The Game

I played basketball today— well, I took my ball, newly purchased long ago but consigned to aimless rolling about in the trunk of my car, an oddball hitchhiker forced to the rumble seat, and became that oddball myself, an old man in the park shuffling from place to place on the concrete court carrying my ball because dribbling demanded an ancient dexterity, devolved now into feckless slapping at the devilishly dancing sphere like a child chasing a dog, hands clumsily trying to pet it’s bobbing head, (Child at nearby play area: Mama, look at that man. He OLD! Mama: Hush, he’ll hear you.) and finally hoisting the air-buoyed orb skyward toward the goal, surely raised from its ten-foot perch back in the day, the imaginary crowds that erupted in cheers in my youthful fantasies now chanting, Air Ball, Air Ball, (Child again: Mama, he BAD! Mama: Hush, he’ll hear you.) leaving me wishing for a fatherly presence to lift me up toward that hoop so I could produce the satisfyingly sweet sound of rubber swishing through nylon cords, but no such friendly ghost intervened and even my few successful heaves brought only the clang of chain link net, and now I lie in bed, aggrieved muscles, stupefied by their deployment, painfully contracting, but I am happy because I played basketball today.