Friday, November 28, 2008

Recollections of My Dearest Friend

I was going through some of my old writing again this afternoon and I came across a tribute booklet I began writing for my good friend, Steven. There are 27 chapter titles, but only 12 have been written. They vary in length, but I believe they are all under 2,000 words.

In the introduction I remark how difficult it is to capture the essence of someone who is gone. But I had to try. He is the best friend I have ever had. Ever will have, I expect. God, I miss him. Damn it. I'm tearing up. Get on with the tale, Ducky. The blue is an edited excerpt from the Introduction. The green are song lyrics. The gold is one of the chapter tributes.

We met in 1970, at the start of 9th grade. It wasn't my idea to become friends. That was his idea. He always had great ideas. Some were screwier than others, but they were all great. Our friendship was both platonic and deep. We became important to each other. This was revealed in the way each could always count on the other to say the truth. Steve could say things to me I would not accept from anyone else. I could always see past the words. He reciprocated this honor to me.

In all the years we knew each other, we suffered four separations: once after graduation. My family had moved away. My father was dying of cancer and we could no longer keep our house. Steve found me. He began calling everyone who had the same last name as me until he found a relative of mine who told him where I was. Why didn't I call him? I was afraid. Despite our closeness, I feared the separation only proved to him that he didn't need me after all.

We were separated again only a couple of years later. We had had a fight. A silly thing, really. Most fights are. But in his anger, Steve had said things to me which made me believe our friendship was truly over. I went to the college he was attending to find him, but I had no luck. Then, when I got home, Steve called.

Our third separation lasted fifteen years. My life changed dramatically during those years. I had become marginally successful. I had a house, and I had a son. Again, it was Steve who found me. By this time he was married and had a daughter. We got together to relive old times and catch up on new. Shades of Mary Hopkins, "Those Were the Days".

Through the door there came familiar laughter
I saw your face and heard you call my name
Oh my friend we're older but no wiser
For in our hearts the dreams are still the same

Our reunion lasted only three short years. Then an accident (in a hospital, of all places) took him away. Now I have to wait until he comes for me again. I don't know when that will be.

Here is one of the chapters, slightly edited. It's not the first one I wrote, but they don't really have to be read in any particular order.

The “Johnson Stall”

Steve loved basketball. I think it was his favorite sport. He was good at pool, too. He liked most sports, and was reasonably athletic. He was small and fast. I suppose one doesn’t normally associate small with basketball, but one of the starting guards on our high school varsity team was only 5’ 4”. Compared to him, Steve was a giant.

I suppose it was Steve’s love of basketball that made his not making the starting squad all the more pitiful. Even twenty years later he ached over the politics which forced him to sit and watch while less able players took the court. But apart from the fact that the starting players were all part of the same clique, I think there was another reason why Steve warmed the bench: the Johnson Stall.

The “Johnson Stall” was an infamous strategy, invented by Steve during his Freshman year at high school. Unlike the equally infamous “Lay Down Strategy”, which Steve implemented during sandlot play, the “Johnson Stall” was implemented during a real game, for a real school, against a real opponent, in front of real spectators when it really counted. Like all mistakes made by members outside our school’s High Society, this one was never forgotten – or forgiven.

For myself, I didn’t see the problem. True, it went contrary to established protocol, but from my point of view it worked, so I fail to understand the hysteria. Let me explain.

In the years preceding Steve’s arrival, and even for a good many after his graduation, our school produced one losing team after another. It was a small farming community, and the only thing the school ever won at was wrestling. Big, strong farm boys can be tough. Well, Steve wasn’t a big, strong farm boy. He came from the suburbs outside Minneapolis. Anyway, any victory our school got in any sport outside wrestling was considered a major accomplishment.

Well, our Freshman team, including Steve, had finally come up against a team even more inept than themselves. Between our over-short guards hogging the ball and trying to drive the lane against an entire team who knew they couldn’t pass urine, much less the ball, and supporting players who actually managed to get the ball sometimes and score, we had taken an eight point lead with just under two minutes to play. To the coach, it didn’t look like we could lose. That meant it was time to put in “the scrubs”, later known as the “Bomber Squad”. That meant Steve.

