The hoop, the second one
That afternoon I drove to the farm store and bought an in-ground hoop. Not a portable this time. One with a steel pole in sections and an anchor kit, a square steel plate with four long threaded bolts welded into a cage, that you set right into the wet concrete.
It cost a good deal more than $180. I am not going to tell you the number, because it is not the point, and because Lena still does not know it exactly and I would like to keep it that way.
The young man who helped me load it said, “This for your grandkid?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Lucky kid,” he said.
That evening I built the forms. I framed a square ten feet by ten feet with two-by-fours set on edge, staked and leveled, so the slab would be about four inches thick. The hole for the footing sat a little back from center, so the hoop would hang out over the slab where a boy would shoot.
Brody came over after school and stood at the edge of the forms with his hands in his pockets.
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“What is this?” he said.
“It’s going to be a slab,” I said.
“For what?”
I did not answer. I just looked at him, and I watched him figure it out. I watched it go across his face like a cloud going off the sun.
“Grandpa,” he said. “You can’t.”
“I already bought it,” I said. “It’s in the garage. You want to see?”
He went in the garage and looked at that long box leaning against the wall, and he stayed in there a while. When he came out, his eyes were red, and I did not say a thing about it.