My friend has three I’m Offended Gold Medals for being denied medical exemptions (by university HR) for various conditions (Pathological Tardyitis—a disease which makes it impossible for him show up on time, Lapsed Retroactive Reality Syndrome—a condition that makes it difficult for him to live in the present [he’s usually two and a half months behind], and Chronic Obsessive Imbecilopathy—self-explanatory), one because he has a pet goldfish, one because he picks his nose in public, and two for his name: Hugh J. Beiattch.
His middle name is Judge and so he’s been nicknamed “Supreme Court,” a sobriquet that he either detests or is deeply offended by or both. Apparently—and this is still unconfirmed rumor, although hot on the IOGM official website like cakes on the griddle, life ain’t nothin’ but a funny funny riddle—he might soon be awarded an unprecedented eighth gold medal.
I arrive at the Sanderson center and make my way to one of the four courts at the far end of the facility, in the auxiliary gym past the locker rooms and the stairs.
“HB, catch!” I turn just in time to snag a ball whizzing towards my head. HB is my basketball nickname. It stands for Honorary Brother. It’s because I can jump really well and more so because I can dunk. I can dunk a basketball no problem. I’ve been able to since I was fifteen years old. I can dunk and I’m athletic but I’m otherwise a pretty bad basketball player. I can’t shoot. I can’t dribble all that well. I’m just not very good at basketball.
I was nicknamed HB by Will Friend (Black Money), the bestower of nicknames for all of us. The first time Black Money saw me he said,
“You from Idaho? Okay. I got it. You the Grand Potato Express. GPE.”
Everyone got a good laugh of out that, me included. But then he saw me dunk for the first time and he was like,
“Nah, nah, nah, hold up. Err-ee-one hold up. GPE ain’t GPE, ya feel me? Dis boy got dem black man bunnies. He got dat black man bounce. You, henceforth and for’all times, you be Honorary Brother.”
Brent is White Geek. David is WMJ-Pyrite (‘White Michael Jordan Fool’s Gold’ because “he be so bad, bruh, so bad, dawg, dat he like the polar opposite of the GOAT, dawg. And he be like fake gold, dawg. You hear thuh name you thinkin he a player, but-chu ain’t know the letdown you got comin’. ”).
One guy, Fred, is a sociology professor at MSU. Brent has known him longer than any of us. They went to graduate school together at the University of Michigan. Fred gets teased mercilessly for being incredibly formal all the time. Once, during an intramural game, he was fighting for a loose ball and it appeared to go off the other guy’s leg before going out of bounds. The ref saw it the other way. Fred protested. “Now, sir. I beg to differ. The ball clearly made contact with my opponent’s leg. Please note my appeal and reverse your decision.”
When Black Money saw Fred on the court for the first time he said, “Hold up. Please. Hold up one minute. I can’t buh-leeve ma’eyes. Boi, I see you black but there ain’t no way you black. Dat shot, dat handle, and you not even two inches off thuh ground when you jump. You Black Marshmallow. “
Fred looked at Black Money with an expression of, C’mon, maybe something a little less ridiculous?
“I see what you thinkin’, professor” Black Money said, throwing down a massive dunk and then hanging on the rim. “But-ch’y’all earn the nickname round here.” He released the rim and landed on the ground. “You Black Marshmallow.”
DeShaun Stevens is an assistant pastor at the First Baptist church. He’s Malcolm H; the H is short for Hops. We usually just call him Hops. Alejandro Mendes is a chef who just opened a restaurant in Columbus. He is Papito Sucio. Papito because he’s a diminutive Hispanic. Sucio because, as Black Money said, watching him dribble, “dat the sickest, de finest most dirtiest handles I’done ever seen…what’s Spanish for dirty?”