The coach was all excited because a win would put us close to .500 for the season. Not bad, for our school. I am sure he had dreams of things finally turning around. I doubt it entered his head that the only reason we were winning was because the other team was so incompetent.

The “scrubs” were excited, too. Scrubs never got to play until a game was so out of hand the outcome was certain. That usually mean we were behind by at least ten or twenty points. This time they would be playing with an eight point lead. It was the chance they had been waiting for. They were all thrilled – until the coach announced the strategy: “Stall!”

Now back in the 1970s our school implemented the stall by having the forwards and guards positioned themselves in a large square with the center in the middle. (Like the five dots on a die.) This would have the effect of “spreading out” the defense and causing them to run about and get tired while the offense just passed the ball here and there, wasting time and thus winning the game because the other team never got the ball. There was no 24-second clock in the 1970s. Neither were there 3-point baskets. Implemented correctly, a stall could demoralize an opponent. (I heard that Bill Musselman’s Minnesota Gophers once stalled for more than eight minutes.)

Well, we had the ball. Zinns passed to Steve, who passed back to Zinns. This went on for a few seconds and then, suddenly, Steve drove the lane and scored. There were some cheers, but someone was yelling. The other team scored on a fast break. No one had expected Steve to do what he did, and so no one got back on defense.

Steve and Zinns went back and brought the ball up court again under a full court press. The press failed to stop them. Once they crossed mid-court Steve saw their defense was out of position. So, he drove the lane again and got another easy lay-up. More cheers. Louder screaming. This time there was no doubt about it. It was Coach Jacobson yelling at Steve.

Another fast break for the other team resulted in another score for the other side. Steve and Zinns went back for the ball. They beat the press again, and again Steve saw an undefended basket. He drove the lane and got a third easy layup. And all of this happened within twenty or thirty seconds. More cheers. Hysterical screaming. Another fast break for the other team.

I looked to the bench and saw the starting guards head to the scorer’s table. My heart sank. I looked at Steve, hurrying back with Zinns to get the ball after another fast break kept the margin at eight. He didn’t know he was about to be taken out of the game.

It was Steve’s last hurrah as a Freshman basketball player. Coach Jacobson never got over the “Johnson Stall”, as it came to be known, and designated Steve permanently to the “scrubs”. Steve never really understood why he was taken out of the game. For that matter, neither do I. What he did was no worse than the starting guards refusing to include the forwards and center in the passing game.

As it turned out, hard as it was on Steve’s self-esteem, I think it actually worked out well for him in the end. The coach eventually chose two or three scrubs to keep on hand to rest his starters. The rest were sent off to play the other school’s scrub players in another gymnasium. No referees. No coaches. Just basketball. They called themselves the “Bomber Squad”. Steve was in his element. Since he was actually good enough to be a starting guard for the primary team, he outclassed all other players in those bomber games. That is not to say he never mucked up, or missed a shot or allowed his player to score. But he was free to do as he wished. And since he was no ball hog, the other “Bombers” benefited from his presence because he would draw so much attention to himself that he could pass off and let someone else score. It was street basketball, and that was what Steve excelled at. The “First Liners” piled up a 3-11 won/lost record The “Bombers” had a winning season. They may have won five of eight. I don’t recall for certain. Steve usually scored in double digits.

So, in the bomber world, the “Johnson Stall” was implemented over and over again with great success. I still think Steve had the right idea. Isn’t that the whole idea behind the game of basketball – scoring? Isn’t that what the stall is about? The team in the lead forces the other team’s defense to spread out and eventually leave the basket unguarded. Once done, the offense scores. That is what Steve did. You can’t lose if you score. But I would gladly have given up the win to have Steve on the court. He was fun to watch if nothing else. And that is what the game is all about. Fun. Steve knew that instinctively.

No comments: