My Life, in Metallic Navy (short fiction)

Looking down was the classic Instagram KOTD portrait. A 6-year-old pair of Jordan 1’s in metallic navy sitting atop a beautifully tiled mausoleum floor (which in reality was the local downtown Memphis pizza joint for us Grizz employees), and on top of the kicks were a pair of ancient selvedge denim — vintage 60’s Levis, cone-milled, stone-washed, straight-fit, no love lost. Shuffle the feet, get the white-edging in the shot, center (or off-center?) the tiles.

Young Irish Seinfeld, sitting on the bench thinking of titles, scrolling through appropriate hashtags.

“Danny, we’re leaving; you ready to head back to the Forum?”

I snapped a quick pic, saving it away for a rainy day, before hustling out of Aldo’s over Main towards Beale. Lucy and Terrance were waiting across the cobbled street for me, elbow deep in their phones when I skipped up to them. They were my first, and thus far only, hires — real millenials (the ideal I used to bill myself to the org) about my little brother’s age and generation. 21 and 22 respectively, and fully immersed in the digital age.

“What we doing this afternoon, bossman?” asked Terrance, a U of M grad with 22k followers of his distinct Instagram aesthetic. I couldn’t fit my arms into his raw black selvedge (small batch, small label, milled in Japan on pre-WWII looms, etc — who can keep up anymore?), but he looked at ease in ’em, and they meshed with the Will Fry cream jersey and his retro XX8s. Why not?

“We’re gonna keep brainstorming merchandise opportunities with some of the local (preferably) and extra-local designers we’ve been in contact with, PhotoShop up some sketches, and then we’ll end by discussing that alternative uniform — maybe we can work some of those design ideas in — I’ve been dying for officially licensed NBAxSupreme jerseys lol. Textures and patterns — I want something physically popping off the gear — let’s get a little wild, and we can always scale it back on the way to production. Mint paisley — ”

“Lmao fam, quit with the paisley,” Terrance snorted. At the ripe age of 28, I was the out-of-touch veteran of my small team — the merchandising division of the Memphis Grizzlies, and we were in full swing working on the 2023–24 season’s gear.

Lucy hadn’t got off her phone, but that’s exactly why we needed her. A distinct and hyper-popular voice (anti-humor, anti-anti-humor, I don’t know, but she’s damn funny and takes a stand on real issues, and I can appreciate all that) on all the socials after getting her start on the now defunct Twitter. Man, I miss that thing. She dominated Memphis snapchat and was a growing force throughout the nation.

You ever been to ManRepeller.com? That’s how I would describe her style — and style is most important. Style’s how I narrowed down my search in the interview process — style let them get beyond all the corporate garbage and be personal without knowing it, and their style told me if we would connect or not.

Today, Lucy looked like an old Italian business woman bodyswapped with a freckled young redhead. Daisy-printed double-breasted jacket, and flowing green plaid pants dragging on her cross-strapped sandals and the concrete. Impressively diverse taste in patterns as always.

Two great hires. Feeling proud. I done good so far.

***

Looking out of my office onto the rolling Mississippi River, you feel small. You feel young too, knowing you didn’t exist when this mighty river was a little stream. Makes me nostalgic, and so I switched back the pic I took earlier. More nostalgia.

These kicks, the Air Jordan 1 Metallic Navy joints, they’re basically the reason I’m here — in this big office, Creative Director (although Pera refused to officially title me that, I emblazon it on my card anyway) of my Memphis Grizzlies’ merchandise.

***

Pick-up at the KROC center, Midtown, summer 2016. My prime, in some ways or another.

Grizz owner Robert Pera was known to show up, but our available times never really lined up; I’d only seen him as I was leaving, and you know even then, what do you say to the man who has your team (and everything else)?

Kicking off my D Lillard 2’s (the Rose City editions because Instagram loves flowers), I was talking shit about the Grizz’s lack of merchandise — it really wasn’t great at the time, especially at local stores. You’re telling me that you have one of sport’s most beloved 90’s logos and the coolest claw around, and all you sell are those mass-produced-by-the-League tees and junk? Mitchell and Ness’ hat division thanks the basketball gods everyday for that logo, and your current uniforms are universally hailed by design experts, but I wasn’t seeing any capitalization by the org. How are you not incorporating that, how are you not selling that?

Not missing a beat with my incessant stream of trash and profanities, I pulled the Metallic Navys out of my JanSport, and as I’m slipping the left one on, I hear, “I’d love to see you do a better job. Why don’t you stick around for another game, kid?”

Now, I’m 6'5" 200 pounds of (Division III) basketball “greatness” at this point in my life, so “kid” is definitely fighting words.

Blank-faced with fury, I turn around to see Pera himself.

I won the game. I got an alternative uniform approved from a revitalized and reinterpreted black MEMPHIS jersey — the first ones from the Pyramid days.

And the rest is the present.