Billy’s Adventures: Love, War, Life … and the Jump Shot
Ronald Klueh
Part One
The Beginning: August 10, 1948
Chapter 1
Billy Ralph Evers dribbled the worn basketball across the short-scuffed grass and weeds. He stopped abruptly, and while raising the ball above his head, he jumped and propelled it into a high arc toward the basket. As he landed, he watched the ball float toward the goal, bang off the rim, and fall to the ground. Two-more tries produced similar results. Snatching a rebound, he turned and saw Daddy and Rambler watching from the shade of the summer kitchen.Daddy approached. “That shot you tried, something new?”
“Yes, sir, a jump shot Coach showed us. Trying to get the hang of it. It ain’t easy.”
“Lots of things don’t come easy,” Daddy said. He glanced at the goal. “See you got a new rim and net.”
“Ordered it from Sears Roebuck Catalog with money from my sawmill job.”
“Goal’s seven-years old. Built in ‘41 when Leroy was a sophomore.”
“I want to be as good as he was … best player on the team.”
“Keep working. You’ve used the goal lot more than Leroy ever did. If he’d worked like you … well ….” He turned and headed toward the other end of their big corner lot.
Billy watched him trudge past the whitewashed outhouse, turn left and head toward the whitewashed combination woodshed and smoke house, then the whitewashed chicken coop, and the hog pen. Cigarette smoke trailed past his head like exhaust from a Southern Railroad engine. Behind him, Rambler, their old black-tan-and-white coon hound, moseyed along sniffing the ground. After checking on the chickens and hog, Daddy coughed, hawked, spit on the ground, and disappeared behind the woodshed.
Billy tried four more shots—one for four. Need to improve. He grabbed the ball and moved. Four long strides into the Phillips’ backyard, where he picked up the pace. Three high dribbles across the street, and he dashed through the Johnson’s yard, smelling of fresh-mowed grass from his afternoon job that earned him a dollar.
His brain swirled with anticipation. She said she’d be there tonight. Like last week.
It happened. Their first kiss. His first from a girl, and it scorched his memory all week. Before it happened, he fretted about how it would go. Like always, they talked as they strolled up the hill through the pasture behind the school to the edge of the woods. They settled on a log and talked. They kissed … soft lips … they kissed! It just happened— felt natural.
After crossing another street, he dribbled into the empty grade-school yard and glanced around. No Beth. She’ll come; said she would.
Where is she? He pictured her blonde hair, blue eyes, smooth legs in dark-blue short shorts. Her bare legs brushed his jeans when they kissed. Her smile … the legs. the kiss stirred juices inside. He hoped she didn’t notice his embarrassment … the bulge in his jeans.
His present thoughts stirred the juices. To keep them from bubbling and avoid embarrassing side effects, he launched a jump shot that sailed through the netless rim.
She was a cheerleader, and in his freshman year, he caught a glimpse of upper legs when she twirled. Cheerleaders rode the team bus, and he spoke to her for the first time last season on a bus to Harriman.
Sitting by herself across the aisle, she seemed troubled by homework. She caught him looking, and held up a green book. “Plane Geometry. Tough,” she said making a face. She read the problem about proving two tangent lines on opposite ends of a circle’s diameter are parallel.
He explained the proof.
After writing down what he said, she looked at him in disbelief. “Is it right? You’re just a sophomore. You never had geometry.”
“My sister took it. She had trouble, and I helped her. She got an A.”
“I’m taking it because I’m going to college to be a doctor. Why did she take it?”
“I told her to. I wanted to learn it. I read all her books. I like math books best.”
“Your sister graduated last year. Does that mean you could take all the tests for junior and senior years now?”
“They wouldn’t let me. Now I read other books. College text books, and I’m reading Tale of Two Cities.”
“You’re crazy liking those things.” She looked at her book, and read the next problem.
On the last three Saturday nights, they met in the movie theater and held hands in the dark. Last week at the woods was different.
He shook away the memory, dribbled to the goal, and banked in a layup. As he grabbed the ball, a light breeze carried an aroma of honeysuckle and triggered another memory: her fresh, clean scent, a faint fragrance of flowers—maybe roses.
