Flask

I love basketball.

It was my best game. I played football and ran track, but I hated football practice and didn't want to be a lineman. I played center as a legacy of Intermediate School football, when I was huge and smart, but by freshman year I wasn't as relatively tall and there were many guys I went up against who outweighed me by 50 lbs or more. Hike the ball, make sure the QB gets it right, then get your brains bashed in. I felt I should be an end, a receiver, but it took a long time to talk the coaches into it.

Basketball was another story. In basketball practice you don't do inane, boring, unrelated drills like you do as a lineman in football. In basketball practice, you play basketball.

As I previously mentioned, in 8th Grade I was quite the basketball star. But I failed to grow over the next year, so instead of playing center or even power forward I was moved down to the 3. This was okay, but it required a lot more dribbling than I was used to, and less rebounding and layups, both of which I excelled at.

To make matters worse, I wasn't starting. I had gone to grammar school in another town, a sending district. All the other kids had come up thru the normal Intermediate School and the Frosh coach knew them and was comfortable with them. Thus his starting five were kids he knew. I felt I was much better than they, but I had to wait for my opportunity.

Meanwhile I spent a lot of time on the bench. There were a lot of marginal players on the bench and that stuck in my craw as well, to be lumped in with such a bunch. One of those kids was a short kid, barely 5 feet tall. He lacked skills, but not confidence. "See these feet? They're the feet of a six footer!" he would pronounce confidently, as if it was just a matter of time before he would be a starter. He also had a motor mouth. Yap, yap, yap, six footer, six footer, six footer... Cut me a break!

I finally got my chance one game. One of the starters got into foul trouble early. The coach looked down the bench and there wasn't much there. He called my number. Well, I went in and kicked mofobo. I got rebounds, steals, scored 17 points, all in about a quarter and a half. The crowd went nuts (it was a home game), helped by members of the harem. It was by far the best single performance by anyone in the young season. I was sure I was starting.

I did indeed start the next game and did equivalently well, on the road. And I started the next one too. I was getting into my new role as a swing man, and altho my shot wasn't that great, my moves were and I had a habit of getting my own rebound and putting it in. Altho there were a few guys taller than I on the team, I was by far the best jumper, so I jumped center, even tho I played the 3.

Then one day early in January the coach called me into his office. "Listen, I'm not gonna start you tomorrow..." Why not?? I've been playing well. I'm one of your main scorers and rebounders. I jump center, for chrissakes!

The coach kinda shifted in his chair. "I know that. Doncha think I know that?" Okay, so what's the problem?

"The higher ups wanna give some other guys some more playing time." The "higher ups" was the varsity coach. "Some other guys" were the taller, less talented ones. I can't blame him, he had to look at the future. They had 4 or five inches on me. He didn't want to depend on a 3 who was 5'11" and quite likely had stopped growing. I couldn't do anything about it, the frosh coach couldn't do anything, either. I accepted it.

We tanked as the taller guys struggled. None of them ever made varsity as it turned out. But hey, they had to look to the future, they made their bet, and it didn't turn out. We struggled the rest of the season and finished a game or two over .500.

Towards the end of the season I wasn't playing much. I'd pack my uniform, go on the bus, sit the bench, take a shower, get back on the bus.

One time we had a Saturday afternoon game. It was a home game and gonna be over at around 6. The CYO dance started at 7:30. The plan was to go right from the game, meet up with Bruiser and Fatty, do some drinking and go to the dance.

Since I wasn't playing much, my gym bag became the most convenient place to keep my books. They stayed in there, rather than in my locker, even on weekends. I wore my cons all the time so all I needed was my uniform to play; I didn't even keep a jock in there.

Given that I was going drinking right after the game, and given that I made my own wine, I filled a flask that my father had lying around and put it in my gym bag. It was a glass bottle, one that had had whiskey in it that my father hadn't touched in what seemed to be years. There was maybe an ounce at the bottom. I figured he wouldn't miss it. I poured out the whiskey (which I detested) and filled it up with my wine.

Now my gym bag was rugged. I lugged it to school every day, it went to all my classes, it went on the bus to away games, everything. It still looked new, tho, because nothing ever happened to it.

