About 2,500 words

Who’s Got Next?

PART I

“Who’s got next?” I barked over the squeak of sneakers on hardwood and cries of foul and angry protests and bursts of laughter from the several half-court games in progress echoing across the sprawling gym. Shuffling past a dozen or so mostly sweaty, vanquished players sitting along the sideline of one such game on one end of the main court, I searched faces for the would-be captain of my first pick-up game in New York City. 

A fresh, unstained, untested fellow wrestling with his book bag and uncooperative loose sheets of paper spoke up. “It’s my game.”

I winced at the prospects of success but asked anyway if he had his five yet. He shook his head and said, “You’re in,” then went back to organizing his papers. 

I’d been in New York less than 24 hours. The night before, after throwing my luggage in my dorm room, I set out to explore the campus. The first thing I located was the gym. It was famous. Or rather infamous. Original plans to build it in nearby Morningside Park caused violent demonstrations and protests in 1968. Campus buildings were taken over, police arrested hundreds of students, many were beaten. But the protests worked; plans to build it in the park were scrapped and the new Columbia gym was built underground on campus… where I had next. 

I plopped down near my new accidental teammate, dug my Dr. J’s out of my gym bag and laced them up, and watched the game going on. One team looked like former high school players (or at least athletes), with maybe a new varsity recruit ringer who’d likely showed up early to take care of some prerequisites in the summer before the fall semester started. The other team looked like… philosophy majors. The outcome was never in doubt. 

Even though my new teammate had an athletic build and legit hoop sneaks, his preoccupation with his book bag and notebooks and papers didn’t give me much hope that he was anything other than, you know, a philosophy major. It seemed clear we’d need help if there were any chance of taking the court in my first pick-up game in New York City. 

Turned out dude had game. 

In fact, we started clicking right off. He was a natural playmaker. Lot of times he’d glide into the lane, launch himself, then look for options. I was a point guard and quickly discovered my game was perfect off his outside shoulder. He was a lefty, but could go hard either way. I’d take up a position at the then-newfangled three-point line from the top of the key to the baseline on whichever side he was working and wait for him to get hung up or cut off, then kick it out. Then I’d drain it. (In high school I loved the 25-footer—but in those days it was only worth two points, and coach straightforwardly yanked me out of the game. Whether I made it or not). 

Fortunately the other team’s ringer had dropped out and we picked up a couple of decent players and a big who clobbered anybody who got in the paint, and we ended up winning three or four games. After we finally got beat, a little out of breath from the good run, we (formally) introduced ourselves while we waited for our next to come up again. He said his name with a sheepish grin (a God-awfully long African name with a lot of vowels that I was never going to remember), then chuckled and added, “but you can call me...” something that started with a “B” that I didn’t hear because I blurted out: “How ‘bout I call you Bobby?”

It was the first thing that popped into my head—the name of my childhood best friend that I’d played Little League basketball and baseball with at the Boy’s Club in McAlester, Oklahoma. Also, my first friend in New York City had a striking facial resemblance to Bobby Seale, the Black Panther leader and African-American community activist and organizer, which may have somehow figured into it. 

He said he liked that, so Bobby it was. 

Over the next couple of months, Bobby and I played together for a couple of hours in the afternoon several times a week, and got to know each other some. Turns out he’d been a transfer student too, from somewhere in California. He’d graduated from Columbia a year or two earlier with a political science degree and was working for some sort of community activist organization—mostly collecting signatures, it looked like, from the ever-present loose sheets of paper filled with rows of names that were invariably falling out of his book bag. In fact, he tried to recruit me—said it was a good way to meet the ladies, which as employment pitches go, wasn’t the worst. 

One day not long after we met, we were sitting courtside waiting for our next. “You’re a writer type,” Bobby said, thumbing through a spiral notebook. “I’d like to get your opinion on something.” It stuck in my mind because it was the first time in my life I could recall someone asking in such a forthright manner for my opinion. Also, it was the first time anybody had (sort of) called me a writer.

