A guy is standing at the free throw line of an outdoor public basketball court located at the edge of a small suburban park, flanked on the other side by a quiet “small-town urban” street lined with small businesses. Let’s call him ‘Guy One’ for now. Guy One’s got his head down, gazing at his shoes, dribbling the basketball, actually basketball-shoegazing in silence, facing the basket. Pete’s Fish & Chips, as well as the ageing Lux’s Abbey Theater, Smugsworth Capital Bank and Paco’s House of Burritos (We Also Have Tacos!), are all visible from the court.
Dribble, dribble, dribble.
The season is summer, the year is 1999, the time nine past noon and the atmosphere your typical Midwestern-summer-nine-past-noon scorching. Humidity levels: sub-tropical, too, with virtually no wind. Sweat and dampness: the rule on the surface of your average sapiens… and cold-drink container of any kind.
Dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble.
While Guy One’s alone in the court, other people are visible, both passing by in their cars and occasionally walking by along the sidewalk on either side of the street. Guy One halts his basketball-shoegazing dribbling and holds the ball with both hands. He looks up at the basket. He shoots. The basketball bounces ungracefully (disgracefully?) off the rim and the backboard’s loud rattling has decreased to almost zero dB by second 3. Guy One makes his way to the ball which has bounced away and just now rolled past the 3-point line, en route to the sideline. The ball crosses the sideline, the ball hits the bleachers. The bleachers are four-row. The bleachers are aluminum. The bleachers are empty.
The bleachers.
Are.
Quiet.
The ball bounces off them, then slowly rolls back to where it came from and comes to a full stop a good 7 inches from Guy One’s immaculately white Air Jordans. Guy One picks up the basketball. His back still facing the basket, Guy One suddenly makes a spinning jump, letting the ball go while still in midair, as his spin angle approached 180 degrees, toward the basket. And then Guy One lands… and then the ball goes through the rim, whoosh! And then the ball bounces away. And then silence.
Silence…
But not for long. From the opposite corner on the far side of the court, some other guy is walking toward Guy One, and all possible courtside, suburban summer aromas have now been replaced by Drakkar Noir. For now, let’s call this other ‘Guy Two’. Guy Two is dressed, well, not exactly like Guy One.
Guy one and Guy Two: Air Jordans. Guy One white and black, Guy Two red, white, and black.
Guy One: men's athletic, ankle-high white socks;
Guy Two: crew-high black socks.
Guy One: Light blue t-shirt;
Guy Two: white tank top.
Guy One: Black knee-high shorts;
Guy Two: blue with broad white stripe at sides, calf-height shorts.
Guy Two: gold chains. Guy Two: gold caps. Guy Two is what, back in the 90’s, was increasingly referred to, racially, as ‘Caucasian’, as political correctness emanating from the media slowly started creeping its way into everyday life.
Guy Two: Late twenties. Average height and weight. Light skin, light hair, light eyes, light eyebrows. Light eyelashes. Light body hair. Light freckles. Light, washed down, average, mass-produced appearance. Would a beach-ball wanna-be beer gut feel at home as part of an average, mass-produced appearance? Probably. And boy, does Guy Two have one? Boy, Guy Two has one.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Guy One’s features, among them a long oval face with ‘strong’ chin; mid-sized, deep-set hazel eyes with long, pronounced eyebrows; incipient frown lines, incipient expression line where nose bridge meets brow; incipient crow's feet; medium, recessed ears and long, narrow, slightly aquiline nose with smaller, sharp-angled nostrils; full, classically contoured lips over the strong round chin; full, head of straight, short hair parted midwise; bronze skin tone, 6'2" frame, and mesomorph build, however, contrast sharply with Guy Two’s.
Guy One is facing Guy Two as Guy Two approaches. Guy One looks at Guy Two as Guy Two approaches. Guy One slightly smiles the kind of slight, sealed-lip smile which could signify mild, condescending amusement to most people. Guy Two is yelling along to the music, Hip hop, East Coast, that’s emanating loudly from the large, two tape deck, transistorized portable music player that he is holding with one arm over his shoulder:
Guy Two: “Champion gear that I rock! You get your boots knocked! Then attack you like a pit that lock shit DOWN!”
