CHAPTER 26

He went to the gym, turned on only one row of lights so he would attract no attention, stretched for all of five minutes, and began shooting. When he thought about his family, he missed. When he concentrated on his form, he hit. An hour passed and he realized how much he enjoyed the solitude of a deserted, semidark gym, with 3, 000 empty seats, and not another person around. At 8: 30, when the count was at 420 shots, a janitor walked under the backboard and said good morning. Samuel said good morning, said he was on the basketball team and had a key. The janitor didn’t care and disappeared.

Samuel stopped for water at ten o’clock and realized he would miss his first class. He decided he was taking a break from classes, if only for a day, and would do nothing but shoot. He skipped them all and stayed in the gym until noon when a group of alumni appeared for a meeting. He hustled back to his dorm and took a shower.

Coach Britt was old-school and believed that basketball players should be lean, limber, flexible, and quick. He preferred finesse over bulk and muscle. Therefore, he did not stress weight training. As an assistant at DePaul, he’d witnessed an entire team decimated with torn muscles and spasms a year after the program hired a drill sergeant who loved barbells and bench presses. Coach wanted speed over strength.

But Samuel had been mightily impressed with the play, not to mention the physique, of Abol Pach, the U. K. shooting forward who had almost single-handedly sent South Sudan packing in their last game in Orlando. Pach was one of them, a Dinka from Juba, lean and fluid but thicker in the arms and chest than most young African players. The program listed him at 6'7" and 220 pounds.

Though Samuel had watched the final game from the bench and in a dizzying fog of uncertainty over events back home, he vividly recalled Pach’s strength and intimidation around the rim. There was a rumor that he spent an hour a day pumping iron. Samuel also had an indelible memory of the vast and modern weight room where the Magic players lifted when off the court. If the game’s best players wanted strength, then that was good enough for him.

An assistant football coach named Willis, one of two white guys on the staff, was in charge of bulking up the team. At first he told Sooley that the weight room was a waste of time for basketball players, but Sooley persisted. By then the African kid with the big smile was one of the more popular fixtures in the locker room.

Willis found a workout plan for basketball players, one designed to strengthen the core and add a few inches to the chest and biceps without restricting flexibility. He showed Samuel the proper and safe way to use the weight machines, weighted bars, bands, and dumbbells. He measured him at 6'5" and weighed him at 195. And he gave him a key to the weight room.

After six weeks on campus, Samuel had fallen into the rather enjoyable routine of beginning each day with an hour or so alone shooting baskets, then an hour or so working as an equipment manager, then at least two hard hours on the court in practice, and a final hour in the weight room. His studies were not motivating and he was cutting more classes than permitted. He had trouble concentrating and was bored with the notion of homework. Besides, he was on the slow track to diddle for a year as a redshirt. That meant five years of college. Surely that was enough. He could always catch up later.

· · ·

Ernie Walker put the finishing touches on a pork shoulder that would be roasted for two hours in the same deep dish with potatoes, beets, and carrots. He admired his work, checked the oven, and slid in the pan. He and Ida both enjoyed cooking, and they had decided that Wednesday nights would be the family dinner with Murray and Samuel.

Though the Central campus was only ten minutes away, they had seen little of their youngest son during his first semester. He wanted to cut the cord and they did not resist. But during the spring of freshman year, word spread among his teammates that his family had a nice house in town and there was always something good to eat. Ida and Ernie had found themselves cooking more and more. Now that they had quietly decided to unofficially adopt Samuel, they were enticing the boys with Wednesday dinners, Saturday cookouts, and Sunday brunches after church.

Ida called and said she was running late. Ernie assured her that their dinner was in good hands. She called him at least four times a day with updates on her hectic schedule, and around five every afternoon she called to inform him she was running late again. He always listened patiently and reminded her to slow down. She was the boss and could come and go as she pleased, but with a staff of younger attorneys she believed in setting the right example. She worked harder than any of them and often needed the calm, steady voice of her husband to settle her nerves.

Ernie checked the oven, set the table, poured himself a glass of ice tea, no sugar, and went to the den to read for a few minutes. He had a stack of newspaper and magazine articles he’d found on the internet at his office and began reading a long piece from The Guardian. The journalist had visited four of the refugee settlements in Uganda and described the daily lives of the people, almost all of whom were from South Sudan.

The disconnect seemed too far-fetched. It was difficult to believe that the nice young man rooming with their son had a mother and two brothers living in a dismal place known as the Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement. Ernie and Ida were talking to Ms. Keyser at the IRC and brainstorming ways to extract Beatrice and the boys, to get them into the immigration pipeline to America. But the sad truth was that there were at least half a million South Sudanese ahead of them, most with sponsors and paperwork properly on file. Ms. Keyser was too professional to use the word “hopeless, ” but after several conversations it was apparent that the chances of a family reunion were slim.

Ida arrived after six and immediately went to the oven for a quick inspection. “Who’s coming? Do we know? ” she asked Ernie.

“Of course not. That would require some forethought. ”

The table was set for five but the number was always a moving target. Murray was often not bothered with notions of planning and was known to invite anyone he passed in the dormitory hallway. He might call home with the number of guests, or he might not. His invitations were usually limited, though, by the number of friends he could stuff into the cab of his Toyota pickup. Four long-legged basketball players seemed to be the max.

When he walked in with just Samuel, his parents were relieved. Murray immediately went to the oven and as his mother said, “Don’t open that! ” he yanked it open and took a whiff. “Smells delicious. ”

“I’m glad you approve, ” Ernie said.

“Close the oven! ” Ida growled as she stepped toward him. He grabbed her and lifted her and spun her around as she tried to free herself. Ernie laughed as Ida squealed, and once again Samuel was astonished at the horseplay.

The men sat around the table as Ida sliced tomatoes for the salad. “Any luck this morning? ” Ernie asked. It was Wednesday, and all of them knew the importance of the phone call.

Samuel smiled and said, “Yes, I spoke to my mother this morning. ”

“Hallelujah, ” Ernie said, rubbing his hands together.

“How is she? ” Ida asked.

“She is safe, as are James and Chol. ” He said the rains had stopped and the food trucks were running on time. The U. N. had completed a water pumping station and each person was getting almost twelve kilos of water a day, but the lines were long. The money Samuel had wired the week before had arrived and Beatrice said she almost felt wealthy. She was very careful with it because the neighbors watched each other closely and money could cause trouble. She had been able to buy some canned foods and personal items, and she had shared these with her two friends from Lotta. They were still living in the tents and had no idea how long they would be there, or where they would move to next. They had been told, though, that the tents were only temporary.

When dinner was served, the conversation shifted from Africa to the basketball team. They were practicing two hours a day and Coach Britt was trying to kill them. As a sophomore, Murray was worried about playing time and moving up the bench. As a redshirt, Sooley was just happy to be on the court. His four-year career was well ahead of him.

As always, he quietly enjoyed the meal. The meat and vegetables were delicious, the sauce rich and tasty. But he had seen too many photographs and videos of the long lines of hungry refugees waiting for a bowl of gruel. The internet brought life in the camps to his laptop in living color, and he could never again savor a fine meal without thinking of his family.

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