He handed me the notebook opened to a particular page. It was a prose poem or free verse narrative, I decided, describing a sense of being chased or followed or shadowed by someone or something, using the elevated running track in the adjacent old gym and the thunderous sound of footsteps upon it while he was running to dramatize it. The thing that stuck with me is how rich and poetic his turn of phrase was for a poly-sci major—and apparently a jock. It stung an already insecure lit/writing major a little. I told him it was really good (impressive, I think, is what I actually meant—I was almost certainly unqualified to assess its goodness or badness). Then he turned to another page he wanted me to read, a discussion of social or literary criticism, I thought. Again, it was impressive, challenging. (I’m pretty sure it had words like “didactic” and “distillation” in it.) I didn’t let on it made me question whether or not I was smart enough to be there. 

He seemed to loosen up some after that, and we chatted about this and that. He mentioned he was thinking about trying to get back together with a former girlfriend. Maybe I had relationship insights? I cringed. I was challenged that way. I had my own issues at the time. Besides, I was new in town. No doubt of self-interest, I advised moving on. This was my bold new adventure and I needed a compadre. He said that was kind of the way he was leaning.

“Did you play ball when you were in school here?” I asked. It must have seemed out of the blue.

“No.”

I felt a little better for some reason. Less insecure. Maybe he was less jock, more talented writer-scholar. “Could you’ve?”

He nodded. “I think so. Did you play in college in Oklahoma?”

“No.”

“Think you could’ve?”

I nodded, but who was I kidding. He knew I didn’t play defense or rebound, or even pass very much—unless it was fancy. 

We exchanged knowing smiles. 

Invariably during down time between pick-up games we’d talk about everything from the Knicks (they’d just drafted Patrick Ewing and things were looking up) to the best place to get a slice (I’m pretty sure he turned me on to the decent but joyously giant slices at Koronet Pizza that had to be folded, and eating on the Low Library steps). Seems like the Hungarian Pastry Shop was the best place to sit unbothered with a cup of coffee and a pastry and read and write, and the West End and Marlin were good spots to get a beer and hang out after the sun goes down. 

We talked about plans, what we wanted to do, where we were headed. Me, I was there, New York. Maybe downtown after Columbia—a voice-of-a-generation-best-selling novelist living in Greenwich Village (I was absolutely dripping with romantic visions of how my life was going to be). He seemed more concerned about making the best choice out of several options. He mentioned he had a minor in international finance. I wondered why he wasn’t on Wall Street making unholy sums of money. 

On one occasion he seemed annoyed by his mother who may have been pressuring him to settle. (I understood both the situation and dynamic.) He wanted to get into politics, he said, so I decided he must’ve been paying his dues to sing the blues. He said he thought he might work for a while, then maybe try to get into Harvard Law in a year or two. Said he was a legacy. I thought maybe he was full of shit, but realized a plan like that from someone I met in the gym at Columbia might not be smoke blown up my ass. He was clearly a smart guy. Hell, for all I knew he could’ve been an African prince.

He’d had a decidedly un-nuclear childhood. His father lived somewhere in Africa and hadn’t been around that much. After a divorce, his mother had remarried and was living abroad somewhere. He said he was born in and grew up in Hawaii, but had gone to high school somewhere in Kansas while he was living with his grandparents. It occurred to me that for all our obvious differences, we were more alike than not. We’d played high school basketball in neighboring states, transferred to Columbia from small colleges, were still gym rats. I’d made a couple of friends from classes, but they were more like friends to share notes with. Bobby was a hoops buddy. It was a whole different level of friend. 

One day in mid-July, we were sitting in the bleachers next to the main court catching our breath after a good run, debating whether to call next or call it a day. Bobby mentioned he had a job interview later that afternoon. 

“What kind of job?” I asked.

