There weren’t many basketball courts in Norman and most of them were barely maintained, the backboards were broken, the lines fading, and they had been that way since Deacon Augustus Harris had simply been known as “Gus” around these parts. He remembered the pick up games they played here back in the day, how the court had provided them with some form of sanctuary. That was before the drugs tore their community apart and took so much of the deacon’s life away from him. Looking back they seemed like happier times, but when Gus thought about it for a second he remembered them being no less dangerous or fraught with pitfalls.

The court was an oasis of tarmac amidst a sea of empty space, the fields on the horizon seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. A figure stood alone, putting up shot after shot and chasing after every rebound with a tenacity that one would expect in the middle of a heated game. It was Antwan Dixon, glistening with sweat, and he was completely unaware of Gus stood there watching him.

Antwan went through the legs a few times, making sure to keep low to the ground as he did so, before eventually cocking back a shot that he launched like a trebuchet effortlessly towards the basket. It clanked against the back of the rim loudly but its bounce took it down through the net. Gus applauded gently as he approached Antwan and smiled at the boy.

“Nice shot.”

Antwan walked over to pick up the ball and placed it under his arm, looking us Gus with a bemused look on his face. “What are you doing here?”

He'd heard that Antwan looked like Marcus Dixon, he’d even seen pictures of the boy in the local paper, but in person the resemblance was more eerie than Gus had expected. He certainly was his father’s son as far as appearance, though it remained to be seen if he was cut from the same cloth as Marcus had been. 

“Your mother thought it would be a good idea for the two of us to talk.”

“She thought wrong,” Antwan said abruptly.

“My experience with mothers has taught me that they are very rarely wrong about these things, Antwan.”

“Yeah, well, something tells me your moms and mine don’t have very much in common.”

It was clear from his tone that Antwan didn’t exactly hold his mother in high regard. How could you after seeing some of the things he must have seen growing up? The deacon’s mother hadn't been an addict, that particular affliction was one he’d visited upon himself out of choice, but she endured hardships and they had made her a hard woman, quick to reach for a belt or a switch. He had memories of his own mother that he wished he could forget, like Antwan had of Michelle.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

Antwan raised his eyebrows dismissively and then itched the corner of his nose, “What do you want, man? I’m trying to practice.”

“I thought, maybe, you’d want to talk about what happened last night.”

The boy looked around absently before glancing back at the deacon and shrugging his shoulders, “Nope.”

Undeterred the deacon placed his hands in his pockets and wandered from midcourt to a few feet back from the three point line. As he walked the most fleeting of memories came back to him of the times he’d played on these courts years back. He wasn’t sure whether they were memories or things he thought he remembered, but they flashed through his brain so quickly it was difficult to discern what was happening. A missed free throw here, a shoving match after a hard foul, and a three pointer sailing through the net without it moving an inch. What he would have given to have Antwan’s potential back then. It made his little brush with narcotics all the more frustrating.

“For a minute there you must have thought you’d blown it. Seen those recruiting letters from South Carolina, Clemson, Georgetown, and Duke all disappearing into thin air and in aid of what? Some weed? I know I’d have been scared if I were you.”

Clearly disgruntled by the deacon’s presence, Antwan began to dribble the ball between his back, slowly at first but quicker with each second. He did it so effortlessly that it was mesmerizing and Gus was certain that Antwan had barely heard a word he'd said. Finally the boy looked up and said with a hard look. “Well you’re not me, old man.”

The “old man” comment stung Gus more than it ought to have. The young didn't understand what it felt like to grow old, to have your body slowly begin to fail you, whilst your mind felt as young as it ever did. Though Gus looked fairly young for his age and kept himself in good shape, it was hard not to worry that all the years he had wasted getting high might catch up with him. The things he'd done back then, the things he'd seen, they haunted Gus to this day and in his darkest moments he often wondered how he'd survived that period of his life, whether he even deserved to have survived it.

But he was still here, old as he might have seemed to Antwan, and though he might never of had a fraction of the skill on the court that Antwan possessed, there was still some of that young man left behind.

“That I'm not,” Gus said with a nonchalant shrug. “I mean, I’d have sorted out that hitch in my jump shot by now if I were. Something like that might fly down here playing against trailer trash from Jardin but they’d eat you up in college with that thing slowing your release down.”

Antwan was halfway into his shooting motion when he stopped dead in his tracks. Suddenly there was more emotion was on his face than there had been throughout their entire conversation. He shook his head vociferously as he approached Gus.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re right,” Gus smiled. “I’m just an old man, right? What the hell do I know?”

The deacon rolled up his sleeves and then clapped in Antwan’s direction for the ball. The boy looked at him, bemused, until the deacon clapped again and he passed it to Gus and stepped out of the old man’s way.

He got low to the ground, as low as his dress trousers would allow, and went through the legs a few times as he’d seen Antwan do earlier before dribbling normally for a few seconds. Gus took a single glance up at the basket and then dribbled the ball into the ground extra hard rather than bring the ball up to his head, as he’d heard Jerry West did to quicken his shooting motion, and let it fly with a little hop. The jump was by no means pretty and he barely got off the ground but the second the ball left the deacon’s hand he had a good feeling about it.

