The following is a fictional short story with a heavy Celtics theme which will be published in five parts over the course of this week. I hope it will provide a form of entertainment as we fill some time before the Celtics return. I hope you enjoy the story. Please note, this contains some NSFW language. You can find Chapter 1 here.
If There’s Green, There’s Still Life
By John Karalis
Chapter 2
Three beers in 15 minutes was not doing anything to soften my mood. On my way out the door, I texted my wife about where I was going. A Twitter favorite notification blinked onto my phone but it turned out to be a spam account from some cam-girl. There would be no validation from social media today. Her profile picture was cute though.
The ride was short, which was a good thing considering the beer I’d just pounded. I stopped at the gift shop for an overpriced bottle of water and a pack of gum. It took me five minutes to figure out where my father was and another 10 to get to the other side of the wing, which gave me time to flip open Twitter again to see what I was missing.
I was on my third loop of a Vine from the balcony illustrating how loudly Kobe Bryant was being booed when I walked into my father’s room. The booing was quite loud. I was very impressed. My sister wasn’t.
“Do you ever look up from that thing for a goddamn minute?”
Her eyes were red and puffy. I decided to pocket my phone, and my wit, and react appropriately to the situation.
“I’m sorry. I was just looking at something someone sent me.”
On a TV in the corner of the room, I could see that the Celtics had started the game on a 12-4 run. I was gazing at the replay of a Kelly Olynyk corner 3 and the subsequent shot of Kobe angrily explaining to Julius Randle that he’d missed a rotation when my father’s raspy voice chimed in.
“The Laker fucking suck this year. It’s beautiful.”
I looked over to him. He did not look well.
“Hey Dad. So… ummm… how’ve you been?”
The corner of his mouth tilted subtly as he snorted and half-closed his eyes. That triggered a short coughing fit that I’d guessed was the reason we were all spending a Sunday at Sturdy Memorial.
“Stage 4 lung cancer.”
I took a deep breath and had a fleeting thought wondering if he’d be jealous that I could take a breath like that without hacking.
“Ah, shit.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said when they told me.”
I stood there subtly nodding at the news, trying to give myself time to process and come up with the right thing to say.
“So…..”
I shook my head and my voice trailed off. This was the best I could do. It’s how you ask a dying person how much time he has left without actually saying those words.
“If you’re asking when do I die, I don’t know. It’d be easier if I was a fucking dog because you could take me to the vet and give me a nice shot and I’d fall asleep.”
My sister angrily yelled “DADDY!” and put her face in her hands.
“Well it’s true. But since I’m not, I don’t know. I don’t know when I die. I just know that I will and it probably won’t take very long at this point.”
I thought my reaction to my father uttering that sentence would be “good,” but his words hung there, putting pressure on my eyes and short circuiting my brain. I turned back to the game to see the Lakers had tied things at 20 heading into a time out. I couldn’t really look at him right now so I held my focus on the TV. He looked at me. And then at the TV. And then back at me.
“Billy.”
“Yeah?”
“Remember the steal?”
The steal? THE steal? DO I REMEMBER THE STEAL? Even at this moment, just saying those words bring me back to a memory perfectly etched into my brain. I was a nine-year-old kid leaning around an obstructed view seat at the old Boston Garden. I instantly remember everything. Every smell. Every sound. I remember that guy with the bad toupee in front of us. I remember the woman next to me looked like Dolly Parton. I remember the beer guy having bad teeth. I learned all the best curse words when that ball went out of bounds and referee pointed Detroit’s way. I learned what ultimate joy was when Larry Bird stole that pass and hit Dennis Johnson for the layup. We were all so happy we cried. It was the best day of my life, and you ask do I remember the fucking steal??”
“Yeah,” I said, looking down.
“What a day.”
“I think you kissed a guy after it happened.”
“Eh, probably. But not in a gay way.”
“I don’t know, I thought there was tongue.”
“What the fuck did you know? You were just some dumb kid.”
“Not that dumb.”
He paused briefly.
“Hell, after that play, I probably would have blown Larry if he wanted.”
For the first time in years, my father and I shared a laugh. It was an honest laugh over a beautiful memory. When I stopped laughing and looked back at him, lying in a cheap hospital gown with tubes running into his body, I froze, and a tear rolled down my face.
My dad let out what began as a slightly disappointed “ahhhh….” as in “ahhh… don’t you start crying like a little bitch?” Which is something he would have said, had he continued to be himself; had he continued to be the guy whose attitude slowly turned him from a hero to a villain in my life. Part of me was expecting it. Part of me was hoping for it, actually. Then I could have just said my goodbye.
“You know, Billy. I… uhhh…. “
He looked all around the room and fidgeted. He had tumors fighting each other for prime real estate on his vital organs and I could see that, right now, it was the words that made him feel the most ill at ease.
“I’ve been a real prick.”
I looked down.
“You know, this is where you’re supposed to say ‘no, Dad, you weren’t that bad.’”
I looked up and said nothing. The silence hung there like Gloucester fog.
“Right. Well, Yeah. Anyway.”
Mike Breen interrupted the moment as he yelled about a fast break alley oop Amir Johnson just caught to cap a 10-nothing run. We both looked over and watched the replay until they went to commercial.
“You want to go to a game, Billy? For old time’s sake?”
I cocked my head like a dog trying to understand English.
“What?”
“I haven’t been in forever. Not since ‘08…”
“Were you there?”
“Not for Game 6, no. But I was at a few playoff games. Anyway. I know the team isn’t great but this Stevens guy has them really busting their asses and I think it’d be fun to see one more time before I go.”
“So, go.”
I started to default to my dismissive mode with my father. It was a game we’d played for a while now. His move was to just take the bait and say “well, let’s see what we can figure out,” which was code for “you weren’t buying my token attempt at reconciliation, so I’m not really going to try any harder.”
“I’d also like to see one more game with my boy.”
He didn’t stick to the script. I had to ad lib, which was tough because I had started to well up again. The Celtics were a huge part of my life and it’s because of all the games I’d been to as a kid. For all the things he’d done wrong over the years, he still had given me this. I didn’t know what to say, so I decided to take what he said at face value.
“OK, Dad,” I said, trying to shake off the weight of what this meant. “OK. When they get you out of here, we’ll find a day that works and we’ll go.”
We looked at each other for longer than usual. His eyes were starting to get pink when he turned his attention to the TV. Instead of giving in to the tears, he said “Ah, this Sullinger kid drives me crazy. Why does he shoot so many goddamn threes?”
I shook my head and walked over to his bed. I patted him on the leg and said “I’m going to go home and take care of some things. I’m going to call out of work and be back here in the morning.”
I turned and hugged my sister, who may have been crying the entire time. She whispered “thank you” in my ear, and I turned and left, pulling my phone out of my pocket and flicking it on as the door shut behind me.
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