Two weeks after her farewell, I received an invitation to play basketball in a lawyer’s league.
“I’m not a lawyer,” I said.
“That’s okay. Most of us aren’t basketball players,” Steve said. He worked in the attorney general’s office. I didn’t know him very well and didn’t care for what I knew — he believed in the death penalty — but he fell half in love with me once he heard I’d played a little college ball. He fell completely for me after I drove past him during a pickup game and dunked on his head.
“I don’t have time to commit to a league,” I said.
“It’s not really a league,” Steve said. “It’s a bunch of guys who get together once a week. Wednesday night. Very informal. Come on. We need new blood.”
I’d played a few lunchtime games with Steve and the other jocks who worked in the Capitol Building. I wasn’t too crazy about the competition. Most of them played basketball like Ted Bundy, hiding a pathologically violent core beneath a handsome white-collar exterior. They were either former basketball stars angry about their diminishing skills, or ex-wrestlers and ex-linebackers still trying to play their favorite sport.
“I’m not interested in getting beat up,” I said.
“No, man, it’s a friendly game,” Steve said.
“Lawyers are never friendly.”
“Come on, we need you, man. I already told them you’d play. I said you were da bomb.”
“Steve, I’m only going to play if you promise never to call me da bomb again.”
That next Wednesday I found St. Joseph’s Elementary School, the small gym the lawyers rented once a week. Seven of the regulars showed, and I made eight, good enough for full-court four-on-four. As we shot for teams, I sized up the competition. I knew Steve was average, and five of the others couldn’t hit a jump shot standing by themselves, but one big white guy looked loose and quick.
“What kind of lawyers are these guys?” I asked Steve.
“Mostly public defenders,” he said.
“And who’s the big guy?”
“That’s Big Bill. He’s a prosecutor. He can play.”
And Big Bill could play. On the first possession, he posted me up on the low box, caught an entry pass, spun to his right, hooked me with his right arm, and dropped in a left-handed scoop shot.
“Nice move,” I said as we ran down the court.
“The first of many,” Big Bill said. I couldn’t believe it. Thirty seconds into the first game, and he was trash-talking. Lawyers! Seeking vengeance, I made meaningful eye contact with Steve, cut back door on Big Bill, took the bounce pass from Steve, and grease-dunked it, meaning I barely slid the ball over the oily rim. My dunk was more than kin and less than kind.
The lawyers went crazy. Gerald Ford was in office the last time any of them had dunked it.
“Hey, Big Bill,” I said. “How’d you like that?”
“It doesn’t count,” he said.
“What doesn’t count?”
“There’s no dunking.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s no dunking. House rule.”
“Can you even touch the rim?”
“Doesn’t matter. No basket.”
“Come on, man,” I said. “Dunking is part of my game.”
What a lie! In games with players of equal ability, I dunked probably once every three months.
“Hey, come on, Bill,” Steve said. “He’s new. He didn’t know.”
“He knows now. No basket.”
Big Bill was a smug bastard, but I wanted to play ball more than I wanted to argue.
“It’s all right, Steve,” I said. “We’ll get it back.”
Big Bill tossed the ball to his short point guard and jogged down the court. He posted up me again on the low box, took another entry pass, and spun on me. But I was ready this time and blocked his shot. Steve picked up the loose ball and raced toward our basket. I ran right behind him, calling out my position, and Steve dropped a nifty bounce pass back to me. Angry and righteous, I leaped high for the dunk, higher than I’d been in many years, and rose a good foot above the rim, but dropped the ball down through the net instead of dunking it.
“No basket!” Big Bill screamed.
“What?” I asked.
“There’s no dunking!” he screamed at me, face-to-face.
“That wasn’t a dunk!” I screamed back and pushed him away. He pushed back. I couldn’t believe it. I was ready to fight, though I hadn’t been in a fistfight in twenty-six years. Scratch a pacifist and he’ll scratch back.
The other lawyers separated us, but Big Bill kept screaming. “There’s no dunking! No dunking! No dunking!”
He was irrational, I thought, and I wondered if he’d gone crazy or if maybe a vein in his head had exploded. But then I realized he was afraid of me. In this Wednesday-night wolf pack, he’d probably been the alpha-male hoopster for a decade. I threatened to demote him to the beta position.
“You dunk again, and I’m going to throw you out myself,” he said.
On a neutral court, I might have argued more. But this was his court and his friends, Steve included. Looking back, I suppose I should have packed up my stuff and left. But he’d challenged me. I couldn’t back down.
“I don’t need to dunk,” I said. “Your ball.”
Angry and stupid, Big Bill decided to dribble the ball downcourt. I let him get to half-court before I stole the ball from him and raced toward the hoop.
“Foul!” he shouted out.
“I didn’t touch you,” I said.
“It’s my call,” he said. “Respect the call.”
I tossed him back the ball, let him dribble a few times, and I stole the ball once more.
“Foul!” he repeated.
Again I tossed him back the ball, and again I let him dribble a few times, and I stole the ball a third time. He didn’t invent a foul that time, knowing he would only embarrass himself, but he chased after me as I drove toward the hoop. Two of his teammates, quicker than I’d thought, converged on me and slowed me down. Big Bill ran a foot behind. It was a one-on-three fast break, but I wanted to score, so I spun left, spun right, went between my legs, and made a left-handed reverse layup that surprised me. That shot was so beautiful, Big Bill’s teammates hugged me.
“No basket!” shouted Big Bill. “No basket!”
“What’s wrong now?” I asked.
“Let it go, Big Bill,” Steve said. The other lawyers also tried to mollify Bill, but he pushed them away.
“That spinning-traveling garbage,” he said. “We don’t play that kind of ball here.”
“What kind of ball are you talking about?” I asked him.
“You know what kind of ball I’m talking about,” he said.
“No, you tell me what kind of ball you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about your kind of ball.”
Big Bill had pulled out his thesaurus to call me a synonym for “nigger,” a metaphor for “nigger.” Political Correctness has forced racists to become poets.
“Hey, Big Bill,” I said, “why don’t you call me what you really want to call me?”
He blinked. Maybe he lied well for his clients, but he didn’t lie well for himself.
“You know what I’m thinking, Bill,” I said. “I’m thinking you have to work for my kind of ballplayer all day. You have to look at those kinds of ballplayers every day of your life. After a long day in court, sitting next to one ballplayer after another, the last thing you want to see is another one of those ballplayers when you come to shoot hoops with your buddies. Am I right, Big Bill? Am I telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”