I was sitting here, pen limply in hand, wondering if I was feeling inclined to write today when I looked down at my bloody arm. Oh, I’ll write about that dumb time I played basketball against the Sierra Leone national team.
The Last competitive game of ball I played was Freshman year in highschool. My growth spurt that had sent my point average into the teens during my 8th grade glory days had exhausted itself, and I’m not too ashamed to say I dribbled through Freshman year on the JVB team and took consolation in my performance on the football field. So given I wasn’t ever great in the first place, I can forgive myself the nervous, dopy grin that plagued my face when I walked out on the court just last weekend. The game was arranged by our very own Liam and was played in the shadow of the national soccer stadium. The nicest court in the country, it still lacked a roof and bleachers- the crowd that grew at a bacterial rate sat on a strip of concrete adjacent the court. What the facility lacked in structure though, the home team made up for with height. And meanness.
Ironically, the “Salone Hoopers” were a multinational bunch, the one that told me to “Watch out before I hurt you, bwoy.” Was from Nigeria. Throw a bunch of seven foot tall ballers on a court together and they’ll look normal relative to each other, even small on TV, but a warning to my fellow 6-footers- it’s like walking with the dinosaurs.
If you had to guess right now, you’d guess myself and fellow mortal volunteers lost the battle on the basketball court that day. You’d be right, but that’s mean of you to think. Very unsupportive.
Six-to-one isn’t an awful start to a game, but by the end of the first quarter when we hadn’t clawed into the double digits yet it was getting awkward.
“Broken arrow, broken arrow,” I thought to myself, “time to take it to another leveeeelllll.” My ‘next level’ was analogous to an idiot attacking an iron brick with the side of their head, then, summoning courage and fire, switching to beat their face against it. The brick just carried on being a brick and I got bruised up.
Well by the end of the game, as in all lopsided games where the winning team doesn’t believe in the nebulous principle of “sportsmanship,” it turned into a game of streetball.
“This is a game of streetball.” One of my teammates grumbled.
“Well…” I said intelligently, looking at our cyclone-fenced enclosure, rowdy with urchins that had turned up to watch the slam-dunk-on-the-Americans competition. Was it ever not?
Only when the lead of the Salone Hoopers had bloated past the 40 point mark did the clock tire of the game. By then plenty of feelings and limbs had been damaged, so it was nice to find out that even all bad things come to an end.
By the time I regale my great-grandchildren with this story, I’m sure it will consist of me leaving footprints on the other team’s faces, but for now I’m happy to brag I survived with a pulse and all my motor skills in working order.
Also- completely unrelated- my towel smells like milk. And this is why:
If you want to make me annoyed with you for the day before I even see you, walk around to the back of my house and treat my name like it’s loaded in a chain of machine-gun bullets.
“Honestly, I’m annoyed with this dude and I haven’t even seen him,” I thought as I walked out the back door to find some guy was flapping a doll around above his head. He must’ve been getting paid a dollar every time he said “Issa Kabba” because he was happier than a clown on nitrous, and, upon seeing my emergence into the morning sun, literally jumped a few times. After earning another $15, he came around to the front to be given audience while I stumbled around inside looking for some socks to pack in this guy’s mouth.
His rag-doll, on closer inspection, wasn’t what it seemed. Immediately after cracking my door open, I became psychic and knew three things: He was going to try to sell something to me. If I did not buy that something, he would kill and eat it. And lastly, I would, in fact, buy what he was selling.
Bargaining isn’t always fun. Because the lack of pigment in my skin, most people trying to make a deal with me tack on a whiteugy tax. Le300,000?! Honestly, I wouldn’t bail my own grandmother out of federal prison for that (but I’d totally visit all the time and write nice letters). Anyway, one well intoned, hollow laugh at their starting price can usually wither it by 50%. In this case, the price started in the stratosphere at 300,000 and ended with me giving the man 15,000 and a cooking pot I don’t ever use.
I shut the door again and he left me with a gorgeous- even if badly shaken- baby deer. After cutting off the “halter” that had kept one of its legs jutting straight to the side, it stopped its painful salute and took its first few tentative steps.
“Doug.” I commandingly and confidently dubbed it. “Doug the Deer.”
Upon further inspection, the name had to be revised. It wasn’t a good name for a girl. After consulting Kim, I re-titled her Douglas-Hadley. Truly a nice name for a pygmy baby deer.
The days since her inclusion into my family have been made of glowing hours. Unless you’ve had a baby deer bump up and rest against your leg, had one lay down and get sleepy next to you, or had one come and drain a bottle of milk from your hands, I’m not sure if I can explain it fully.
Anyway, my towel smells like milk because while I was laying down reading “Contact,” Douglas-Hadley started trying to pull milk out of my fingertips. I had just MacGyvered a baby bottle out of a hair tie, pop bottle, and finger from a latex glove, and when presented with that she jumped up on my chest and started dribbling everywhere. It was really the only place she was eating well, so I put my towel under her and she got a fat baby-deer belly before falling asleep next to me.
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