Why open a restaurant in Columbus, Mississippi? People do eat here, just like any other place. But still, why? Alejandro worked for Thomas Keller at the French Laundry a few years back—he might have even made sous chef, I’m not sure—and so this is the next logical step? The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times each made the trek to east-central Mississippi to interview the Keller protégé who had settled deep in the land of cement colored gravy and chicken and waffles and grits-crusted salt-smacked double buttered molasses pecan pie; here, to open a Mexican-French fusion with prix fixe 220USD per person, presumably as a joke, but to wild success, now going on seven years and with a required two month reservation notice. There are constant rumors that he might even be awarded his first Michelin star soon. But if that were to happen, Alejandro tells us, “I might just die from joy. So it’s not gonna happen, man. I can dream. But, c’mon, man.” Alejandro hosted a “guys night” at the restaurant just for us once—gratis!—and all of us left sure that we’d be unable to repay the favor as long as we live. The food was unspeakably good.
The last member of our eight-man crew is Antoine Allen. Antoine is one of the best athletes I have ever seen in my life and I’m including compared to NFL guys. Antoine was a McDonald’s All-American in high school. He attended the University of Virginia and was a freshman All-American and an all-ACC player his first year. He wasn’t projected as a lottery pick so he stayed in school. Antoine broke his leg during the second game of his sophomore year. It ended his college career. He never played in the NBA. He took the next two years off from basketball and finished his education.
After graduation he got a call from a team in Germany that was wondering if he was interested in playing in Europe. In his one and only season in the German league he won MVP. He decided to leave basketball for good after that. I don’t know why. The German sports media nicknamed him “Wunderkinden.” That’s his nickname with us, too. No black, white, honorary… just: The Wund, or simply: Wund.
Antoine is Catholic. He attends Immaculate Conception in West Point. While he lives in West Point, he works as a mechanic in Starkville. He has a degree in philosophy. His grasp of philosophy is only matched by his under-standing of theology. When I need some help with (for example) the larger implications of the Americanist controversy of the late nineteenth century, I don’t ask my professors; not even Molls. I go to my mechanic.
“I hope yo black momma ain’t comin’ watch the game today, HB” Black Money says to me. “I doan want you’an’her cryin’ after I whoop ya ass.”
“Man what’s wrong with you?” Hops says, hitting a jump shot. “He ain’t got no black momma. Look at him.”
“What?” Black Money says. “I know he got a black momma. Miss Shelby. She make dat ‘liscious sweet potato pie.”
“That’s my aunt,” I say.
“Oh, a’ight. My bad. I still hope yo black aunt Miss Shelby ain’t comin’ round her-taday. Cuz Ima whoop ya pasty-white, baby powder white ass either way.”
“I don’t plan on whoopin’ ya ass, Money,” I reply. “First I’m gonna break your ankles. Then I’m gonna remove ya ass with my bare hands and hand it to you on a platter.”
Hops shakes his head and hits another jumper. He tries not to smile but fails.
To make the game fair, The Wund is paired with WMJ-Pyrite and Black Marshmallow. The rest of us five shoot free throws to determine sides. First one to make it is Papito Suscio, making the other team Me, White Geek, Malcolm H and Black Money.
We play make it take it. This does not help my side at all, although we do find some early success playing a triple team on The Wund while leaving Pyrite and Marshmallow virtually wide open. WMJ-Pyrite misses three wide-open lay-ups, two of them airballs. Black Marshmallow doesn’t even get his one shot off, tripping over his feet and falling out of bounds under the basket, the nearest defender ten feet away.
With Wund feeding them the ball early we go up 6-0 in the to-21-win-by-two game. Then, The Wund takes over.
He hits five three pointers in a row, the last two from nearly half-court. All of them are nothing but net. It’s 15-6.
Black Money flips out, like he does every game. He start
s belittling me and Malcolm H about how we don’t play any defense and don’t understand what a triple team is. Hops protests saying that he’s playing under the basket, guarding Sucio while keeping an eye on Pyrite and Marshmallow and that the top of the key is White Geek’s responsibility. Black Money throws the basketball off a sidewall in frustration.
Our team gets back into the game. I airball a three pointer but Hops rebounds it and dunks it with two hands. Black Money steals a pass intended for Sucio and passes it to the Geek who makes the lay-up. 15-10.
