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.
If There’s Green, There’s Still Life
By John Karalis
Read Chapter 1 here
Read Chapter 2 here
Read Chapter 3 here
Chapter 4
I left work at four to make sure I’d get to the game on time. The Celtics were playing the Bulls on ESPN, which meant the game would start at seven, a half hour earlier than usual. I’d picked this game because all of the Providence College sports teams were off, which made for a quiet day at work. I was also taking my oldest son, Kevin, with me for his first live game, so I’d also rationalized to myself that the earlier start would be better for a seven-year-old.
My dad lived in Attleboro now because both my sister and I had moved from Middletown, Rhode Island into Massachusetts. He’ll tell everyone he did it so he could be closer to his kids, which makes him sound like father of the year, but the reality was he wanted his kids closer to him so he could call on us to help him when he demanded. I’ve personally set up a new computer, explained email to him, explained phishing scams to him, and debugged his computer when he clicked on a porn pop up. Basically, I was his IT department. Anne was his Uber driver. She shuttled him everywhere when he wasn’t feeling well enough to drive on his own. That usually meant when he was too drunk to drive.
I called my wife and told her to have Kevin ready in half an hour. I got to my father’s house and honked. The guys on WEEI were talking about the Red Sox even though their season was over two months ago.
“Do you guys even realize there’s a Celtics game on tonight?” I asked the radio. It didn’t respond, so I flipped over to the Sports Hub to catch the tail end of a segment on the Patriots.
My father opened the door and sat.
“Celtics game on in a few hours on a Wednesday in November and I get Sox and Pats talk,” I told him.
“Pats are looking good,” he said.
“You’re not helping.”
We’d been speaking a little more often than usual. It was his idea to bring Kevin, but I’d already been thinking this was the season to to finally introduce him to a live game. We’d been watching together on TV for a while and he was old enough to sit still for the game. He could understand some of what was happening and the team was entertaining enough to hold his interest.
He was clearly excited for the game because I saw him peeking through the window as I pulled up, and he ran out of the house before I’d even come to a full stop. I opened the door and caught him as he ran up to me.
“Hey there buddy!”
“Hi daddy,” he said as he hugged me around the knees. He turned to the car and yelled “hi grandpa!”
“Hey there sport,” my dad wheezed from the car. “You excited to go watch some basketball?”
“Yesss!” he said, drawing out the “s” sound. I let him go so he could get into the car and strap in while I gave my wife a kiss goodbye.
“Good luck tonight,” she said with grin. “You’re going to have your hands full.”
“Thanks. I think I’ll need it. At least I have someone to blame when he learns how to swear tonight.”
She playfully slapped my shoulder and said “well, if he’s going to learn, might as well be from the best.”
I gave her another kiss and got into the car. As I sat down, my father was explaining how great John Havlicek was to Kevin, and how today’s players are soft compared to the guys in the 70’s and 80’s.
I grinned, shook my head slightly, and drove off.
Chapter 5
We were parked and walking by six o’clock. My father spent the entire drive giving Kevin a history lesson, and Kevin devoured it all. He’d already heard me talk wistfully about the greatness of Larry Bird and the Big 3. I’d shown him the picture of us when he was two, when I’d made him watch the end of Game 6 just so he could say he saw the Celtics beat the Lakers for a championship. But now he got the full story.
I parked in my usual spot a few blocks from the Garden. It was a little bit of a longer walk, but it was worth the $15 I saved for parking. I stopped to tie my shoe and watched Kevin and my father walk ahead of me. I pictured a time 30 years from now; a time when I was the old man, and the little boy was my grandson, and it was Kevin who felt the tears welling up as he saw a new generation of Celtics fanatic being born.
Kevin turned and yelled “come on daddy!” in a very “I need to get there as soon as possible” way. A friend of mine with season tickets had given me Legends passes, so we got into the arena a little early to watch the guys warm up.
My dad grabbed two beers from the bar and watched Kevin and me from a few rows up as we tried to find a good vantage point. Kevin was in heaven as he got up-close looks at the players. He’d turn to me wide-eyed when someone dunked or made a trick shot. He got high-fives from Jared Sullinger, James Young, and Tyler Zeller as they walked by. Marcus Smart and Isaiah Thomas stopped to sign autographs and Thomas took a second to take a picture with him while they both made the “number 1” sign. Thomas tussled Kevin’s hair and jogged into the back.
“Oh my gosh, daddy, that was so cool! He’s my new favorite!”
“He’s a good player.”
“Yeah, he can shoot it from really far and he’s a lot shorter than those other guys but he’s still making baskets.”
“Yes, he finds a way to score.”
“He’s going to score a lot of baskets tonight.
“I hope so, Kev. Are you hungry?”
