Three Hundred and Ninety Nine...

Basketball is a Sport I Played

The coach with the buzz cut kicked the locker room door open and screamed, "You all suck!"

Twelve sullen, exhausted boys turned and looked, no one said anything, all too sad, scared maybe, to say anything. Not that they could argue his point.

"I said you suck!" he repeated, "How could anyone play basketball so sucky!? I've seen women play better basketball - and I hate women! I killed my wife!"

The smallest boy raised his hand.

Coach turned his beady eyes on him and impatiently said, "What!?"

He turned away sadly, whimpered, and rubbing an enormous black bruise on his shoulder said, "But, I didn't sign up for basketball!"

"Well that's too-" he stopped and stared at him for a long time, eyes narrowing, then screamed, "What do you mean you didn't sign up for basketball!? I don't care if you signed up or not! You're here now! So deal with it - and play some better defense or I'll break your legs!"

"But I just want to make art," whined the small boy.

"Art!? What in God's name are you going to do with art!? At least sports will get you in the local paper! At least sports will get you chicks! You know who makes art?!"

"Well my mom likes to-"

"Fags! Fags make art!"

The fattest boy on the team emitted a loud moan and burst into tears. Then another boy started crying. Then another. Yet another. Even the team manager started crying. Eventually everyone was crying pitifully. Their sobbing echoing throughout the locker room. The coach slid his hands down his face, stretching his cheeks to their limit. The janitor appeared from one of the bathrooms stalls, where he had been cleaning diligently. He threw his scrubby brush on the ground, and said, "I hate basketball! I like paintings!" The coach slapped his hands on the side of his head and screamed at the top of his lungs for several seconds. His screams joining the muffled sobbing, forming a melodramatic symphony of sorts.

Clenching his fists at his side he said, "Shut up! Shut up! Everyone stop crying!" then pointing to the janitor, "And you, janitor, you're not even part of this sucky team! Clean those showers!"

The small boy threw up several times. The puke cocktail consisted of cereal and Tuesday's lunchroom spaghetti. After he finished puking, he fell off the bench, face first into his own vomit. He curled up and rolling back and forth in his vomit, he cried for his mother and lamented the existence of basketball and peach baskets.

The fat boy chewed voraciously at his hand drawing blood. The janitor picked up one of the benches, lifted it above his head, and screamed, "Fuck the system!" then tossed it across the room.

The coach dodged the flying bench, grabbed the small boy, picked him up off the ground, and threw him against a locker, and into the boy's face, he screamed , "It's not going to kill you to play basketball you fucking pussy!" The boy shook his head back and forth in disagreement. His face went white and his body shook violently in protest. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he died. The coach groaned and tossed him aside, he could always find more small forwards.