-Rubber Match-
We met at the local high school's tennis courts at midday, after church services had let out, but before the football game and the hometeam's inexorable loss. Defeat and mediocrity, not triumph and surprise victory had set the agenda.
The agenda had also been set by everyone but me; my father had proposed the match, my brother had suggested we finish before kick-off, and our high school classmate agreed to play only after he'd run around the high school track enough to get the windsprint monkey off his back.
I didn't want to play tennis that day, but didn't dare refuse. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy tennis, and I've got an odd combination of skills destined to keep an all-around athlete guessing for perhaps ten minutes before his or her natural abilities assert themselves and overcome my defenses. Actually, that's my modus operandi where most sports are concerned, and card games, too.
This may sound silly - but I didn't want to play tennis because I didn't want them to see the poor state of my shoes. The price of my financial independence includes my retention of footwear long after most people would throw them away, or in the very least, save them for gardening. Maybe they wouldn't see the rubber peeling off the bottom, maybe they would. I didn't want to take the chance, but also could not find any believable excuse.
While three of us waited for the runner to complete his regimen, we volleyed back and forth with three generations of tennis rackets. My father's was the newest, he had bought it in the past years. Graphite, high tension strings, the works. He refused to take the plastic off the grip, though, which gave us an advantage.
An advantage lost when you took account of the quirks of the other racquets. My brother used a metal-and-plastic racquet he'd received at the peak of his interest in tennis back in the early nineties. Mine was an oversized metal racquet from the late eighties that made a suspiciously low hum when struck. On the sideline, a pair of small, seventies (perhaps 60's?) era racquets covered the plastic tennis ball tube like an A-frame house to keep it from blowing away.
It didn't seem right to let the newcomer use the wooden racquets, so when he jogged in, I set down the metal racquet and was transported forty years into the past. All the while, I kept a suspicious eye on the widening gap between the rubber sole and the fabric, which used to meet at my toe.
The moment I took my eyes off my feet and scrambled for a wide shot in the alley (doubles meant the alleys were in play) I stumbled over what had to be the front half the sole yawning wide as an alligator. Did they notice? They didn't say anything, but I'd pushed things far enough. When I bent down to pick up the errant tennis ball, I tore the rubber appendage off and flicked it into the fence.
And came up smiling.
No extra passenger on my feet, a wooden racquet, and the ball was in my court. For the next ten minutes, my opponents wouldn't stand a chance.
The agenda had also been set by everyone but me; my father had proposed the match, my brother had suggested we finish before kick-off, and our high school classmate agreed to play only after he'd run around the high school track enough to get the windsprint monkey off his back.
I didn't want to play tennis that day, but didn't dare refuse. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy tennis, and I've got an odd combination of skills destined to keep an all-around athlete guessing for perhaps ten minutes before his or her natural abilities assert themselves and overcome my defenses. Actually, that's my modus operandi where most sports are concerned, and card games, too.
This may sound silly - but I didn't want to play tennis because I didn't want them to see the poor state of my shoes. The price of my financial independence includes my retention of footwear long after most people would throw them away, or in the very least, save them for gardening. Maybe they wouldn't see the rubber peeling off the bottom, maybe they would. I didn't want to take the chance, but also could not find any believable excuse.
While three of us waited for the runner to complete his regimen, we volleyed back and forth with three generations of tennis rackets. My father's was the newest, he had bought it in the past years. Graphite, high tension strings, the works. He refused to take the plastic off the grip, though, which gave us an advantage.
An advantage lost when you took account of the quirks of the other racquets. My brother used a metal-and-plastic racquet he'd received at the peak of his interest in tennis back in the early nineties. Mine was an oversized metal racquet from the late eighties that made a suspiciously low hum when struck. On the sideline, a pair of small, seventies (perhaps 60's?) era racquets covered the plastic tennis ball tube like an A-frame house to keep it from blowing away.
It didn't seem right to let the newcomer use the wooden racquets, so when he jogged in, I set down the metal racquet and was transported forty years into the past. All the while, I kept a suspicious eye on the widening gap between the rubber sole and the fabric, which used to meet at my toe.
The moment I took my eyes off my feet and scrambled for a wide shot in the alley (doubles meant the alleys were in play) I stumbled over what had to be the front half the sole yawning wide as an alligator. Did they notice? They didn't say anything, but I'd pushed things far enough. When I bent down to pick up the errant tennis ball, I tore the rubber appendage off and flicked it into the fence.
And came up smiling.
No extra passenger on my feet, a wooden racquet, and the ball was in my court. For the next ten minutes, my opponents wouldn't stand a chance.
posted by Benedict | 7:44 AM
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