Just off 149th Street is a little park overlooking the river. At the far end of the park, some of my relatives are playing basketball. It is a cold day in early winter, so everyone is bundled up in heavy coats and scarves and hefty mittens, but that is not the only thing that makes the game difficult. My relatives are all elderly to say the least. My father is 83, his step-brother is 79, and my Uncle Max from my mother’s side is 84. Max’s wife, Elaine, is the youngest of the four at 73, and she seems the most enthusiastic. “Let’s go, go, go,” she chants, and gray puffs of air plume from her mouth and dissipate in the wind. Elaine bounces the ball like a girl, shoving it two-handed into the pavement and catching it and then bouncing it again. “Go, go, go,” she repeats, her eyes steadfastly on the ball, and then she takes three small hops, and then she bounces the ball again.

“For Christ’s sake, Elaine,” shouts my dad’s step-brother, Harvey. “Can’t you see I’m open? If you’re going to hog the ball all day, we’ll never get anywhere.”

“Right,” Elaine says. “Sorry.” And she slams a two-handed pass, which bounces off Harvey’s kneecap. Harvey crumples to the pavement, and the ball takes off, bouncing and hopping and then rolling towards the river. “For Christ’s sake,” Harvey says. My dad takes off after the ball. He trots after it with quick little steps, but the ball is going faster. “Catch it, Don, catch it,” Elaine urges him. The ball disappears down the little hill which leads into the river. My dad disappears after it.

“For Christ’s sake,” says Harvey, up on one knee now.

We all look at each other.

“This isn’t right,” Elaine says. “This can’t be the end.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Harvey asks. “A do over?”

“Yes, a do over!” Elaine’s voice is determined, enthusiastic.

My dad comes up the hill. He is smiling and missing a shoe, but he has the basketball cradled against his belly.

The game resumes, much as before.

Elaine’s husband Max tries a shot. This isn’t easy, because he’s wearing the heavy coat and the woolen mittens, and the basketball is lopsided, with some of the liver-colored skin rubbed raw. Also, the wind is strong, strong enough to blow any shot off course. Max’s shot is too feeble even to make it to the netless iron rim. The ball falls harmlessly to the ground, and I swoop it up, bounce it a couple of times, and hoist a shot of my own. Sometimes, when I dream of playing basketball, I am able by dint of will to float upwards until I am suspended over the basket, and I can hang there for long seconds before letting the ball fall through the net. But this is not a dream. My effort smacks the metal backboard, hits the rim, and glances off. I pounce on the loose ball and put up a second shot. This one rattles off the backboard and straight through the iron hoop, our first score.

“Show off,” Dad says.

“Attaboy,” Harvey chuckles.

“Now we’re cooking with steam,” Elaine says. “I don’t think they’re going to catch us now.”

Indeed, our two point lead is probably safe, for we are playing a pack of dogs. The dogs are certainly more athletic than us, but not having hands, they can’t shoot. That doesn’t stop them from chasing the ball when next it goes wobbling towards the river. The big white dog catches up to it, noses it, and then bites into it.

“Here, boy. Here, boy,” Elaine says, while patting her knee. Dutifully the big white dog trots to Elaine, the limp basketball dangling from its mouth.

“Oh, Christ,” Harvey says. “What are we going to do now? Another do over?”

“I don’t see why not,” Elaine says. “Do overs are free.”

Meanwhile my dad is trying to wrestle the basketball from the big white dog’s mouth. The dog isn’t giving it up without a fight. My dad tugs and tugs, jerking the basketball and the dog from side to side. At last my dad manages to wrench the ball free. He twists around, swiveling the ball and himself towards us, and the white dog bites him on his bare ankle. Maybe the dog didn’t mean to do it. Maybe he thought it was part of the game.

The air goes out of my dad. He drifts upward, like a lugubrious soap bubble, the deflated basketball clutched to his chest. The rest of us stand there helplessly, watching him rise.