The Radio Contest, part 2

Originally published November 7, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1251

You want stories to go a certain way.

I was thirteen years old, living in Verona, a jock town where my athletic ineptitude was one of the key ingredients in my inability to make any friends. I sorely missed my previous home in nearby Bloomfield, which might as well have been on another planet for all the opportunity I had to socialize with the friends of my younger days. Since my daily humiliation in school was insufficient, I also joined the local synagogue’s youth group, United Synagogue Youth. I figured that we would spend time discussing Judaism. Learning about our cultural history. Socializing.

Nope. USY’s activities centered around one thing and, apparently, one thing only: Basketball.

We had a basketball team which played the teams of other USYs. Naturally I was bottom-ranked on that as well. I was slow, I could dribble only adequately, and I couldn’t sink a basket. So I spent many a game watching the more athletic members—namely, anyone—charging up and down the court. Basketball. What a great game.

So there I was, having won the opportunity to go to a Knicks game and, at half time, shoot a foul shot in an endeavor to win some sort of further prizes.

I thought long and hard about not even bothering to go, because I knew myself: Concern about sinking the shot would utterly destroy my attention on the first half of the game, and my inevitable inability to make the shot would hang over the second half.

But… what the hell. How often would I have a shot at something like this? To say nothing of the fact that it was a Thursday evening and a pre-season game at that. Everyone I mentioned it to said blankly, “The Knicks are playing already?” I figured that there would hardly be anyone there.

The parking lot was packed, as was Nassau Coliseum. Over 13,000 people were in attendance, and every time the P.A. announcer made any sort of mention of a promotion, the crowd would boo. It was a tough, cranky, New York audience, and I was going to be at their mercy, and not one of them was going to give a damn about me or my alleged wit or whatever clever stories I might have produced in my career. I was going to be just another object of derision.

Fortunately, I had company.

I had learned that there were seven other contest winners as well. Naturally I had a worst-case scenario all worked out: I would go last, the seven people ahead of me would sink the basket, and I would miss. The cheese, standing alone.

We assembled, as we had been instructed, at the Zamboni entrance, and as the minutes ticked down to the half time, the details of the contest were explained to us. Each of us would take a shot from the foul line. In the event that more than one person was able to sink it, the “finalists” would be moved back to the three point line, there to shoot again until only one was left standing. What we were to be competing for was dinner for two—and a key. One of one hundred and three keys (logical, since the station was B103 FM), and one of those keys would turn over the engine of the grand prize: A Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Like I could give a damn about a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I just wanted to sink the basket. To win, not for a prize that didn’t interest me, but for the sake of winning.

I looked around at my competitors. All shapes and sizes, male and female, a variety of ages, from an older bearded man to a girl who couldn’t have been more than twelve.

I stood on the sidelines, watching these behemoths charging up and down the court, David surveying nearly a dozen Goliaths. And I found my attention straying to the basket. Now… I have a basketball hoop in my back yard. I had spent the past few days practicing.

A guy named Arnie was standing next to me. He worked as a control tower attendant at the local airport. And I muttered to him, “Does that basket look… small to you?”

“I was thinking the exact same thing,” he said.

It was. The height didn’t bother me; I had my basket at home set at regulation height. But the hoop was unquestionably smaller than I was used to. It looked to be almost exactly the circumference of the ball itself. There was no leeway.

I knew I was in trouble.

One day, the Verona USY was scheduled to play the Bloomfield USY. I was extremely apprehensive. I’d had a lot of friends in Bloomfield, and hated the notion of sitting there gathering bench splinters, looking like a useless fool to my old cronies. But that was exactly what happened. We went to the Bloomfield synagogue, and there was any number of my former friends on the opposing team, and all I wanted to do was look good in front of them. Instead, as always, I sat on the bench while the other taller, better kids racked up the points. To make matters worse, my father had come along for this particular away game (a chance to socialize with his old friends, I guess) and he got to watch his eldest sit there like a lump. How enchanting.

