I couldn’t really argue with her about that, but I was still a supporter of sports. Maybe I did need to be a bit more concerned about black athletes. After all, they were children of the black community before college and before the pros. Denise had a damned good point!
“Shit!” my uncle commented. “That damn Reggie Miller shoots that ball like a machine gun! A damned Uzi!”
Jimmy and Walter were getting a kick out of him already. Most guys did. Women, for the most part, would much rather stay away from him. They never knew when he was about to say something inexcusable.
“This is one of the uncles you were telling me about?” Denise asked me on the sly.
“In the flesh,” I told her with a smile.
She looked at me and frowned. “In the mouth would be more like it,” she responded with a chuckle.
I laughed myself. Then I overheard my uncle asking Jimmy if he wanted to be like Mike.
“Naw, I’d rather be like me,” Jimmy answered.
That brought a smile to his mother’s face. “That’s right. He doesn’t have to ‘be like Mike’ to play well. He can be better than Mike,” Denise spoke up for her son.
I looked at her fearing that she had fallen into a more familiar man’s game of trash talking.
“Better than Jordan, hunh?” my uncle responded with a nod. “So you want to be like Kobe Bryant then; that young blood who plays for the Lakers?”
“No, he said he wants to be like himself,” Denise repeated.
I don’t know what it was, but Uncle William always seemed to bring out the fire in women. I guess he just wasn’t built for the new sisters of the nineties who had plenty to say and were not holding anything back.
“These young black men need to stop following other people anyway. Especially Mr. Jordan,” Denise added. She was paying my uncle more attention than she was the game. That was to be expected though. Denise only agreed to go because she considered it a “family outing.” I felt that she should try and make more of Jimmy’s games in the future if she had the chance. I know I planned to, whether his biological father was there at the game or not. Why shouldn’t I have an opportunity to see the boy play just because of his relationship with his father? I wasn’t there to intervene. I just wanted to support him and enjoy his talents like anyone else.
Uncle William started looking around and responded, “You better stop talking about Jordan like that. These white folks’ll mess around and kill you for that nigga. And I’m not just talking about the ones in Chicago.
“Some of these white folks’ll let Jordan’s sons marry their daughters,” he said. Then he changed his mind. “Then again, I can’t take it that far. You know how these white folks are. They don’t even want supernigga blood in their genes.”
I was embarrassed. Things were just about to get out of hand. I could feel it! Denise was already beginning to tense up. Why did he have to go and use the “N” word in reference to Jordan in front of the same fanatic fans who he suggested would kill for the man? I asked myself. But that was my uncle for you. He was full of nasty surprises.
I stood up and said, “Let’s take a walk to the bathroom, Uncle William. You gotta take a smoke or something?” I wasn’t sure if you could smoke inside the United Center, I was just saying anything that would work.
“Hell naw, I ain’t going to no damn bathroom!” he snapped at me. “The game just started. I’ll catch a smoke at halftime with the rest of the nicotine fiends.”
I sat back down and shook my head. I could have forced my uncle to leave with me, but I didn’t want to cause an even bigger scene.
Denise looked at me and smiled. “We all have ’em and it seems that we can’t do anything about them,” she told me. She was right about that, too. At least she found some humor in it. I guess the joke was on me this time.
I tried my best to ignore my uncle for the rest of the first half, praying for halftime to come so I could get him somewhere alone. I wanted to let him know that he couldn’t always be so inconsiderate of others. I did offer him the ticket to join us at the game. I wanted to remind him of that.
“So, what position you think you’ll play in the pros?” he asked Jimmy. “Small forward, like Scottie Pippen?”
Jimmy nodded. “Probably. It depends on how much more I grow, if I make it.”
“If you make it?” Uncle William asked him. He said it as if it was the wrong attitude to have.
“That’s what he said,” Denise interjected. “Maybe he’ll want to do something else with his life, like become a schoolteacher and coach basketball. That way, he’ll have more commitment to the kids in his community.”
Uncle William frowned at her. He said, “Shit, with the way these boys been getting paid to play basketball lately, he’ll be able to buy a community, and then come back and coach high school basketball when he’s done playing. Most coaches are over forty anyway. How long do you think his career is gonna last? Until he’s my age?
“Shit, Kevin Garnett can barely drink a beer legally, and he signed for a hundred and twenty-six million dollars for seven years,” he argued. “He ain’t stepped a foot on a college campus! Now you’re gonna tell me you’d rather your son teach at a high school! What kind of medicine are you on?!”
I jumped in and said, “That’s enough, man.”
Walter sat there in the middle of things and laughed at it all. He could see that tempers were beginning to fly. He considered it all to be quite humorous. Jimmy, on the other hand, didn’t look so amused by it.
“Can you knock down the three pointer?” my uncle asked him.
“Not all the time,” Jimmy answered grudgingly. He didn’t bother to face him when he answered. I don’t think he liked his mother being disrespected.
“Well, shit, nobody knocks ’em down all the time. But can you make ’em?”
Jimmy faced my uncle and said, “Yeah, I can make ’em.” He looked two seconds away from telling him off. It was a good thing Jimmy was such an easygoing kid.
My uncle didn’t even get the hint. “Good,” he responded. “Because that’s what you’re gonna have to do to make the pros. Everybody who is somebody can shoot the three. Unless you get as big as Shaquille O’Neal,” he commented.
He leaned forward in his seat to talk to Denise again. “How tall is his daddy?”
“Not tall enough for him to be seven foot,” Denise snapped.
“Well, neither was Shaq’s daddy. So how tall is he?”
“Shorter than his son.”
Finally, Jimmy cut in and said, “I hate to be rude and all, but can we all watch the game.”
