Down Third Street, Sherman Scheer dribbled his red rubber ball clumsily, the ball jumping about randomly like a nervous flea. He started and stopped and strafed about the road as he attempted to keep the ball somewhere between his right hand and the blacktop. The trees were nearly barren of their leaves, having spilled their wealth to the gutters of the road on either side of him. A car came down the street, its muffler unable to mask its arrival. Sherman caught the ball against his chest and hurried to the side of the road to let the car pass. He watched it ride past him, the car pulling a draft of leaves in its wake.
Down the road he continued, scarcely able to see the road over the ball against his chest. A flat glass bottle swung in his left hand. When he reached Davenport Avenue, he turned north. On the stretch between Fifth and Sixth Street, nine boys waited for him. Like restless vaqueros, they loitered in the middle of the street in various poses, watching him approach. Eight of them he knew; one of them he did not.v
“Who’s the new kid?” Sherman asked, pointing at him.
“What’s it matter to you?” Doug Wallace, a gaunt fourth-grader asked him, spitting on the sidewalk.
“Well, I’ve got the ball,” Sherman said, “so I guess it matters a lot.”
Wallace spat on the sidewalk again and stalked around him. “Well, if I took that ball of yours than it wouldn’t be yours, would it? And then maybe we wouldn’t have to let you play.”
“But you won’t,” said Tyler Drummond, a fourth-grader, all arms and legs. “I’ll tell your parents if you do.”
“Big threat, Drumhead,” Wallace said, sneering and scoping the neighborhood. “You have to go running to the parents for everything. Fight your own fights for a change.”
Sherman trembled a bit at Wallace’s quick-shot ire but steeled himself. “Whatever,” Sherman said, walking past him.
“Hey!” Wallace shouted from behind him. “No glass bottles!”
“What’s it matter?” Drummond said, throwing up his hands. “You throw the ball at it and it knocks over.”
Wallace turned to them with a grin. “Well, when I hit it, it’s gonna shatter. And what will you use then?”
Drummond and the rest of the kids scoffed. “Tell you what,” Drummond said, “if you break that bottle, we’ll just call it quits and you win. How’s that?”
“Fine by me,” Wallace said, folding his arms in front of him like a bigshot. “But this is gonna be over real soon.”
“Finally,” another of the kids said, a fifth-grader named Curtis, nicknamed Twist.
Wallace sneered at him. “We’ve got teams already. We’re taking the new kid.”
“That kid ain’t so new to you, I hear,” Drummond said. “Ain’t that your cousin? Why don’t you introduce him?”
Wallace looked at the new kid and shrugged his shoulders. “Ain’t my cousin,” he said. “Never seen him before.” The new kid said nothing but looked down at the road.
“Whatever,” Drummond said, motioning for the ball. Sherman hesitated but threw it to him. “We’ll take Sherman. It’s fine.”
“We both know Sherman’s as good as the pavement,” Wallace said, chuckling. “So you think you can beat us with four, huh? Best of luck to you.”
Sherman winced at the gibe. It seemed unfair to him to assume that he was any worse than this mystery figure whom Wallace never met before. “What about the new kid?” Sherman asked. “Does he know how to play?”
“Yeah, has he even played bottleball before?” an overweight fifth-grader named Chugger asked.
The new kid looked at all of them and shrugged.
Drummond sighed. “Fine, I’ll run through it. It’s real simple. There’s two bottles and one ball. The point is to knock over the other team’s bottle with the ball.”
He continued, “You can’t run with the ball. You have to dribble it. Once you pick up the ball, you can jump once. But you can’t have the ball in your hands when you come down. If you do that, you turn over the ball.”
“It’s just like basketball,” Twist said, twitching with impatience.
“Right, just like basketball,” Drummond said, tossing the ball directly into Twist’s gut. He wasn’t prepared for it, jumping back in surprise. The rest of them laughed.
“Every time you knock it over, it’s a point. First to ten wins,” Wallace said, swiping lightly at Sherman. He jumped out of the way. Wallace snickered.
Drummond rolled his eyes and said, “No tackling and keep contact to a minimum. If you foul somebody on the other team, they get a free shot.”
