mouth again and nodded some more. “I’ll think of something.”

  “When? Seems to me you’re also the one who told me how you can’t dick around. You gotta give’em an instant message.”

  Jojo managed half a smile. “Fuck. I’m bright. Why do I ever tell you these things?”

  He looked away at approximately nothing. Jojo had big hands and long arms, which were considerably bulked up through the biceps and triceps. Proportionately, he wasn’t all that big through the chest and shoulders, but he was certainly big enough to intimidate any ordinary male, especially in view of his height. At this moment, however, he looked whipped.

  He turned back toward Mike and said, “Every year I gotta lock assholes with one a these sneaker-camp hot dogs?”

  “I don’t know. This year you gotta.”

  The two of them didn’t have to dilate on the subject. They already knew the theme and the plot. Jojo was a power forward and the only white starter on the Dupont team. That was why he was a Skin in this game. The Skins were the starting five, and the five Shirts were backups who had only one thing on their minds: cracking the starting team themselves. The Shirt guarding Jojo—and punishing him physically—and talking shit—was a highly touted freshman named Vernon Congers, the usual case of the high school sensation who arrives at college brash, aggressive, and accustomed to VIP treatment, obsequious praise, and houri little cupcakes with open loins. Other grovelers were the most famous basketball coaches in America, including Dupont’s legendary—on the sports pages he was always “the legendary”—Buster Roth. Typically, coaches discovered these young deities at AAU summer games or at summer basketball camps. Both the games and the camps were run expressly for college recruiters. Only hot high school prospects were invited to either. The big sneaker companies, Nike, And 1, Adidas, ran three of the major ones. Vernon Congers had been The Man at last summer’s Camp And 1, where flashy play—“hotdogging”—was encouraged; also cornrows and dreads, if Congers was any example. Jojo understood the breed, since one Joseph J. Johanssen had been The Man himself a few summers ago at Camp Nike. In fact, being white, he had gotten even more “pub”—publicity, of which most youngsters invited to the sneaker camps had been keenly, greedily aware since junior high—than Vernon Congers last summer. Every coach, every agent, every pro scout was looking for the Great White Hope, another Larry Bird, another Jerry West, another Pistol Pete Maravich, who could play at the level of the black players who so completely dominated the game. After all, most of the fans were white. It was unbelievable, the wooing and the cooing and the donging, as it was called, lavished upon big Jojo Johanssen that summer; so much so that he just naturally assumed Dupont would be mainly a warm-up, a tune-up, a little stretch of minor-league ball on the way to the final triumph in the League, as players at Jojo’s level referred to the National Basketball Association. After all, Jojo had set what was probably the all-time sneaker-camp record for donging. At the camps, the college coaches, who were there in droves, were forbidden by NCAA recruiting rules to talk to a player unless the player initiated the conversation. So how could a coach get close enough to a player to make him want to initiate a conversation? Buster Roth—and plenty of others—tagged along whenever Jojo went to the men’s room during the camp’s all-day sessions. Coach Roth was fast. Jojo couldn’t even remember all the times Coach had wound up at the urinal next to his, with his dong out, too, waiting for Jojo to say something. One afternoon there had been seven nationally known coaches standing with dongs unsheathed and unfurled at the urinals flanking Jojo’s, four to his left and three to his right, with Buster Roth at his usual post, at the urinal to Jojo’s immediate right. It turned out Coach could hear better with his left ear. Had there been more urinals, there might have been still more NCAA Division I coach dongs rampant for Jojo Johanssen that afternoon. Jojo never said a word to Coach or any others. But he knew who Coach was—after all, this was the Legendary Buster Roth—and he was nattered and gratified, even moved, by how many times Coach had taken his aging dong out of his pants that summer in homage to The Man of Camp Nike, all nineteen years of him. Of course, once he wooed and won and had your signature on the scholarship contract, which was legally binding, Coach turned into a holy terror. It was the holy terror who was the Legend. It was the holy terror thanks to whom this 14,000-seat basketball hippodrome—officially named Faircloth Arena—was universally known as the Buster Bowl. Even the players called it the Buster Bowl. Ordinarily players called a basketball arena a “box.” But this one had a circular façade and a steep funnel of stands inside. It looked just like an enormous bowl with a basketball court at the bottom.

