Hoops

It wasn't the easy, fluid style of play you see on TV,

It was the jerky, nervous style of amateurs

played on asphalt several feet away from where I was sitting.

My shorts had ripped horrendously down the back during the last game,

but that really didn't matter in the big scheme of things,

and besides, the jocky guy Chris would have never

picked me to play after screwing up the last game so badly.

An observer watched the game from the other side of the court, grinning to himself secretly.

Perhaps he was happy to see the different bodies working so well together, Van, the Vietnamese; Joy, the Indian; Greg the black guy and Danny the Anglo; or perhaps that was just what I wanted to see.

It didn't really matter in the big scheme of things.  Nothing really does.

Chris the jock made a three-pointer, and murmurs of approval such as, "Good shot, man" or "Nice one, Chris" fill the air, replacing the sound of the tennis shoes against the pavement.

I never questioned Chris' basketball prowess.

It was his attitude that puzzled me.

I wanted to shake him and say, "Hey, Chris! Listen to what I'm saying, man!  You're just a pebble in the stream, man!  Just a lowly grain of salt!  This shot won't change the world, dig?"

But you can't tell a guy like Chris something that big.

He would just laugh it off and call you a stinkin' liberal hippie, and go about his business of shooting politically correct jump shots, while I would go about my business of trying to change the things that couldn't be changed, things that really didn't matter anyway.