“But don’t be that guy that keeps calling foul,” Wallace said, matter-of-fact. The rest of the boys laughed, causing Wallace to scowl. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Drummond said, hiding a wide smile. “And last thing. Here’s a tip. Don’t stand too close to your bottle. Usually, you’d think that standing close to it on defense would help you protect it, but − ”
“You could knock it over accidentally,” Chugger said. The boys all laughed again. Chugger hung his head.
“Any questions?” Sherman asked the new kid. The nameless boy glanced up at him long enough for Sherman to notice the tinge of grey in his eyes. Yet only for a moment. The boy averted his eyes and shook his head.
“Let’s drop some bottles!” Twist yelled in his warpath call.
The two teams went to their respective ends of the street, positioning their bottles directly in the middle of the pavement. At one end, Sherman’s flat glass bottle, and at the other, Wallace’s wooden bottle, tall and slender. The bottles stood about twenty yards from each other. Chugger looked at that distance and sighed. Sherman patted him on the back, but Chugger nudged him away. “I’ll be fine. Worry about yourself, Scheer,” he said. “Gonna be a long game.”
Sherman flushed. He knew this was a portent of things to come. If by the end of the game he had touched the ball at least twice, that would be a victory for him. Which was strange because it was his ball to begin with. Which made him flush all the more.
He gazed over at the opposing team. Wallace was their captain and would control the ball. He was the tallest of them with the best angle of attack. Next to him were the fourth-grade twins, Castor and Paulie, both of them quick wings who played expertly off of one another. Backing them up was the biggest of them, Mason Pekkanen, a viking of a fifth-grader with a scruff of beard already beginning to show on his chin. And then there was the mystery kid in the baseball hat with his eyes in the clouds.
Sherman was already much acquainted with his squad. The primary ball handler was the effervescent Twist, a master of misdirection and a flashy ballhandler who was, as a result, prone to turnovers. The main scorer, both known to Sherman and the whole of Kinnaston, was Drummond. The kid was simply unguardable, his moves ungainly yet with surprising strength. To Sherman, watching Drummond break down a defense was like watching a flamingo sling boulders.
Chugger was their defensive anchor, a big guy who was surprising light on his toes and an honorable player, known to sacrifice his body to block a shot. Their third option on offense was a fourth-grade boy named Ken Lee, the son of the town doctor. He said little and laughed less, but he knew how to find weaknesses in any defense. By the end of the game, Sherman estimated that Ken would get open at least twenty times with a clear shot to the bottle.
And then there was Sherman, who in his heart felt that he could physically dominate any player on the street but in his mind knew that he was probably the weakest and possibly even the slowest player out there. But Sherman had watched bottleball games his whole life and he knew the tricks. Or at least he felt like he knew the tricks.
“Okay, game plan,” Drummond said, pulling them into a huddle. “Man on man defense. I’ve got Wallace. Twist and Ken have the twins. Chugger, you’ve got Mason. Good luck with that. And Sherman has the new kid.”
“But what if the new kid is really good?” Twist asked, glancing over at Sherman.
“Then we’ll adjust,” Drummond said, sighing. “I think Sherman can probably handle him, though.”
“What are we doing on offense?” Sherman asked, drawing four skeptical glances.
“You’re staying out of the way,” Chugger said, nudging him again. “Wherever the ball is, you stay on the opposite side. We can win this four-on-five.”
“Get off it, Chugger,” Drummond said, cuffing him in the head. Chugger reared back like I would swing at him but caught himself with a deep breath.
Sherman said nothing, thankful for the assistance but chafing against it all the same. Even though Chugger was nearly twice his size, Sherman wanted to take a swing of his own at him but decided against it. Drummond came over and patted Sherman on the back and smiled down at him. “It’s okay, man. You’ll touch the ball today,” he said. “I promise.”
Wallace shouted at them front across the way, “You guys took Sherman so you start with the ball!”
Twist wrenched the ball from Sherman’s grip, a glint in his eye. He started dribbling the ball on the pavement, between his legs and behind his back in flamboyant show.
“It’s gonna take me two seconds to steal that ball, Twister!” Wallace shouted.
Twist scoffed. “Let’s try that new play out,” he said. “We’ll sucker them early.”
