I Scored,

       What a day, I woke up late and thought about praying down on my hands and knees leaning forward with my face on the hardwood floor. The sun was moving across the boards slowly, and I could see the dust in the air. I didn't pray. I was reluctant to run, due to having a 5k tomorrow morning, but I put on my polyester socks, shorts, and my tight black running shirt. My stomach is getting smaller, and my arms are getting bigger; i like the shirt.
       I rode my bike to the y downtown, and watched my reflection in the windows of storefronts of madison ave. It's a small bmx, and I look rather strange. I got to the gym and ran 30 mins on the treadmill, and started doing dumbbells. I heard yelling from the gym and was intrigued by the noise but was nervous to play with the black guys. I swallowed my fear, stopped lifting, slowly walked in the gym and started shooting around.
        Ive been practicing backing up to the goal, and turning around and shooting as I jump backwards --a fade away.         
        After a minute of standing around with a dumb look on my face they ask3d if i wanted to play, and I said "word" in my black voice. 
       I was freaking scared as we ran down the court, all the squeaks of the sneakers and the manly grunts. I think i would have felt about the same if I was thrown into an nba game, but I was guarding a 70 year old white guy so it could have been worse. 
       They threw him the ball and I fouled the living crap out of him as he blew past me and scored. I yelled "fuck, my bad," and my team started the looks. Anyone who blows at basketball, and insists on playing anyway knows the looks his teammates give him when they realize he sucks. 


A look of disgust i know very well. 


 I just started cussing over and over again, "fuck mother fucker, fuck" and I couldn't hold my black voice, my lungs were giving out and I started to think I was going to puke. I actually felt it coming up as they kept running, running, grunting, and yelling.
      "Should I just run out of the gym?" I thought. Pushing harder and harder they threw me the ball, and I shot with my eyes closed and my arms crossed as I recklessly released and it flew way way over the backboard. 
      Everything got quit......still.... 
1. "man that nigga," laughing cannot talk, laughing, "just threw that mothafucka." 
2. "He was scared he thought it was hot" laughing. 
3. "dumb shit was playing baseball " - said the old man.    
          Fuck it i didn't care anymore, I showed them I sucked and I had nothing to lose at that point. My nerves settled down as the players got back to business swapping points driving down the court. At one point after throwing in the ball my granps laughed as i stuck him hard, they threw the rock his direction to go in for the layup. I easily stole it and ran down the court, but i cannot dribble for shit and kept dribbling over my head which i think is a walk; they didn't call it. 
       My team yelled and screamed for me to pass the ball and i concurred. I passed to the top of the key and went underneath, I had the look of confidence and they passed the ball, i think by mistake, back to me. I dribbled with my back up to gramps, faked left, faked right and turned pulling up for the shot; it seemed like a life time as that old man left his feet. 
As we all know you cannot guard someone in the air, and any player who gets their defender to leave the ground can go any direction without interference. I did a perfect head fake and took my two steps as papaw was helplessly hanging. I heard, "go easy, man" from my teammate as the ball smashed into the bottom of the goal hitting me on the top of the head.  
    "Foul, Foul, fucking Foul," I yelled. Laughing, they ignored my complaints and threw it down court for an easy 1 point.
These pick up games are 1's and 2's up to 12. The game was tied at 6, but i couldn't breathe at all and was eying a kid on the sideline to take my place. My man was scoring all the points for the other team, and i kinda thought the big black tattooed guy on my team was going to kick my ass for being so sorry. 
       I was worthless, I had no self esteem. I started to breathe through my nose and out through my mouth and prayed, "Please Lord don't let me die out here." Strangely, my energy started to come back into my legs and arms. I started to pick up the pace. My team hit a couple of 2's and we were hanging in there. On offense, there was no way I was going to get the ball passed to me, so I had to fight for it. We shot, and I felt like I had never jumped so high in my life; it seemed like an eternity as a snatched the ball out of the air, coming down hard with a grunt and a raaaaa putting the ball back up. It hit the back of the board, bounced around the outside of the rim, hit the board again, and went in. "Finally!!!!!!!!" I yelled. The other team threw the ball in quick pushing it down the court and my man, the seventy year old, some kids grandfather pulled up for a 2 and swished it. "mane, shit" i heard as I walked to the gym doors. The other team won the game. The big black guy, with that new modern mohawk thing you see on young black men these days, and all the tattoos said, "good game, whiteboy-- nice shot at the end"
"Yeah, yeah, good game mane," I responded.
He looked at me funny and smiled. I got the fuck out of there before I killed the high. It was the biggest rush Ive experienced in a long time maybe since I was 10 years old; it was fucking awesome. I went back upstairs but just couldn't focus on anything but the game. I turned around and skipped out the front doors jumped on my bike and rode back home with a smile on my face. "I scored," and dude said "good game," I thought over and over again riding down Madison with my reflection in the barbershop and auto part store windows. "I scored"