It careened through the air slowly towards the basket and passed through it without making contact with the net. A broad smile appeared on Gus’ face as he said a silent prayer for having grown up idolizing Jerry West instead of Dominique Wilkins like every other kid in Norman back then. Jesus and Jerry West could split the credit for that one having gone in, he thought as he turned to gauge Antwan’s reaction.

Antwan stared at Gus as unimpressed as if he'd run through Club 65 in a Klansman outfit. “Was that supposed to impress me?”

“You try knocking down a three-pointer when you’re fifty-two and have arthritis in your knees, boy,” Harris said with a chuckle. “Maybe then you’ll come to appreciate it.”

They stood in silence for a time before Antwan let out a sigh and looked in the deacon’s direction. “Look, I get that I fucked up, I don’t need you to tell me that.”

It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. From what Michelle had relayed to Gus of their conversation the other night Antwan seemed far less belligerent now than he had then. Time could do that.

“I’m not here to tell you anything, son, I’m here to listen.”

Antwan nodded and wandered slowly to pick up the ball. The second it touched his hands it was like the boy’s troubles, which had seemed an unbearable weight before, were lighter somewhat, more manageable. He seemed more at one with a Spalding in his hand than without it. Who could blame him? That thing had probably brought him more solace over the years than anything else. He eyed it as he turned the ball between his hands.

“I know it was irresponsible and I know I could have blew my chance at getting a scholarship, but it’s hard sometimes, man. People think I have it easy or something. Where were they when there was no food on our table? When I was showing up to practice on a hungry stomach?”

Gus placed his hands in his pockets with a sigh, “I understand, son.”

“No,” Antwan shook his head. “That’s the thing. No one does. No one understands what it’s like out here for me. The only people in the world that ever looked out for me, ever helped me without expecting something back, are Jayson and Mr. Spencer.”

From what Gus knew of Roland Spencer it certainly didn’t seem like he didn’t expect something back. He was a businessman first and foremost, and not a socially conscious one at that, not the type of man to ’t make investments without expecting a return on them down the line. It almost hurt Gus to bring light to that given the boy’s trust in him, but he figured it would hurt a great deal less than if he found out down the line.

“Tell me, Antwan, was Mr. Spencer interested in you before you had a basketball in your hands?”

“I see how it is,” Antwan muttered with a distrustful look. “That’s why she sent you. She wants you to turn me against Mr. Spencer as well.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

Antwan shook his head in disbelief and dribbled the ball away as if Gus weren’t there. He started putting up shots, chasing after them as ferociously as he had done earlier, over and over again until he was breathing heavy and his forehead was sopping wet. Eventually one of the rebounds rolled in the deacon’s direction and Gus put his foot atop the ball to slow it, lifting it up and placing it in his palms.

“You know, the other week I buried a boy by the name of Vontae Carter,” Gus said wistfully. “Maybe you heard about what happened to him on the news. I’m not sure whether kids watch the news anymore. Not sure they ever did, in truth. He was twenty-three years old, Antwan, and he was shot dead not a half hour from here over a pair of sneakers. Can you believe that? A pair a sneakers.”

Antwan wiped some sweat from his head with his forearm and looked at Gus, confused. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure,” Gus said, throwing the ball back to Antwan. “I guess I’m tired, is all.”

He was tired. Tired of watching Norman’s best and brightest surround themselves with the wrong people, make the wrong decisions, and pay with it with their liberty or even worse, their lives. It was a story he’d seen play out more times than he could bear and it was his desire not to see it play out in Antwan’s life.

It was then the deacon remembered one caveat that had seemingly slipped his mind amidst the deluge of information Michelle had given him. “Your mother told me that Jayson told the police the weed belonged to him. Did you know that?”

He could tell straight away it struck a chord with Antwan.

“What?” Antwan said with a shake of his head. “No.”

“He was willing to throw whatever prospects he might have away for you without a second’s hesitation to get you out of trouble,” Gus said as he began to roll down his sleeves. “You ought to think on whether Mr. Spencer would be willing to do the same for you if it came down to it. Though something tells me you already know the answer to that question, Antwan.”

The boy stood in silence as he contemplated the deacon’s words. His eyes were locked on the fields on the horizon past Gus’ shoulder and were glazed over as if he were lost in thought. Gus would have been in his position too, though if he’d had a friend like Jayson something tells him he’d never have found himself in some of the predicaments he landed in over the years. It was a rare thing to have a friend like that, especially in a place like Norman, and looking into the boy’s eyes it seemed that fact began to dawn on him. 

“It was good talking to you,” Gus said with a smile. “You know where I am if you ever want to talk, son.”

Antwan smiled back politely as Gus turned his back to walk away from the court. As he reached the edge of the tarmac he looked back at the boy and pointed towards the basketball resting between Antwan’s hands with an encouraging smile.

“Remember to work on that hitch.”