Drummond smirked and Ken gave a short nod. Chugger cracked his knuckles. Twist marched the ball to the other bottle where the other team awaited them. Paulie defended him with outstretched hands, with his brother Castor sticking with Ken who wandered behind the wooden bottle and waited. Wallace was already fighting Drummond from getting anywhere near his bottle, a necessary plan. If Drummond got anywhere within ten feet of that bottle with the ball, it was coming down.
Twist nodded, setting the play in motion. Chugger and Drummond crossed their paths, causing Mason and Wallace to collide but managing to slide past each other. Already Ken had been rolling from around back, so Twist hurled the ball at him. Ken caught the ball midair and lobbed it at Drummond who had somehow slid behind the defense. The big man Mason got in front of him, but it was too late. Drummond pumped a fake one way and then cut the other way, finding an open window. He loosed his shot, striking the wooden bottle aside.
Drummond and the others celebrated while Sherman watched them with his mouth agape. That was the fastest he had ever seen a bottle topple. Wallace and his team shook their heads, muttering their dismay with words like “cheaters” and “unfair.” Twist flared his nostrils and belted out a war cry. “Come at us, you fools!” he yelled. “Come and be crushed!”
Wallace set up his bottle again and took the ball in hand and dribbled it up the street. Drummond met him early and forced him to pass through a tangle of arms. As the ball sailed to Paulie, Twist jumped in front of it and caught it. The teams flew the other way, with Twist attacking from a wide angle. Wallace met him and forced him away from the bottle, but Twist found Ken flying around who found Drummond behind the defense again. In front of Drummond, Castor found himself helpless, so Mason jumped over to help. Drummond managed the double team with sawbone precision, thrashing this way and that and finally finding Ken cutting behind the double team directly over the bottle. Ken, with soft hands, simply dropped the ball and notched another score.
It was the same play, Sherman awed. They scored twice in a row with the same play.
At the other end, Wallace dribbled the ball with a deepening grimace. The twins flew around, trying to create space, but Twist and Ken cut them off. To Wallace’s wing, the new kid stood disinterested, looking up at a barren tree. Sherman watched him for a moment and then watched the action. Wallace finally managed to work the ball down and find Mason, who pushed Chugger away with force, and knocked over the glass bottle. It chittered against the pavement, unbroken.
Chugger dusted himself off but said nothing. As Sherman set up the bottle again, he caught Chugger, saying, “Mason shoved you. Why didn’t you call a foul on him?”
Chugger heaved his shoulders and stared down at the other team. “Just shut up, Sherman, and stay out of my way,” he said, hocking a loogie and spitting to the side.
Sherman let him go, bewildered. Drummond patted Sherman on the shoulder, saying, “Chugger’s had a bit of a rough day,” he said. “He told Sydney that he liked her.”
Sherman’s eyes leapt to Chugger. “Seriously?” he whispered to Drummond. “What did she say?”
“She didn’t say anything,” he replied. “She laughed a lot, though.”
Sherman sighed and said nothing. With heavy shoulders, Chugger marched down to the other bottle and waited for the next play to commence. Ken trailed behind him. Corraling them, Twist motioned the two of them down the street for the next play. Twist winked at Drummond who nodded and prepared to run their play again.
After setting up, Twist drove forward as Chugger and Drummond crossed. Ken rolled around from the right this time, and Twist passed him the ball, who immediately dished the ball to Chugger who found Drummond swinging behind him. Drummond caught the ball in motion and pushed around to take a shot, but Wallace, Mason and Castor all blocked him. Paulie came around and blocked Ken who cruising around to receive another pass.
The play looked completely destroyed, except for a small window that Sherman noticed. He leapt forward past the new kid and wove toward the window. Drummond, in the midst of his shifting saw Sherman coming forward and swung the ball at him while looking the other way. The defense suddenly was broken. Sherman scoped in on his own shot as the ball flew toward him. He caught the ball and launched it with his right hand. It spun wildly out of his hand and flew wide right.
“Nice shot, Sherman!” Chugger yelled at him, shoving him hard. Sherman shoved him back and Chugger pulled a fist back to throw a punch. Drummond and Twist each caught him at his arm, holding him back. Chugger struggled against them and in the midst of it, Sherman glimpsed Wallace, his tongue wagging as he streaked past them with the ball. Unguarded, he knocked over the glass bottle with a clean blow.