He pulled a fresh red handkerchief from his pocket, blotted his face, and sniffed his underarm. Easy does it. Hot. Stinking of sweat … not good. After mowing the Johnson yard, he washed and changed from bib overalls to blue jeans. Got to keep dry.
In the distance, a train whistle blew two shorts and a long: six-forty from Knoxville headed to Cincinnati. Beth’s late.
Backing up, he jumped, raised the ball above his head, and flicked a shot off his fingertips. The ball grazed the front of the rim and bounced onto the gravel surface.
Coach Stiller saw Jumping Joe Faulks of the Philadelphia Warriors use the shot—the jump shot. According to Coach, Faulks invented it ten-years ago in Kentucky, although another guy, Ken Sailors in Wyoming might have invented it about the same time. Coach said it was fast becoming the shot of choice for professionals, and college players were starting to use it.
After his hook shot spun around the rim and dropped off, he dribbled five feet from the goal, and with his back to the rim, he jumped, turned in the air, and launched the ball into a perfect arc. With hands extended over his head as he landed, he heard the tick of the ball scrape the inside of the rim and thump onto the hard gravel-covered ground.
Coach demonstrated it for the team, and said it would change the game. You could use one or two hands; Billy used one. Nobody at Oliver Springs High, including Coach, could hit it consistently. Billy planned to have his shot perfected when practice began in October.
Retrieving the ball, he glanced around the yard. Is she coming? Backing off ten feet from the goal, he jumped, lifted the ball above his head, and let it go.
“Where’d you get that shot, Sport?” somebody called from behind—a man’s voice.
Billy turned and saw Beth’s brother Earl. Bad sign.
Earl Bogart grabbed the ball on the fourth bounce. “I’m the last guy you wanted to see, right? Elizabeth can’t make it.”
She said everybody called her Elizabeth, but she wanted Billy to call her Beth. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t try to shit me.” Bogart said. He shot, missed everything, and started after the ball. “You two been sneaking around. Somebody saw you up by those woods. Did you get in her pants?”
“What are you talking about? I wouldn’t ….”
He laughed “You wouldn’t, huh?” He tossed the ball to Billy. “I know what you’re after. Same thing all guys are after when it comes to girls.”
Billy dribbled twice, jumped, and arched a shot through the rim. “We … I intend to wait until I’m married.”
Bogart faked a ha-ha laugh as he retrieved the ball. “You think you’re going to marry Elizabeth? No way, Sport. You’re going to be a sophomore, right?”
“I’m a junior.”
“No way,” he said. He dribbled to Billy and stared up at him. “How old are you?”
“I’ll be sixteen in February.”
“So, right now you’re fifteen … and you’re telling me you’re a junior at fifteen No way. My sister’s a senior, almost eighteen. She’ll be in college next year.”
“She knows how old I am. I skipped third grade. I’m going to college, too.”
“Oh, so you’re a god-damned tall genius, eh? No way you’re going to college. Your old man doesn’t have a pot to piss in.”
Billy thought about college before Beth said he should go. He decided a year ago when he saw Daddy come home from work, his face black from another day underground. In this town, nobody but kids from rich families like Earl and Beth and doctor’s kids go to college. Many didn’t go to high school or dropped out early to work in the coal mines.
“You think you’re tall, dark, and handsome, and she fell for it. How tall … six-foot?”
“Six-one last season,” Billy said, looking down at the shorter Earl.
“I didn’t know they stacked shit that high,” Bogart said and laughed. “You figure your height will fool her into thinking you’re going on seventeen, right? You’re nothing but a tall-skinny kid … a shitty-skinny child.”
“She knows my age.” She told him he was the best-looking guy in town with his dark-brown hair and dark-brown eyes. He didn’t believe that. She also told him if her dad found out about them, there would be trouble. Did Clarence know? Did that trouble bring Earl?
“What do you expect? She’s a silly girl and doesn’t think,” Bogart said. “She probably gave you the dumb idea you can go to college … probably said you’d get a basketball scholarship. Just like she thinks she’s going to be a doctor.”
