“Say, Sweet Man?”

He turned around.

“Thanks, man, you’re okay.”

“Don’t sweat it,” he said. “Where you are, I’ve been.”

Then he split.

I went to the Grant, and Paul was there.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” I answered.

“I just wanted to say that you played a nice game,” he said.

“I’m going to win next time,” I said. “Next time it’s to the bust!”

Jimmy Harrison asked me how the game was, and I told him we lost. He said that Paul had told him that the ref was out to get me, and I said no, we just lost.

There was a message for me. Aggie had called. I didn’t know if she had been to the game or not. What I was hoping for was that it was something about Cal. I went upstairs and called her, but there wasn’t any answer.

I took another shower, and I called her again. Still no answer.

Mary-Ann came over. She asked me about the game, and I had to tell her about it. That was the thing with losing. You had to live with it until you won, and you could never be sure when you were going to win.

When I called Aggie again, she was there. She said that Cal was in jail.

“Jail?” I asked. “What did he do?”

“He got into a fight with some guy and hurt him pretty bad,” she said. “I don’t even think he wants to get out. I spoke to a bail bondsman, but I don’t know if I can raise the money.”

“Don’t worry about the money,” I said. “We’ll get it together.”

“We can get him out tonight if we can raise three hundred dollars,” Aggie said. “We give that to the bondsman, and he’ll get Cal out.”

“Let me call you back.”

I was tired after the game, but after talking to Aggie, I felt more tired than I had ever been in my life.

I fell asleep and must have been sleeping for about an hour when I woke up scared. I jumped up and looked around. I was alone and couldn’t figure out why I should be scared. Then someone knocked on the door. It was Mary-Ann.

“I must have been knocking for ten minutes,” she said. “Harrison told me you were up here. Tell you the truth I thought Joni was up here with you.”

“You hear about Cal?” I asked.

“I heard.”

I changed my shirt and started picking out my hair. The only people I knew that could lay their hands on bills that big hung in Ugly’s place. I told Mary-Ann I was going over there to borrow the money to get Cal out of jail.

“I’ll give you the money,” she said in this quiet voice. “If you want it.”

I turned and sat on the edge of the dresser. I started to say something about her not to be fooling around, but Mary-Ann wasn’t the fooling around type. She took down her jeans. The money was taped to the inside of her leg. She pulled her jeans back up and then brought the money over and put it next to me.