He said yes and we walked up to get some food. My father walked out with us but disappeared while we waited for overpriced pizza. As we were paying, he reappeared with a small plastic bag. As he walked up, he pulled a new Isaiah Thomas #4 jersey. It was Kevin’s size.
I wish I’d gotten the chance to catch the face Kevin made when he saw it. It was the “kid getting what he wanted on Christmas morning” face. He put it on over his green Celtics shirt, hugged my father’s legs, then jumped around with his arms in the air.
“That was nice of you, Dad. You didn’t have to.”
“No, but I wanted to get it for him before you did and scored all the points with him.”
“I was totally going to.”
“I know. I damn near saw the light bulb go off over your head when Kev was talking to him.”
“And now you’re the hero.”
“Hey, that’s what grandparents do. Besides I want him to remember me for the right reasons.”
The line hit me right in the gut. He might have meant it as a joke, but I’d been so caught up in this series of moments that I forgot my father was also looking at this like some kind of farewell tour.
We sat down in our seats, which were at the top of section 13, directly across from the Celtics bench. I loved these seats because you got to see the whole court, but you were also close enough to see reactions from the players and coaches on the bench. I like watching them because it reminded me of sitting there when I played. I wanted to be able to tell Kevin to look at things in a different way.
“Nice seats,” my father said.
“Yeah, not bad.”
I sat between my father and Kevin to provide a buffer for the cursing, like I’m some sort of f-bomb deflector shield.
My father leaned into me and said “look at the rack on that one” as he gazed at a dancer. I half-shut my eyes and shook my head slightly.
“What? They throw them out there. We’re supposed to look at them. They’re out there in their underwear.”
“Yeah, but it’s just the way you say it. I don’t want Kevin to hear that stuff. That’s now how we talk nowadays.”
“That’s why I leaned into you. Besides, I think he’s enjoying the show.”
He was right. Kevin was watching the dancers on the sidelines with a bit of slack jaw. I wasn’t sure what was going through his mind at that moment.
“Hey, now we know the kid ain’t gay.”
“Jesus fuck, dad.”
I winced and looked over at Kevin who was in his own world. Some deflector shield I was.
“What? C’mon I’m just busting your balls,” my father said. That was his way of brushing off the horrible thing he’d just said. If you ever walk into a room and you hear my father say “I’m just busting your balls,” you can bet he’d just said something pretty terrible.
I turned back to my son and decided distraction was the best way out of this. I pointed to Isaiah Thomas and said “there’s your guy.”
He turned his head slightly and started clapping. He already had a pizza stain on his new jersey. I could already hear Amira telling me how that proved he’s my son. I would have no comeback for that, because it’s true. I’d been banned from buying white shirts five years ago.
Kevin was properly refocused after the team introductions. I knew this because he asked me why they didn’t call out Thomas’ name and he listened while I explained the difference between starters and bench players.
The game didn’t start well. Chicago bolted out of the gates on a 12-nothing run. After the third consecutive pick-and-roll layup, the Celtics called a timeout, and my father leaned over to me and said “if they don’t start switching on those, I’ll be getting my own ride home at halftime.”
It sounded right, so I pulled out my phone and tweeted something similar. It got four retweets and a favorite before the timeout was over.
Son of a bitch.
The Bulls went to the well one more time, and to my father’s delight, the Celtics switched and it led to a turnover. Thomas had checked in and, much to my son’s delight, hit a transition three for the first basket of the game. Two people had remarked that I’d “called it” on Twitter. I didn’t tell my father. If he was going to get shine for buying my kid a jersey, my social media validation for his strategy was my payback.
Chicago turned it over again on the next possession, and Thomas hit another three, which sent my son into a frenzy. He did this jumping, dancing thing that got him onto the jumbotron, and earned himself a rousing round of applause. He was immersed in this moment and loving it. I looked over at my dad, who leaned into me and said “he’s hooked.”
I high-fived my father and tried to soak in my son’s pure euphoria. It was only the first quarter and the Celtics were still losing, but I would have severed a limb to freeze this moment and live in it forever.
The first half was pretty back and forth after that. The Celtics went into the half down five but playing very inspired basketball. At halftime, we all decided to stretch our legs and walk around a bit. We bumped into A. Sherrod Blakely talking to a couple of people near the entrance to the media section of the Garden.
“Look daddy, that’s the man from your phone,” my son said.
Sherrod squinted and tilted his head and asked“excuse me,” while looking directly at me.
“I… Kevin… what do you mean?”
“Your phone. When you look at it all the time, he’s the man on there.”
“Ohhhh, ha ha ha,” I said looking back at Sherrod. “I follow you on Twitter. I… I guess I have a bit of a Twitter addiction. I didn’t realize he’d noticed. Father of the year, huh?”
