A Day In the Death of Walter Zawislak Read online

Go. Go now or the old man will never let me forget it.

  Walt faked right but deked left and managed to get Owens behind him. He threw a hard shot to Owens’s ribs with his elbow just to remind him who he was dealing with.

  Three seconds left.

  Walt lurched to his favorite spot, his sweet spot at a forty-five degree angle from the basket on the left-hand side.

  “Over here, Mick,” he shouted.

  Micky fired an overhead pass and Walt caught it at his chest, the ball slippery in his sweaty hands. He turned, his right foot planted all the way into the center of the earth and the ball rolled to the tips of his fingers.

  Two seconds left.

  The basket from this position, this sweet spot, was the Grand Canyon. Owens was there, but so was the tick of the clock counting the final seconds of his basketball career, ticking away his chances to be a champion.

  One second left.

  Walt jumped, his muscles firing and he was lifted up high at the apex of his jump shot. Higher than Owens. Higher than Al. Higher than he’d ever been, and the ball made its beautiful graceful arc, its spin fast and steady.

  But he knew, he knew before the ball left his hands, it wasn’t going in. It was too far right.

  He’d blown it.

  Before his feet touched the ground Owens was there and he clipped Walt right under the chin with his elbow. Walt went down hard just as the buzzer rang and the ball bounced off the rim.

  “Foul!” Al Torreno screamed.

  The world swam and the racket of the crowd and the buzzer and the whistles all swelled and swirled then dimmed in his ears. He had to rest his head against the fixed surface of the court.

  Man, he really got me.

  He could see Kerestes going nuts at the bench but there was no sound, and Walt knew that was weird but he really didn’t care. If he turned his head nice and easy so the world didn’t go spinning into orbit, he saw his mom and dad. It looked like Mom was ready to come running out of the stands to take on Owens herself, but Dad had her elbow.

  He smiled, trying to let her know he was fine, or would be soon, that she shouldn’t worry. His father’s face turned red and Walt could read his lips as he shouted, “Get up!”

  Right. Get up. He closed his eyes and they rolled up under his eyelids. The floor began to spin and he wondered if he was going to barf just as he was suddenly yanked to his feet.

  “Let’s go! Walt!” It was Al, his face red and shining with sweat and purpose. “We can win this, you’ve got two plus a T.”

  “Technical foul?” He coughed the words.

  “Damn right foul!” Al’s breath was hot and wet on Walt’s face, and he wondered again if he was going to puke. “Look man!” Al pointed to the score.

  Beaverton trailed by two, no time on the clock, and Walt had three free throws.

  Walt burped bile.

  The world careened back into place and he had that pop in his ears, like when they drove up the big hill when they went to go visit his mom’s folks in Red Lodge, Minnesota, and he could hear again, the clamoring crowd. He shook off the dizziness, the otherworldliness that the cheap shot had given him, and he focused on the feel of his heart in his chest and the sweat stinging his eyes.

  Get it together. Walt. Get it together.

  “You ready, Zawislak?”

  Walt nodded and caught the bounce pass from the ref who stood at the baseline under the basket.

  His teammates, Lou, Al, Bear, and Micky, all stood at the half line and Walt was all alone at the foul line. The Whitewater team looked like they were gonna piss themselves or cry, and Walt couldn’t help but turn and wink at Owens where he stood, smoke coming out of his ears.

  If Walt got all three of these Owens would never live it down. Ever. It was better than giving him a black eye.

  Walt felt the moment out, pressed on the edges of what he had dreamed of a million times in his bed at night. The dream didn’t come with the churning guts and the creepy sensation of hundreds of eyes watching him dribble the ball, trying to relax.

  The truth was, he was fucking scared, and he’d feel a whole lot better if Al shot these free throws.

  But at least it was free throws. He could do these with his eyes closed. His father used to field countless rebounds for him off the basket over the garage door.

  Do it again, his father said when it was getting dark.

  Do it again, his father said when his mother called them in for dinner.