But don't it always seem to go like this? The ONE day I have a flask of wine in my bag, THE ONE DAY, and one of my teammates, who had no way of knowing I had anything but books and my uniform in there, who had to know that it was heavy, decided to kick my bag! Kick it! While I was carrying it! Kick it! What, was this guy nuts? He coulda broken his foot, it was so heavy! He kicked it!

Needless to say, he kicked it right where the flask was, and it broke. And he hurt his foot! He's complaining, dancing around, and meanwhile purple liquid is dripping from the bottom. Now I've got a big problem. I run into the boys room, dripping wine with every step. I grab as many paper towels as I can, mopping up the floor in the bathroom, tracing my steps, mopping up the mess in the hall, saying "Shit! Shit! Shit!" all the while. Aside from smelling like a winery, the hall floor still has drips and drabs. I realize holy crap, I have to clean up the bag... THE BAG! Not only are all my books in there, my UNIFORM is in there. And it's a home game so the jersey is WHITE. Oh Christ! Not any more...

I quickly duck back into the boys room, mopping with my foot as I go. I get into the boys room and survey the damage. I pull out my uniform. Shoot! The jersey is not bad, but the spot is noticeable. I quickly rinse it out. Rinse, scrub with hand soap, wring, scrub again. The jersey is wet and I gotta use it in a half hour. How the hell am I gonna dry it.

Luckily there was one of those hand air dryer things. Usually they don't work in schools, but our school was brand new so this one worked. I put it under there for what seemed to be 20 rounds. It was finally dry. If you looked really hard you could see where the stains were, but in those funky gym lights no one would notice. Especially sitting on the bench, no one would notice, altho it did take on the smell of that nasty hand soap.

Relieved, I took a deep breath. Then I remembered, oh no, my freaking books! I slipped on my uniform over my clothes and frantically began to empty the bag. There was broken glass, but since it had been full, the flask was broken into big pieces. I carefully removed them, and then began taking out my books, one by one.

Now, a gym bag in those days was sort of pyramidic. Thus you placed your books in them in pyramidic fashion, largest ones on the bottom, working backwards until the smallest ones were at the top. My 3 ring binder notebook was mounted on its spine, but it was plastic, and the big rings kept the paper from getting stained. It was easy to clean up. As for my book pyramid, all the liquid had drained to the bottom, so only the bottom book was affected, the largest - my Western Civilization textbook. By a stroke of luck, altho it had a cloth bound heavy cardboard cover, it was purple. Aside from the smell and the slight warping, you couldn't notice. I daubed it dry, and mopped up the book bag, then refilled it.

The next day, as I began my homework, when I cracked open my Western Civ book I realized I had not been so lucky. Wine had seeped around the edges and up the spine, bleeding into the white pages like a Rorschach. Page after page had a noticeable purple tint, a psychedelic stain. Oh shit...

Fast forward to June. Last day of school. Gotta hand in your books. When my name gets called to turn in my book, I bring it up and present it. The teacher, Mr. Apito (more about him, later), goes to perfunctorily leave thru the pages but is surprised by the purple moire's on just about every page.

"What the hell happened here?"

I decided to tell the truth. Why, I still don't know... "It's wine stains. I had a flask of wine in my gym bag and some kid kicked it, it broke and the wine got all over my book."

Apito looked at me, half stunned, half angry. I began to question the wisdom of my move. I was sure I was going to the office, gonna get suspended on the last day, maybe carrying over into sophomore year. And my mother would find out! I was toast...

"Don't hand me that crap! You didn't spill wine on this book!" I didn't know what to say to that! Was this guy delusional? Shoot, if you sniffed it really close you could freaking SMELL the wine! I was silent. I had no idea what to say or do.

He bailed me out. "This is grape juice! You spilled grape juice on it, didn't ya!"

I stared at him. I just stared at him. I musta blinked, I stared so long.

"You spilled grape juice on this perfectly good book. I really oughta make you pay for it, for the whole book, to replace it." He shook his head in annoyance. He muttered something out of frustration, probably profanely. I just stood there.

"Yeah, grape juice" I said. "You got me."

"Aaah, go siddown. Just go!" He shooed me off dismissively, like I had just ruined his whole school year. I turned around and went back to my seat, feeling like someone who'd just survived 5 rounds of Russian Roulette.

I could swear I heard him mutter as I walked away, "Goddamn grape juice..."