“I knew I couldn’t get the shot off,” I started, “and when I saw Breeze cut away from … Cal, I love you, man. I really do.”

“Tell me about the game.”

“When I saw Breeze cut away, I didn’t know for sure which way he cut, but I …”

I felt his body relax as he fell against me. I put my arms around him and tried to explain that I wasn’t sure that Breeze would be in the right place, but that I knew he had taught us that play. And if we did what he had told us, it would work out. And it had.

There were people coming into the locker room. Some of them were police. I felt myself being lifted from the floor. Aggie was bending over Cal; her body was shaking with her crying.

I turned and walked out of the locker room. Outside, the police had Tyrone and Juno and the guy with the bandages.

It didn’t seem to matter anymore. I went through the crowd back onto the gym floor. Everything seemed to blend in a jumble of noise and lights. O’Donnel was there, pushing a trophy into my hands; someone was patting me on the back, someone else asking nonsensical questions. I handed the trophy to someone and found an exit.

Five days later, on a sunny morning, Cal was buried. I sat in the second row, behind Cal’s pop, and listened to the preacher say things about how Cal had been this and that and how we all had to die sometime. Then there was the long drive out to the cemetery. When we got out there, they didn’t put the casket in the ground. They put it under a little tent with flowers all around and said that they were going to put it in the ground later that day. Then we got back into the cars and came back to Harlem.

Hey, I felt so bad leaving him out there. I felt like I was leaving the only friend I had in the world out there. I told Aggie that.

“What else you gonna do, honey?” she said. Her face had all the hurt in it that I felt, and the tears were running down over her mouth.

A week after the funeral Mary-Ann was strong enough to leave the hospital. Coney Island was open again, and I took her out there one morning, early, before the crowds came.

“You hear anything about scholarships?” she asked.

“I got a few letters,” I said. “But I’m not worried about it.”

“I thought …” She started a sentence and didn’t finish it. Instead, she just held on tighter to my arm.

“I’m going to try to get into some college, any way I can,” I said, answering the question she hadn’t asked. “If basketball can get me there, okay. I got to get my game a little better first, though.”

“You were Most Valuable Player,” Mary-Ann said. “How much better can you get?”