Then The Wund makes two more three-pointers and the game is over. Black Money yells at The Wund saying he’s cheating because you can’t win on a three pointer. Black Marshmallow comes over and says,
“Actually, Will, you will be surprised to learn that you can, in fact, end a game of pick-up basketball on a three point shot. In order for the would be contest clinching three pointer to be invalid the players must all, in tandem, establish said invalidity prior to the start of the competition. If no such agreement is reached beforehand, and in this case it was not, then the default position is that a three point shot can end the game. The one exception is when the three point shot does not increase the winning’s team advantage to the required two points; a three-point shot making the game 21-20, for example.”
Black Money scrunches his face and says, “Dafuq?” He then punts the basketball skyward, narrowly missing a light.
We play three more games, switching teams each time. The team with The Wund on it wins 21-14, 21-4, and 21-19. The last game is close only because it was three on five.
It’s 9:30. Time to head home and take a bath. A nice hot bubble bath while reading John Gottberg’s 1996 Idaho travel book. A little outdated now, but the pictures are fantastic. It’s all about this: Looking at a picture of a hot spring somewhere in the Idaho wilderness, the steam rising off the water against a snow covered backdrop while you sit in a makeshift hot spring, a bubble bath, live-dreaming of the real thing there in the picture. It makes for quite the soak. And no one does it better than Gottberg, 1996.
I grab my stuff. I feel an arm grab mine. It’s Antoine.
“Hey, Rhett. You have time to grab a beer? I want to talk to you about something.”
“Yeah,” I say, “sure. What’s up?”
“I’ll tell you soon.”
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just want to keep it between us.”
“I’m going to become a priest,” Antoine says. He then takes an extra long drink, as if to allow me to think about what he has just said. “You’re the first person I’ve told. I had to tell somebody.”
I take a drink of my beer, almost unconsciously. “What about your family? Shouldn’t you tell them first? I mean, you did tell them first, right?”
“I don’t have a lot of family.”
“What about your parents?”
“They’re dead. I never knew them. They died when I was less than a year old.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, feeling just as sorry that I didn’t know this rather important fact about a guy who’s been my friend for a while now. When do you actually know someone?
Antoine waves his hand. “No, nothing to be sorry about. I never knew them. It’s probably a blessing in disguise, in some strange way. I would have never been adopted by my mom, would have never met Sister Dawn. I wouldn’t be Catholic.”
“What about your mom, your adopted mother, shouldn’t she know?”
“She’s dead too.”
I take a drink of my beer. God rest their souls, I pray, silently, as the liquid goes down my throat. Shelby taught me that. Someone might be in purgatory needing prayers and you might be the only one who is praying for them. Better yet, Shelby says, try to pray for them everyday, remember them in your prayers daily. You might be the only who does.
“Who is Sister Dawn?” I ask.
Antoine smiles. “She was like a grandmother to me. My adopted mother was a great woman. But as a single mom she had to be working all the time and was hardly around, bless her. So she would send me next door to where Sister Dawn lived. She was a retired nun, if there is such a thing. I didn’t know it at the time but Sister Dawn was giving my mother free daycare. She just watched me, for years. And I didn’t know until I was older that she wasn’t actually family.”
“And she,” I say tentatively. “She’s also passed away?”
Antoine nods. “Five years ago. God rest her soul.”
Antoine has finished his beer. “My adopted mother was white and a Methodist. But I guess she had no problem with Sister Dawn basically raising me as any other Catholic grandmother would raise a Catholic grandson. Sister Dawn was black and so, for me, it’s always been perfectly natural that black people are Catholic. I never understand the surprise: you’re Catholic? But…you’re black.”
I laugh, knowing exactly what he means.
“So when you are you going to enter the seminary?”
“In January.”
“Where?”
“Most likely at Notre Dame in New Orleans. My dream is to one day study at the North American College in Rome.”
I raise my eyebrows. I recognize the name immediately. To be selected for study at the North American College is often a sign that a seminarian is a great candidate to be a bishop sometime in the future. The school is for the cream of the crop of American priests.