“Great!” Chugger screamed. “Just great! Our lead is gone! Are you happy now?”
Sherman couldn’t say anything but merely looked at the pavement.
On the next play, Twist drove hard at the bottle, forcing two defenders to confront him. Ken, running free, caught the ball from Twist and dished it to Chugger who worked around Mason and scored a fall.
“That’s how you do it!” he yelled in Mason’s face. Mason glanced over at his team and waved his hand in front of his face. They all laughed together and Chugger groaned.
As Sherman moved back on defense, he heard Wallace whisper to the new kid, “You ready for the reins?”
The new kid turned his baseball cap backward. Wallace handed him the ball.
The new kid skipped forward with the ball in his hands. Sherman stayed in front of him, watching the ball bounce back forth from one hand to the other and back again. He swiped a few times, but the new kid shifted away from him, backing up into him. He picked up the ball and swung it around and tossed the ball to Wallace. Except that when Sherman went to cut off the pass, the ball wasn’t there. He shot back to the new kid, who still had the ball in hands and was leaping wide right and firing at the bottle. The ball rocketed past Twist’s outstretched hand and through Chugger’s legs, knocking the bottle over.
Twist tried to run his play again at the other end, but as Ken flew around to receive his pass, the new kid broke it up, springing forward with the ball and blowing past everyone to score another goal. And then again, he scored after stealing the ball from Twist after a wild dribble. Wallace clapped the kid on the back and grinned from ear to ear. Drummond scowled and shook his head.
“Give me the ball,” he said to Twist. “I’ll take over.”
Drummond took the ball down the street into the teeth of the defense, with Wallace matching him step for step. As Drummond shifted slightly in front of Wallace and then pushed past him, Wallace crumpled to the ground yelling.
“Oy!” he yelled. “That’s a foul!”
“I didn’t touch you,” Drummond said, securing the ball in his grasp.
“You put an elbow right in my gut,” Wallace managed, doubled over on the ground. He moaned loudly for effect.
Sherman rolled his eyes. He saw the entire thing plainly from his vantage. Drummond had barely brushed him. Nonetheless, Wallace wouldn’t relent, tossing and turning on the ground. “Whatever,” Drummond relented. “Take your free shot.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Wallace said, springing up with a smile. Twist smacked his forehead in loathing. Wallace strolled to the halfway point on the street between the two bottles and lobbed a shot. It plunked squarely into their glass bottle, tallying another point. They were now winning with six points, and Sherman’s team only had three.
Drummond took command of the ball on offense, standing a good distance away and dribbling cautiously. Slowly, he slinked his way to the goal, finding his way around the defense. When he managed to guide Wallace into an unsuspecting Mason, Drummond cut around the defense and launched a bullet at the wooden bottle. But the nameless boy dove in front of him, kicking the ball aside with his leg.
The kids stopped and watched the ball leap onto a lawn. “Was that legal?” Drummond asked to the whole crew. “Can you kick the ball?”
“You never said you couldn’t,” the boy said running after the ball. He tossed it onto the street and dribbled it forward like a soccer ball. Sherman and his team hustled back to defend. The boy with the baseball cap, kicked the ball around the defense, his speed too much for Sherman. When he found a hole, he kicked the ball with extreme force. Chugger leapt in front of the bottle, taking the ball in the gut. But as the ball jumped from Chugger’s belly into the air, the new kid was right there, catching it in mid air and finding Paulie on the wing for a score.
Drummond stood wordless on that street, with the light becoming golden and the smells of dinner approaching them. Chugger rubbed his stomach as he stood up, fuming. “Give me the ball,” he shouted at Drummond. Chugger took the ball and charged the defense with utter abandon, the ball insecure. As Sherman and his teammates watched helpless, Wallace easily scooped the ball from Chugger’s dribble and launched it down the street to the new kid who was at the bottle before Sherman could register it.
Just like that, the score was 3-8.
Calling timeout, Drummond huddled his team. “Do you guys just wanna go home?” he said, looking at each of them in the eye. “How about it? Are you going to fight for this or are you going to give up?”
“I’m tired,” Chugger said, breathless.
“And I’m hungry,” Twist added.
“What about you?” Drummond asked Ken, who shrugged back at him and looked back down the street toward his house.
