Fake Combination
Since Anchevitz Junior couldn’t seem to grasp the zone defense, he and his father locked onto two opponents darting back and forth under the boards and did their best to stay no more than a beat or two behind. Spry Cavanaugh had no trouble tying down Wiemer, whose undiagnosed knee injury refused to go away no matter how much he tried to ignore it. This meant that Alan was left to face Dirsuwalt and his own inner conflicts.
Like Heath, Dirsuwalt was a creature of the media who never worked closely with Alan, and therefore would be an unbiased ally when the story broke. But unlike Heath, Dirsuwalt had been fired from the Corp, and was unlikely to take an interest in his former colleague - especially if he had figured out that Alan was supposed to have been fired in his stead.
One thing at a time, Alan reprimanded himself. Dirsuwalt faked much better than Heath, and faked meaner, too. He gripped the ball in both hands and pushed it out in front of him level with Alan’s nose, making him flinch. Then he retracted it and dribbled past. Alan spun too late and trailed Dirsuwalt impotently as he drove the lane for an easy lay up. “Ohh!” Wiemer cheered, slapping his buddy’s hand as they deviated around the center court puddle to their basket.
“Eh. Tough luck, A-man.” Anchevitz Senior, said, in an unnecessary but kind consolation of a B-ball loser. Even Senior couldn’t bring himself to say anything ten seconds later when Dirsuwalt slapped the ball out of Alan’s hands and into those of Wiemer, who, bum knee and all, had enough time to break uncontested for their net.
Alan’s cheeks flamed, but he was only able to play support to his teammates’ initiatives for the next three baskets. Then Dirsuwalt swatted the ball out of Junior’s hands in a similar manner to what he had done before to Alan, but as more of an uppercut. It sailed into the cage roof and down atop one of the lights.
All action stopped to supervise Junior’s ascent, and Anchevitz Senior worried aloud about half a dozen dangers his seventeen year-old son was courting, even as he allowed him to scale the cage. Dirsuwalt ignored the entire process. He drifted back over to the bench and sucked hard on his water bottle. It looked like one of those fancy SIGGs - Alan hoped that meant his new job was at least as lucrative as his old one.
“So, you got fired when you shared a first name with a rookie. What have you been doing with yourself?”
“So…” Alan began, and he saw that Dirsuwalt quickly shifted his eyes over his water bottle to seek out the younger man’s movement. “You’re a sportswriter, I think.”
“Sportswriter. Sports editor.” Long swig. “Sports anchor on the radio. You never listen to WDDT’s the Condor?” When Alan hesitated the older man almost sneered. “I co-host the evening drive call in. But yeah,” he concluded almost pityingly. “I’m a sportswriter.”
There was another roar from below in the Fit Universe Center’s primary basketball court, and when it died down everyone on the rooftop could hear the angry buzz of the light as it began to fry the basketball Junior was furiously trying to poke down.
Dirsuwalt hadn’t granted Alan an opening, and in fact was closing him out with his silence. So Alan decided to make his own opening. “It doesn’t have anything to do with sports, really, but I’d love your opinion on a news story that I’m working -”
“Now, look,” Dirsuwalt clipped him with a gesture across his own throat, “I appreciate the vote of confidence, kid, but I’m looking to relax here and get my game on, not mentor young reporters. Sorry if that sounds harsh.”
And the ‘sorry’ sounded the most harsh of all, Alan thought. “Oh, I’m sorry. Of course. I don’t usually talk about work here, none of us do. I just thought you might have an interesting perspective on this private… Well, forget I said anything.”
The lure intrigued him, that much was clear, but Dirsuwalt clearly didn’t believe Alan was important enough to have secrets yet. “Tell you what,” he said gruffly, “If you guys win - and you personally score on me - I’ll let you buy me a beer somewhere and we’ll talk it over.”
Excellent terms. Junior tapped a partially blackened ball free of the lights and climbed down safely to the cheers of the players. After a few test bounces, the boy’s father announced that the ball was still playable.
Wiemer’s knee must have been getting to him, because Alan’s team was able to exploit his slower movements to pull ahead. Dirsuwalt gritted his teeth and tried a few other moves on Alan, but with less success than before. Alan recovered his bricked shot on the rebound and hunched over the ball while the rest of the players jogged back to the far end. He dribbled slowly toward them, noting that Dirsuwalt and his three teammates were playing a zone defense just beyond the puddle everyone had been ignoring all night.
Just add water.
Alan stomped hard into the center of the puddle, and Dirsuwalt and the nearest defenders sputtered and retreated from the deluge. He cut past them before they recovered and then pulled up short at the three-point line, letting their momentum carry them past. He could see surprise in his opponents’ faces that he hadn’t gone for the easy lay up, and surprise in his teammates’ faces, too. Dirsuwalt scrambled to rise up in front of him and block, but it was too late; Alan threw a three pointer with a satisfying chain swish.