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| childhood's end PAGE ONE |
| twenty-one On a sunny afternoon right after school, P.K. Oliver and Andy Beene hopped on their bikes and ride down to Danny Hoffman's house and play basketball. Mrs. Hoffman would pull the big orange VW Wagon out of the driveway so the boys could play one-on-one all night long. "Want to warm up with some twenty-one?" asked P.K. "Sure," answered Andy, who took the ball and layed the shot up. P.K. quickly followed as Andy took fairly simple shots from five to ten feet away. Finally, he backed up and took a shot from behind the VW Wagon, out in the street. It hit the backboard and went straight in. P.K. was much shorter, about four or five inches, in fact. He couldn't even see the net from behind the Wagon, but he shot anyway. The ball floated through the air before bouncing on the ground in front of the basket. He has missed by a good ten feet. From there, the game only got worse, as Andy showed trick shots and jumpers. Andy almost always won when they played games of twenty-one, and ALWAYS when they played one-on-one. They had even come up with the rule that whoever was losing after a made shot got to take the ball out. P.K. missed his shots so often and Andy was so much taller that he rounded most of the time. After that, getting around P.K. wasn't that much of a challenge for Andy. Finally, Andy won H-O-R-S-E to H-O when he made another shot from far away, this time at the edge of the neighbor's driveway. P.K.s shot hit the rim, but bounced off quickly. Andy ran down the drive to pick it up. "Who's turn is to get first out?" Andy asked. "You can have it," said P.K. "You lost, you take it out," said Andy.. "I don't need your pity," said P.K. |
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