  Again, you baby, his father said when Walt complained that he was tired and he couldn’t see, or he was bored and wanted to watch I Love Lucy.

  Walt drank deep of the warm sweaty air, eyed the basket, and put the ball in the air.

  It went in with a clean, sweet swish.

  Beaverton behind by one.

  The boys all leaned in and clapped his hand and smacked his butt.

  Walt dared a glance up at the stands. One quick look at the old man who stood with his arms crossed, chewing on the ends of his mustache.

  His mom covered her face with her hands.

  The ref blew the whistle and passed the ball to him.

  “You can do it, Walt!” a girl yelled, and the crowd roared, and suddenly, like lightning, Walt was nervous.

  Not just a little, but a shaky legs, loose guts, sweaty palms kind of nervous.

  He tried to push the noise of the crowd away and forced himself to imagine the gym was his driveway. It was dusk and the smell of sausages floated out of the house, and his dad sprawled in a lawn chair watching him, drinking a beer, telling Walt to keep his elbows in. To stop shooting like he was scared of the basket.

  It was just a day. A Sunday. A nothing, no big deal, who cares if you miss this shot day.

  It was enough to brace his rolling stomach.

  He gave the ball one more hard bounce against the floor. He lined up his shot, flexed his fingers, and launched the ball.

  He watched that ball, willing it, wishing it, into the basket.

  It hit the rim, bounced once, rolled right.

  The gym went quiet, hushed, someone yelled, “Go in!”

  And it did.

  The crowd went berserk—tie game.

  Again the hand claps and butt smacks, and the ref blowing his whistle and then the ball was back in his hands.

  Walt dribbled twice. Blew out all his breath. Wiped the sweat off his face with his arm, which didn’t help much, but he was stalling for time. He couldn’t quite hold onto the fantasy. The it’s a normal day fantasy. He kept seeing MaryAnn Arneson out of the corner of his eye, clutching her pompons to her chest and looking like her whole world hinged on this basket, and that got him to thinking about other people. Al. Mr. Kerestes. Their worlds rested on this basket, too.

  Not Dad though. Dad was the same whether it was Sunday or the ftate Finals. Dad would be a mean old cuss, either way.

  Do it again, you baby.

  He didn’t even line up the shot, he just wildly threw it in the air, sending with it every hope and wish and daydream he had ever had in his seventeen years. His mom was here, his father watched, and it might just be the best moment of his life. Or the worst. And now, with the ball in the air, it wasn’t anything he could control anymore.

  The ball hit the backboard, the front of the rim, and fell in.

  The screaming deafened him and he couldn’t stop laughing. There were bubbles in his veins, making him light as air. He was air, he was lifted up, and when he looked down at Al and Bear he couldn’t believe it.

  “Holy shit!” he screamed.

  “You’re telling me!” Al screamed back.

  He was being carried away on the shoulders of his team. A champion. He had done it. He twisted, looking behind him, searching out the worried hen in a blue dress and an old man who might be smiling.

  His mom stood beside an empty chair and her face said she was sorry.

  His dad missed it. Walt’s glittery gold champion feeling crashed to the ground.

  “Good job, son!” Mr. Keres
tes yelled and clapped a hand on Walt’s knee, and Walt smiled and told himself it didn’t matter. So what if the old man didn’t see it?

  So what?

  8

  Walter felt like he was fading. Slowly seeping out of himself from some unknown wound. The boys and the crowd slowly disappeared like phantoms, losing their outlines and then their ghostly shapes. The noise echoed, diminished, and then slid into silence.

  And then there was a loud pop! and Walter sat in the stands again, clutching his ears.

  My God, those samples are potent things. Like being in a movie or something.

  Walter grinned and slapped his knee. What a day. What a day that had been. He could remember exactly what it felt like to be lifted on those shoulders, like some part of his flesh and bone was still up there. Over the years the victory had faded until all he remembered was his father not being there. One more cross for this father’s memory to bear. It was nice to remember what that day had really been about. Winning the game. Being carried off the court on Al Torreno’s shoulders.

