Sooley
- Автор: Гришэм Джон
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Doubleday
- ISBN: 978-0-385-54768-0
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Sooley». Краткое содержание книги:
“So Tennessee paid us to come into their place and get slaughtered?”
“Sure. They’re called ‘guarantee’ games. They’re guaranteed a win and we’re guaranteed a check. Everybody does it. Just part of a typical season. Plus they cover our travel expenses.”
“What do we pay our victims?” Sooley asked.
“A lot less. I’ve heard ten thousand. Plus they buy their own bus tickets.”
“Only in America.” At least once a day Sooley was stopped cold and shook his head in amazement at the excesses of American culture, especially college athletics. He still had trouble grasping the idea that his full scholarship, valued at about $22,000 a year, was free, and that Central was paying him $7.25 an hour to fold towels and clean up after the football team.
On November 24, the last day of classes before the Thanksgiving break, Central hosted Campbell in another sleeper. With only a few hundred fans watching — the students had already fled — the Eagles proved that twenty-year-olds can easily lose focus. They were going home tomorrow, for four days of Mom’s cooking and no practice and no classes to worry about, and they didn’t bring their game. But Campbell did. According to the Vegas odds, another American oddity that Murray was still trying to explain to his roommate, Central was going to win by a dozen points. Instead, the Eagles lost by 10, at home, and Coach Britt was furious. He told his players to get out of his sight — he didn’t want to see them until Sunday afternoon, at which time they had better show up ready for a grueling practice.
Chapter 29
For the past fifteen years, Christine Moran had tended to the dire medical needs of the poorest people on the planet. She was from the lovely town of Besançon in eastern France, near the Swiss border, but had not been back there in a decade. She had studied nursing in Paris and wanted to see the world. Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders, signed her up and sent her to Bangladesh for two years. From there she went to Tanzania and spent three years caring for people from Burundi who were fleeing genocide. After five years with refugees, she returned to France and worked in a hospital in Lille, but quit after four months when she realized her patients were hardly ill compared to those in the developing world. She returned to Africa and was assigned to the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, home to 200,000 displaced souls, most from Sudan and Somalia, though they came from twenty other countries as well. Many of them were children with no parents, and it was those faces that haunted her when she tried to live in France. The sad hopeless faces of malnourished children, some dying, others hanging on and slowly improving. She had held hundreds of them as they drifted away forever.
Three years ago, she had been assigned to Rhino Camp South and found it to be a better settlement than most. They were all overcrowded and depressing, all packed with displaced people who had lost everything, but the Rhino camps were somewhat organized and the food and water usually arrived on time. DWB ran two large tent hospitals, and the staff, a mix of European, American, and African doctors and nurses, worked nonstop for at least twelve hours a day. It was an arduous schedule, a challenging way of life, but they were driven by a deep humanitarian desire to make a difference, one patient at a time. Most burned out after a few years and retreated to the safety of the civilized world, but even then they never forgot their work in the camps and took quiet pride in the lives they saved.
Christine kept her cell phone close but not on display. Their coverage was limited and air time was cherished. She enjoyed sharing it with a few of her patients, those with relatives in the U.S. or Europe. She had spoken to Samuel on two occasions and asked him to call relatives of other people in the camp, and he happily agreed to do so.
Each Wednesday at precisely 2 p.m., she walked to a certain corner of the hospital tent, made eye contact with Beatrice, and led her to a small room where supplies were stored. They waited until 2:05. The phone rang. Christine said, “Bonjour, Samuel.” She handed the phone to his mother for a brief chat and went outside.
Lonnie’s wife kicked him out of bed at six because he was fidgety and kept waking her up. It was obvious, at least to her, that he couldn’t sleep. But she could if he would just leave.
At his favorite diner he flipped through the newspaper, but only to have something to do as he ate. The only news he cared about was basketball and he monitored the sport ten hours a day online. Duke was 6–0 and its closest game had been an impressive 18-point win on the road over Villanova. Kentucky and Kansas were numbers two and three, both undefeated.
Lonnie put the paper down, worked on his breakfast, and began fuming again about the previous night’s loss to Campbell. As always, he expected to split the pre-conference games and he was realistic about the early losses. But he and his staff had pegged Campbell as a win.
He drove through the empty campus and parked by the gym. He walked through the locker room, approached his office door, and stopped when he heard a bouncing ball. It was 7:20, the day before Thanksgiving, and the only students on campus were foreign and all were still sound asleep. Except Sooley. Lonnie peeked around the bleachers and watched the kid dribble and shoot. He shook his head, went to his office, and watched the edited version of last night’s fiasco. He called Jason Grinnell, his associate head coach and closest friend, and replayed the game again. He called two recruits to wish them Happy Thanksgiving.
At 10:30 his wife called with a short grocery list. He asked if it was okay for him to return home. She said yes, but only if he could forget basketball for the next forty-eight hours. He said he could but both knew it was a lie. He locked his office door and had taken a few steps toward the locker room when he realized the basketball was still bouncing.
Sooley was soaked and broke into his customary grin when he saw his coach walking toward him. “How long you been shooting, Sooley?”
“I don’t know, Coach. Two or three hours.”
“How many shots?”
“Six ninety.”
“And how many have gone in?”
“Three forty-three.”
“That’s almost fifty percent.”
“Yes, but, as you say, there’s no one guarding me.”
“And all from the arc?”
“Ninety percent.”
“Do you know what our team is shooting from the arc?”
“Twenty-eight percent.”
“Twenty-eight percent. That’s pretty lousy. What do you think of our team, Sooley, after five games? You have a different perspective from your end of the bench. I’d like to know what you think.”
Sooley smiled, dribbled a couple of times, said, “We’re good, Coach. It’s early. We have a lot of experience. Once we get into conference we’ll be okay.”
Lonnie smiled and asked, “Where’s Murray?”
“Sleeping when I left the room.”
“He needs to spend more time in the gym, don’t you think?”
Sooley wasn’t about to pass judgment on his roommate or any other member of the team. Murray’s problem was that he’d rather spend time with Robin, his latest girlfriend. Evidently, they couldn’t get enough of each other and the dorm room was their favorite love nest. Sooley was spending at least an hour in either the library or the commons each night, waiting for the text that all was clear.
“He’s good,” Sooley said. “Just needs some more playing time.”