Mingus grabbed my bag in Bio and stored it in his locker. It was good of him to cover for me. But my extended absence for the last half of class, and total absence in period 7, did not go unnoticed. The bureaucratic mechanisms began grinding, and though one student skipping a class and a half did not merit any special meetings, it did prompt computer alerts to me, my parents, my counselor, all my teachers, and, of course, my coach.

At the end of my last class, I run to the nearest induction charger, next to the water fountain by the gym. The charger is slow, and old, and takes almost ten minutes to charge up my handy. Waiting for that, plus changing into shoes and practice clothes, takes up too much time, so I’m a little late. Everyone else is already tossing the ball back and forth to warm-up.

On seeing me, the coach shouts, “A teammate is late!”

“Yes, sir!” the team shouts back in unison.

“You know what to do!” He blows his whistle, and immediately everyone drops to the floor to do twenty five push-ups.

I am slow getting down, since I still have a small bag with my water bottle hanging off my shoulder. I set down the bag and start to kneel in order to do my push-ups.

The coach interrupts me, “No, Jackson, don’t bother joining them. I want you to stand there and watch.”

I do. Everyone else on the team does their push-ups. No one looks over at me. No one glares in anger. I’ve been on their side, doing push-ups because someone else was late. I don’t think they care that I am late. I know I never do. I usually just think the coach is a jerk, if I think at all.

The other players finish.

“You see what you did? You made your teammates do push-ups, before a game!” He blows his whistle twice, “Layups!” he shouts, and everyone lines up to do the warm-up drill they have already done a thousand times.

The coach struts right up to me. He is only about six feet tall, so I have to look down quite a bit at him. Which is funny, because he is mad at me, and wants to yell at me, but he has to tilt his head back just to see my face.

“What the hell is this about missing class, Jackson?”

I stare at him blankly.

He holds up his phone, as if there is something on there that I should know about. “If you have an unexcused absence you can’t play. So you better not tell me your absence was unexcused.”

“Uh…” I start. Somehow explaining that Alien World had a level 3 drop in the middle of seventh period and I simply had to be there did not seem like the right answer.

“You better go to the locker room and take care of it. You do understand what it means to be committed to a team, don’t you?”

I nod my head yes. The coach turns his back to me and shouts at the other players. Something like, “If you’re so smart why did you miss that layup?” Probably yelling at Mingus. He is really good at understanding math. Not so good at understanding the pick and roll.

I go back to the locker room and get a full ten minutes alone. I have my phone. I suppose I’m supposed to call my mom and ask her to excuse the absence, say I had a dentist appointment or something. But that seems like a colossal waste of time.

Yes, I might be able to convince my mom, just this once, to lie for me and tell them whatever she needs to tell them to get my absence excused. (She might also just refuse outright. So…) It would be more honest of her not to do that. So it would be more honest for me to not do anything about it at all. Let her go about her day, maybe scold me a little when she gets a phone call from the school, or maybe not. But I’m not going to lie to her.

I have my phone in my hand, as if I’m going to call her, or something. Maybe I’m anticipating the coach walking in any minute. With the phone in my hand, I can pretend I’m texting my mom.

Anyway, Alien World sends me an alert. There is a Gorglax right here in the locker room. It’s just sitting here, as if it knew I was coming and wanted to wait for me. I swipe a few times, but it is a Gorglax, and a quick one, and he—she, it—dodges every swipe. I’m going to have to up my game. So I stand up and swing a few more times. I jump onto a bench, crash into a locker, until finally, across the room from my own locker, I land the Gorlax.

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They are one of the harder species to catch, after all.

So I’m huddled over my phone, checking out the Gorlax stats, when the rest of the team comes in, ready for a pep talk while our opponents go out and warm up.

My coach looks at me. Then checks something on his phone. He says nothing but holds out an open hand. He wants my phone. I don’t want to give it to him. His hand does not go away. He is going to take it, or… something else: kick me off the team, call my mom, meet with me and the counselor. I don’t know what. I don’t know how any of those punishments could be worse than giving up my handy. Yet I give it to him. My mind has been too well programmed. When an adult demands compliance, I must comply.

