Q.

On a Saturday afternoon in the middle of the summer, the Crowel Lot park was a scene of interesting contrast. Almost the entire park was green and quiet with an occasional parent and young kid playing on a structure or walking in the grass. However, The basketball court was full of a different kind of life. About twenty men were either playing on the court or waiting on the sideline ready to play in the next game. Vulgar language and smoke drifted from the court area polluting the air of the young children near by. I sat next to the court lacing up my shoes getting ready for a day full of ball.

During a break between games someone I had never seen befor approached the court. The man walked slowly towards the court with a slight limp, almost as if one of his shoes weighed more than the other. He looked around six foot three inches tall and was skinny with long limbs. One of his arms held a glass bottle in a brown bag and the other dangled down halfway between his waist and knees . A stained white t-shirt hung loosely over his lanky body and the bottom of his worn down black shorts sagged well below his knees. This left only a small gap of brown skin between the end of his shorts and the beginning of his white socks. His face was scruffily and his eyes were lined with sadness. He looked like a bum, but with nice shoes. He had 150 dollar Jordan Elevens on.

The man put down his glass bottle in a brown bag and began to tighten the laces on his blue and white Jordan Elevens. When he was finished tying his shoes, he walked over to the hoop and grabbed a ball that we had been using for pickup. Slowly he began to dribbled it up the side of the court. His face cringed as all of his tight and awkward muscles gradually warmed up . Eventually what started as a slow creaky walk turned into a light floating jog and the man's anguished facial expression transformed to pure bliss. He began to take long fast strides accelerating himself towards the hoop. At about the free throw line, he bounced the ball once between his legs, took one more long stride, and leaped into the air. At the peak of his jump he threw ball down through the rim. My jaw dropped as I saw the graceful athleticism coming from what I thought was a drunken bum.

The stocky older man standing next to me did not seem nearly as surprised. He looked at me with a smile, nodded over towards the man on the court and said “Thats Q”.

“Who?” I asked
“Q” the man responded as we both watched Q warm up “ he was livin down in Springfield for a while, he just moved back up last week”
“He grow up around here?” I asked curious why I seemed to be the only one that didn't know him
“yeah, he never played for the high school though” the man replied as if he had read my mind
“Why’s That?” I questioned
“got kicked out his freshman year”

the man stopped talking when he saw teams were being formed on the court. We both jogged over and took off our shirts to join the skins team that Q was on. Both teams got situated and the action began. The ball was checked and swung to Q who sunk a three from two feet beyond the line. He jogged down the court backwards nodding at his defender. The man Q was nodding at took this as a challenge. He grabbed the ball out of the net and dribbled it up the court ready to take it to the hoop. Q lackadaisically let the man get a step passed him. But as soon as the ball was released towards the rim Q sprung up into the air and pinned it onto the backboard with his left hand, then gathered it into both his hands as he came back to the ground.

This first sequence of plays was just a preview to the dominating performance that Q put on. It seemed like he was playing in fast forward and everyone else was in real time. Q’s eyes were lit up with joy during the entire time he was playing. He never said more than a couple words but after he scored he would look at his opponent and nod with a slight grin on his face. The team that Q and I was on one nine straight games to eleven. Because of this we stayed on the court for close to two hours as different groups of guys assembled themselves to try to beat us. Eventually the day came to an end when the number of men playing at the court got lower and lower until the last men playing decided to call it quits for the day .

At this point, Q walked over to his bottle of liquor in the brown bag that he had set down earlier that day. He took his shirt and wiped the sweat off of his face. At this moment his expression changed back to the what it had looked like when he had first walked to the court. Q gave everyone remaining in the park a nod goodbye and walked off in the direction that he had come from.