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distant than the moon; while planets disintegrate and stars are born we migrate, love, make plans, pare our fingernails, hate one another ceaselessly.
    Before ten o’clock that morning Harold and I were at the basketball court our father had pointed out to us.
    “Shoot for outs,” he said.
    “You shoot.”
    “First one to make it.”
    “You go first.”
    Harold shot. It went in, naturally, a swish.
    “By ones to fifteen,” said Harold, after I missed. “Win by two, make it–keep it.”
    “Take it out,” I said.
    I gave him the ball. He tucked it under his wiry forearm and smiled at me with what I took to be an underhanded beneficence.
    “Good luck, brother,” he said to me.
    He drove to his right, turned his back to the hoop, and committed himself to that subtle chess match all basketball players know about: maneuvering toward a half-inch of shooting space or, if the defense can be duped, toward a spin-and-drive to the basket. I was mesmerized by little things—a dip of the head, a twitch in the shoulder, a convincing set to the mouth—then a fall-away jumper, his slim body going up strong against the backdrop of the city streets. An incandescent moment with the sun around hishead like a halo; then the ball rattling through the chains.
    “One-o,” said Harold. “I’m up.”
    He went left now, as if heading for the corner, then ignited in a curl toward the baseline. At eight feet he swiveled in a running hook that swirled twice around the iron before dropping.
    “Two-o,” he announced.
    He banked in a jumper two steps left of the foul line. Then, going to his left again, a running floater. A reverse lay-up flipped back over his right shoulder. A hook shot from the right baseline.
    “Six-o,” he said. “Mine.”
    “Take it out,” I answered.
    In Seaside we’d played one-on-one a thousand times in the yard at the elementary school. There was sand on the court, and no net, and a sea wind to grow accustomed to. We’d sat against the wall of the school chewing gum and drinking soda pop when we were done. Harold was going to play for the Celtics one day; I was going to play for the Lakers.
    A slashing lay-up from the left, protected. He missed, and I scored twice from the top. Seven to two, Harold.
    In Seattle we found the sun fell pale and motionless and the chain net gave a satisfying swush when the ball passed through it. In Seattle we found an audience in passing cars and young couples decked out in tennis whites. In Seaside the throes of Pacific waves had forever been there, lulling me—the sound of my life passing. Now, in the city, there was no such sound, no vista from home of an endless ocean beyond which any possibility lay; in the city, I realized, there were millions of people, all like me: dreamers falling short of their absurd dreams.
    Harold banked one in from thirty. He drove right, coiled through a three-sixty and released the basketball from the graceful fingertips of his left hand. Swish.
    “Nine to two,” he said. “My outs.”
    A jumper off the dribble drive, left. Down the middle, straight at my fear, the right knee in my chest, an exaggerated arc and off the board.
    “Eleven-two,” said Harold.
    He missed from the top of the key. I struggled in low. A turnaround from five feet—in.
    “Eleven-three,” I said.
    Once, in Seaside, we picked clean a cherry tree together. Harold, stains on his face, sat against its base spitting pits for distance while I watched him from a branch high above.
    Two fall-aways. A scooping lay-up. Harold’s breath, stinking of peanut butter. His elbows and most of all his tenacious rear end, bumping me out of position.
    “Game point,” announced Harold.
    We’d gone smelt fishing together. Millions of them, spawning in the breakers, Harold and I yarding on our net in tandem while the Pacific smashed the sand around us.
    He went right. I leaned into him; Harold leaned back, of course. And for a moment we were frozen that way, two islands of