Touching down in Chicago: Part 2
Touching down in Chicago: Part 2
Coach Swendel had ordered a large number of pizzas in order to satisfy the large appetites of the still-growing boys in his team.
As they were waiting for their order Jason felt his cellphone vibrate in his pocket. Pulling it out he saw a notification saying that he had just gotten a text from Marcus.
'Yo, Young Buckets. Doing Riverside proud with the show you put on the last two games. I heard your next game is gonna be in Chicago so I went ahead and checked in with a few of my people that I know there.
They cool with us and by extension they cool with you. But Chicago is still a pretty rough place depending on what parts you steppin in. So just make sure you keep your eyes sharp.'
After reading the text Jason responded 'No worries Marcus. Me and the team are gonna stay close to the hotel.
So other than the school we'll be playing the game at we should be doing minimal travel here in Chicago.'
As Jason put his phone away back into his pocket his gaze couldn't help but slip towards the corner of the pizza place where some VR arcade machines were set up.
The sight stirred some memories and his vision of the present and the past began to overlaps until he found himself back in time to his junior year of high school.
A young teen boy with light brown skin, the sides of his hair shaved into a high fade and the top styled into short black twists. He was dressed in a dark green sweatsuit and standing in front of the VR arcade machine.
Standing next to him was a similarly dressed boy with a paler skin tone. His black medium-length black hair was slicked back as he occupied the VR machine on the right.
Both the boys were on the slimmer side and the tallest of them was the boy with the short twists, standing at around 6'1 (185.42 cm) while the boy on his right was around 5'10 (177.8 cm).
The both of them began to remove the goggles and headphones on their heads before then removing the thin black wristbands and putting them away on the sides of the arcade machines.
"Haha, and that's anotha win for me. The pizza was already gon be amazing but it's aboutta be a whole lot tastier knowin that it's free."
The boy with the short twists raised his fists into the air in celebration. He then turned to the boy on his right.
"Alright Jaya, you know the drill." The shorter boy then sighed before getting his wallet out and handing over a ten-dollar bill.
"Why do I still agree to these bets knowing full well that I can't outshoot you? And why do you still keep doing this knowing that there is a zero percent chance of me winning? It's not even interesting at this point Dev."
Dev then pocketed the money before putting his arm around the shoulders of the slumped-over figure of Jaya.
"Come one bro, I already told you. You can't have that kind of attitude. If you don't have any fight in you at the start, then it won't even be one in the end.
And besides, this is supposed to image training man, training. Ain't you super into that? And I thought I told you to walk around with some more spirit.
You the defensive stopper on our team. That means you gotta be a DOG dog. I mean, to give you credit you at least look the part on the court. Why can't you bring some of that outside of it?"
Dev then yelled out "Yo Donny! That pie done cookin yet or are you just takin a nap back there?" A thirty-something-year-old with some scruff around his chin walked out from the back with a flour-covered apron and walked over to a table.
Seeing their pizza get dropped of at their table they began to walk back towards it. Jason sheepishly smiled before scratching the tip of his nose.
"I don't know Dev, that might be easy for you but that's not really me. I'm already thankful that you got me to be more confident on the court."
Dev put Jason into a headlock before ruffling up his hair with his opposite hand "Don't even start with that shit bro. Ain't nothin for you to be thankin me for."
Dev let go of Jaya before looking him straight in the eyes and poking him in the chest "That grit was already in you. All I had to do was get you to start using it. I can tell by the look you be havin in your eyes.
There's definitely a fire burning somewhere in there. You just so used to puttin your head down and keepin it to yourself."
Jason ran his hand through his hair, fixing it up somewhat, while getting seated "You really think so? Because sometimes I feel like I'm just playing pretend."
A moment of silence began to spread across the table as both of them just sat there, pizza hot and steaming but untouched.
Jason sighed "I love basketball man, I love it so much. But sometimes it just feels like I don't belong. Even now, I only got to finally join varsity because of you.
You're the one that got me to be tougher and more aggressive on defense, you're the one that spent extra time to practice with me... and you're the on that talked to coach. If you didn't I wouldn't even be-"
Dev didn't let him finish "One, you was already tough as hell on D. I know cause Coach Butler be talkin bout it all the time back when we played AAU.
Two, you were helpin me out just as much as I was helpin you cause I needed that practice. I helped you get better on defense and you helped me work on my bag.
And three, I only told Coach Peterson the truth. That I was tired of us gettin our asses whooped because he wouldn't put our best perimeter defender in varsity.
He knew it was the right call to make, I mean, the dude been watching clamp fools down since freshman year. He knows how you get to work. I just gave him the extra push to finally do it.
So if you think I pulled any strings just to get my bro on the team then you wrong. Naw naw naw." Dev began to shake his head.
"Cause no matter how tight we is I wouldn't say shit to Coach if you was ass. Sorry, but ain't no two ways about it. I don't roll like that."
