Page 94 of Hard Count
“You look thin. Come eat.”
She turned and walked back toward the kitchen. Tank tilted his head after her in the universal gesture that meant go and Piper went.
Dinner was on a long table in a dining room, cleared for the occasion.
The whole family was there. Tank and his mother. Tank’s father said grace. A cousin Piper didn’t catch the name of who was visiting from Savannah. Tank’s godson, who had been promised he could ask Piper any football question he wanted and was strategizing. And, at the end of the table near the window, a young man in a gray sweatshirt who had come in late from upstairs and had slid into the last chair with a brief nod to Piper.
“You know Jamal,” Tank said. “My brother.”
“Nice to see you again.”
Jamal nodded again.
The table did not quite absorb him. Piper noticed it immediately, not because anyone was rude to Jamal, but because of the small adjustments that were being made around him. Tank’s mother didn’t pass him the rolls without being asked. The father looked past him when he spoke. The aunt from Savannah had clearly been briefed on who she could and could not ask questions of, because she asked Tank about failure tocatch a ball that day, she asked Piper about his failure to throw a ball that day, she asked the godson about school, and she did not ask Jamal about anything. Jamal just sat there and ate.
After a while, Tank’s mother asked Piper about his mother, Donna Ashton.
Piper gave the answer he gave everyone about Donna. “Oh you know, she is traveling the world.” Tank’s mother turned to Tank’s aunt, and under her breath said. “Girl, you know Donna Ashton from that reality show, right?” Tank’s aunt turned her eyes down to the table, “that messy bitch,” she whispered but Piper could clearly hear her. He was used to these conversations about his mother and her history of antics, so this was no surprise.
The godson was allowed his question during dessert.
“When you throw a deep ball,” the godson said, “do you look at the receiver, or do you look at where the receiver is going to be?”
“Where he’s going to be.”
“How do you know where he’s going to be?”
“Because we practiced it a thousand times,” Piper replied.
“So you’re not guessing?”
“No. It looks like guessing. It isn’t guessing.”
“Cool,” the godson said.
Piper caught Jamal smiling, barely, at the end of the table. It was the first expression he had given the room. Piper smiled back, small, and Jamal looked down at his plate.
***
Tank walked Piper out to his rental car at nine.
Tank lit a Marlboro Red cigarette he was not supposed to be smoking during the season.
Piper looked at the cigarette. “Give me a fucking cigarette.”
Tank rolled his eyes, “When did you start smoking during the season?”
“After today’s crash out,” Piper said as Tank lit his cigarette.
Piper took a drag that hit hard through his lungs, and as he blew out the smoke said, “Your brother.”
“Yeah.”
“Something going on there?”
Tank took a long drag and blew the smoke up toward the porch light.
“Yeah.”