“And how about you?” Drummond asked Sherman. “You just wanna take your ball and go home?”
Sherman looked at each of them, their eyes defeated and their chins sagging. The team at the other end stood like warriors already triumphant. With their victory already realized. A thick lump of fire dropped into his gut.
“No way,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I’m gonna win.”
Chugger snickered. “And how do you plan to do that, third-grader?”
Sherman wondered at that. For the last few plays, he had been watching the new kid handle the ball. He used the other kids on his team for cover, using their blocks to make passes or take shots. And he remembered seeing that before on the television. The pattern of it repeated before his eyes. Suddenly, it made sense to him.
“Okay, here’s the plan. Me and Drummond have it from here. The rest of you try to get open. One of us will get you the ball if you’re open. But don’t crowd us. We need space for this to work.”
Chugger sighed loudly in disgust. Twist and Ken nodded in agreement. “We’ve gotta try something, I guess,” Drummond said, intervening. “Let’s try it. But what about defense?”
“We stop just guarding one guy,” Sherman said. “We need to make a wall in front of the bottle at all times. There should always be two guys nearby who could block a shot whenever. Plus, I don’t think we’re gonna have as much trouble defending if we’re scoring.”
Again, loud sighs and moans. “Hey, shut up and just listen to him,” Drummond said. “I say we do it.”
With hung shoulders, the team shambled down the street leaving Drummond and Sherman alone. Drummond handed him the ball. But before Sherman could take off, Drummond caught him at the elbow. “Try dribbling with your left,” Drummond said. “Your right hand isn’t very coordinated.”
Sherman nodded and switched the ball to his left hand and let it drop. And for the first time in his life since his father had bought him that ball, Sherman felt like he could control it. The ball leapt back into his hand and he put it down again with precision. It felt good. It felt right.
“They gave it to Sherman?” Wallace shouted, erupting in laughter. “Looks like we’re heading home soon boys!”
“What do I do?” Drummond asked Sherman as they jogged forward.
“Just stand in front of me and I’ll make it happen,” he said. “When you see your chance, take it.”
Drummond breathed deep and jogged in front of him. The street, with Sherman at its head, began to make sense. The boys on the wing, the big men down center. The mystery boy came up to defend him, his look serious. Drummond cut behind the new kid and Wallace trailed him with a feral look. Suddenly, Sherman sprung forward and cut to the left side of Drummond, grazing his arm as he drove by. At once, Wallace was caught in the arms of Drummond and the new kid trailed behind him, unable to stay in front. Sherman leapt toward the bottle. Mason came over to help, his arms outstretched, but too late. The ball was already out of his hand when Mason reached him, and the bottle already rolling on the ground.
Sherman pumped his fist and flew back on defense. The rest of them followed. They encircled the bottle like a fortress, waiting for the oncoming attack. Wallace bounced forward and launched a high pass, but Ken scooped it from the air and tossed it back to Sherman. Again, they drove toward the bottle with Drummond leading in front. When Drummond stopped again, Sherman sliced to the close right. Wallace jumped out in front of him, which was his mistake. Drummond ran free toward the bottle with Sherman bouncing the ball right to him. With that, the lead was cut from five to three.
Their fortress defense stood firm at the other end. Harmlessly, Wallace and his team dispensed the ball freely to one another to find an open window but could find nothing. Finally, Wallace dumped the ball off to Mason, who was only a few feet from scoring. Chugger stayed in front of him, pushing him away from the bottle. But Mason doubled back and forced Chugger to step back too far, his foot catching the glass bottle and knocking it over. The score was now 5-9. They were one score from losing.
In his periphery, Sherman noticed Chugger furtively wiping his brow and then wiping his eyes. His chest heaved, warring against the sobs that threatened to escape. Sherman ran over to Chugger on their way down and stopped him.
Sherman said to him, “Run the next play with me.”
“What?” Chugger asked, wiping his eyes again.
“You watched me and Drummond do it, right? So try it with me. You’re stronger than Drummond so I think it’ll work even better.”