“I don’t think she’s silly.” She gave him the idea about a basketball scholarship when she told him she was going to be a doctor. He said he would be a physicist like Dr. Amato, whose grass he mowed. Amato told him he could make it in college.
Billy motioned for the ball. “I’ve got to go.”
Bogart tossed the ball. “No pussy here, so you’re ready to leave.” He laughed. “Oh, I forgot. You’re saving yourself.”
Irritated by the word he only recently learned the dirty meaning and aimed at Beth, he turned and walked. He thought about the word … and about it. Lately, some of his friends spent a lot of time talking about it. He also thought a lot about it, especially in the outhouse looking at one of Daddy’s Saturday Evening Posts and The Sears Roebuck Catalog. According to his Sunday-School teacher, he was not supposed to look and do that thing.
“It’s early,” Earl said. “I got an idea, college boy … future basketball star. Let’s go for a ride. This college boy is over sixteen, and he’s got a driver’s license.”
Billy kept walking, and Bogart ran after him and grabbed his arm. “Hey, I’m sorry I talked to you like that. Leave the ball here, and go for a ride with me.”
Billy left the ball behind the goal and followed Earl, thinking maybe he would see Beth, but out on the gravel road Earl didn’t head for his home. He led Billy up toward the woods, and then he veered off onto a rutted lane leading to a farmhouse, an old barn, and two sheds.
“This isn’t your house,” Billy said as Earl led him to a shiny black car—a 1941 Master Deluxe Chevy Coupe with whitewalls that looked to still be in good shape after seven years.
Earl opened the driver-side door and reached under the seat. When he straightened, he waved a key and slipped behind the wheel.
“Are you stealing the car? I’m not going.”
“I’m borrowing it,” Earl said as he inserted the key and stretched his left leg to reach the starter with his foot. “Mr. Albright works for my dad, and Dad sent him to Atlanta. He won’t be back until tomorrow night. Get in. We’ll go for a quick ride and bring it back.”
Billy hesitated, remembering Daddy’s sermon about the wrong kind of friends leading you into trouble. He knew better, hesitated, but got in. “I need to be home before dark.”
“We’ve got a couple hours then.”
The car started, and they jerked and bumped down the rutted lane and turned left onto the gravel road. To the west, the bright-red sun ducked behind Walden Ridge.
Earl pointed right where a team of horses pulled a wagon through the hay field. One man drove, and two men with pitchforks loaded hay on the wagon. “I wonder when old Casper will trade his horses for a tractor,” he said and turned onto the paved highway out of town.
“Where’re we going?” Billy asked.
“Oak Ridge: Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where they made the atomic bomb that won the war. My dad helped build the place. I heard about a whorehouse over there.”
“We can’t get into Oak Ridge. There’s a fence around it with guards. They’ll shoot us.”
Earl roared a laugh. “There are ways to get in. You know what a whorehouse is, boy who’s saving himself? You know what a whore is?”
Billy hesitated. He knew. He heard the seniors on the team talk about whores in Knoxville. “I know. They do … do it for money.”
“Do what?” When Billy didn’t answer, Bogart continued. “They fuck, right? They fuck for money. You got any money, Sport? You want to fuck a whore?”
“I’m not going to a … going to Oak Ridge.”
“You wanted to fuck my sister. How about your sisters, two mighty pretty girls? I’d be happy to fuck either one of them. You think they’d fuck for money?”
“Peggy’s married.”
“So, she’s getting fucked regularly. What about Rita Sue? She’s my age, nineteen, right? We were in the same class. Think she would do it for money?”
“No. And I didn’t want to do it to your sister.”
“I forgot, Sport, you’re saving yourself. You don’t think Rita Sue would fuck for money. I guess not, since your family is rich.” He cackled as he passed the turnoff to Oak Ridge and accelerated onto the road to Clinton that went around Oak Ridge.
He and Rita talked a lot, and she agreed with him about not doing it until she married. She saw what happened to Peggy, married to a jerk because she did it and got pregnant. “Rita got a housekeeping-and-babysitting job in Oak Ridge.”
