The Desire Part III

Tweet James forgot what it was like to wake up at a normal time, in this case 8:15am on a warm Monday morning.  It was September first and it was the first day of school, he decided to skip his last training day and get some rest so he could kick off his year with a good start.  Last year his family moved in the middle of October and he had to go through being the new kid in school and that was something he chose to stop thinking about at that moment.

"What is this coach?"  It was Tommy, the last person coach O'Brien expected to say anything at this moment, then he remembered what Mr. Lopez told him about James and him having issue with some players on the team.  "Try-outs ended a long time ago" Tommy tried to sound innocent but the look he and James were exchanging told coach all he needed to know.  "Now, Tommy, James moved here after the try-out so I decided to give the boy a chance.  After all," coach continued "Michael's injury has left a spot open anyways".  Most of the team didn't care, the Panthers were 1-7 and had 13 games remaining, if it were up to them they would have given up on the season then and there.  Tommy Johnson however, kept his eyes locked at James, he couldn't believe that HE was going to be his teammate, what hurt him the most was probably the fact that he knew James would nail this try-out.


Tommy picked up his time-table from a box labelled 'J' (for Johnson).  The school thought that assigning time-tables for students who could not chose their electives yet was a good idea, everyone really knew it was the principal's way of separating the troublemakers.  As Tommy walked into his home room class (English) he paused.  James Miller stared back a him from one of the desks. "No way!" Tommy thought, admittedly he hated the guy way less than he did last year but he still despised him.  Now he was going to spend an entire semester with him in homeroom.  Tommy sighed and sat in the furthest possible seat he could, he was soon joined by Jamie Smith, the back-up point guard from last year and quickly forgot about James.  Mr. White, Forest Hill's English teacher glanced at the memo on his desk, read it, and decided not to question the vice-principals motives.  "Mr. Johnson" "Yes sir?" came Tommy's reply. "Please switch seats with miss Adams"  Tommy looked around for Rachel and saw who she sat next to "Sir. why--" "Please Mr. Johnson no questions right now" Mr. White said sternly in a way that Tommy realized it would be useless to argue.  He sat down next to James and didn't say a word for the rest of the period.


It took roughly 20 minutes for coach O'Brien to decide that what Mr. Lopes told him about James was not a lie.  The kid could shoot fairly well, had deceptively good handling ability, and court vision that rivaled anyone at this level.  But what coach O'Brien was most excited about was the way James played defense.  On four occasions he swallowed up anyone who tried to beat him off the dribble, coach already penciled him in on the roster and was wondering whether James could learn enough of the playbook to play tomorrows home game against Summer side high.  At the end of practice the team did not need convincing about James joining the team, even Tommy seemed to know that it was for the best.  "You will get your jersey tomorrow at our pre-game meeting" O'Brien told an ecstatic James. "Tomorrow you are done class at 1:30, game starts at 2:15 and we have a team meeting at 12 during lunch"  James was absorbing this information as if it was life-altering, coach continued "there is also a voluntary shoot around at 8 in the morning if you are interested, I would like you to please try and learn some plays by tomorrow".  James was already rehearsing the flex-cut play that the team made a few adjustments to and knew he could run it.  Tomorrow could not come fast enough.


"Can you believe this shit!?"  an exasperated Tommy said to anyone who would listen. "Every single class?" he was referring to the fact that by some miracle, he and James had the same classes throughout the day and were forced to sit next to each other in two of them.  "You know this is probably the work of Roberts" said Adam, another of Tommy's teammates.  Adam was the definition of a role-player.  He never missed practice, but never excelled in games and seemed to be fine with it.  Adam was one of the taller players on the team but also the fastest, something coach O'Brien had tried to harness to no avail.  "Why would a vice principal do this though?" came Tommy's reply "he knows that we hate each other, doesn't he remember last year?" "I guess its his way of helping coach out, you know Mr. Roberts always has the basketball teams  back and wants us to succeed, and--" Adam took a second to rehearse what he was going to say before proceeding "and... well, you and James really do work well on the basketball court".  Tommy tried to think of a comeback but could not.  It was true, for some reason James and him connected on a basketball court better than anyone at the school.  Tommy decided to just let it go, after all, he did have to sit next to James but no one would force them to be friends, besides; he was sure James felt the same way.  His thought process was cut off by the bell, shortly followed by an announcement reminding students about the basketball try-out in the main gym.  Tommy and Adam made their way over, James not too far behind them.

"James!" hearing his name startled him but he quickly realized that this was finally it.  James threw off the warm-up shirt he was given a few hours ago and made sure his black jersey was tucked into his shorts.  He ran along the team bench and knelt at the scorer's table with coach O'Brien crouching beside him.  "Look for me if you get lost on the plays" coach was saying as he quickly drew up the basic set on his clip-board. "On defense, we will switch to man when you come in, that way there wont be much confusion" "Who am I coming in for coach?" Coach O'Brien instantly replied "Tommy".  With that the referee motioned for James to come into the game, he pointed at Tommy who wasn't the only surprised person in the gym.  Most of Forest Hills fans (they had really good support despite their 1-7 start) had no clue who this new kid was or why he was coming in for the team captain. "You are back in at the 2:00 mark" coach O'Brien told Tommy as he walked by him and sat on the bench.  He looked up at the big scoreboard, the score was 45-32 in favor of Summer Side with 4:56 left in the 3rd quarter.  Grabbing a drink of water he thought to himself that it would be a huge surprise if Summer Side did not extend their lead to 20 before he came back in.  As it turned out Tommy was wrong...dead wrong.