  “Hey, that was…”

  He turned, looking for Peter, and found his mother up in the stands alone.

  Is this the past? Present? Is she a ghost? Am I?

  He decided he didn’t care. It was his mother there; a blue beacon among the brown stadium seats. She stared after where the boys had gone into the locker rooms. Her fingertips pressed to her lips and tears were on her cheeks.

  She hiccupped, part laugh, part sob, and collapsed into her chair like her bones had liquefied all at once.

  Walter took the stairs two at a time to his mother’s side.

  Paulina Zawislak was not an attractive woman. But she smelled like sugar and sauerkraut, and she had tried to balance her husband’s unpredictable anger and constant discontent with a steady never-ending stream of hot tea with sugar and brandy.

  She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her blue dress and lifted her glasses to wipe her eyes. She laughed while she did it and Walter felt the tidal flow of his pride and a sudden mourning for his mother.

  “Hey Mom,” he breathed. He stretched an arm across the back of her seat and studied the plump firm peachiness of her face. He breathed deep the smell of vinegar and baking that had settled into her pores and become, in his memory, the distinct fragrance of motherly love.

  Finally, she rested her hands in her lap, her fingers tugging at the lace she had stitched. She smiled.

  “Did you see our boy?” she called out, and Walter whirled to see his father standing at center court, looking toward the locker room where the voices of the team could still be heard. There was a particularly loud yelp and Walter remembered the icy blast of water from the shower they had thrown him into.

  Vicktor Zawislak punched his beat-up fedora onto his thinning white hair and turned, his hands tucked into the navy work pants he wore every day, including the day he died.

  “I sure did,” he said. “I sure as hell did.”

  “Where’d you go?” Paulina asked, and Walter heard himself seconding the question.

  “Yeah, where the hell did you go? I looked for you!” Walter was on his feet before he even knew it. He ran down the steps to his father before his slow, lumbering heart could beat twice.

  “That was pretty tense.” Vicktor shook his head, his attention still on the closed locker room door. “I needed a little room to pace.” His white mustache twitched.

  My God, he’s smiling.

  “So you saw it? Walt looked up here and when he didn’t see you…”

  “Of course I saw it,” Vicktor announced like he was Father of the Year and the question insulted his devoted parenting. “I was right over there.” He pointed with his thumb to the dark corners by the doors.

  Walter felt years of righteous anger and indignation burn and smoke in his chest.

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Didn’t think the shit had it in him,” Vicktor muttered and sucked on his teeth. “Let’s go, Paully girl,” he called out, using a nickname for Paulina that Walter only heard on his folks’ anniversary or the rare Sunday mornings after his father had done well at the Saturday night poker game. Walter’s mother stood from her chair, her coat and purse over her plump arm.

  She put that arm around Vicktor’s waist and the two of them walked out the door. Vicktor even bent to kiss his wife’s golden hair.

  “I’ll be damned. I thought the bastard missed it,” Walter breathed.

  “I know,” Peter said.

  “He never told me he saw the game!”

  “Did you ever ask?”

  “Are you kidding?” Walter laughed bitterly. “I never asked that man anything, ever. Do you know the shit he put me through?” Walt faced Peter, who was standing next to the green filing cabinet that had ripped a hole in the pale gold boards of the basketball court.

  “Some of it.” Peter’s nimble fingers flipped through his files.

  “Nothing was ever good enough for that asshole.” Walter was getting mad all over again, like the game was yesterday. Like the daily slices and slashes at his ego and pride were still going on and home was never a safe place.

  “I don’t know what he wanted from me, but man I could never give it. I worked with him for two years after I graduated. We nearly killed each other. He always said that I didn’t know what it was to be a man—he told me that when I was six.” Walter rolled his eyes at Peter who didn’t laugh. “But when I enlisted—” He put his hands in his pockets and studied the conference banners that hung from the ceiling. “Well, things were different.”

  “Things are not always what they seem, Walter.”

