December 01, 2004
shooting
A note of conceit: this and another piece were once published on the Jordan brand website. Crisp white text on black, with a small Jumpman symbol next to my name. Until David Sedaris says something positive about my writing (or hell, anything about my writing), it's my favorite endorsement...
Thhip. One of one.
Thunk. One of two.
Knees. Ball resting perfectly in the right hand. Rise up onto the toes, balanced. Elbow points ahead. Ball rolls off hand, thumb falls away, fifth finger pushing in slightly, three middle fingers rolling the ball up and away, spinning it.
Thump… Tthhip. Two of three. Bounce, bounce, turn, again.
Over and over, bit by bit, the logjam of memory and thought was cleared with every shot. The ones that had hurt and the ones he’d hurt rolling off his hands like the ball arcing to the hoop. Words spoken to him and words he spoke finally quieter than the swish of a make or the thudding clang of a miss. Just the ball, trying to trace the same arc over and over again, hundreds of times. Every shot made, a tiny but satisfying victory, one more towards “better.” Every miss something to shake off.
It’s hard not to fight the missing, not to struggle with oneself, over-think the motion, over control the muscles, over-analyze the distance and spin. Better to shoot each shot as its own, separate from all the hits and misses before.
Thunk. Thirty-eight of sixty. The difference between keeping count and letting it rule you, run you down, is a very fine one.
The mist continued to drift down, the sun continued to slide unseen above, the temperature continued to drop. On the painted line at his feet, though, tiny lakes of sweat, rippling faintly with each dribble.
Knees, raise, elbow, hand, fingers, toes, roll. Thhipt. The now-damp net would slap against the spinning ball as it spun through. Like the crack of a hard ball off a well-swung wood bat, or the soft but solid smack of pigskin hitting a receiver’s hands, the swish of a ball through a net was a goal in itself. Do things right, and you were rewarded with a satisfying sound.
It was only in these moments, alone here, in the sounds of net and ball and rim, that his mind would go, finally, quiet.
Growing up in Texas, on a 52-acre plot of land his parents leased for a pittance, as caretakers until it would be sold for the inevitable expressway and Target Greatland, basketball was an oddity, an orange ball seen at sporting goods stores. His father never watched it, and he himself could never recall being aware of it for most of his life. Growing up alone, basketball would have made much more sense than his sad efforts to learn baseball and football on his own. Punting footballs over power lines entertained him for awhile, but just as quickly lost its appeal. The same with tennis on the uneven yard against the unpredictable brick wall of the house, and throwing the baseball against the side of the barn.
He had known of but never really known the sport or its sounds until adolescence had faded. The equivalent of knowing of the legend of Marvin Gaye, hearing the words of others in tribute, seeing his picture, but never actually sitting quietly and hearing that clear voice of pain and redemption. He was finally blessed to know the beauty of basketball when he was 22, when he was made to sit quietly and hear what the game had to say to him.
Not until that time, on days like this, alone with a basketball goal, did he understand the leaning and rusting hoops in dirt driveways, the sole vertical aspect of vast empty expanses of farmland he would drive through on the way to Dallas, to Houston, to Lubbock. They were like crosses rising from the flat and dull earth, marking a point that humans had decided to distinguish as a haven, as a place where the holy and secular converged. But shooting to him was more like prayer than anything else he’d known. Here, there were no words, just the individual alone with a simple, mantra-like purpose. Put the ball in the hoop. It was his time with God. God was there in the sun, the wind, the leather of the ball, the dust that grimed his fingers.
And just as he knew God in this way, he knew himself. For here, no pretense, no book learning, no prestige, no money, no professed beliefs – none of that could buy you the sound of the ball slipping through the net. Here, there was only what he earned and what God gave – his body, the feel of his legs underneath him, the spectacular ability of hundreds of muscles to remember what they had done before, and his concentration, and the time he gave to practice.
Rise from the knees to the ball of the foot. Sweep the ball smoothly through the air. Hand follows through, ending fingers-down, as if placing the ball in the basket.
Thhip.
At eight fifty-four every night, the timer would shut the lights out on the court, thinking it was nine. He would often continue shooting there in the moonlight or in the faint glow of the nearby apartments, guided only by shadows and the memory in his body and mind of the three hundred shots before.
Eventually, though, he would have to leave the court. On his phone would be messages from her. There on the counter, the bills and letters from impatient creditors. In the bathroom, the bottle of pills. In the closet, wrinkled white shirts that needed to be pressed for the next day. As he fell asleep, he could feel the tiredness in his arms and legs, and when he closed his eyes, he could see the ball and its arc through cold air, the sound of a make or even a miss more treasured than anything else he would hear through the next day.
Posted by Rob at 05:50 AM | Comments (0)
pick-up
It always struck him as odd that those who played on the highest level never felt the sun when they did so many of the amazing things they did. It’s as if the basketball gods had reserved that pleasure for the purity of the game. The sun never shone on players leaping off the benches in the last game of a championship series. Jordan never got to win the championship with a shot from the corner that was that much more difficult for the 3:30pm sun in August. The sun was reserved for lone shooters on dirt lots, legions of future-hungry kids playing on cement, and yes, for those exalted few who ventured away from entourages and packed arenas simply to play a game with a ball, a net, and a metal hoop.
If gyms are the temples of the sport, outdoor courts were the deserts to be endured, where faith was tested, strengthened, reborn.
He knew it gave him an edge to appreciate this. The other nine players on the court peered up from time to time at the sun’s relentless eye pouring forth what to them seemed some wrathful ire, to him seemed a benediction.
