This is the Part Where You Laugh by Peter Brown Hoffmeister Page A
Authors: Peter Brown Hoffmeister
Ads: Link
“Basketball could bring me money. It could bring me wealth. Same as being a Russian princess.”
I shake my head. “It’s different.”
“How?” he says. “Tell me.”
“I don’t know. You get to play, for one thing. You
get
to. You don’t
have
to.”
Creature spins his ball in his hands. “Tell me, baby, what do we have here? What power? What influence? We live in a fucking trailer park in a middle-class town in the western United States. You and I are shit on by everyone at school unless they’re afraid of us. We go to Taft, a trashy, rich-person school.”
“Yeah, but we’ve got basketball, man.”
“And the princesses, well, they get to be princesses. So tell me: What happens if you take that one thing away from us? What happens if we lose our
one
thing? What happens then?”
T. S. ELIOT AND BASKETBALL
I bike to meet Creature at the Washington-Jefferson Bridge courts, and these are the rules:
Shirts vs. skins
All by ones to eleven
Winner’s outs
Call your own fouls
Winning team stays in
I lock my bike and find Creature shooting on the far rim. He says, “We’re gonna be ‘a pair of ragged claws tonight, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.’ ”
I nod. Take a warm-up shot.
“Nothing?” he says. “T. S. Eliot, baby. ‘All the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo’?”
I say, “My poet is Rajon Rondo.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he says. “Let’s find some big men to run with.”
Creature and I pick up three forwards and wait to get in on the next game. Creature says, “Pick and cut through for easy layins and dunks.” Then he points at me and says, “You play the point and I’ll take the two, got it?”
“Yep.”
“Off the ball,” he says, “I’ll commit murder. Plus, we’ll run the pick-and-roll up top. If I’m not open on the roll, you pop or hit one of these big guys underneath. Keep the other team honest, right?”
“Right.”
—
Creature’s only 6'1", but he dunks bigger than 6'1". And on the first pick-and-roll, that’s exactly what he does. His man slides in front of me, and I hit Creature over the top for an uncontested dunk down the middle of the lane. The rim is reinforced, no breakaway, and Creature takes a moment to do a slow pull-up on the double rims. He yells as he drops down. And then the rout’s on. We win that first game 11 to 2, the other team never figuring out how to stop Creature.
The next game is the same. And the next. I pass to the three big men a little more because I want them to stay interested in playing with us, but Creature’s always my outlet on the break. I don’t have to shoot, so I almost never do unless they drop two to the paint on the pick-and-roll.
Fourth game. Some thug-looking guys from Portland step in.
I play defense, dribble, and pass. Bring it up top to reset. Drive to draw the defender. I love this part of a game, when I get to run everything but don’t have to take a shot. I start to get into a flow where it’s just me. I’m myself and I’m alone, and there are motions when I have the ball and motions when I don’t have the ball, and I think about my footwork, my body position, square up my shoulders, backpedal with my butt low, point at the cutter, play the left-side top of the two-three zone.
Sometimes when it’s like this, I don’t hear anything, or I guess I hear things and I react to what I hear, and I talk to my teammates, but even that isn’t conscious. Even that part of my brain goes away somewhere, and then there’s just this flow of the game and everything I love about it.
Creature snaps me out of my head. He yells, “I’m eating your entrails right now, bitch,” and he’s wagging his finger in a gangbanger’s face, and the gangbanger looks pissed. Then I can hear. And I’m with everybody else, and one of our bigs seems worried.
Two possessions later, Creature dunks and does another pull-up on the rim. Says, “I’m just getting so damn tired from all these dunks
I shake my head. “It’s different.”
“How?” he says. “Tell me.”
“I don’t know. You get to play, for one thing. You
get
to. You don’t
have
to.”
Creature spins his ball in his hands. “Tell me, baby, what do we have here? What power? What influence? We live in a fucking trailer park in a middle-class town in the western United States. You and I are shit on by everyone at school unless they’re afraid of us. We go to Taft, a trashy, rich-person school.”
“Yeah, but we’ve got basketball, man.”
“And the princesses, well, they get to be princesses. So tell me: What happens if you take that one thing away from us? What happens if we lose our
one
thing? What happens then?”
T. S. ELIOT AND BASKETBALL
I bike to meet Creature at the Washington-Jefferson Bridge courts, and these are the rules:
Shirts vs. skins
All by ones to eleven
Winner’s outs
Call your own fouls
Winning team stays in
I lock my bike and find Creature shooting on the far rim. He says, “We’re gonna be ‘a pair of ragged claws tonight, scuttling across the floors of silent seas.’ ”
I nod. Take a warm-up shot.
“Nothing?” he says. “T. S. Eliot, baby. ‘All the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo’?”
I say, “My poet is Rajon Rondo.”
“Yeah, whatever,” he says. “Let’s find some big men to run with.”
Creature and I pick up three forwards and wait to get in on the next game. Creature says, “Pick and cut through for easy layins and dunks.” Then he points at me and says, “You play the point and I’ll take the two, got it?”
“Yep.”
“Off the ball,” he says, “I’ll commit murder. Plus, we’ll run the pick-and-roll up top. If I’m not open on the roll, you pop or hit one of these big guys underneath. Keep the other team honest, right?”
“Right.”
—
Creature’s only 6'1", but he dunks bigger than 6'1". And on the first pick-and-roll, that’s exactly what he does. His man slides in front of me, and I hit Creature over the top for an uncontested dunk down the middle of the lane. The rim is reinforced, no breakaway, and Creature takes a moment to do a slow pull-up on the double rims. He yells as he drops down. And then the rout’s on. We win that first game 11 to 2, the other team never figuring out how to stop Creature.
The next game is the same. And the next. I pass to the three big men a little more because I want them to stay interested in playing with us, but Creature’s always my outlet on the break. I don’t have to shoot, so I almost never do unless they drop two to the paint on the pick-and-roll.
Fourth game. Some thug-looking guys from Portland step in.
I play defense, dribble, and pass. Bring it up top to reset. Drive to draw the defender. I love this part of a game, when I get to run everything but don’t have to take a shot. I start to get into a flow where it’s just me. I’m myself and I’m alone, and there are motions when I have the ball and motions when I don’t have the ball, and I think about my footwork, my body position, square up my shoulders, backpedal with my butt low, point at the cutter, play the left-side top of the two-three zone.
Sometimes when it’s like this, I don’t hear anything, or I guess I hear things and I react to what I hear, and I talk to my teammates, but even that isn’t conscious. Even that part of my brain goes away somewhere, and then there’s just this flow of the game and everything I love about it.
Creature snaps me out of my head. He yells, “I’m eating your entrails right now, bitch,” and he’s wagging his finger in a gangbanger’s face, and the gangbanger looks pissed. Then I can hear. And I’m with everybody else, and one of our bigs seems worried.
Two possessions later, Creature dunks and does another pull-up on the rim. Says, “I’m just getting so damn tired from all these dunks
Similar Books
