Only So Many

Growing up outside of Boston my friend Bomb, his real name was Thomas, had a saying. “You’re only allowed so many baskets in a lifetime.”

I wasn’t sure if he made it up or heard it. It didn’t matter. At the time, we were in our teens. Ahead were countless shots to launch and points to tally. Bomb was a lock to accumulate more than the rest of us. He could rip it. Rainbow jumpers from beyond the top of the key. Soft little hooks down low over taller defenders. Turnaround kisses off the backboard. Whatever. He knocked them down at a high percentage. Yet, even at that early age, he prophesied ours and his limitations. We were all on a quota. That was life.

Leap forward to 2024, these days I’m relegated to shooting around at my local Y when the gym is empty. Usually early afternoon. In that way I continue to add to my share. Though I understand it’s not the same as popping them in during a game. Those were earned. I miss that. The competition. Playing on a team. Going to a court, making up sides, putting out the effort it took to be first to 15 and keep playing. That was the attraction, as was the overall culture and atmosphere. The spirited trash talk. The recurring beats blasting from sideline boomboxes. The metallic ripping sound of the chain link nets hanging from the iron hoops on the court in Somerville I played a couple of thousand games on. Days I was in the zone there was no sweeter sound. Sffink. Sffink. Sffink.

That court was one of the better ones in the area. In fact, I wrote an unpublished novella titled Pilot Man that was based on, among other things, a city league team I played on there. I called my fictional team Alley Oop. I still have the 146 pages in a directory. It won’t open in my current version of Word but fortunately I saved it as an rtf file. This excerpt is from an early section: “Halftime under the lights. Henry’s laying it on. Yo Bobby, did you bring the game ball? Is that your Wilson we used out there? I don’t think it is. You know what that means? It means it’s not all yours. You got it? It’s not all yours, so give it up. Give…it…up. When you bring the ball, you shoot all you want. But when the ref brings the ball, it’s community property. It’s for everyone to touch.”

I wrote that half a dozen years after my last games with Bomb and my other friends. By then I had moved on, and they had too. Not so long ago I found out Bomb was no longer with us. I don’t know the circumstance of his last bucket. When and where he capped out or how many he had in total. Whatever that number was, it was a large one.

Only so many in a lifetime. Yeah, I get it now.

Time to go to the Y.