Out There
In the gym I spot an empty hoop and begin warming up. I start shooting just a few feet from the basket. Only when I’ve made five shots in a row do I move back a few feet to the next spot. Soon I’m beyond the arc, effortlessly draining three-pointers. During this drill my mind empties. I am at once everywhere and nowhere, in my own private world.
“You want to play full court?”
The voice startles me. I blink and wipe sweat from my forehead. On my left a few yards away stands a skinny guy, mid-thirties, wearing a Pistons t-shirt and holding a ball on his hip.
“What?”
“Want to play full court?” he repeats.
“Sure,” I answer, surprised to be asked. I’m not usually a high draft choice. Then I look around and count just nine men. Oh, I get it: they need me.
As I move my gym bag over to their court, more young men wander in. There’s some handshaking, joking and jostling, some pulling off of jackets and sweatshirts. Finally, the players step onto the court ready to play, so I join them.
“Not you,” Pistons Guy informs me. “I already have five. Take next game.”
“Hell, no. I was picked, and I’m playing.”
“We shoot for captains and the captains pick the teams.” He says it like he’s explaining crossing the street to a toddler. “That’s how it works.”
“Yes, and you picked me,” I point out. I don’t add that I’ve been hooping since before he was born and competed professionally in France and Germany. I don’t mention scrimmaging with NBA players when young or that I’m participating in the Masters Games next month in Switzerland.
“But then more people came,” he continues. “And things got mixed up, so we repicked.”
“Look,” I say, fuming inside but quietly firm. “I don’t care what the teams are, but I’m playing. You needed one to make ten, and I’m not going to get screwed out of my game. Fuck that.”
We continue to argue, but I stand my ground. Pistons Guy steps uncomfortably from one foot to the other, unsure how to deal with a cursing, sixty-nine-year-old, gray-haired, short white woman. As the oldest male in the gym, the other players defer to him, but soon they become impatient.
“Come on, bro!” they badger him. “Let’s get the game going! People are waiting!”
Pressure mounts, and finally Pistons Guy throws up his arms. “All right. Screw it. You’re on our team.”
We start, and when I hit my shots and make plays, the men whoop and holler, reacting like they’ve seen a circus freak or a talking dog. Well, I stew to myself, Talking Dog just made the game-winning assist, so my team gets to play again. Against my will, my eyes start to brim over. I bend down quickly to retie my shoelaces and, while there, pretend it’s sweat I’m wiping from my face. I’m still eight, still trying to prove I belong, and it still hurts.
* *. *
By the next morning, the incident has lost its sting. My grown kids are visiting, and we’re enjoying French toast drowned in cottage cheese, applesauce and syrup—a family favorite passed down multiple generations. I tell them about the gym, joking about how confused the Pistons guy seemed by my refusal to back down and how odd I must have appeared to all of them.
“You go, girl!” Miles laughs.
“LeMom James!” Maya jokes, then asks, “but how did you get to be like that, so…so…out there?”
I try to deflect. “You mean why I’m so weird?”
“No,” Miles says. “You know what we mean—how you got to be the way you are, the way you look at things. We want to know.”
I chew slowly and savor the sweet, soaked bread, trying to digest what they’re asking. They are both in their mid-thirties now, and they’ve started raising this topic more frequently. I’ve shared little bits and pieces of my life, but recently they’ve been digging for more. I’m flattered, of course, but their interest also unsettles me. They admire me in a way I don’t admire myself. They think I’m unique, wise, and strong, but I’m flawed, insecure, and—if not weird—definitely different. When I think about what’s shaped my life, powerful emotions bounce me in too many different directions. Maybe they won’t like what they learn.
On the other hand, if they really want to know…
How the Ball Bounced, by Nancy Nerenberg 