Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend Read Free Page A

care about. Poetry could be dealt with sometime. But he wondered about girls who would become
     women. Somewhere out in these places of the world was a woman with whom he would make love for the first time in his life.
     And what would that be like? To be with a woman? Not sure. Not sure, but wondering. Would she be pleased with him, and how
     would a boy-man know what to do? Not sure yet. A little shaky thinking of it and reading the copy of
What Boys and Girls Should Know About Each Other
his mother had discreetly placed on his bookshelf. Neither she nor his father ever mentioned the book. As with everything
     else, he figured he was on his own. Nobody was handing out anything to anyone as far as he could tell, except small paperback
     books that were never mentioned and seemed pretty unromantic in any case.
    The jumpshot took Michael down roads where the Shadow couldn’t go. On a December night in 1960, Ellis Tillman leaned close
     to his Zenith portable and adjusted the tuning, trying to pull in KFAB in Omaha, Nebraska. The announcer’s voice came and
     went: “For… information… local Farm Bureau agent.” Long way, weak signal. Twenty below zero in Custer at 9:14, wind chill
     minus forty-eight. More static. He swore at the radio, and Ruth Tillman looked up from across the kitchen table. “Ellis, it’s
     only a basketball game, not the end of the world. Have they said anything more about Michael’s knee?”
    “No. He’ll be okay. He’s a tough kid.” Ellis Tillman took a sip of Old Grand-Dad and bent close to the radio. He was proud
     of his boy.
    The stars shifted or sunspots went away, and the announcer’s voice came back in double time:
    The Big Red machine’s rollin’ now, on top of the Wichita State Shockers, eighty-three-seventy-eight, with just under four
     minutes to go. Tillman brings the ball up-court for the Shockers, still limping on the bad knee that took him out of action in the first half. Over to LaRoux, back to Tillman, half-court press by the Big Red. Tillman fakes left, drives right, double
     screen for him by LaRoux and Kentucky Williams.…
    “Go get ’em, Mikey!” Ellis Tillman stamped his feet on yellow linoleum and pounded the chrome-legged table so hard the radio
     bounced. Ruth Tillman looked at her knitting and shook her head slowly back and forth, wondering about men and what drove
     them onward to such insanity.
    Four hundred miles away in Lincoln, smell of sweat and popcorn and the crowd screaming and the coach signaling for what he
     called the Tillman Special and you’re moving right and slamming your left elbow into the face of the bastard who’s grabbing
     for your jersey and you’re cutting hard for the double screen LaRoux and Kentucky are setting up and a camera flash bursts
     from the sideline and your right knee is swollen to half-again its normal size from blood in the tissues… and you’ve done
     this a million times before… more than that… and the power in your legs and shoulders and the grace and balletlike movement
     and you’re high into the air, left hand cradling the ball over your head and right hand pushing it in a long and gentle arc
     toward an orange rim with silver metal showing where the orange paint has rubbed off from the friction of a zillion basketballs
     … and the ball clears the rim and slices the net just the way it used to in the backyard of your South Dakota home and the
     crowd screams louder and you land on a knee that crumples into nothing and you go to the floor with Kentucky Williams stumbling
     over you on his way back down the court…
    and you lie there
    and you know it’s over
    and you’re relieved it is.
    And four hundred miles northwest
    your mother bows her head.
    Two days later Ellis Tillman got his copy of the
Wichita Eagle
in the mail. He’d subscribed to it while Michael was playing ball and would drop the subscription now. On the sports page
     was the headline
    SHOCKERS FALL TO NEBRASKA, 91-89
    Tillman Hits