Leon's Legacy by Lono Waiwaiole

Author:Lono Waiwaiole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

I didn’t fully realize what was going on in the selection process until Casey sent seven of us to his office at the end of the third day of tryouts. The other players in the room couldn’t have complemented me and Wiley better if we had provided the blueprints ourselves—Chester, for brute strength; Pooh, for eye-blinking quickness; Stretch, for rebounds; Preacher, a brick wall on wheels who had started at fullback and linebacker on the football team; and Dusty, another football player who had led the league in interceptions and brought the quickest hands I had ever seen to the basketball court.

“Are we missing anything here?” I said.

“That depends,” Wiley said.

“On what?”

“On what happens next,” he said as Casey walked through the doorway.

“Who besides Wiley can tell me how many days we have left in this basketball season?” he said as soon as he picked his way through the crowd and dropped into the old chair behind his desk.

“One hundred and twenty-one, sir,” Wiley said after no one else offered an answer. “If we go all the way.”

“Do we have everything sittin’ in this room right now to do that?”

“I think so, Coach.”

“I think so, too,” Casey said, “but I can tell you right now that we’re not gonna do it.”

That statement rolled around the room like a live hand grenade, but no one moved a muscle to get rid of it until Pooh finally took on the task. “Why not, Coach?” he asked after what seemed like an hour or two of frozen silence.

“Two reasons, unfortunately,” Casey said quietly, “and everyone in this room except Leon knows what they are.”

Pooh faltered at that point, and no one rose to take his place for a long, long time. I looked at one player after another, and everyone except Wiley was staring at the floor like he was afraid he’d miss something incredible if he let his eyes wander even for a moment.

“What?” I said.

“Why don’t you get us started, Chester,” Casey said.

Chester raised his eyes to meet mine, and I felt the other players in the room doing the same. “The first thing,” he said, “is Coach probably doesn’t think we can play together for one hundred and twenty-one days.”

“Why not?”

“Because the last time we tried to do it, I quit about three weeks in.”

“I don’t see that happenin’ again.”

“It could. The same provocation would have the same result.”

Chester shut down at that point. I looked around at everyone again and got nothing in return for my trouble until Casey intervened.

“Pooh?” Casey said.

“Yes, sir?”

“Is Chester gonna encounter the same provocation as last time?”

“I ain’t about sweatin’ Chester, Coach. I wanna win this thing just as much as everyone else.”

“Preacher? You cool with this?”

“No, sir,” Preacher said. “But there won’t be no problem around it, I promise you.”

“It’s not the treatment of me that I’m talkin’ about,” Chester said. “I can’t be part of a team that prides itself on harassing other kids, whatever the reason.”

“We get that,” Dusty said. “I told you that when football started.

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