“I am Frank Snake Church in the here and now and forever,” Frank said and laughed. He loved to listen to Preacher rant and rave. A retired railroad engineer, Preacher was a gray-haired black man with a big belly. He stood at the top of the key, bounced the ball off the free-throw line, and off the board into the hoop.
“That was a garbage shot,” Frank said. “You’d never take that shot in a real game. Never.”
“Every game is real, every game is real, every game is real,” Preacher chanted as Frank missed the trick shot.
“That’s a screaming scarlet ‘R’ for you,” said Preacher and called out his next shot. “This one is all net all day.”
Preacher hit the fifteen-foot swish, and Frank also swished it.
“Oh, a pretty little shot by the Indian stranger,” said Preacher.
“I ain’t no stranger, I am Frank Snake Church.”
“Naw, you ain’t no Frank Snake Church,” Preacher said. “I saw Frank Snake Church score seventy-seven against the Ballard Beavers in 1979. I saw Frank Snake Church shoot twenty-eight for thirty-six from the field and twenty-one for twenty-two from the line. I saw Frank Snake Church grab nineteen rebounds that same night and hand out eleven dimes. Yeah, I knew Frank Snake Church. Frank Snake Church was a friend of basketball, and believe me, you ain’t no Frank Snake Church.”
“My driver’s license says I’m Frank Snake Church.”
“Your social security card, library card, unemployment check, and the tattoo on your right butt cheek might say Frank Snake Church,” Preacher said, “but you, sir, are an imposter; you are a doppelgänger; you are a body snatcher; you are a pod person; you are Frank Snake Church’s evil and elderly twin is what you are.”
Preacher closed his eyes and hit a blind shot from the corner. Frank closed his eyes and missed by five feet.
“That’s an ‘S’ for you, as in Shut Up and Learn How to Play Another Game,” said Preacher. “God could pluck out my eyes, and you could play with a microscope, and I’d still beat you. Man, you used to be somebody.”
“I am now what I always was,” Frank said.
“You now and you then are two entirely different people. You used to be Frank the Snake, Frank the Hot Dog, but now you’re just a plain Oscar Mayer wiener, just a burned-up frankfurter without any damn mustard to make you taste better, make you easier to swallow. I watch you toss up one more of those ugly jumpers, and I’m going to need the Heimlich to squeeze your ugliness out of my throat.”
“Nope, Frank now and Frank then are exactly the same. I am a tasty indigenous sausage.”
“You were young and fresh, and now you’re prehistoric, my man, you’re only about two and a half hours younger than the Big Bang, that’s how old you are. And I know you’re old because I’m old. I smell the old on you like I smell the old on me. And it reeks, son, it reeks of stupid and desperate hope.”
Preacher hit a Rick Barry two-handed scoop-shot free throw.
“I can’t believe you took that white-boy shot,” Frank said. “I’m going to turn you in to the NAACP for that sinful thing.”
“Honey, I believe in the multicultural beauty of this diverse country.”
“But that Anglo crap was just plain ugly.”
“Did it go in?” Preacher asked.
“Well, it went in, but it didn’t go in pretty.”
“All right, pretty boy, let’s see what you got.”
Frank clanged the shot off the rim.
“My shot might’ve been ugly,” Preacher said, “but your shot is missing chromosomes. You want me to prove it, or you want to lose this game all by yourself?”
“Here begins my comeback,” said Frank as he took the shot and missed again.
“Spell it out, honey, that’s ‘H-O-R-S’ and double ‘E.’ Game over.”
“Man, I can’t believe I lost on that old-fashioned antique.”
“Sweetheart, I might be old-fashioned, but you’re just plain old.”
Frank felt hot and stupid. He tasted bitterness — that awful need to cry — and he was ashamed of his weakness, and then he was ashamed of being ashamed.
“Age don’t mean anything,” Frank said. “I walk onto any court in this city, and I’m the best baller. Other guys might be faster or stronger, maybe they jump higher, but I’m smarter. I’ve got skills and I’ve got wisdom.”
Frank’s heart raced. He wondered if he was going to fall again; he wondered if lightning was going to strike him again.
“You might be the wisest forty-year-old ballplayer in the whole city,” Preacher said. “You might be the Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates of Seattle street hoops, but you’re still forty years old. You should be collecting your basketball pension.”
“You’re twenty years older than me,” Frank said. “Why are you giving me crap about my age?”
Frank could hear the desperation in his own voice, so he knew Preacher could also hear it. In another time, in other, less civilized places, desperate men killed those who made them feel desperation. Who was he kidding? Frank knew, and Preacher should have known, that desperate men are fragile and dangerous at all times and places. Frank wanted to punch Preacher in the face. Frank wanted to knock the old man to the ground and kick and kick and kick and kick him and break his ribs and drive bone splinters into the old man’s heart and lungs.
“I know I’m old,” Preacher said. “I know it like I know the feel of my own sagging ball sack. I know exactly how old I am in my brain, in my mind. And my basketball mind is the same age as my basketball body. Old, old, ancient, King Tut antique. But you, son, you’re in denial. Your mind is stuck somewhere back in 1980, but your eggshell body is cracking here in the twenty-first century.”
“I’m only forty years old,” Frank said. He bounced the ball between his legs, around his back, thump, thump, between his legs, around his back, thump, thump, again and again, thump, thump, faster and faster, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
“Basketball years are like dog years,” Preacher said. “You’re truly about two hundred and ninety-nine years old.”
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
“I’m still a player,” Frank said. “I’m still playing good and hard.”
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
“But why are you still playing so hard?” Preacher asked. “What are you trying to prove? You keep trying to get all those years back, right? You’re trying to time-machine it, trying to alternate-universe it, but one of these days, you’re going to come down wrong on one of your arthritic knees, and it will be over. What will you do then? You’ve bet your whole life on basketball, and playground basketball at that, and what do you have to show for it? Look at you. You’re not some sixteen-year-old gangster trying to play your way out of the ghetto. You ain’t even some reservation warrior boy trying to shoot your way off the reservation and into some white-collar job at Microsoft Ice Cream. You’re just Frank the Pretty Good Shooter for an Old Fart. Nobody’s looking to recruit you. Nobody’s going to draft you. Ain’t no university alumni lining up to financially corrupt your naive ass. Ain’t no pretty little Caucasian cheerleaders looking to bed you down in room seven of the Delta Delta Delta house. Ain’t no ESPN putting you in the Plays of the Day. You ain’t as cool as the other side of the pillow. You’re hot and sweaty, like an orthopedic support. You’re one lonely Chuck Taylor high-top rotting in the ten-cent pile at Goodwill. Your game is old and ugly and misguided, like the Salem witch trials. You’re committing injustice every time you step on the court. I think I’m going to organize a march against your ancient ass. I’m going to boycott you. I’m going to boycott your corporate sponsors. But wait, you ain’t got any corporate sponsors, unless Nike has come out with a shoe called Tired Old Bastard. So why don’t you just give up the full-court game and the half-court game and enjoy the fruitful retirement of shooting a few basketballs and drinking a few glasses of lemonade.”