A Tribute to Balls

By Justin Grimbol

I sat at the edge of the crowd and watched our men’s basketball team, The Eagles, annihilate the Huskies, an awkward little team from the Word of Life Bible Institute.
At their worst, The Eagles were leading by at least twenty points, and even then it seemed as if they were letting the Huskies score, like they were mocking them. I can’t be sure, but it seemed like our players weren’t even sweating-meanwhile, the Huskies were soaked and dizzy with defeat.
I found this game to be painfully boring to watch.  Last year The Eagles hardly won a game. I found that season to be endlessly more entertaining. As a spectator, I was fully involved. I became excited over the slightest success. Whenever our team scored I cheered wildly because it was such a rare event. If the team came even slightly close to winning I would feel incredible amounts of anxiety, and then, when they inevitably lost, I felt the type of sadness a mother feels when her child comes home from school crying because no one will be his friend.
Success had now become common place for Green Mountain’s basketball team. They had all been playing incredibly, especially Adam Fisher, who seemed to be making lay-ups every thirty seconds.
Still, for some reason the crowd went completely ape-shit whenever they scored. They maintained their excitement even though the event of scoring had become entirely ordinary. It all seemed insane to me.
After a few a minutes I found myself cheering for the other team. Whenever they so much as touched the ball I would scream with all the passion I could muster, but it didn’t matter. As always, the screams from the crowd were ruthless and trampled over my own.
“What are you doing?” I screamed. “Have some mercy for Christ’s sake! You’re like animals!”
No one heard me though, we were winning by fifty points at that point and the crowd had become hysterical. All they were interested in was seeing their peers act cocky while humiliating their opponents. It was brutal and dumb, and it made me feel bitter.
I carried this bitterness into my drunkenness later that night. Everyone was trying to be  macho and disconnected, as if they were the ones that had just won a game by fifty points, as if every charming remark or funny joke was a “score” in their favor. At least that is how I felt people were acting-even though in reality all I really felt was the awkward weight of cheap beer and Seasonal Affective Disorder.
On my way to bed this bitterness reached its climax and I ended up peeing on the floor. I thought this would feel liberating, like I was actually peeing on college and success and all the horrible beauty that came with it. But I was just peeing on the floor— nothing but the floor.
“What are you doing?” Heather yelled.
“I’m peeing,” I said.
“Why are you peeing on the floor?” she asked.
“I need to liberate the Huskies!” I said.
“You’re an idiot!” she yelled. “Did you even consider the sweet old lady that has to clean this up tomorrow? God! You’re just as obnoxious as everyone else!”
It feels bad when a woman tells you that you are just like everyone else. It feels even worse when you love that woman, when you sleep next to her and fondle her when you are feeling gentle and half asleep.
At first I tried to defend myself and somehow rationalize peeing on the floor as something positive and spiritually uplifting, but all I ended up doing was making it all the more obvious that I was spoiled drunken man. I was just one of many spoiled drunken men that make it hard for their women to go to bed peacefully at night. Eventually,  I apologized and went to go clean my mess.
It feels very humbling to end your night by cleaning up a puddle of your own urine. It feels humbling in a way that seems to replace everything else for a little while. And thank God for that little nugget of time, because during it I felt no bitterness. I felt nothing but the slight ache of a grown man who is still in college, who is drunk and cleaning up his own piss at four in the morning. I hoped the basketball team was out there feeling decent and drunk off of better beer, and I hoped they were celebrating their victory. Winters are hard and filled with tired sluggish bodies. In the end, it’s good know someone is walking onto the court and playing the game with some elegance.

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Posted by GMC Voices on Mar 15, 2008 Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry