Whale Talk

Barbour hates our entire team worse than ever, because somewhere a little after Easter break Kristen Sweetwater finally called it quits with him and was able to stay with it. It probably helped that Tay-Roy started putting moves on her on the heels of Barbour humiliating her yet again, and Tay-Roy has far less tolerance for her acceptance of that kind of behavior. He told her no girl he was with would ever be subjected to it, and if she started to go back with Barbour, he’d kick Barbour’s ass. It would be a true battle of the Titans, and I don’t know who’d walk away the victor, but I’ve watched Tay-Roy’s resolve as a swimmer and as a bodybuilder, and if you’re going to take him on, you’d better bring a lunch. Tay-Roy is old school. If something doesn’t look right and it falls within his sphere of influence, he influences it.

The Slam-Dunking Mermen look a little different than the run-of-the-mill four-man teams early on a Saturday morning in late June on the first day of Hoopfest. Of ten thousand players, filling up three full blocks of downtown Spokane, we are the only team with a uniformed entourage. They wear the same T-shirts we wear, with a picture of a carp horizontal to the basket, stuffing the ball. Dan Hole is never three feet away from his clipboard, on which he records our stats with the consistency and accuracy of a computer. Chris Coughlin cheers loudly in his letter jacket, though the temperature will probably top out at eighty-five degrees, and Tay-Roy, whose chest expands the T-shirt so much the carp looks like an eel, holds Kristen’s hand. Simon, whose T-shirt expands the other way so the carp looks like a whale, and Jackie Craig, who wears swim fins, man the Gatorade cooler. Carly is playing on a team of her own, so most of the time we’re playing simultaneously. When we’re not, we find her and bring to bear the full power of our outlandish support. She and her teammates like it better when we’re playing simultaneously. My mother does not come downtown for this. She says she’ll just bring our medical cards to the hospital.

The range of talent in the open division is wide. Most contestants have experience in organized ball, and the majority at least played on a varsity team in high school. A few have played in college. We draw a team that’s way out of its league for our first game, so Simet and I rotate out and let Dad and Mott do most of the scoring, Dad from underneath and Mott from beyond the three-point line. Mott’s in shorts today, his bionic leg exposed to the general public for the first time. He really is deadly from long range. Every time he sinks one, Chris goes out of his mind. During timeouts Mott walks over and rubs Chris’s head for luck. Jackie has gotten down the art of clapping the swim fins, which adds a decidedly strange sound to our successes.

They come toward us like a twister in the distance, the black fu

Our final game on Saturday is close, but we play tough and win it by four. Barbour and Marshall a

Dad invites everyone over for di

Sunday breaks cool and clear. By 7:30 players stream toward the courts like lemmings. The air is filled with the sound of bouncing balls, balls careening off front rims and backboards, interspersed with the sweet swish of a thousand shots touching nothing but the bottom of the net. The Bushwhackers are on the court when we arrive. Rich sneers at me and watches my dad as if he were the true enemy in a real war.

Except for Chris Coughlin, we ignore them. Chris paces the sidelines, watching Barbour and Marshall as if they were man-eating tigers, his letter jacket snapped to the top as if he thinks one of them is going to strip it off.

Tay-Roy stands on the sidelines beside Kristen, ignoring Barbour’s existence.

The game has every possibility of turning sour from the begi

It is a mistake.

They get first outs. I’m on Barbour, Dad’s got Rich, and Simet is on Alex Neilson. Mott and Weeks will sub. We play better than we have a right to play, probably because Rich has seen the twins and Heidi with Alicia and Georgia, and it gets into his head. He calls Dad Pops and works him over inside, but Dad is patient and pulls down several offensive boards and gets a couple of put-backs. For most games there is only a court monitor, but the Bushwhackers have already been involved in some near fights, so we have a ref.

The ref warns Rich twice about flying elbows and pushing Dad from behind, but Dad tells him no sweat and plays through it. Dad doesn’t have finesse, but he’s in killer shape for a guy his age and even stronger than he looks. He plays smart, always stays between his man and the hoop, and picks up a lot of garbage rebounds.

Barbour is trash-talking me like De

When we have them down 19 to 17, they bring in Weeks, who is deadly from outside. At Hoopfest a regular basket counts as one and a normal three pointer counts two. Dad waves Mott in, hands him the ball, and says, “End this shit.” Weeks steps back and sinks a two-pointer for them, and we get the ball. I drive past Barbour to the hoop, flip the ball out to Mott, who pivots on his bionic leg to square up and sinks the long ball. Slammin’ Mermen 21, Assholes 19.