McDade came in, and he started playing his raggedy game. He fouled Jo-Jo with an elbow in the mouth. Jo-Jo was cool and made the basket. Then Breeze intercepted a pass and fed Jo-Jo on the break. Jo-Jo had the step and started up for the shot when McDade tripped him. They called it a nonshooting foul. Cal went up in the air about a foot and a half, then sat back down.

“You ain’t going to say nothing?” I asked.

He didn’t answer. Jo-Jo was mad and looked towards the bench. He blew the shot, and McDade got the rebound. Jo-Jo went after him and fouled him. He was out of the game.

Cal called Lenny over and told him to go in for Jo-Jo. I was disgusted. Some of the guys were looking over at Cal, but he wouldn’t let them catch his eyes.

“One of the dudes with Tyrone just got up,” I said.

“This is it,” Cal said. “The score is close enough for him to make his bet. He’s seen me put Lenny in, and he figures that the spread is going to be just what I told him. Watch the cat that got up; make sure he didn’t just go to the bathroom or nothing.”

The Manhattan team had put Tomkins back in, and he was doing his thing. He was feeding, hitting from the outside, everything. I didn’t see what the guy that went was doing. He went outside of the gym. In the meanwhile, they were beginning to pull away. The lead, which had been down to as little as two points, was back up to twelve two minutes after Tomkins got into the game.

“He’s back!” I said.

Cal looked over to where Tyrone was sitting, and Tyrone nodded to him and smiled. I looked at Cal, and he was grinning. It was the biggest damn grin I ever seen in my life.

“He’s got his action,” Cal said. “And from what I heard in the street it’s big action. Now let me tell you something, Lonnie. I’m going to put you in the game, and you got two things you can do. You ready to hear this?”

“I’m ready.”

“You can go out there and do nothing and throw away the game,” Cal said. “Then Tyrone takes his action, and me and you are just a couple of niggers with our pants down. Or you can go out there and play like you know you can, and we can take this whole thing. We bust Tyrone’s action. I can’t do it, man, but you can. What you think, you think if I put you in, you can get Spider some class after all these years?”

When I stood up and took my warm-up jacket off, everybody from our neighborhood stood up with me. There was a roar that made even the players on the floor look over to see what was going on. I went over to the bench and reported in for Lenny. O’Donnel was sitting on the end of the bench; his eyes were wide, and he was looking from me to Cal. He called Cal over.