His man was backing him in, now, trying to power closer to the goal. He held his forearm firmly against the small of his opponent’s back, and through that slender contact, they each tried to figure out the next move for themselves and the other guy. In this case, the other guy turned, hooking him slightly with his elbow to get to the basket. The ball rolled lazily along the rim and off, and he slipped back in between his opponent and the basket before leaping for the rebound.
He was nothing in the world of this sport. Not a pro out on a playground lark, certainly. Not a college or high school player. Not even a kid in the driveway with hopes realistic or otherwise – he was 31, already past the point of making many choices, much less of playing basketball for a living.
As he pivoted on one foot, the hands were all over him, batting and grabbing at the ball. He knew these guys were just feeling challenged – they knew he would never let a ball go so easily. Through a momentary gap, he put the ball hard to the court and dribbled out, looking up to find and jettison the ball to a teammate streaking downcourt.
Regardless of where he played, in the gym at his old high school, or here in the park in his neighborhood, he was always playing away, always the visitor. He treated the court as if it were his home – replaced the nets himself, kept the rocks and leaves and dirt clear, fixed the fence where kids had pulled the poles down. It was his sanctuary, but when the ball was in his hands, he was the interloper, facing a team more comfortable at home, facing a crowd set against him.
It was the same crowd that he felt and heard throughout his life. They followed him, booing him, heckling, applauding his fumbles, his fear. They did not respect his effort, his intensity or desire. They knew only winning, they could never be quieted by anything but being beaten.
He pushed off hard and began sprinting downcourt. His opponents, suddenly finding themselves on the defensive, were pounding alongside him, struggling to beat him back. His teammate was slowing his dribble, pulling the ball back to the perimeter to let his own players get down. He sprinted to the top of the perimeter, then slowed as well, hesitating.
Only a few who truly knew him, knew of the battles he felt he fought both without and within, could understand what the game meant to him. For that short time on the court, he could give everything of himself. No matter what seemed to hold true off the court, no matter what hopelessness appeared to riddle the future, when he was running on the court, diving for the ball, pushing himself harder, that was all there was in the world. There was only the doing, only that moment of doing and doing it right.
It was not mere distraction, though. He pushed himself so hard. He sprinted down the court against hamstring pulls, continued cutting though his knees shot pain up his legs. He destroyed his feet to keep up with the smaller, quicker players. He so badly needed to win, to stun that crowd into silence.
Out here, on the playground, the wins came in short moments. Moments when the doubt and hesitation fell away, when he trusted his body to get him past the defenders to the goal, or to fight inside for a rebound against taller and more skilled players, or pick the ball away from a point guard abruptly but gently, like picking a berry ready to fall.
He saw the defense fail to build along the baseline, and he moved, sweeping behind his teammate, who turned and handed him the ball. He cut hard, running parallel to the baseline, saw a defender begin to turn to step to him. He’d be too late. He picked the ball up, his body coiled as he stepped right, then pushed hard off his left, extending his body up to the goal.
Most of the time, sitting at a desk, in line at the store, his body just felt like mere matter, without its own soul. But in these rare moments when hands and feet and ambition found harmony, and his body moved swiftly and lightly to the basket, he felt as if he had borrowed all that beauty is for a moment, piercing himself to find a glimmer of light inside. It was a split-second sneak preview of some moment in which he might move so effortlessly and gracefully to some greater goal.
He never told anyone how these few moments made him want to cry. That would be a little too much.
He pulled back, watching the ball slip through the net, falling past close with his own falling body. And while he heard the low sounds of praise from his teammates, he heard the crowd, finally, just for the moment, grow quiet.
Posted by Rob at 05:49 AM | Comments (0)
after the buzzer
another short bit that made its way onto the Jordan website...
He sat on the bench, watching the teams run, watching the tide turn from minute to minute, offense to defense, the conflict of effort and resistance. He had lived hundreds, probably thousands of lives here. Win or lose, each game was a new life, a new universe, a beginning and end, with a certainty of struggle and result, victory or defeat, that real life doesn't always offer to its participants.
Now he was the old man, a spectator. Now he sat and watched, and waited, for the nod that would never come, that he could never again answer if it did. That final day, that final game, had come like an inescapable first death, after years of feeling and playing through the ever-increasing stiffness and pain, seeing the move and struggling to spark his muscles to respond, as if he were mired in a nightmare, helpless. Playing fewer and fewer games on each outing, he came home, took ibuprofen, rubbed his knees, still eerily cold from the ice packs, quietly begging them to give him one more day on the court. But the day did come that he knew he couldn't go, and he sat quietly by himself all that evening, feeling the ending, the feel of finality, of a journey's end.
In the days that followed, he realized it was difficult to feel the urgency of time with no shot clock, and only the deceptively long measures of life and youth that would one day surprise him with the buzzer and the end of the game.
He held the ball in his hands, pebbled grain on tired, wrinkled skin. He pulled it close to his chest, and once again, life and game intertwined, and there for him were all the things shared in the game. A child, hugging the new ball as he falls asleep, feeling its solidness and breathing in the scent of leather on Christmas night. A young girl cradling the ball after the rebound, the static electricity of youth and enthusiasm and hope crackling and sparking all around her and through her. Even the greatest to ever play the game, falling to the floor, clutching the ball to his chest after the game- and championship-winning shot, weeping for his joy and his pain, for everything gained and lost.
The old man smiled through tears, awash in twilight's promising glow, soaking through the fabric of space and time, still alive in the game.
Posted by Rob at 05:49 AM | Comments (0)