Coach gives his pep talk. Something about how this is a very good team we are facing, don’t pay any attention to the record, they have a strong offense, number 7 is particularly dangerous, both on the perimeter and in the paint. Then he finishes with, “Gordon, you’ll be starting at center.”

Faces spin toward me. I am the starting center, the linchpin of the team. And everyone wants to know what happened. Am I injured? Am I broken?

I give a rueful smile, as if not playing were the saddest thing in the world.

The game gets going and the two teams try to figure out what the other is bringing. Halfway through the first quarter, the coach walks down to the end of the bench, looks at me, “If you don’t show up in school, you can’t show up in the game, Jackson.”

Then he walks away, as if that is all he needs to say, as if I will be weeping at the great loss.

I admit, sitting on the bench for half an hour sucks. Not because I don’t get to play, not because we are losing, but because I have nothing to do. I am just sitting there. I suppose I could jump up and shout, rally the team back to victory. But my shouts are not going to fix the main problem. Gordon is not inspiring any fear under the basket, so the person in charge of guarding him keeps slipping out to the perimeter. The extra pressure flusters poor Mingus and he botches his passes. Botched passes lead to turnovers. Turnovers lead to more points for the other team.

The coach yells at us in the locker room at halftime. We are down by 15. We suck. We’re not covering number 7. We’re lazy. We’re not running fast enough.

His inspirational speech does not work. Midway through the third, we are down by 20. He points a finger at me but does not look at me. He shouts, “Warm up!”

Everyone on the bench looks at each other. His directions are not clear. I point a finger to my chest to ask, “Me?” He does not look my way. He does not respond. The rest of the bench looks at me. They are right. It’s me. I stand up and do some squats. I hop up and down on my toes. When you are 6’5” in high school, it does not matter if you skipped a class. You are going to play.

The coach calls Gordon off. I’m definitely going in. Coach does not look at me. He does not even say anything to me. I slap Gordon’s hand as he comes off, then run out onto the court. I figure if we win Coach will be more inclined to give back my handy.

My presence throws off our opponent’s defense. By the time they adjust, we’ve already clawed back ten points. At the start of the fourth quarter, Mingus throws me an easy pass under the basket. A quick lay-up and we are within eight. They double team me, elbow me in the ribs, block my feet. This frees up our perimeter, and Mingus can finally run the plays he has practiced over and over. Our opponents are good, and they hold the lead until the final minutes. I block a shot by number 7. He gets so upset that he loses focus for a few seconds, allowing Mingus to blow by him for an easy bucket. We take the lead and hold on for a two point win.

We bound off the court. The locker room is an ebullient mess, with everyone recounting their contributions to the massive comeback win. Guys hit me on the shoulder to congratulate me on the big block. Coach gives a little speech saying he is very proud of us, but we should be ready to focus at practice tomorrow.

After all the excitement has died down and the locker room half cleared. I walk back to coach’s office. I knock on the open door. He looks up and waves me in with his hand.

He pulls my handy out of a drawer and places it on his desk. He does not place it all the way across his desk so that I can take it. He places it close to himself, as if to say that I must first negotiate for the return of the phone.

“Coach?” I ask. It’s not really a question, so much as an offer to the coach to complete whatever ritual I must complete to get my handy back.

“Son, you have a tremendous potential as a basketball player.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“But it’s only that. A potential. You will not achieve that potential unless you work hard and focus on what’s important.” He slides the handy across the desk, but keeps the device firmly in his grip. “Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir. I understand, sir.”

He gives me a long look, as if attempting to transfer his demands into my brain through electromagnetic induction. With the ritual complete, he lifts his hand away from the device.

I snatch the handy and put it in my pocket before he can change his mind.

As I back out of his office, he says, “You have a duty to your talent. Don’t forget that.”