“It’s cool,” Sherrod said. “Hey, he’s here and having fun. Didn’t I see him on the screen? You’re doing something right.”
I laughed and thanked him for doing his job and walked off a bit amazed and embarrassed at what had just happened. My first instinct was to tweet the experience, but then, with my hand in my pocket and looking down at my son, I decided to let it go.
We got back to our seats, new refreshments in hand, in time to see Marcus Smart walking the ball up to start the second half. My father was already sitting down, working on one of the two beers he’d bought.
“Nine bucks for a solo cup of Sam. Lube not included.”
“What’s lube?” my son asked.
I rolled my eyes and looked at my father.
“I said tip. Tip not included. Nine bucks and I had to give the guy a tip too.”
He was quick, I’ll give him that. And I think Kevin bought it because he just nodded and turned back to the game.
Kelly Olynyk started the second half on fire, hitting two straight threes, a drive and dunk, and a pass to Avery Bradley in the corner for three. The Celtics were up eight when Chicago called a timeout. My father high-fived me and then Kevin as the Celtics walked to their huddle. I resisted the urge to search Twitter for something fun to retweet. Instead I turned to Kevin and just said “wow this is fun, right?”
In his excitement, he’d gotten ketchup from his hot dog smeared across his face and, partly, on the strap of his jersey. I wiped it clean as he gave me the excited recap of how awesome the “guy with the lady hair” was. That one was too tweet-worthy for me to pass up. It instantly got five retweets.
The Celtics were up four going into the fourth quarter but fell behind after two missed Jared Sullinger threes led to long rebounds and fast breaks.
“Why does he keep shooting so many goddamn threes?” my father yelled towards the court as he stood with his hands on his head.
The game became a slug-fest from there on out. There were hard fouls on drives to the basket. There were “hold me back” confrontations that resulted in double technicals. There were bodies diving on the floor for loose balls. I felt like I could hear Mike Gorman telling Tommy Heinsohn “this feels like a playoff game.”
With two minutes left and the Celtics down four, Amir Johnson poked the ball away from Pau Gasol. Olynyk picked the ball up and fired a pass up the sideline to Marcus Smart who took two dribbles to the middle of the floor. Smart fired the ball back to the right hash-mark, where Thomas caught it and launched a three that was way too deep to go in, except it did, and the place exploded.
Chicago pushed the ball up hard, but Smart got a hand on a pass Derrick Rose shouldn’t have tried to make and he pushed it up ahead to Thomas who was running side by side with Rose when he stopped and pulled up from three.
Splash.
Celtics up two. Time out Bulls. A minute and a half to go.
In the excitement, my son turned to me and my father and me and yelled “those were awesome goddamn threes!” and then turned away to do his dancy jumpy thing. I just laughed and turned to my father. He shrugged.
“What?” he asked with a biggest shit-eating grin I’ve seen. He was proud of that moment. I guess I was too. I’d just have to explain the when and where of cursing to my son later.
Jimmy Butler made a basket for the Bulls to tie the game. Sullinger hit a three at the 58 second mark to retake the lead. I glanced at my father afterwards and he was just shaking his head. After a Gasol miss, Thomas took an outlet pass at half court, drove down the right side of the lane, and was plastered by Joakim Noah. Thomas flicked the ball up as he was hit, and as he slid into the stanchion, the ball grazed the top of the backboard, bounced off the rim three times, and fell through. It was Thomas’ 30th point of the night. He’d get his 31st on the free throw, and the Celtics ended up getting the win.
“I knew he was going to score a lot of baskets tonight,” Kevin said afterwards. He talked about the game the entire walk back to the car. My only thought as he was going on was to hope to everything holy that he was going to remember all of this. As he continued to walk and talk, seemingly to no one in particular, my father and I looked at each other and smiled.
We got into the car and drove off. By the time we’d cleared the tunnel and got up to cruising speed on the Expressway, Kevin was asleep.
“He’s never going to forget this, you know,” my father said.
“I hope not.”
“Nah… the only thing that’s going to top this night for him will be when he gets laid for the first time.”
We laughed a good laugh.
“You might be right.”
“This was fun,” my father said. He paused for a few seconds and then added “let’s do this again.”
We passed a candlepin bowling alley. I always loved that we had candlepin bowling here and that no one outside of the greater Boston area even knew what that was. This was our thing. As weird and fucked up as it was, and as insane as I was made to feel when I tried to explain it to people who weren’t from here, I loved our weird candlepin bowling.
“Yeah.” I said. “Let’s do this again.
Dad was asleep before we got out of Quincy. I drove the rest of the way in silence, with a little grin on my face as I replayed the night in my head.
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