Two weeks after his conversation with Jimmy, the team remained undefeated and continued to maintain a share of first place in their conference. High school basketball games were always played on Tuesdays and Fridays, and today’s away game would tip off around 6:30 pm with the team bus leaving around 4:45 pm. They would be playing a non-conference team from the Lehigh Valley in a small gym with a hostile crowd. Classes let out around 3:15 pm, and Richie headed over to the school auditorium where the junior class was practicing for a performance of “Our Town.” On game days, he pretty much kept to himself, so he quietly slipped into the back row of the theatre and followed the rehearsal. Listening intently as the cast went through their lines, it suddenly dawned on him that play rehearsal was similar to basketball practice. Ball players worked on their individual skills and integrated them into a team concept, while actors worked on their character development within an ensemble cast. One strived for wins and the other for applause, with perfection being the ultimate goal for both. As he slipped out of the theatre and headed for the locker room, Richie had gained a newfound respect for the performing arts and the discipline that was required to be an actor.
After gathering his gear and kibitzing with teammates, Richie was the last to get on the team bus. Being Last on board was a ritual that started with their first road win and continued throughout the season. In the front seats were the head coach, the assistant coach, and the team manager, followed by the varsity players and the all-girl cheerleading team at the back of the bus. Jimmy saved a seat for Richie toward the back, and ironically, sitting right behind the point guard and small forward were cheerleaders Estelle Dinkins and Sally Dill, chatting away. Both Jimmy and Richie rode in relative silence, their game faces on, running through the game strategy as their pre-game ritual had begun.
The Mayfair bandbox gym, whose bleacher filled rabid fans were almost on top of the basketball court, was rocking as their hometown team held a sizeable lead over the visitors midway through the fourth quarter, Mayfair was a steel town where the majority of male students went right from graduation into the mills or related steel industries. Sports were everything in Mayfair, a point of civic pride in this blue-collar town. They were perennial champions in both football and basketball, where they had a decided home advantage over the competition with their ardent fans, hostile atmosphere, and homer referees.
Nothing seemed to be going right, and with five minutes left in the game, Richie called a timeout. After multiple technical fouls, Richie’s head coach and assistant coach had been thrown out of the game in the third quarter and were sitting in the visitors’ locker room, stewing, after protesting the hometown referee's bad calls. The student team manager was now the de facto coach of the team, and he, like the players, was waiting for Richie to say something.
As the team silently gathered around him in front of the visitor’s bench, the noise from the home crowd was deafening. Richie waited before speaking. Suppressing the pent up anger within him from watching his team's poor play and the lousy refereeing, Richie first looked around the team huddle at the faces of his dejected teammates. Then, looking up, and surveying the stands where the crowd was chanting, ”Mayfair, Mayfair he then shook his head and looked back at his teammates, who were still waiting for him to say something. Instead of speaking, an amusing smile slowly appeared on his face as he started to shake his head from side to side before a chuckle turned into uncontrollable laughter, surprising his fellow players and the team manager. When he finally stopped laughing the first thing out of his mouth was, “What a shit hole place to play in.” This crowd looks like they got hit with an ugly stick,” which immediately elicited wiseass responses and laughs from his teammates. The tension having been broken, Richie spoke again, this time in a calm voice that cut through the noise of the home crowd. “We’re down 20 points to a bunch of Dip Shits that we can beat. So why don’t we forget the crowd, the referees, and play our game!” Then changing gears Richie’s voice picked up in intensity, “Let’s full court press these assholes and trap them all over the court.” Taking the measure of his basketball brethren, who were now nodding their heads, Richie’s voice hardened as he maintained eye contact with each player, “I don’t care how tired you are. Suck it up.” The courtside horn blared, signaling the end of the timeout and as the starting five were about to break the huddle, Richie uttered the most famous lines of the season, “When we walk off this court, all I want to hear is silence. Got it? Now let’s kick their ass!”
Galvanized into action, for the next five minutes, Richie and his teammates played the best stretch of basketball they would ever play during their high school careers as they whittled the Mayfair lead down to one point with ten seconds left on the clock. With no time outs, Richie took the inbound pass, avoided two Mayfair defenders and drove the length of the court hitting Jimmy with a left handed behind the back bounce pass on a backdoor cut to the basket, which Jimmy caught with his right hand, swept under the rim and deposited into the hoop with two seconds left on the clock. Time expired as the building fell silent.
As soon as the game was over, the team, coaches, and their cheerleaders made a beeline for the bus. Unlike other away game venues where they would shower and change into street clothes in the visitors' locker room, this time they left the gym with their uniforms on their backs, getting out of Dodge as quickly as they could. Oddly enough, there were no fan incidents as they left the gym en masse to the stunned silence of the remaining Mayfair supporters.
Unlike other away game victories, this time the team bus pulled out of the Mayfair parking lot with no raucous yelling and screaming. Everyone on the bus, including the driver, felt as if they had just returned home from the war, and rather than collectively bragging about their experiences, they internalized them. The cheerleaders were no longer segregated in the back of the bus but seated amongst the players on the ride home. The first song to change the atmosphere was started by the captain of the cheerleaders, a single voice at first, she was slowly joined by one singer after another, until the entire bus including the coaching staff, broke out in song; each contributing to their unique version of the Shirelles hit single, ‘’Dedicated to the One I Love.”
Richie, who acknowledged that he couldn’t carry a tune, but loved to sing, sat next to Estelle Dinkins, and in the row behind and across from him sat Jimmy Holt and Sally Dill. Songs and lyrics that were easy to remember, from singers like Buddy Holly to Ben E. King, filled the bus with music during the 45-minute ride home. As soon as the team bus turned onto Highland Ave., about three minutes from the high school, a full-throated version of the 1959 hit ‘Poison Ivy’ broke out amongst the triumphant travelers. When the bus finally came to a stop in front of the high school gym, as tradition would have it, they all departed singing and humming the Coasters' hit single.
