Teammates Page 5
classmates yelling louder and louder with each one.
“How are we gonna do this?”
“Together,” the team replies, huddling tightly around Coach Jason. “That’s the only way we’ve ever done it,” he rasps. They press their fists tightly on his head.
“One, two, three, TOGETHER!” The whole crowd yells it with them.
The news cameras zoom and click and buzz as they take the court, exchanging fives and hugs with their friends and rivals on the other squad.
The crowd quiets. The ball goes up. The crowd screams. Henry tips it forward instead of back, towards the bleachers. Kevin chases it down and changes directions in one motion with an around-the-back dribble and streaks toward the basket. He looks behind him to his right as if dropping the ball back to his trailing center, but then lofts it toward the basket.
He has to contort his body in the air to reach the pass, but he catches it, and with a kick of his legs, Jerome turns toward the rim and slams the ball through the rim so hard his hands hurt. He holds on for a second, then slides down with his hands still raised as the crowd bursts from their seats with a monstrous roar.
Jerome closely shadows the Victoria Park player even as he scoops up the ball and steps out of bounds to throw it in.
“It’s on! It’s on,” Coach Jason screams from the bench as Henry unleashes their new full court press. The old wooden bleachers tremble as students bounce and stomp and yell.
The inbounder throws it to his teammate on Kevin’s side and Jerome bounds over for the trap, his arms flailing. VP's guard has barely caught the pass and tries to return it immediately to reverse court but Isaiah is there for the easy steal. He rises for the lay up and the inbounder can only slap at his arms on the way up.
The ball banks into the hoop. The whistle blows. And one. Kevin and Jerome shake Isaiah with joy. The gym teachers streak down the opposite baseline as the crowd shakes the bleachers and the baggy-clothed gangsters in the corner fall onto the court.
“They can’t stop us this year bro,” Jerome yells ecstatically, forehead-to-forehead with his best friend. With his arms around both of them, Kevin screams…
“LET’S GOOOOOOO!”
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About The Author
Jeff Roulston, also known as Jeff The Writer, is a social service worker, coach and proud Torontonian. He is a graduate of Oakwood University, an Historically-Black College, where he studied communications, played varsity basketball and edited the Spreading Oak newspaper. His poetry, short stories, essays and articles have appeared in The Huntsville (Ala.) Times, Urbanology, HipHopCanada.com, Sway, OmitLimitation.com, BKNation.org and the anthology F-You: The Forgiveness Project, Memoirs of Violence and Compassion. He has been interviewed by Matt Galloway on CBC Radio Toronto’s Metro Morning about the bleak job market for recent college graduates and featured, along with co-workers, in a Toronto Star article about his work with inner city youth.
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Other Books By Jeff Roulston
Toronto The Good. Poetry Chapbook, published September 2013
Second Chances and Other Short Stories, published February 2014
There Goes The Neighbourhood and Other Short Stories, published May 2014
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Connect With Jeff
…On the web: https://www.jeffroulston.com/
…by e-mail: info@jeffroulston.com
…on Twitter: @JeffRoulston
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