  Walter looked around the old auditorium, the seats. In particular, the empty one of his father’s that loomed so large in his memory. “I can’t believe he saw it.”

  “He saw it twice.” Peter tucked the file back in the green cabinet and the thing retreated into the ground and the wood healed itself.

  “What do you mean, twice?”

  The boy’s eyes glowed again and he grew taller as Walter watched, his throat dry, his throat aching.

  “When your dad died, this was his day. This was the day your father relived, Walter.”

  Walter’s legs gave out and he collapsed into the brown auditorium chair.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

  9

  Peter stood up from where he had been sitting next to Walter in the gymnasium. A ball appeared in his ghostly hands and Peter started practicing free throws.

  He was terrible, Walter noticed. The kid threw too hard and from his palms, not the tips of his fingers.

  But he hit every basket.

  They had been there a long time and already Walter’s memory was erasing the details of the day. The roof was vanishing in chunks and grass was growing up between the boards in the court. The net hung in tatters from the rim.

  “What day did my mother relive?” he asked, wanting suddenly to have her thick arms around him again, like he was a boy and brandy tea would make all this go away.

  “What day do you think she relived?” Peter asked, deking and ducking past imaginary point guards and forwards.

  Walter looked up at the ceiling, where the wooden and metal beams were fading to dust and patches of sunlight came through, like high beams, to touch the floor, illuminating the maple’s slow dissolve into the ether. “The day Christopher came home from the hospital,” he guessed. It had been the only time all four of them had lain in his parent’s big bed with all the pillows and mystery of adult sleeping arrangements.

  Peter stopped his fantasy game and stared at him, smiling sadly.

  “You know I’ve been doing this for a few years. And I’ve learned some things.”

  “Does this have anything to do with my mom?”

  “Girls grow up to give their mothers grief,” Peter said, ignoring Walter. “Because they see their mothers as humans. With faults and problems and prejudices and silent secret wants. Little boys never see their mo
thers as they really are. Mothers are perfect—simple. Living only for them. And those little boys grow into men who never see their mothers as they really are.”

  “I doubt my mother’s waters ran very deep,” Walter said. “It’s the sort of thing my father would put an end to.”

  Peter pulled his phone from his belt and tapped away, shaking his head at Walter all the while.

  “Your mother relived the day she, your father, and her parents left Poland.” Peter’s eyes glittered with a certain unappealing satisfaction. Smarmy bastard. “It was their wedding day.”

  Walter was surprised. Oddly wounded.

  “Hey, you’ve got a decision to make. How about it?” Peter asked, dragging Walter from his hurt feelings. “Is this the day? Basketball champ? It’s a good one. All the running, all that glory, you looked good up on their shoulders.” The boy dribbled and put a layup in the crumbling basket. The ball disappeared in a poof of smoke.

  This wasn’t the day, but Walter wasn’t sure he wanted to leave just yet. Lingering here in this old memory felt good. Made him happy in a sad way.

  “I’m sure the night was probably just as good.” Peter shrugged. “A few parties…”

  Walter surged to his feet. He remembered what had happened that night. How could he possibly forget that night? The maudlin nostalgia lifted from around his shoulders and he smiled.

  “Great, so if you want to just sign the…” The contract suddenly appeared in the kid’s hands and he pulled a pen from behind his ear.

  “I don’t want to relive it, I just want to see something.”

  “Oh.” The boy was hesitant and Walter was ready to beg. This had been a very big night for him. “I don’t know, I’ve got…” The boy looked down at the small pager on his belt. “Well, would you look at that. She had the chicken.” The contract and pen vanished. “Where to?”

  “Give me twenty minutes around midnight.”

  The kid clouded over, there was a spark and flash, and they left the auditorium and memories of his father behind.

  Walter and Peter sat on a stone fence watching a 1961 Buick Skylark. Walter plunged his hand into a drift of snow next to him on the fence. It was painfully cold for about three seconds and then the feeling faded out. Not to numbness, but to nothing. He didn’t feel the wet or the cold.