Earl laughed. “What kind of house does she work in?” He slowed the car and drove off the paved road into woods and followed faint tracks in the grass and dried leaves. In a clearing hidden from the road, Earl parked next to a black ‘47 Ford Super Deluxe that shined like new. “Let’s go,” he said opening his door.
In the dimming light of the woods, Earl led Billy up a worn path to a heavy chain-link fence with barbed wire strung along the top. Earl grabbed the fence with two hands and pulled part of it away from the heavy-steel post where it had been cut. He motioned Billy through the opening.
Billy followed Earl along an uphill path. They emerged from the woods onto a rutted-dirt street with houses on each side in different stages of construction. About a hundred yards further, the street was graveled, and some houses on both sides were finished.
Earl headed toward a house with a lit porch light and followed two older men up the path to the front door.
Billy stopped. “I ain’t going in there.”
“Come on. I’ve got money.”
“I don’t want your money. I just want to go back home.”
“We’ll be going as soon as I get a piece of ass.”
“I’ll wait over there,” Billy said and started across the street to sit on a pile of lumber in front of a house under construction. There, he watched a waxing moon rise in the east and stars blink on in a cloudless sky, the temperature cooled from this afternoon mowing grass.
Men, young and old, came and went to and from the lighted house. Occasionally when the door opened, he heard piano music and voices.
Just now two soldiers entered the house. He wondered about being in the army without a war, no mothers losing sons like Mrs. Johnson in their church. Two seniors on the team enlisted after graduation. That was before last month when President Truman reinstated the draft. Now the ones that didn’t enlist knew they would be drafted, and some of them talked about enlisting to postpone working in the mines until later.
Billy’s mind wandered. What’s it like, naked with a naked girl? He considered slipping around back to look in a window. He shook his head to chase the evil thoughts and concentrated on Beth. Coming home on the bus after the fifth away game, she sat next to him and they talked, pretty in her purple-and-gold uniform. The gold matched her golden hair, the color of fresh straw, but much softer. After that, they talked to-and-from all the road games. He hated when the season ended, and he looked forward to next season.
What time is it? Daddy will be mad. Bring out one of his sayings about choosing friends. An excuse? Need an excuse.
Billy planned to get up early tomorrow to go squirrel hunting. Mom was low on money, since Daddy wasn’t getting enough hours at the mine, sometimes having to stay home because of his cough. If Billy brought home some squirrels and maybe a ground hog, it meant more meat and saved money at the store.
Across the road, the door opened, and Earl stumbled off the porch. He motioned Billy to come over. “I got somebody I want you to meet.”
Billy ambled across the road, gravel crunching under foot. “I’ve got to get home.”
“Only take a minute. You know this person.”
“Who is it?”
“Come in and see, and then we’ll head home.”
Inside the first room, two men with drinks stood with two girls in short house coats watching a baldheaded man play the piano and sing, “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me …anyone else but me.”
Earl led him down a hall and knocked at a light-green door. “I brought you another customer,” he called.
“Bring him in,” a familiar sounding girl’s voice said.
Earl opened the door and stepped back for Billy to enter a room in low light from a shaded lamp on a dresser across the room. A naked girl stood casually in front of a messed-up bed, arms at her side. He stared at her, surprised by the light-brown hair between her legs—he didn’t know girls had hair down there. He raised his eyes to her breasts and then her face. “I’m not a customer … Rita!”
Rita turned quickly and grabbed something from the bed. With her back turned and naked butt exposed, she shrugged into a short-red garment, leaving her long legs bare up to her rear end. She turned and gawked at him, eyes wide, mouth open, face red. Looking down, she saw her mostly exposed breasts, and when she hugged the robe to her chest, she exposed too much lower body. Shaking her head, she turned sideways. “You are a bastard, Earl Bogart.”
Earl cackled from just outside the door. “You ready to go home, Sport?”
Speechless, Billy looked at Rita then back at cackling Earl.
Rita grabbed Billy’s arm. “Wait. I can explain.” She slammed the door in Earl’s face.