  Jojo and Mike were the only white players, or bona fide players who were white, on the team this season. The three swimmies were white, making the squad five whites and nine blacks on paper, but they didn’t count. Mike’s real name was Frank Riotto. Mike was short for “Microwave.” One of the black players, Charles Bousquet, had come up with that nickname. By now it was hard to remember he had ever been called Frank.

  The game was about to resume, and it was the Skins’ ball. Jojo was down inside, along with the center, Treyshawn Diggs. On the Dupont basketball team, Treyshawn was The Man. Everything on offense revolved around Treyshawn Diggs. Jojo glanced over at him to make sure of his position. Treyshawn was seven feet tall, agile, well coordinated, and nothing but muscles, a chocolate brown giant with a shaved head. A white player could be just as jacked as Treyshawn, but his light skin would make it all look flat. Not only was Jojo white, but he had very fair skin, and to make things worse, he was blond. That was why he had his hair cut so close on the sides and in back, practically shaved, leaving just that little blond flattop. He wished he could shave his whole head, the way Treyshawn, Charles, and practically all the black players did—excluding Congers—in imitation of the great Michael Jordan. It was an awesome look, an intimidating look, the look of not only Jordan but also one of those wrestlers who has built himself up into a brute of sheer muscle and testosterone—the shaved head, the powerful neck, the bulging shrink-wrapped traps, delts, pecs, lats, and the rest of it. But according to the unspoken protocol of basketball, it was a black thing, the shaved head was, and if you tried to imitate the black players, they lost respect for you, fast. So he had to keep the mesa of unfortunately blond hair on top.

  The ball was back in play. Despite the noise of the crowd, Jojo could hear every shrill screech of the boys’ sneakers as they started, stopped, pivoted, changed direction. The point guard, Dashorn Tippet, fed the ball to the shooting guard, André Walker. The Shirts double-teamed André, so he bounced a pass inside to Jojo—and Congers was all over him again, practically lying on his back, pushing, elbowing, hacking, bumping him with his midsection, and going, “Now what the fuck you gon’ do, Tree? Caint jump, caint shoot, caint move, caint do shit, Tree.”

  The sonofabitch wouldn’t stop! A freshman! Just got here! Made Jojo feel like a tree, rooted to the spot …

  Cantrell Gwathmey and Charles, the Shirts guarding Walker, were pulling back toward Jojo, and he knew he should feed the ball back to Walker, who was open for one of his patented three-pointers, or to Treyshawn, who had muscled his way around Alan Robinson, the Shirt guarding him, but he wasn’t about to, not this time. At the Division I level, basketball players were like dogs. They could smell
fear or nervousness, and Jojo knew that his young nemesis had picked up the scent. He steeled himself for what he had to do.

  He glanced over his shoulder. He was looking for only one thing, Congers’s chest level. Now he had it. He pump faked, as if he were about to try a jump shot. Instead he rammed his elbow straight back, throwing all 250 pounds of himself into the thrust.

  “Ooooooooof,” went Congers. Jojo pushed off, wheeled around him, drove straight to the basket and slam-dunked the ball as hard as he had ever slam-dunked a ball in his life—and held on to the rim of the basket with both hands and swung on it in a triumphant rimbo, as it was called. Bull’s-eye! He had elbowed the bastard right in the solar plexus! He had . .. kicked … his … fucking … ass.

  A roar rose up from the crowd. That coup de grace they couldn’t resist.

  Play had stopped. Treyshawn and André were standing over Congers, who was bent double, both hands to his solar plexus, taking jerky little steps toward the sideline and going, “Uh uh uh uh.” Every time he went uh, the dreadlocks down the back of his neck lurched. He was only eighteen or nineteen, but he looked like an old man with a stroke, the disrespectful sonofabitch.

  Jojo walked up and stood over him, too, and said, “Hey, man, you okay? Whyn’tchoo go over there and stretch out, man. Take a break.”

  Congers looked up and gave Jojo a stare of pure old-fashioned hate, but he was speechless. He was still struggling to get his breath and his locomotion back.

  Dis me? Fuck you! thought Jojo. The roar of the crowd! The rush of euphoria!

  Mike came over with an expression appropriate in the wake of a teammate’s injury. Jojo put on a long face, too.

  “Yo, blood,” said Mike, who considered himself adept at imitating the black players’ fraternal lingo. “I take it all back. You’re one cool motherfucker, motherfucker. That was off the fucking chain.”

  Jojo felt so exultant he could barely keep his voice down. “That dickhead …” He nodded in the general direction of the black players who were standing around. “Any’m say anything?”

  “Nah. Coupl’m gave you a funny look when you slammed it in his fucking face, but whatta they gonna say? The kid was asking for it, and you did it coo-oo-ool, dude.” That was another piece of protocol. The slam with the swing on the rim was the black players’ thing, too. It was a way of saying, “I didn’t just get the better of you, I kicked your ass and shoved your fucking face up it.”

  The two white boys cut their eyes over toward the bench, where Congers was sitting with his head down between his knees. Treyshawn and André were still leaning over him.

  “Don’t turn around,” said Mike, “but Coach’s standing up and looking down here. I bet if it wouldn’t look so fucking bad, he’d be running down the stairs to see what’s happened to his baby.”

  Jojo was dying to look, but he didn’t. The three tennis balls, Coach Buster Roth and two assistant coaches, had to stay up there in the cheap seats, far removed from the players, because it was a violation of NCAA regulations to start basketball practice before October 15, and this was only August. That was also why the boys were playing in shirts and skins. Uniforms, or even the gray practice T-shirts with nothing but DUPONT ATHLETICS on them, would be an indication that what was taking place was … what in fact it was: basketball practice seven weeks before the permissible starting date. Of course there was nothing to prohibit somebody from coming to the campus in August, before school started, and playing a little pickup ball and working out in the weight room—and any player who didn’t make that completely voluntary decision was going to be in deep trouble with Coach Buster Roth.

  “Hey, look what they’re doing,” said Mike. “You’ll like this. They’re bringing in one of the swimmies to take his place.”

  Jojo glanced over. Sure enough, one of the three lanky white boys was up off the bench and hustling out onto the court to play for the Shirts. Charles had dreamed up “swimmies,” too, and now all the real players, black and white alike, called them that. All three swimmies had been excellent prep school players, but they didn’t measure up to Division I standards. On the other hand, they were awesome in the classroom. Under Conference regulations, each team—not each player but the team as a whole—was required to maintain a grade point average of 2.5, which was a C. The three prep school boys’ grade point averages were practically off the chart. They were like those inflated orange flotation devices parents put on young children before they let them go in the water: Swimmies. They were lifesavers, the three prep school boys were. They kept the whole team from drowning academically.

  Charles came walking over to Jojo and Mike and said, “Hey, Jojo, what the fuck’d you do to my man Vernon?” But he was smiling.

  Jojo kept a straight face. “Nothing. I guess he sorta lunged into my elbow.”

  Charles let out a whoop, then turned his back to Congers and lowered his voice. “Sorta lunged into my elbow. I like that, Jojo. Sorta lunged into my elbow. Who says you white boys don’t know how to kick butt? Not me! You won’t catch me lunging into your elbow, man.”

  He went away smiling, but Jojo kept his straight face on tight. He didn’t dare gloat. Inside, he was elated. Approval and perhaps admiration by a black player who was as cool as they come!

  Play resumed, and Jojo breathed easier. The Shirts had switched Cantrell over to guard him, and Charles was sent over to guard the Skins’ other forward, Curtis Jones, who liked to slash through the big guys inside and go to the hole. They let the swimmie guard André Walker. Cantrell gave Jojo a battle, but he was respectful about it, and so Jojo was content to stick to Coach’s game plan, which was for him to set up picks, block shots, rebound, and feed the ball to Treyshawn and the other scoring machines.

  As the game wore on, Jojo began to hear more bursts of cheering and applause. It was as if his TKO of Congers had turned the crowd on. He’d hear people singing out names: “Treyshawn!” … “André!” … “You the man, Curtis!” … Somebody yelled, “Go go, Jojo!”—a familiar cry here at the Buster Bowl when the season was on. During a break in the game, Jojo checked out the stands. Thousands! Part of the charade of the “pickup game” was to leave the doors to the arena open and let anybody wander in. But who were these people? University employees? People from town? Where did they come from? How did they know? They were like those gawkers who seem to—bango!—rise up from out of the concrete and asphalt wherever there’s a car wreck or a street brawl. Now they had materialized by the thousands in the Buster Bowl to watch a game of Shirts and Skins in the middle of the afternoon. The young gods of basketball. Ranked first in the country last season, the fifth Buster Roth Dupont team to reach the Title Two in his fourteen years here … three national championships … nine teams in the Final Four. What an extraordinary elevation Jojo Johanssen dwelled upon! How far above the great mass of humanity his talent and fighting spirit had already taken him! Oh, he knew who some of the people in the stands were, the usual, inevitable, freelance groupies, for example. But sometimes scouts from … the League … would materialize, scouts and agents … looking for a piece of those who might reach the League and make millions … tens of millions … But then Vernon Congers popped into his head, and he lost heart. Congers hadn’t vanished from his life, he was merely off the court …

  During the breaks, Mike kept drifting over to the stands and chatting up this girl with a storm of blond hair sitting in the first row. You couldn’t miss her. Her hair was very curly but very long. It gave her a wild look.

  Jojo said, “Like what you see over there, Mike?”

  “You know me. I’m always friendly with the fans.”

  “Who is she?”

  “She’s a senior. She’s doing something with freshman orientation. All the freshmen come in tomorrow for orientation.”

  “You know her?”

  “No.”

  “You know her name?”

  “No. I know what she looks like.”

  Freshman orientation. Jojo had never gone t
hrough freshman orientation, because basketball recruits were exempt from things like that. They barely saw nonathlete students except in the form of groupies, fawning admirers or students who happened to be in the same classes they were. If you played basketball for Buster Roth, you got your freshman orientation on the court. Well … one freshman got his orientation just now. That was the last time Vernon Congers was going to Yo! Tree! Jojo Johanssen … He lost heart again. Maybe it was only going to get the kid more fired up.

  Finally Coach signaled from way up there in the stands that practice was over, and the Shirts and Skins left the court. The fans descended from the stands in a pell-mell rush and thronged the players. So easy! No security guards to impede their worship! They could touch them! Jojo was surrounded. He was mainly aware of the crop of ballpoint pens and notebooks, notepads, cards, pieces of paper—one hoople held up the ripped-off corner of a cardboard NO SMOKING sign—thrust up toward him … by the little people way down there. Nearby, a fan kept yelling, “Great give-and-go, Cantrell! Great give-and-go, Cantrell!” As if Cantrell Gwathmey had the faintest interest in some hoople’s learned analysis of his play. Jojo kept walking slowly toward the locker room as he signed autographs, carrying a great buzzing hive of fans with him. There were a couple of obvious groupies, their bosoms jacked up by trick bras, who kept smiling and saying “Jojo! Jojo!” and searching his eyes for a look deeper than the ones he gave to ordinary fans. Over there was Mike. Being a second-stringer, he didn’t attract a real hive, but he sure had attracted the blonde with all the wild curly hair. She was giving him that same groupie grin, searching his eyes for a look loaded with meaning profound. As usual Treyshawn had the biggest hive of all. Jojo could hear him saying, “No problem, Sugar,” his slacker-cool way of saying “You’re welcome” to girls who thanked him for his autograph. To Treyshawn, all females, any age, any color, were named Sugar. Consciously, the players regarded this hiving as a tedious fate that befell them as part of their duty as public eminences. Unconsciously, however, it had become an addiction. If the day should come when the hives disappeared and they were just a group of boys walking off a basketball court, they would feel empty, deflated, thirsty, and threatened. By the same token, bored and irked by it all as they were, somehow they never failed to notice which player attracted the biggest hive. In fact, any of them could have ranked hive sizes, player by player, with startling accuracy.