At that, Chugger looked at him and beamed. Never before had he ever seen that kind of grin on Chugger’s face. Sherman grinned back at him. They bumped fists and ran headlong at the bottle together. When the new kid jumped in front of him, Sherman dribbled to the left and found Drummond signaling for him. The new kid noticed this and jumped to the left, cutting him off. So Sherman switched, flying to the right. He drifted around Chugger, who caught not only the new kid but also Wallace and Paulie. With open air, Sherman found a wide-open Twist waving his hands like a lunatic. 6-9.
They ran the play again and again to great effect. Twice, Chugger got free without anyone in front of him and scored and once Drummond hit the bottle with a miracle shot behind the back. This play was unbeatable, Sherman realized. Even when it wouldn’t work the first time, he would just find another angle and try it again. At one point, they even tried executing Sherman’s fortress defense, although it could not stand up to a charging Chugger. Eventually, someone would make a mistake and one of his teammates would get free for a wide-open shot.
Back on defense, the score was tied at 9-9. The next score would win. Sherman’s defense was working just as well as his offense. Six times, they denied a score simply by keeping close to the bottle and helping each other out. No matter what the new kid did, whether dribbling or kicking, he could not find a way to get close to the bottle without finding obstruction.
Hoping for a final score, Wallace asked for the ball and found it but could not find the bottle. Twist intercepted the ball at his hip and raced forward with Sherman in tow. The twins cut off Twist, but he spun around and handed the ball to Sherman, who cut against Twist and found running room on the other side of him. With the twins scrambling to catch him and with Wallace closing in behind him, Sherman picked up the ball with his right and rifled it at the bottle.
The ball seemed to fly slowly, spinning in the air toward the bottle. The twins leapt. Their fingertips fell short of the ball as it spun away from them. But as the ball flew, Sherman saw the spin was too much. It spun away from the bottle and into the hands of an awaiting Mason.
Mason caught the ball and flung it down the road to the new kid, who was sprinting to the glass bottle. Drummond got in front of him and steered him away, allowing Sherman time to get back and help. The new kid doubled back and Sherman swiped at the ball, but before he could reach it, he ran headlong into Wallace’s shoulder. He flew to the side in a heap.
As he righted himself and as the world righted with him, he heard cheers and moans. He looked up. His glass bottle no longer stood in its place and Wallace was hugging the new kid and bellowing praises to the afternoon air. Hunched down beside him was Chugger, heaving with deep breaths.
“Sorry, Chugger,” he said. “I missed.”
Chugger laughed and smacked him on the back, startling him. “Not a big deal,” he said. “I love that play of yours.”
“Oh yeah?” Sherman said, chuckling.
“Definitely,” said Drummond, offering a hand. He pulled Sherman to his feet and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Yep, you have the ball from now on,” Twist said. But he added with a smirk, “That is, unless I figure out that trick of yours.”
As Sherman looked up, he found the ball flying at him. He caught it at his chest, knocking him back a little. “Thanks for letting us use your ball,” Wallace said in a sly drawl. “And thanks for letting us use your ball, too.”
“Where’d you learn that?”
It was the boy in the baseball cap speaking to him. “Learn what?” Sherman asked.
“The pick and roll,” the boy replied. “You’re a genius with it.”
“The pick and what?”
He waved him off. “Never mind. Don’t worry about it. Thanks for letting me play.”
“It’s no problem. You’re really good.”
“You too. At first, I thought you kinda stunk, but you surprised me.”
“I guess I surprised myself as well.”
“What’s your name?” the boy asked.
“Sherman,” he replied. “Yours?”
The boy laughed. “Are you kidding?”
“No,” Sherman said, hesitating. “Why would I?”
“My name is Sherman, too,” the boy said. “My full name, at least. My parents called me Manny, though. Everybody else, too.”
“Well, pleased to meet you, Manny,” Sherman said, extending a hand to him. Manny took it and shook.
“We play every day after school,” Sherman said, picking up his glass bottle while managing the ball in his hands.
“Is that an invitation or a statement?” Manny said, turning his ballcap around. The grey in his eyes seemed deeper now, like a cloud-rampant sky.
“Both, I guess,” Sherman said. “See you tomorrow.”
Manny nodded. “See you tomorrow.”
And they all went to their respective homes.
To read Chapter #005, click here.
Kinnaston 
Thanks for the read. Enjoyed learning about the game, new to me. Incidentally, my favorite sport to watch is basketball. Keep on keeping on.