Guy One: “As I come and freaks the sound, hardcore, but giving you more and more, like ding, nah shorty, get you open like six packs.”
Guy Two is now just below Guy One’s face, looking up: “Killer bees attack, flippin' what! Murder one! Phat tracks aaight?!”
Guy One, taking a step back: “I kick it like a night flite.”
Guy Two, taking a step forward: “Word life, I get that ASS raw I'm fulla SPITE!”
Guy One, taking another step back: “Check the method from Bedrock, cause I rock ya head to bed, son.”
Guy Two, taking another step forward: “Just like rocking what? Twin Glocks!! What UP!!!????” bearing all caps and raising his palm for a high five, exposing a brillo bush of orange hair over a bread-white armpit.
“How’s it going, bro?” Guy One, less energetically, high-fives Guy Two.
“Fuck man! You look like shit! The fuck happened to you? Laugh my ass off, man!”
“Ahh, well. Just kind of a rough night. I guess. That bad, huh?”
Guy Two cocks his head to the side and squints at Guy One, a wide smirk on his face. “Just like, how-do-I-look-like-shit-boss-fuck-you bad.”
“Haha,” says Guy One. “‘How do I look?’ ‘Like shit, boss.’ ‘Fuck you.’”
“See?” yells Guy Two, opening his mouth in mock surprise, and Guy One can again evaluate his gold caps. “Just like you! Ter…minator! Just in your case my good bro, it’s more like Ter-a-TOID. Right??”
“Jesus, man. You freebasin’? To you it never gets old, does it?” amused.
“The teratoid!!” Guy Two yells out to the sky, arms extended, shrugging.
“What’s wrong with different? ISO? Bro did you forget your medication?” asks Guy One.
“Medicate THIS, bro!” Guy Two says as he grabs his crotch and juts out his pelvis toward Guy One.
“Shiet… so how ‘bout them Bulls,” asks Guy One.
“How ‘bout them who??” retorts Guy Two, cringing in mock disgust.
So the guys keep talking. After dissecting the Bulls’ situation, the lockout season, that April game against the Heat; a discussion about how the world might be ending, a discussion about how the world surely IS ending, gays on TV, embassy bombings, Bin Laden – which inexplicably brings them back to the Bulls again, then Clinton and his cigar and how hot, really, Lewinsky – not “Monica”, but Lewinsky - might have been, which inexplicably led to a Mr. Submarine sandwiches vs Subway sandwiches discussion and then to Pippen’s dismal commercial from 10 years ago but that the honeys in it were fine, leading then to a complete agreement about how surely the only things worth anything in the United Center nowadays were the Luvabulls, plus a “How bout ‘em Bulls? Fuck ‘em bulls!! How bout ‘em Bulls? Fuck ‘em bulls!!” couple of cries from Guy Two, Guy One mock-consoling him; then a discussion about which Luvabull might be the hottest which led to the debate about which might have the finest “tits” to which might have the finest “ass” to which might have the finest “abs”, which led to an assertion by Guy Two about how, first of all: Fuck abs; second, how he was really neither a “tit” man or an “ass” man but a “leg” man, and about how the proof of that was the physiological reaction he experienced upon beholding a fine pair of legs, which he did not, this physiological reaction, necessarily, get upon beholding a nice pair of “tits” or a nice pair of “ass”… with Guy Two going on to clarify that although he did say “pair of ass”, he really meant a single “ass”; that an actual pair of asses, side by side, touching even, perhaps, might also provoke in him an extreme, albeit probably less intense, physiological reaction of their own, that he only used the singular - although paired, pun intended, to a pair, he explained - in order to avoid the “es” termination of “asses” and thus conserve his sentence’s punctuating, final, monosyllabic “ass”, which in turn conserved the dopeness of his flow, they start playing some one on one.
By now you’re surely enough acquainted with the guys to know their names. Guy One’s name is Joseph Carey Merrick V. Guy Two’s name is Ian Smith Owen.