It would start
with my father taking a shot, his arm extending skyward as his hand snapped to,
waving to the ball as it whooshed
through the sticky air on its way to the basket. The smile across his face said
that he was made for no other purpose than to shoot that ball. It would bounce
with a good-natured laugh off the tight rim, but Dad didn’t care. He would
bound after the rogue ball, his body easing itself into the rhythmic flow of
the game as though he were twenty-four instead of forty-two.
Or maybe it would
start with me stepping up to the foul line. One dribble, two dribbles, a deep
breath, and a perfect shot, a shot that was flawless until the moment it loudly
hit the rim in a way that hurt my pride more than my ears. My father would
pluck the ball out of the air and pass it back to me, the silent “try again,
and again, and again” apparent on his face. I might take fifty shots from that
foul line before, frustrated, I would take a break and let my father take his
turn.
But it actually
would start with me searching the garage for a pump, raiding the drawers and
buckets for the needle that would squeeze life into the rustic brown
basketball. I would feel the rough contours of the ball in my hands, the dirt
of bygone practices rubbing off on my dry palms. My father would meet me out
front, walking across the lawn in the sweat of an August day, the white paint
splotches on his black gym shorts like distant moons surrounded by thousands of
tiny stars. He might have spent the day painting the kitchen just to make my
mother happy, or he might have started a new project in the backyard, laying
bricks on which to rest the fire pit we sometimes sat around, talking until we
ran out of wood to burn. The best part about him was that if Dad went to bed
exhausted on Thursday night – the three hour commute he traveled every day
visible in his eyes – by Friday night he would be cracking the jokes and
telling the stories that could make me laugh until my stomach hurt. Even though
he had woken up at four forty five every morning of the previous week, he would
still stay up late with me to watch the old Batman movies that bridged the gap
between our generations. Even though I was the young one, the one who was
supposed to have all the energy, Dad would still get up before me on Saturday
and spend the morning raking leaves out from under the tree house we built
together or picking up a box of doughnuts for his sleeping children. That
afternoon, he would rescue me from my tiresome world of impossible homework – a
world of fractions and worksheets and grammar exercises – and take me down to
“our” court with the sole purpose of helping me improve my game. Or maybe it
was more about the company.
I would bounce the
ball on the coarse sidewalk and it would loyally bounce back into my ready
hands, resilient and predictable, each dribble pronounced by an earnest thwang. We would walk in silence to the schoolyard down the
road, jokes cutting through the heat, laughter punctuating the gunshot of every
dribble. We would reach the court, the just-setting sun shining straight into
our eyes. The three-point line wasn’t painted in; rather, it was a crack in the
pavement, arced around the hoop as though someone had diligently taken a hammer
and chisel to it, driven by a desire to hit a deep jumper and be justly
rewarded for his or her efforts. Grass poked up through the ancient asphalt,
the lonely iron rim lacked a net, and the backboard was smattered with rust,
all of which merely reminded us that this court was our own, that we would not
be interrupted as we battled our way to miniscule greatness. I would take a
shot, eagerly listening to my father tell me of how he used to practice when he
was a child, telling of the fences hopped and the rules broken, all so that he
could experience the pleasant loneliness of a boy with his basketball.
My first shot
would bounce off the backboard, the second might miss the hoop altogether. I
would start to show signs of anger, but Dad would quietly critique my shot.
“Follow through straight,” or “Bend your knees a little bit more.” It was
always some minor adjustment that would make the difference, and there was no
problem that Dad couldn’t fix. I learned to follow his example, seeing how he
laughed if he took a particularly awful shot, seeing how he hustled after every
single rebound. “See? This game’s easy.” Looking back, I’m not so sure he was
talking about basketball.
Sooner
than soon, the sun would squat behind the houses, the sweat would slide down
our faces, and my father and I would make our way back home, walking in a
silence that said more than words ever could. I would toss the ball back in the
garage, and it would bounce off the baseball gloves and the lacrosse sticks and
the soccer balls and the football cleats before settling next to the bicycle my
father taught me to ride.
