Chapter 3

To tell the truth, for the next couple days, I barely could move. My mom gave me the stinkeye as she knew I had overdone it, but since she didn’t know that I actually had actually tried to play at full speed, even if it was only a scrimmage, and I just told her I was out walking, she didn’t harp on her usual spiel about how “I had to recognize my limitations” about how basketball probably was a step too far for me.

On the third day, Scott stopped by and offered to give me a ride to the court whenever I wanted if he was available. That was awfully nice of him, especially because having played a semi-competitive game for the first time in years, I really wanted to try to keep the positive momentum. I didn’t play in any of the games except as a short-term substitute when someone had to take a breather, but I spent hours and hours at shooting, and I acted somewhat like a coach on the sidelines. It wasn’t telling people what to play to run or something, but just pointing out things like that if they had eliminated a dribble step, they could have gotten off the shot cleanly, instead of having to try a heavily contested heave.

It was the best of times in that I was around people who cared about the game almost as much as I could, but it also had the downside of the fact that I was feeling like a starving man looking at a buffet through a window. I could see everyone playing, and I wanted nothing more than to do what they were doing, but I had gotten real lucky in pushing myself that day, and if I had taken one wrong step or slid wrong when trying to move laterally, I probably would have ended up on the ground, and unlikely to get up without aid.

But there was another side to those games as well. More days than not, the girl that I had seen previously showed up to watch us play. She never spoke, but while others may mistake her attention as boy watching, or what have you, I saw how she paid attention to the game. She was observing the same nuances and ebb and flow of the game that I did. I felt somehow like she was a kindred spirit.

The guys basically ignored her, but one day after regular games had completed, I was just shooting by myself, and my leg was starting to ache (I had played a little bit more than normal, and my body was telling me at that point I was overdoing it), so my shootaround was slow as I had to hobble after the basketball after every shot. Once or twice the ball hit the rim and bounced wildly and it rolled to the girl (who for once was standing inside the fenced in court.

Despite her instinct to reach out for the ball., she still had a flinch when the ball rolled at her feet. She picked it up and I saw her turn the basketball in her hands, gently touching it’s surface like it was something cherished and familiar, and she made a move to throw the ball back to me. I grinned, because this confirmed it, she had the same viewpoint on basketball I had. I wanted to encourage her. “Go ahead, take a shot”

She blushed and tried to demur, and while I didn’t press her, I wanted her to know it was ok to take the shot, so I just tried to put on a confident voice. “Hey ... Court Rules. You rebound a miss, it’s your shot. Go ahead. I promise, it’s ok”

She hesitated for a second, and I felt for a second that if she could, she would have ducked her head, and hidden her eyes between her long straight black hair and fled. Instead she took one slow bounce dribble, as if to imprint the feeling of the ball onto her hands. When the ball was back in her hands, she went into her shooting motion.

I don’t know what I was expecting. I’ll be honest enough to admit that usually, until otherwise, I would think someone who isn’t a practiced basketball player would look ridiculous trying to throw the ball at the hoop. I mean, if you ever see someone try to figure out how to shoot a basketball, it’s harder than you might think. Most people are all generating their “shot” via their arms, elbows and shoulders. That’s why most rookie shots are hard off the rim or backboard, because it’s really hard to judge the correct amount of power to apply.

Her shot was nothing of the sort. It was the smooth flowing motion of a practiced shot, from the slight bend of the knees and bringing the ball up in one fluid motion from her chest, up into her shooting motion. It was picture perfect. It was beautiful. It was mind-blowing. It was two points, as the ball arced high, and settled straight through the rim, and barely disturbing the cords as it dropped through.

I thought she would be happy that the shot was so perfect. Instead, she reminded me nothing more than a skittish baby deer looking at something unknown and deciding whether to run or not. For half a second, she looked ... scared? Terrified? If she could have convinced her feet to run, she would have taken off at a run in a dead panic. Fortunately, the ball hadn’t bounced far away from where I was standing, so I immediately threw the ball back to her. Again, more by instinct than anything, she caught the ball and held it softly like an egg, while she looked at me.