Night School

The doors were locked so my brother Jesse and I busted a window. They were building a new school in our neighborhood, the one Jesse would attend next year as a freshman and me a year after. It was close to midnight and we’d already managed two cans of Budweiser and a package of jerky while shoplifting. Our parents were at some bar drinking and dancing. We knew they’d bring home creepy “friends” so we planned to take off until after their party wound down.

Jesse tapped the shattered glass from the window frame and we climbed through onto cardboard boxes and stacks of lumber. We’d prowled the site earlier in the construction process—before they’d installed doors and windows and a rent-a-cop to patrol the halls at night. We knew it had four floors of classrooms but all we wanted was the gym.

—Hey, get that flashlight.

I flicked the switch on and off a bunch of times before slapping the barrel against my palm. No light.

—Gimme that thing, Jesse said, yanking it away.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I watched him unscrew the lens and fiddle with the bulb. Next he tried removing the base and dumping the batteries out. Reordering them.

Again, nothing.

—It’s fucked, he said, tossing me the flashlight.

He looked around, then spotted the pile of wood.

—What do you say about torches?

We scrounged the construction debris and found some two-by-two slats, then wrapped the ends with cardboard and Visqueen. Thankfully, they hadn’t yet installed the fire alarms. The torches were slow to burn and the Visqueen plumed black smoke before the flames took hold. Once lit, they resembled giant matches, producing only enough light to see a few feet ahead. I felt like a character from my summer reading book as we snuck toward the gym in the dark.

We coughed from the smoke, going down two or three switchbacks on the narrow stairs before entering a hallway clogged with pallets of building materials wrapped in plastic: stacks of marble tiles and bags of sand and cement.

As we passed through a doorway into the gym I stubbed my toe on the metal threshold, stumbled a bit before regaining my balance, trying to keep the torch from igniting the place. A burning glob of Visqueen fell to the rubber coated floor, sizzling before going out.

We looked around but there wasn’t much to see—not with the night and the dark and our torches. Just inside the doors were more pallets heaped with aluminum ducting, plastic pipe, and rolls of insulation and tape. There were bleachers on two sides, basketball hoops on the ends.

—Listen.

At first there was nothing, but then I heard the steady thumping of boots coming down the stairwell. We scrambled beneath the bleachers and snuffed our torches. The white beam of a light flicked in the hallway, sweeping from side to side like the spotlights in prison movies.

—Hello? the man called from the doorway.

He didn’t enter the gym, just shined his flashlight. The arc of the light jerked around the walls and floor, sweeping across the bleachers where we scrunched down close to the metal. He did that for about thirty seconds, then locked the door behind him. The door rattled a few times and then the clank of metal against metal. He jiggled the door once more, ensuring it was locked.

We waited until we could no longer hear his boots.

—Locked in, I said.

—No shit, Sherlock.

—So what now?

—Wait until morning when the workers arrive.

—What if he calls the police?

—Mom and Dad will have to bail us out.

—If they’re even home.

Sitting in the dark, backs against the block wall, we stayed silent as our eyes adjusted to the dark underbelly of the bleachers.

—All right, beers and munchies, Jesse ordered, snapping his fingers.

I found them in my backpack. We cracked the tops, drank like we enjoyed it, even though the beer was warm and tasted like piss. Chewed the jerky until our jaws hurt.

—So now what? I asked, crushing the cans beneath my shoe.

—Now we shoot some hoops.

He went to the pallet with the rolls of insulation and ripped off a big chunk and threw it to me.

—Ball it up, he said.

I scrunched the insulation together and tried to shape a ball. Jesse opened a roll of duct tape and started winding the tape around the insulation while I squeezed it tight.

The moon shone through the skylights, throwing weird shadows across the bleachers. We started to play.

The floor was freshly laid and our sneakers squeaked with every change of direction, but it didn’t really sound like basketball without the metallic boink of a dribbled ball echoing inside the gym.

—You can’t guard me suckha! he said, double-pumping before going in for a layup.

He threw the ball to me and did the play-by-play.

—He jukes left, fades right, he shoots!

I missed.

My shoes squeaked as I ran in the dark to retrieve the ball.

—Ok, let me try one from half-court, he said.

He stood at the centerline waiting for better light, but the clouds were back and we were in the dark again.

A soft whisper, a thump against the backboard, and then our makeshift ball landed near my feet.

—Did it go in?

I had no idea if the ball went in or not, but I yelled that it did. He shouted and whooped. I could hear him running around the court.

Even without light we’d be ok. We looked out for each other. Would at this school, too.