We rolled into the fourth quarter and had a commanding lead. It was the kind of lead that no one player, no matter how incompetent, could possibly screw up. Which was the point that the coach decided to put me in. I ran out onto the court, trying to look competent, secure in the knowledge that I was one of many players out there. All I had to do was not embarrass myself, and I’d be satisfied with that.

We were on offense. A guy named Matt had the ball, was looking for someone to pass it to. I was open. Why not? I hardly looked like a threat. He pass-bounced it over to me and I caught it cleanly, pivoted, bounced it once—and a Bloomfield player, seeing me as easy pickings (which I was) tried to get the ball away from me.

“Foul!” shouted the ref, and I wondered what I’d done wrong. I’d been out on the court less than thirty seconds. Then I realized that I was the injured party as the ref pointed to me and indicated that I was to take a foul shot. One shot.

In the scheme of the game, it meant absolutely nothing. We were too far ahead. But all eyes were on me as I took my place at the foul line… feeling that my entire life was on the line in that magnified way that only thirteen-year-olds can have.

The basket looked a million miles away.

They had us wearing white t-shirts with the station call letters, which I’d put on over my own shirt. It’s not like I’m svelte under ordinary circumstances, but in this instance I looked like Poppin’ Fresh.

The announcer informed fans that we were contest winners for 103 FM. Boos rained down on us. Gotta love those fans. They then announced that we were going to shoot hoops for a shot at a Harley-Davidson. This seemed to catch the crowd’s attention, since choppers are cool, and there was actually encouraging cheering. And then, to my horror, I was called up first. My name was announced. There was a smattering of cheers, as I took the ball and bounced it experimentally. Yup. It was a basketball, all right. I looked to the basket and thought, Don’t rush the shot, Don’t rush the shot.

I rushed the shot.

The ball arced upward, hit the backboard, comfortably missing the basket by a good half-foot, and fell to the floor impotently. Moans came from 13,000 throats. I shuffled back to the rest of the contestants and waited to see who would sink it.

No one did.

The crowd booed. What a bunch of losers we were. But I was sure that I could sink it from the foul line, given a second shot. I felt I had a feel for the target.

They moved us closer.

Now I felt totally lame. The basket was so damned close, but the angle felt completely weird. I aimed at the small square directly behind the basket, and this time I didn’t rush it. The ball arced upward gently, gently hit the square perfectly, gently hit the rim… and gently, ever so gently… rolled around the rim and hit the floor.

The boos were far less gentle. A stadium full of New Yorkers, all thinking the exact same thing: Jeez, I could sink it from there! Fortunately enough, the next two people after me missed as well. Then came the little girl, and I thought, Aw, let her get it. Because at that moment, all I could think of was that time when I was thirteen…

I stood there, staring at the basket for my foul shot. I’d never sunk a basket, not even in practice. Everyone was watching me: my old friends, my teammates who had no patience for me, my father.

Everyone. I prayed. Why not? Right environment for it. I aimed and let fly.

The ball went in like it had eyes.

I couldn’t believe it. Shouts of approval from everyone. Our cheerleaders chanted, “Peter, Peter, he’s our man!” I was left out on the court for another minute or so, dribbling, passing for an assist, and then the coach pulled me. No reason not to. I’d accomplished everything I’d needed to.

The little girl swung the ball down from around her knees and hurled it upward with all her might.

Hit the hoop. Bounced away. And there was a genuine moan from the crowd, not from collective annoyance as with me, but because we’d all been rooting for her. The basket was finally made by some guy with a gray beard, ending our group humiliation.

I spent the rest of the game being overjoyed every time one of those glandular-skewed behemoths missed a foul shot, and pondering how sometimes stories turn out the way you want them to, and sometimes they don’t. And as I was getting ready to leave, Arnie walked up to me and deadpanned, “Actually, I missed deliberately because I wanted to give the little girl a chance to win.”

And me—I did the same thing. Self-sacrifice in the hope of making a child’s dream come true. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)