Dev then grabbed a slice of pizza and stuffed half of it into his mouth in a single bite "You gotta get it through your stubborn head, that everything is because of the hours you spent grindin.
Did I help a bit? Sure, but no amountta help would do any good unless the person themselves is willin to put in work. Which is pretty much all you do."
For a moment Jason looked down at the table before reaching out and grabbing a slice of pizza. Taking a much smaller bite than Dev.
"Thanks Dev, not for anything specific. Just for... you know. Being my friend." Dev smiled before reaching across the table and smacking Jason on the shoulder. "Alright, now that's one thanks that I can actually accept."
The memory begins to die out as Jason finds himself back in the current moment. "Jaya? Yo Jaya." The figure of young Jason sitting across the table fades out into Kyle's as he calls out to him.
"Huh? My bad Kyle, what's up?" Kyle looked at him with his brows raised.
"You okay Jaya? This is the first time you've just looked... Kinda lost. We were talking about the trip and you just started staring off into space."
Jason shook his head before cracking a small smile "Sorry, guess the flight wore me out more than I thought."
Kyle looked at him for a second "Ookay. Well just to catch you back up, DJ was saying that the other team's must have had just as great of a time as we are now."
DJ nodded his head "Yeah, I mean if you think about it who wouldn't love flying over to Cali and spending the weekend in LA."
Matt scoffed "Oh yeah, who wouldn't love LA? The great smell of ass and shit floating in the air, the horrible traffic, and not to mention all the homeless people walking around. It's practically paradise."
Kyle's jaw dropped as he looked at Matt "Come on Matt. Why do you have to be so negative? You forgot to mention all the great things.
Like Universal Studios, the amazing food places with all sorts of different cuisines, the amazing sights to see, UNIVERSAL STUDIOS."
Matt removed Kyle's hands from his shoulders as he stopped him from shaking him "Alright, alright, we get it Kyle.
Ever since you and Jaya got those season passes as prizes for being All-State Defensive Players you've been a real crazy fan of Universal Studios.
But it still doesn't change how much LA sucks. Did you forget about how long it took us to find somewhere to park when Tori took Jaya and all of us out to watch that preseason game?"
Vince nodded his head "And that was us parking at the stadium. How the hell does it take twenty minutes to find parking in a building designed for parking!"
As the sound of laughter and cheerful discussion filled the table Jason couldn't help but fall into thought.
'I always thought that fun times like this were only possible with Devin. But this table feels just as warm as the one I sat at with Devin. The only difference is that there's more than just the two of us.'
A feeling of nostalgia and longing then began to grow within him as his gaze fell back to the arcade machines sitting in the corner of the room.
"Hey guys, y'all want to try out the arcade? We can play some VR games while we wait for the pizza. Work up a bit of a sweat before we eat."
All of the boys agreed as they made their way from their table to the arcade machines. After putting a dollar in Jason first put on the black wristbands and then the goggles and headphones.
His vision went dark for a second before he found himself standing in an empty stadium. Looking down he didn't have a body and the only thing he did have were a pair of floating hands.
A bunch of floating letters appeared in his vision as the menu presented itself. Jason couldn't help but chuckle.
'This really reminds me of the system.' He then spoke out "Pick the vs mode." In the game he picked up a basketball from the floor and threw it at the line of text that read 'VS Mode'.
Spots on the court began to glow with a faint translucent yellow light as Jason then found himself teleported there.
With a ball in his virtual hands Jason got into his shooting motion. With a flick of his wrist the ball began to fly through the air before swooshing through the net.
As different spots began to glow and Jason began to teleport there he started to shoot the ball with ease.
Not to mention the fact that Jason had played this game with his closest friend countless numbers of times in his past life at various different arcades, Jason was without a doubt the best shooter on the team. With Matt being his only real competition.
After a few minutes Jason had beaten all of the boys by scoring the highest out of all of them. Taking off the goggles and headphones a faint amount of sweat could be seen on his face.
"Look at you Kyle. For someone who hardly ever takes any jump shots in-game you did pretty great. If we start adding that as a point of focus in your training you could really add it to your bag."
Kyle put the goggles and headphones away on the side of the machine before wiping the sweat off of his forehead with his forearm.
"Yeah yeah, we all knew you were going to win though Jaya. No surprise here. I don't even know why I tried to compete against you."
A smiling youthful face appeared in Jason's mind as he looked at Kyle "If you don't have any fight in you at the start, then it won't even be one in the end.
You gotta believe in yourself Kyle, no matter how much you can't or don't want to." Kyle just smiled as he shook his head.
"There you go again with the super-deep pep talk. How do you come up with all of them?" A small smile appeared on Jason's face.
"That one I can't take credit for. One of my old friends told me that. And at a time where I really needed it."
As those words left his mouth the bell at the top of the entrance door chimed as it swung open "Yo Donny! You got any fresh pies done cookin or are you just takin a nap back there?"