After exiting the bus, Richie showered and dressed quickly. Leaving the varsity basketball athletic cage amongst the whooping and hollering of his victorious teammates, he scrambled up the steps, out of the locker room, taking them two at a time, striding across the darkened ‘Exit Only’ lit home court towards the entrance to the gym. The trophy case anteroom was where parents and students met players and friends after a game. As soon as he entered, Richie spotted Sally Dill wearing her cheerleading outfit: a maroon turtleneck, underneath a white cable knit letter sweater with the school’s signature letters emblazoned on her chest, and a short pleated maroon skirt. The senior combined feminism and athleticism in a well-built 5’8” frame. Smart and witty, Sally was extremely popular and had a magnetism about her that drew others towards her. Richie had known her since fifth grade, and though he liked her and they were good friends, he never considered asking her out. She lived in Danbury, which was an affluent community adjacent to “The Wicks.” A platonic relationship, Richie shared his school schedule with Sally and vice versa in case she needed a ride to classes, practice, a game, or home.
Heading towards Sally, he waved to and acknowledged schoolmates and parents waiting in the lobby. Upon reaching her, he asked,” You ready?”
“Yep,” Sally replied. “Great game, Richie. In the last five minutes, you guys were unbelievable!” Richie just nodded his head and, with Sally in tow, headed through the doorway across the street towards the school’s parking lot.
Ever the gentleman, Richie opened the door on the black, convertible Ford Galaxie for Sally to get in, then hustled around to the other side to get out of the cold night air. Upon entering, the first words out of his mouth were, “You hungry? My treat.”
“Sure. It’s Friday Night, my parents know I’m with you, and my mom trusts you, plus, I told them we might get a bite to eat after the game.” As the Galaxie slowly pulled out of the high school parking lot, Sally asked Richie a question. “I noticed that when we travel to away games, you always sit next to Estelle. What’s the story?”
“Is it that obvious?’ Richie answered a question with a question.
“It is,” then shifting in her seat, “I guess as obvious as Jimmy and me.
Instead of driving to the Hot Shoppes, a chain of drive-in restaurants and the local hangout for the high school, Richie slowed the car down and turned right into the Pinewood section of the township, a stone’s throw away from their high school. Neither one said a word as Richie drove to a secluded spot, which had been a lovers lane for couples during his sophomore year before everyone discovered it. It was empty.
Richie pulled into the hidden location, lowered the volume on the radio, and put the car in Park. Sally spoke first, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “My Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew how I felt about Jimmy.” She was fighting back tears as she said it. We share four classes, but our only real contact is on the team bus coming back from away games. At first it was the casual brush of our hands, then our legs would touch together, and finally, tonight, on the way back from Mayfair, in the dark, we held hands. My mother would be appalled if she knew.”
Hesitant to ask, he asked the question anyway. “Has Jimmy ever told you how he feels?”
Her emotions now getting the best of her, tears again welled up in her eyes, and in an almost inaudible voice, she said, “No.” But, I haven’t either.” Then, looking away from Richie, out the window into the starless night, she confessed. “He’s all I think about, day and night. Then turning back towards Richie, shaking her head from side to side, What am I going to do? You know my Dad. He still calls negroes---niggers.”
Richie, struggling with his own emotions, didn’t say a word, but instead he put his arm around Sally and held her close to him. It was an unusual gesture for him. Fiery and emotional on the basketball court, Richie tended to be more formal when interacting with the opposite sex; he was a John Wayne type of guy.
They were lovers’ lane imposters, out of place in their surroundings. Finally, Richie got the nerve to express his feelings, unfiltered. “I feel the same way about Estelle that you feel about Jimmy. I don’t know why, but I have a different energy whenever I’m around her. Unlike other girls I’ve dated, I can talk to Estelle about anything. Pausing for just a second, “And the best part is she seems to know me better than me. I spend as much time as I can with her. We sit next to each other in English and Calc, and are part of a group that has lunch together. We also hang out in study hall, after cheerleading, and basketball practice, but never alone, always with friends.”
“But before you ask, no, I’ve never said a word to her about how I feel, but I’m sure she can tell by the way I look into her eyes and the way she looks into mine. And, yes, now and then, a friend or teammate might kid me about going to the dark side. But one look from me and they shut their yapper, knowing full well that I would never date a negro. If asked, I would deny to anyone that Estelle and I were more than just friends.” Disgusted with his behavior, he turned his head away from Sally and stared straight ahead into the night.
When he spoke again, Richie’s lips moved, but there was no sound coming out of his mouth. Gradually, the words became audible just above a whisper. “My parents---as close a family as we are--I’m not sure how they would react. My Dad would most likely disapprove, but wouldn’t say anything except, ‘Don’t get her pregnant.’ My Mom, she’s the wild card. She works with negro nurses and doctors at the hospital, but her baby boy dating a negro girl?” He sat there trying to imagine her response, knowing full well that interracial relationships were never viewed positively in his family. “My guess is her reaction would be like every other white mother’s in the township, it’s okay to be friends with them, but don’t get involved.”
They were confidants to the others' deepest secrets, which was why their relationship was so special. Sally and Richie didn’t say another word; instead, they just sat there listening to the music on the AM dial, each lost in their thoughts, until Richie shifted gears from Park to Reverse, turned the Galaxie around, put it in Drive, and left the secluded area. No longer hungry, they passed the Hot Shoppes restaurant in silence on their way home. Crowded with Friday date night after the movie twosomes and foursomes, Richie wondered what the odds were that there was one interracial couple among them.
STOP