7- Enlightened

It’s relatively cold today, and windy, but I fulfilled my friend’s request to meet him at the park at 5:00 anyway. Only he never showed up.

Instead, there was a sophomore and junior there, playing basketball.

“You got someone else coming?” they asked me.

“Yeah, I think he’s coming soon-” I turn around and see someone there. Only it’s not my friend; it’s another boy, a freshman like me. I know who he is.

I knew him since elementary school, mostly because he lived close by, but I never became good friends with him. That’s because I considered him a little, for lack of better term, lowly. He used profanity often. He was clumsy and I’d often see him choking during lunchtime back in middle school because he was eating too much. His brothers always dumped the bowls of Halloween candy into their bags and drove at 60mph in my development. He was part of the special ed program in both my elementary and middle schools.

He and his whole family, as far as I was concerned, were ruffians. For anonymity’s sake, I’ll call him C.

C comes along, and the first thing one of the guys there says is, “Oh, it’s the fat kid.” He chuckles. “He isn’t even climbing over the fence.”

When you’re at a park, and two people are playing basketball, and two more arrive, you can only expect that a 2v2 game will ensue. That’s what happens.

Me and C are on a team. I’m no NBA player, but I see that C is relatively slow and shoots rather awkwardly. With each shot missed, he lets out a curse. I’ll use @#$% to represent profanity.

“Man, @#$%,” he mutters as he fires another airball. Hah, I think to myself. Hasn’t changed one bit.

But he surprises me during the game. At first, he seems like a ball hog and immediately takes 3-pointers (i.e., long-distance shots that have a relatively low chance of making it in). He misses all of them. “@#$%, @#$%, @#$%,” he grumbles. “Sorry man, I can’t shoot today.” I’m surprised he even bothered to apologize, but I reply, “it’s cool, buddy.”

Suddenly, he starts going on a roll. He makes successive 3’s, and I follow up with some fast yet unprofessional looking (but hey, they work) 2’s. We win the first game.

“@#$%,” the upperclassmen say. “Another game.”

So we play another game, and C starts off with a 3. He misses the second, but since I’m taller than the guy defending me, I’m able to rebound and give him a second chance. And this systematic approach goes on for a while- I rebound, he shoots, I rebound, he shoots. Granted, he missed once in a while, and a “@#$%” ensued, but we ended up winning by 21-6.

And then we begin the walk back to our house. It’s about a 15 minute walk before I’ll reach my own house, and he takes the same route. I’ll wonder how awkward this will get.

I tell him he has an amazing shot, and he tells me I have a “good rebound”. Suddenly I recall that he participates in basketball recreation, like I had this year.

“I can’t do that in rec (recreation basketball), though,” I say modestly.

“Heh, me neither. They never pass it to me,” he mumbles. “They think I suck ’cause I’m fat.”

“Don’t worry, they think I suck, too,” I offer. ” In fact, I’m thinking of not doing it again next year.” He looks at me.

“They tell you that you suck? Keep playing. They tell me I suck all the time, but I keep playing. I’m doing it next year.”

“Hey, I made, like, one basket the entire season so far,” I say.

“Same here,” C responds, “because they never really pass it to me. But when I do get the ball, I pass it to people who don’t usually get it, either.”

“Wow, that’s cool.”

“Yeah. Like, you know J (for anonymity)? They never really pass it to him. So I get the ball, and I give it to him. He sucks at shooting and catching, so I have to hand it off to him instead.”

If I knew someone who had poor shooting and catching, I wouldn’t have been as considerate to modify the way I give the ball to them.

C continues, “one time, I handed it off to him, and he made the shot. It was his first basket.” C looks happy about this.

I’m in admiration now. “That sounds awesome, buddy.” It’s been a while since I saw somebody happy because they’d done something that simply, well, kind.

“Don’t think that you suck,” he says, a little more mumbly, as if he’s aware he’s saying something a bit cheesy (I didn’t think it was), “If you think you suck, or you think that they think you suck, play anyway. Only way to get better.”

“I guess.”

“Can’t wait till summer. I’ll be practicing every day.”

He shares me some tips for better ball handling, ones he got from NBA star Chris Paul. Before I know it, I’m back home, and we say “see ya”.

I haven’t had such a nice talk in a while.