Team Dreams 2K19: Seattle Supersonics
The Long Tail of Obsolescence
the summer before third grade we moved from Dallas to the piney woods of deep east Texas — me, my younger brother, my mom, and her new husband. we moved 10-ish times during my childhood. this time to a very small town you likely haven’t heard of near a much larger town with a name you likely wouldn’t spell right on your first try.
home is where your mom tells you it is. our house was small and way out in the country. the yard was constantly shaded by towering longleaf pine trees that looked far too thin to be so tall. the driveway featured large chunks of broken asphalt that would wonk a basketball into the state highway running in front of the house if you weren’t watching your dribble. (also one time i found a cassette of Bon Jovi’s “Slippery When Wet” in the tall grass that grew out by the ditch which isn’t really pertinent but i’m including it in case Kelly Dwyer ever reads this.)
only one other house was visible for at least a mile in either direction. our neighbors were about a hundred yards away and they had two boys close to our age. there was a definite country mouse/city mouse vibe happening but we formed a pretty quick friendship of convenience. the neighbor kid and his little brother guided me and my little brother through the wooded trails on the far side of their lot. they both had unironic rat tail haircuts and a lot of sleeveless t-shirts. we all had banged up bmx bikes. sometimes they rode four-wheelers out in the field between the two houses but we weren’t allowed to. we had cable and they didn’t so they came over to our house on Saturdays and watched wrestling for as long as my mom could stand it to have it on.
the adults in each house weren’t unfriendly but they didn’t really associate with each other either. the adults in my house were very conservative and very southern baptist. the neighbors had tattoos, drank beer, did swears, smoked cigarettes, and lived in sin. they were careful to mostly not say damn or ass around us as they understood we were “involved with the church”.
one time the neighbor mom and her boyfriend went squirrel hunting and fried up a bunch of it for us, breaded in salt, pepper, and flour. the little flat nuggets were piled on a double paper plate that had turned a waxy translucent from absorbed fryer oil. i had never tasted squirrel, and i remember chewing vigorously and wholeheartedly nodding my head in agreement as she explained that squirrel wasn’t as gamey as venison. “oh yeah man for sure,” i probably said. i’d never eaten venison at that point in my life either. i knew i was out of my element here but maybe i could fool this lady.
home is where you wish you were. time spent at my father’s was unquestionably more fun than anything happening in the land of fire ants and creosote. all the tropes in divorce movies have to come from somewhere, right? my father moved to San Francisco when the divorce was final, a few years before. we spent a few weeks with him every summer and then either thanksgiving or christmas depending on the rotation.
we swam in the pool at his apartment complex pretty much every day. my mom wouldn’t let us get a dog, but he had a blond cocker spaniel. we went to restaurants and museums and walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. on Saturday mornings he would give my brother and i five dollars, and we’d get to go, by ourselves, down the three blocks to 7–11 and spend it all on a shared red Slurpee and Bubble Bobble.
fluent in sign language, my father worked for a program finding jobs for people in the San Francisco deaf community. he volunteered for a couple of non-profits and was involved in local arts and theater. he went to events, invited people over for dinner, had neighbors and friends drop in spontaneously. he was charming and well-liked and engaged in the things he was passionate about.
my father got sick during my fourth grade year, then died the year after that. we were back living in Dallas by that time. i didn’t see him get buried because we couldn’t afford to fly out to California for the funeral.
as i reached adulthood i gradually came to realize the life my father built for himself could only have existed without us in it full time. while i can’t say that aspect of it was intentional, i can say nobody moves 1700 miles away from their children on accident. maybe he realized too late he wasn’t cut out for kids and a few weeks a year was the most he could muster. fuck man i don’t know and there’s nobody left to ask.
once every year or two i’ll be somewhere and catch a whiff of exactly his smell which kickstarts a particularly awful part of my kid brain that is convinced he didn’t really die, he’s just out there somewhere living his best life without me.
at any rate, the Seattle Supersonics haven’t made the playoffs since 2005 and i don’t see that changing this season.
predicted record: 0–0