If anyone, in my opinion, would make a good priest, it’s Antoine. His grasp of philosophy and theology is remarkable. But in addition to a strong intellectual foundation, he also has ample “real life” experience. He’s not a pious nerd. Like that guy Wojtyła, who worked in a quarry as a young man, Antoine is a blue-collar worker. He can relate to down to earth, salt of the earth, everyday people. That he was a basketball star is no small thing either. He can show there needn’t be any conflict between being a great athlete and striving to be a holy person; that not all athletes are womanizing, money obsessed, self-centered boors and can actually aspire to something more.
We have another round of beers. Antoine tries to explain the twentieth century revival of Aquinian thought in thinkers like Jacques Maritain and Étienne Gilson but it’s over my head. One hour ago I would have confidently asserted that I could explain Thomism and Neo-Thomism quite well. Antoine pulls out his phone and emails me a PDF of Taylor Marshall’s Thomas Aquinas in 50 Pages, a slim book subtitled A Quick Layman’s Guide to Thomism. Antoine suggests I read this first and then Chesterton’s biography of Aquinas before jumping into someone like Maritain.
It’s getting late. Since we’ve both been drinking, I ask Antoine if he wants to spend the night at my house. We walk back to my house and leave our cars parked at Bin 612. You’re not supposed to do that. Hopefully they don’t get towed. But then again, hopefully an asteroid speeding through space doesn’t blow up the earth.
On our short walk back to my place I tell Antoine about my guilty pleasure. He just shared something with me that he hasn’t told any other person. It’s the least I could do. To my great surprise, and greater excitement, he is also an NCAA Football 2002 aficionado. He had all the NCAA games from 1998 onwards. Sister Dawn, he says, had a considerable soft spot for football. (Thank God for nuns!!!) It was the only computer games he was allowed to play. This is too good to be true. Since Tyrell left I thought I’d never again have anyone to play with.
We play one normal game and then Antoine asks if I want to play “Crazy Kickball.” Crazy Kickball is a game he invented, a game within the game. You create one super player, like my U of I quarterback Meathead Wilson, all 99s, and you put him on a low ranked team, an I-AA team like Alcorn State, for example. A low ranked team so your super player, all 99s, can stand out against an opposition usually made up of 40-60s. This makes big plays more common, almost regular.
The game is all kicking, hence the name. One team kicks off and then the returning team has that same play to try to score. If they fail (get tackled), they have to kick (punt or attempt a field goal). Let�
��s say they punt. The returning team has that play to try and score. If they fail, they have to kick; and so it goes. The one super-player (who is your punter/kicker, returner, and everything) has 99 kicking ability so, for example, if you return a punt to your opponents 40 yard line, and now you have to kick, you can, instead of punting, attempt the 57-yard field goal because your guy’s range is something like 59-64 yards. If you miss it, the opponent gets one normal play to try and score before having to kick (which is usually your 99 player attempting a crazy QB scramble, even running backwards 30 yards to try and find an angle against lesser men. I.e.: his 99 rating roughly translating to a 4.28 40 against a defense of guys who run 5.2-5.8). If you do score, you have to go for two.
Because of the constant stoppage of time we play with one-minute quarters. Antoine wins the first game 11-3. I win the second, 9-6.
It is long past midnight now. Time for a last round of beers. We each grab a Leffe (blonde). Now is the perfect time for some YouTube. But first some Chimay Rouge, too, how could I forget? We watch eleven, or maybe sixteen or even eighteen videos of who knows what in a row before it gets so late morning is right around the corner. I give Antoine my bed and I sleep on the floor. I fall asleep fast and dream of crazy kickball. Middream—at some point in the night, I remember this later upon waking—I decide that I’m going to make a new guy in “Create a Player.” Meathead Wilson’s eventual successor at quarterback, the heir apparent to the Golden Vandal throne in my video-game dynasty. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me the inestimable honor of presenting to you a visionary and trailblazer, a gentleman of considerable prescience and a knack for the limelight, my future colleague and my lifelong friend: Stackcricked McBrickbarnstormer (or, Nocturnal Owlgas).
The Holdout Page 10