I had only learned about the move a handful of days before the basketball game. Money had been tight for, well, if we were being honest, years now. That was no secret. And it was no secret either that my parents were planning on selling the house. But that was supposed to be years from now, and certainly my brother and sister would be afforded the same last four years of public school at home, like I was. It turns out that wasn’t the case after all. I was wrong. We all were. And sitting there watching my brother’s middle school basketball game in the gymnasium which smelled of thick body odor and cheap rubber, I found myself biting my nails, tapping my feet, and with an unusual pounding in my heart. Not over the move, but over the game, a game which we were severely losing.
From the get-go I was hooked, a feeling not exactly commonplace among the stands of spectators for a children’s basketball game on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Less than five minutes into the game, it was clear we would lose. We were five, then seven, then twelve points behind, and every untaken shot or missed pass made it clearer and clearer that this was no tortoise and the hare scenario. I listened to my sister chatting away to get a laugh out of me or my mother, rolling her eyes when my brother missed a layup or took an impossible shot, scoffing when he slid and skinned his knee on the floor, clutching at it for a brief moment before standing up again and jogging over to one of his teammates before the other team’s free throw was taken.
I glanced back at my mother now and then throughout the game. It was like she hadn’t even considered the thing. I would spend years, I thought to myself then, wondering how a simple phone call about your weekend plans could end completely upside down from where it began…
“You remember when I mentioned moving, right?” It was like the swivel chair I had been sitting in at the time had spun me around so fast I shot off into space, leaving the ethereal insides of soul and spirit to finish out the conversation. Warm July nights listening to the peeper frogs outside my window in the pond. That sticky sweet smell of the wood floors and beams; not good, not bad, just right. Family piled into every inch of sofa space throughout the house on holidays. Bookcases piled high and all those little paintings I never stopped to look at. And all of those countless other things I knew I had never done, but what were they, what were they, and how would I ever know to do them in the first place, or when, or how. It seemed to me that photos were just as lifeless as these things themselves. If only there was a way to give something that electric feeling of life it had when it was gone now. There’s just something about that impending doom of knowing. Knowing each thing’s expiration date. Knowing that it would feel like tomorrow, no matter how far off it was.
We were down thirty points at the beginning of the fourth quarter. My sister must have sensed that I wasn’t in the mood that afternoon. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of these basketball games had I sat through in what was basically a comatose state. We scored one and lost six, and I clapped harder and harder, even cheering once and receiving a sharply baffled glance from my family beside me. My heart pounded harder and harder with each point that lit up the scoreboard. In my head I found myself replaying classic inspirational sports movie scenes in my head, running through Any Given Sunday, Miracle, and even The Mighty Ducks to find the perfect combination of words to tell my team (my team??). It was no use. When the game came to an end we had lost by thirty three points. I watched my brother pack his bags and guzzle water, realizing just how dry my own throat was from the stress of watching from the bleachers.
“Good job,” I told him when he made his way back to us.
“Thanks,” he said, “I knew we were gonna lose, though.”
“Well, that’s alright,” I replied, shrugging harmlessly. My heart was still pounding when we reached the car and started heading home.
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