MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!
It was an often heard scream through my college years, the opening scene of a video game that was widely popular during that time. Just like many other testosterone-laden boys, my college friends went through a phase of playing the game regularly. The game pitted two warriors of various sizes and styles against each another in a best-of-three contest. As the title suggests, only the victor was left standing. At the very end, the loser would wobble, helpless and dazed, before the winner. By nimbly flicking a combination of buttons, the victorious player could remove various body parts from the loser’s corpse before it crumpled to the ground.
Taking the next step feared by earnest mothers everywhere, each of my four closest friends playfully adopted the finishing maneuver of one of the characters. Brian’s move was to yank out the throat. Joe’s move was to rip out the pelvis. Jesse and Brandon’s were similarly violent.
My move? I would write a paper until the opponent just collapsed from sheer exhaustion and boredom. My friends have always known I was a pus… er, a writer.
Enjoy.)
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I have enjoyed writing since my freshman year of high school. On the heels of a B- on a writing assignment about my summer vacation – and still struggling socially in my first few months in yet another new school – my English class was given an in-class essay assignment. The test entailed reading a short story and answering a question about its protagonist.
The story was about an American pilot in World War II conducting a bombing run over a Japanese city. As he approaches his destination, he decides to divert from his plotted course to a cluster of factories to dump his arsenal in an adjacent field. After delivering his load, he returns to base rejoicing in the glory of his own mercy. Believing himself a savior, he travels to the area after the war and proudly reviews the safe, shining streets of the bustling metropolis. He finds them missing only one thing – children. Upon questioning a local resident, he is told that the city’s elders decided that the safest place for the children during the bombing runs of the war would be away from the military targets – out in the field.
I do not remember the question posed. I do not remember my answer. What I remember is slumping low in my seat – chin tucked to chest, eyes buried in the floor – as my teacher announced that she would read the best response she had received. She was three sentences into it before I realized it was mine. At the end of her reading, she announced me as its author. A girl named Kelly, on whom I had a rather formidable crush at the time, turned to me, nodded, and said in sweet admiration, “Brain.”
Writing is cool.
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During college, writing was simply a necessity. I was a history and philosophy major; it came with the territory. After dozens of papers and a 110-page thesis, my writing well had run dry. My only attempts at storytelling between that thesis and the conclusion of law school five years later was a mountain of e-mails and some marginal poetry for the only girl I ever loved. Some of it was okay, but she deserved better; though that probably could be said of more than just the poetry. In any event, the proverbial pen was largely stilled for a long stretch.
In the five years since, my writing has been my contribution to family events: my father celebrates them with song, my mother memorializes them in quilts, I capture them in words, and my sister is stuck with the burden of actually living events worthy of art. I have grown to love searching for the truth through storytelling, both in piecing together the facts themselves and trying to find the deeper meanings they reveal. My enjoyment of this practice has grown to the point where I’ve considered taking steps toward a career in journalism.
Step one is to see if I can actually write. The next question is, write about what?
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I have a few rather limiting conditions for a writer. I have a day job, which has the nasty habit of making me use the space inside my skull for other purposes (though I do think there’s still plenty of room available in there). I do not have time to conduct research or interviews. I do not have the resources or opportunity to travel extensively. I am not especially moved by any particular cause or faith – I am, in fact, quite suspicious of them. I have for a resource only my own life, which, while still full of potential, is not dotted with great achievement. As a result of a rather nomadic existence through ten different towns, there have been few yardsticks against which to measure my progress. But there has been one constant: the game of basketball.
My life has been only once blessed with romance, and there is no wife or child to enlighten and inspire me. While I would eagerly embrace those gifts if I am ever so fortunate as to have them in my life, their absence has allowed me a rather extended childhood, lived extensively on the playgrounds and in the gyms of the various communities I’ve called home. Basketball is the only companion I have known for my entire conscious life – I have occasionally left it, but it has never left me. It has been the medium that has caused and facilitated many of the most important relationships of my life. The game has been a source of knowledge, challenge, and meditation. If there is one thing in my life that has been a measuring stick of where I have been, where I am, and where I am going, it is basketball.
I treat it and treasure it as the most trusted of friends. I’ve committed to it. I’ve sacrificed and suffered for it. I’ve thought, laughed, and cried about it. After three decades, it seems that some investigation is appropriate to understand how it came to be so important in my life, the lessons it has taught me, and what I can carry from it in the vaults of my memory as I enter the next phase of my journey.
It is with that purpose and the gracious encouragement of two kind friends that I begin the humble enterprise of explaining why a boy, a ball, and a faded dream matter to me so….
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