The Book of Joe

Alarmed, Carly steps forward, but I catch her arm and hold her back.
    Jared helps Wayne off with his overcoat and then hands him the basketball. He stands in the half-court circle, spreading his fingers out and pressing them along the seams of the ball, closing his eyes and swaying from side to side almost imperceptibly, the way skyscrapers supposedly do. The room is filled with the kind of loaded silence particular to large, empty rooms, like the simmering instant before an explosion that never comes. “Man,” Wayne says, his voice soft and tremulous. “It feels exactly the same. Like I could open my eyes and be eighteen again.” I feel a hot pressure build up and lodge itself in my throat. He begins to dribble the ball, and the sound reverberates loudly in the empty gym. Even in Wayne’s decrepit condition, devoid of any real strength, you can see the shell of his once remarkable athleticism in the way he bounces the ball back and forth in front of himself, his wrists loose, his fingers fanned out, and in the way he slowly moves toward one of the painted foul lines on the side, dribbling all the while. He stands at the line for a moment, studying the backboard, holding the ball up to his chest. “Let’s see,” he says, more to himself than to any of us.
    He bounces the ball four more times, bends his knees, and releases a foul shot. His form, even after all these years, is perfect, and it’s a graceful shot, right on target, but three or four feet too short. “Air ball,” Wayne mutters. “I don’t believe I shot a fucking air ball.”
    “Move a little closer,” I suggest while Jared grabs the rebound.
    “Give it to me again,” he says impatiently. “I just need to calibrate.”
    Jared tosses him a bounce pass, and Wayne sets up for the shot again. He bounces the ball four times, and I remember that this was his ritual back when he’d played too. This time he brings the ball up from down below his waist as he bends his knees and slightly arches his back. The ball sails over the front of the rim and drops through the net with a soft, satisfying swish. “There we go!” Wayne’s voice echoes loudly across the gym.
    “Nothing but net,” Jared says, grabbing the rebound and tossing it back to Wayne.
    Wayne smiles and takes a few more shots, sinking each one with an identical swish. “He’s doing it with his eyes closed!” Jared says.
    I step forward and see that this is actually true. Wayne looks at the basket between shots, but from the moment Jared tosses back the rebound, his eyes close in an almost rapturous bliss. “Foul shots are aimed with the body,” he recites. “Not the eyes.”
    After a few more shots, Wayne suddenly lists to the side, and Carly and I jump forward to help him back into the wheelchair. His faced is bathed in a sheen of sweat that shines in the meager light just like the polyurethane finish on the gym floor, and his brow is furrowed with exertion, but his smile is ear to ear. “I’ve still got it,” he says, hoarsely jubilant as Carly lays the overcoat on him like a blanket.
    “Yes, you do,” I say. “You ready to go home now?”
    “Nah,” Wayne says, brushing his head with his sleeve.
    “Shoot around for a few minutes. I just want to rest and then take a few more shots.”
    I pick up the ball, walk over to the top of the key, and put up a shot. It hits the back of the rim and bounces off to the left, where Jared catches it. He pulls it into his chest and releases a powerful line drive of a shot that swishes forcefully through the hoop, snapping the net with authority. “Nice shot,” I say, feeding him the rebound. He dribbles back and off to his right and then puts up another shot from behind the three-point arc, with the same powerful, practiced motion. Swish. Impressed, I toss him the ball again and then watch, dumbfounded, as he sinks another six shots in a row.
    “I thought your father said you didn’t make the team,” I say.
    “I never tried out.” Jared grabs my pass and launches another perfect shot from long range. “It’s something of a sore point with my dad.”
    I catch the rebound and hold on to the ball. “Why didn’t you try out?”
    He shrugs. “Couldn’t be bothered.”
    “Did you think you wouldn’t make it?”
    He walks over to me, snatches the ball from my hands, and sprints toward the basket, dribbling. As he approaches, he tosses the ball lightly against the backboard and leaps into the air, catching it as it comes down,