“Similar to what I do now,” he said, “—community organizing. But it’s in Chicago.” 

I thought he was joking around. Surely he wasn’t seriously considering it. Why would anyone leave New York City for the same job in someplace called Chicago?

He seemed ambivalent, so we decided to make a pros and cons list of New York and Chicago. I remembered the Live Aid concerts in London and Philly going on and suggested we find a bar, get a beer, watch Live Aid and work on the list. So we did.

Founded in 1911, the West End was a historic old dive bar between 113th and 114th streets on the west side of Broadway that had hosted some of the greatest jazz legends to ever take a stage. (A couple years later I lucked into a one-bedroom illegal sublet on the second floor right above the bar’s “Jazz Room” and listened to Tito Puente and Count Basie and countless other jazz virtuosos through my open windows well into the night for free.) It was also a popular rite-of-passage hangout for Columbia students over the years. (I imagined Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg carving their initials on a table or scribbling pre-Beat haikus on bathroom walls.) In 1985 it was a seedy, happening hangout at night, but virtually empty that time of day and year. We took a table right in front of the big screen TV and settled in with a couple of drafts. 

The list of acts slated to perform at Live Aid was unbelievable: Bowie, Queen, U2, The Who, Hall & Oates, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner. (—And what about Tina Turner? For a, you know, older woman in her what, 40s?… she was fine, we both agreed, like naive, contextually challenged, early 20-something man-boys from someplace like... Kansas or Oklahoma.) Also rumors of a Led Zeppelin reunion had been floating around. I was a big Neil Young and Bob Dylan fan, and looked forward to seeing them. And of course the Led Zeppelin reunion. Bobby said he liked Led Zeppelin a lot. I’d never met a black guy that liked Zeppelin. I was pretty sure we were going to be good friends. 

He grabbed a cocktail napkin and we started in on the list. 

Pro-New York number one: we both agreed New York was, you know, New York, and there was no other place in the world like it. It was the city that never sleeps, for chrissakes! Number two: we (my now-hometown Knicks) had just drafted Patrick Ewing days earlier, and with Bernard King’s knee no doubt on the mend and him certain to return to best player on the planet form next season, we were clearly looking at a Knickerbocker dynasty. Number three: I’m pretty sure I thought the first two New York-pros were enough. 

Pro-Chicago number one: I didn’t know much of anything about Chicago, except that it had lots of hog butchers—at least according to Carl Sandburg—which could be helpful if you needed to butcher a hog. Bobby mentioned Mayor Harold Washington and the possibility of finding work in an African-American political administration. Pro-Chicago number two: the Bulls had that rookie Michael Jordan who, we both agreed, could damn near fly and pull crazy circus shots out of his ass, and would be great fun to watch. I argued, however, that they’d never win a championship with him. You needed an anchor in the middle—like Patrick. And again, don’t forget Bernard—the best player on the planet—who was absolutely for sure coming back next season. 

It was clear Bobby’s attraction to Chicago was primarily professional opportunity. Still, it was basically the same job he had, he conceded, and not in New York. And there were no guarantees it would work out like he hoped. The more he thought about it, the more he thought maybe he’d hang tight—no doubt thanks to my persuasive, prescient observations about how things would almost certainly go for the Knicks and the Bulls and life in general. I told him he was of course making the right decision. So we sat back, sipped our beers, and pontificated about women and rock and roll and basketball while we watched rock stars raise money to feed the world.

Not half way though his beer, though, Bobby pushed it away and grabbed his book bag. He said he’d changed his mind. Said he thought he should go to the interview, after all. Probably wouldn’t pan out, but he thought he should at least see what it was all about. Besides, he’d told the guy he’d be there, so he felt obligated. I told him I’d see him in the gym next time, then drank the rest of his beer after he left. 

And that’s the last I ever saw or heard of that guy Bobby I used to play basketball with in the gym at Columbia that first summer in New York. 

For almost 30 years, anyway.