I asked if he meant the first time he watched it, but
"No, it wasn’t like that, I didn’t watch anything." He dribbled. "It was spiritual. It was pure deepness and immersion. The game," (I’d always thought it was funny how he called it that, all dignified, as though it possessed some vilified significance, which, to him, it probably did) "it has its own life, it’s own ebb and flow. Every moment is glory, every flicker in movement, bead of sweat, turn of the eyes. And when the crowd cheers, they really cheer, because you’re living for them, playing the game. When you’re on the court, you can be their unquestionable God, their anchor to praise, and they’ll raise their hands for you, and love you, and lift you up, until you aren’t human anymore, you’re at the absolute center of everything that is (heart, mind, sacrifice). Basketball is the only way in the world to escape anonymity, to stop being just a person and become you. It makes you matter. It makes you real. None of us understand what it means to be real- not like you would understand what I mean, being an artist. The game makes us real, in its perfect, perfect embrace, lifted up, in the very center, when we make the perfect jump. It’s a flash of cameras, a parade onto living rooms, corner streets, doctors’ offices. Everyone screams, lifting furious voices, the announcers, the fans. I heard it from the other room. I’d been playing videogames, but what were videogames to this? Absolute proudness, a latex rhythm, sole swiping sole… he’d made a shot from half court, you understand, from half court, and they stood for him, they clapped for him, they cheered for him. And I came out, and I watched. It was over so fast. And then I watched again the next day, and the next. There’s nothing like the thrill of renewal, of another game. Basketball is our only form of infinitude, in repetition. Every year it comes again, season upon season, each expansive in themselves, branching out like causeways in dimension, spangled fingers in the social pathos. Basketball is a microchasm of society; in size, all function. It epitomizes humanity, in all we are. Our need to compete, our need to make better. It chronicles history, moving backwards, past emperors and sultans, new rules, the current generation, and like history it has its heroes, its points of diversion. And maybe you don’t understand," Travis went on, because apparently he was good at that, going on, "but basketball is everything in the world, altogether. And it doesn’t matter that I’m not any good- because I know that, I comprehend, I really do, even though everyone makes fun of me when I lose. But it doesn’t matter, I’m touching something better, something perfect, and, through that, it makes me perfect, and I feel like I matter. And it doesn’t matter if I really do, or if other people understand, because fuck other people. They don’t understand basketball, and because of that, they don’t understand life, or self-awareness, or whatever you want to call this, here and now, in the time and place, reaching out with body and mind, spirit and fortitude, to overcome everything in this concrete crashing, this temple of cacophonous quiet, all wrapped up in a multitude of layering voices, blending until they’re nothing but a stagnant, staggering silence, canceling itself, and crawling, pitifully, all through the narrowing tunnel that is time, as though it were really taking us somewhere, to some vortex way in outer space, where heaven is, if we can even really talk about such a place. Heaven doesn’t exist, not on a human level, and you know that too, even better than I do." He looked at me, and he shook his fist, and he was a ridiculous fire of overflowing passion, red bands crawling in his face, flushing him different colors, making him bloat. "This world is a goddamn map of telephone poles, a flat, papery town, like in the old movies, where no one's noticed yet that the walls are falling down. We need something to hold onto, a beacon rising in the sky, luminous in bright colors, painted orange and black, so the world can see; a monument for all that is human in the anonymous age; a marker leading us to transcendence, or deliverance, or whatever you want to call it. Basketball is the skeleton key to identity, the latex doorway to the very deepest recesses of the soul."
::::::::::::::::::::
"Do you mind if I tell you a story?" the Chimera asked.
I said it was fine.
It was strange to hear the Chimera asking questions.
"When I was young, just a few years old, I had a dream." Casually, he flicked a
finger, and from it came a cackle of energy. "I still remember it, barely. It was about a wall, and steps, and climbing into the light." He paused for a moment, examining himself, in relevance to everything else. Dwarfing it.
"I woke up (in the dream) at the bottom of a huge wall. There were huge blocks in it, going way up. It was so bright I could barely see. I tried to stand, but gravity held me down. I ran my hands alone the wall. It was smooth, though it looked rough. There were no shadows in the block, only one color in the grain. I tried to stand again, pushing at the wall, but it didn’t matter, I couldn’t. But I looked up, and there was the light, pouring over. So instead of standing I crawled, for as long as I could, and the grass made razorblades on my arms, cutting in, and the air pressed down so hard I could barely breathe.
"After that," he raised both wrists and touched held them together, "I crawled until both of my arms bled, until both of them were soaked in blood, until I couldn’t crawl any more. But the wall was still there, and it was even stronger than before, just as tall. I reached out and touched it again, lovingly, and I laid there looking up, over the wall, in a pool of spreading redness. Behind, for maybe fifty feet, I’d left a thickening trail, getting wetter. No flowers grew. I wanted to see an orchid, or a carnation, or a lilac, but there were no flowers, just the wall. And then I stood.
"It was impossible, but somehow I managed stand, and I kept going. The whole way, I leaned on the wall, because it was stronger than me, more real. I didn’t walk so much as I staggered, like an old man, dying one step at a time. And then up ahead I saw a staircase, coming from the wall. The steps were big, and tall, and wide, and I couldn’t walk anymore, but I took them, crawling arm over arm. Quite a few times I hit my face on the rock. Just as many I almost fell. The higher I went, the heavier it got. Cosmos pasted matter to groveling in the sand. But I kept crawling until I got to the edge."
"What was there?"
"Nothing," he said, "just a boundless sea of white, an infinite, flowing ocean. But I kept crawling, and then I fell, like heavy, heavy rock, into a void where it wasn’t possible to fall anymore, and direction didn’t matter."
"What happened then?" I asked.
"I woke up."
"Oh."
"And when I opened my eyes, everything in my room (the bed, the lamp, me), was
f l o
a t i
n
g. "
"Did anything happen after that?"
"It never
came down.
"
"Oh," I said. "Did it really happen?"
"The dream?"
"Yeah."
"Maybe." He laughed. "I’ve never told anyone before, just so you know." "Then why did you tell me?"
"Because I’ve heard… that you’re good with memory." He paused. "Is your
camera on?" For some reason I was surprised. I’d assumed he knew. "I was hoping," he said, "that your camera would be on."
"Yeah," I said. "It’s on."
:::::::::::::::::::: The sky was blue. The sun beat down.