Samuel returned the wave and wiped his cheek.
He would never see his father again.
CHAPTER 7
Ecko Lam was lounging in the bleachers with three of his players and waiting for the others to arrive. The gym, the same one they had used in April, was busy with a summer basketball league on one end and a volleyball tournament at the other. Things would clear out somewhat tomorrow, and Ecko had been promised one full court for practice. He was desperate to get his team to Orlando and to a real gym for more intense workouts. He knew that for the next three days his players would practice hard but would also be distracted by thoughts of the trip.
He saw Samuel enter the gym with his team bag and look around. Ecko realized immediately that he was taller than in April. He called him over and they went through the standard handshakes and embraces.
“How much have you grown?” Ecko asked.
“I don’t know,” Samuel said.
“Come on, Samuel, you’ve grown several inches.”
“No way,” Samuel said.
Ecko looked at the other three and asked, “Right? He’s taller?”
“Maybe an inch or so,” said Riak Kuol, a forward.
“You were six feet two the last time you were here, right?”
“Yes.”
“Come here.”
They walked into the locker room where a narrow board eight feet tall was attached to the wall next to a chalkboard. Ecko nodded and Samuel pressed his back to the yardstick.
Ecko smiled and said, “Six feet four. You’ve grown two inches in the past two and a half months. What are you eating?”
“Everything.”
“Keep it up. Taller is always better.”
* * *
·?·?·
By dinner, all ten players had reported. Ecko gave them the night off and instead of a hard practice they ate pizza in the dorm and talked about life. The coach said little and wanted the boys to get comfortable with each other. They would live together for the next month, sleeping three and four to a room, eating every meal together, sweating buckets in practice, winning and losing and pushing each other to whatever limits were in their way. They would laugh and probably cry, and along the way they would discover a small slice of America.
Ecko saw basketball as one of the few bright spots in his native land, and he dreamed of returning with his players and helping to build a new nation. He asked if any of the boys had encountered violence. Riak Kuol, a Murle from Upper Nile state, said that a relative had been murdered in a village burning only two weeks earlier. The man’s family had fled and disappeared and were probably hiding in a refugee camp.
Samuel told the story of his bus ride home back in April and his close call with the bandits. Quinton Majok, a Nuer from Wau, the fourth largest city, had relatives in a refugee camp in Uganda.
They talked late into the night, and Ecko became convinced that he had chosen well. They were kids, just boys about to leave on a journey they could hardly imagine. They spoke the same English, though some better than others. Abraham Bol, an Azande from Upper Nile, won the award for the most languages. He spoke five—two tribal, English, Arabic, and some pretty good French he picked up from a missionary. His dream, after basketball of course, was to speak ten languages and work as an interpreter for the United Nations.
At midnight, Ecko shut down the party and ordered them to bed. He promised tomorrow would be brutal.
* * *
·?·?·
However, the next day began not with a half hour of painful stretching, nor with a round of Coach Lam’s much dreaded suicide sprints, but with a most exciting order of business. It was Shoe Day! In the locker room, Ecko stood in front of a stack of identical bright boxes with the Reebok logo on all sides. He explained that the major apparel companies—Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Under Armour, Puma—were not only sponsoring the tournaments in the U.S. but also providing plenty of gear. In a random drawing, Reebok had picked the team from South Sudan. Some of the players may have preferred other brands, but in an instant they were forgotten. Reebok was now the favorite as they happily ditched their old shoes and began trying on the new.
Ecko looked at the pile of battered, torn, and slick-soled old shoes and shook his head. How many hours had they pounded away on dirt and mud courts? All of them should have been discarded months ago. Every decent high school player in America had a collection of basketball shoes, some of which they actually wore on the court. For his players it was Christmas morning as they opened boxes, held up the pristine Reebok Revenge models, and slowly, gingerly, tried them on. They passed them around and helped each other get the right size as all ten seemed to chatter at once.