“Exactly,” I agreed with him.
“I am watching the game,” my uncle commented. “I ain’t missed nothing yet. I can do two things at once.”
Jimmy began to shake his head. If he was less respectful, I’m sure he would have let my uncle have it, which was exactly what I was planning to do.
At halftime, the Indiana Pacers were up 47-43. Reggie Miller had 17 points for Indiana, and Michael Jordan had 17 points for Chicago. Scottie Pippen was on the bench in dress clothes, still out until further notice, while recovering from a foot injury he suffered during last season’s finals.
I caught up to my uncle in the crowded hallway and pulled him aside before he could find a place to smoke. “Are you trying to make this difficult on purpose?” I asked him. “Why can’t you just enjoy the game?”
He looked at me and said, “You watch who you’re talking to like that. I know you’re younger and stronger than me, but—”
“Would you just stop the bullshit for a minute?” I asked him sternly. “I invited you out here because I love you, man. And now you come out here and make a fool out of me in front of my lady and her sons. For what?”
He leaned back and smiled. He said, “You and your sister always got embarrassed too easily.”
“This ain’t about embarrassment, this is about respect,” I told him.
He asked, “Are you planning on marryin
g this girl?”
“What if I am?”
“Then we can talk about respect after your wedding.”
“No, we’re gonna talk about respect right now. Because that ‘Poppa was a rollin’ stone’ shit ain’t happening here. And disrespecting women so you can leave and make some new babies somewhere else is a sorryass way to live. That’s why ‘Poppa’ left nothin’ when he died.”
I didn’t mean to say all of that. Lord knows I didn’t. But it came out of my mouth anyway, so it must have been meant to be said.
Uncle William looked me in the eye and asked, “So is that how you think of me?”
I wanted to back down and let him off the hook but I couldn’t. Somebody needed to tell him about himself. I guess it had to be me.
“That’s how I feel about you right now, yes,” I answered him. “I love you, but you can’t keep treating people like you do. It just ain’t gonna work.”
He nodded and stuck out his hand for me. I took it in mine.
He said, “Thanks for coming at me like a man about it, Dennis. You’re a much better man than your father. He always went behind my back to say shit. But not you. You say it to my face, you and your sister. Now let me go catch a smoke before halftime is over.”
I didn’t know if he had just given me a compliment, or an insult to my father, or both. I was just happy that it was over with.
“All right then,” I told him. “I’ll see you back in the stands.”
Denise and the boys had their laps filled with refreshments when I returned; pizza, hot dogs, sodas, chips. All I managed to come away with was some peanuts and a cup of beer. The lines were shorter.
“How did you get back so soon with food?” I asked them.
Walter said, “They opened up a new line as soon as we walked up.”
“Shucks! I should have followed y’all then.”
“Do you want some of this pizza?” Denise asked me. She had a giant slice of mushroom.
I said, “Naw, I’ll try and get something on the way out.” I never did like sharing food. It always seemed like a tease.
“Are you sure?” Her eyes had such genuine concern in them. A lot of brothers really read career-oriented sisters wrong. They just have to be less intimidated by them and give it a little time to see what was inside: a woman who wanted to be held and loved like any other. Nevertheless, I shook my head and turned her down.
Then she turned ice cold, the cold shoulder that simpleminded, impatient brothers got to see. “Suit yourself,” she told me.
I laughed. How can men stand themselves? I wondered. We could be some of the coldest creatures on the planet, yet would cry like babies whenever we got some of our own medicine.
Denise noticed my permanent grin and asked me what I was thinking about.
“The difference between men and women.”
She looked at me, wiped the pizza sauce from her lips, and said, “Oh.” She didn’t need to say any more than that. I wondered how couples did it myself sometimes. How exactly did men and women make it work with so many obvious differences?
Walter broke my train of thought when he asked, “Where’s your uncle William?”
It was halfway through the third quarter by then. Denise and Jimmy seemed to be enjoying themselves a lot more without him. Walter had been enjoying his raw sense of humor, and his absence had totally slipped my mind.
“Oh, he’s out catching a smoke,” I said. Then I joked, “Maybe the smoke police arrested him.”
We all shared a laugh. The no-smoking-in-public-places law was really taking America by storm. However, by the fourth quarter, I began to get worried. The Pacers were up by one, 67-66. The Bulls were on the move and the crowd could feel a comeback. The Bulls were a fourth-quarter team up against rookie coach Larry Bird. The United Center was really starting to rock.
Denise said, “That sure is a long smoke he’s taking. He’s missing the best part of the game.”
I said, “You just read my mind.” I wanted to go looking for him, but I didn’t want to miss any of the big plays in the fourth quarter. “Maybe he’s watching from somewhere else,” I commented.
Denise smiled. I didn’t have to wonder too hard about what she was thinking. Uncle William not being there to bother her and her son was a good thing. Nevertheless, when the game got down to the last three minutes, and there was still no sign of him, I began to worry. What if he really didn’t like what I said to him and had left? Uncle William was known for leaving places he didn’t feel comfortable in.
The Indiana Pacers were still holding on to a three-point lead. Reggie Miller had 27 points. Michael Jordan had 36 and was calling for the ball on every play.
I got really anxious and stood up from my seat. “This is ridiculous,” I commented about my uncle’s absence. I had spent some good money on those seats. “I’m gonna try and look for him,” I told Denise.
She nodded. “We’ll wait right here for you then,” she told me.
As soon as I began to walk out of the arena, “Your Airness” hit a three-point shot to tie the game. Coach Larry Bird was shaking his head, and the Pacers called a time-out to regroup. I used the time to sprint out into the hallway to try and find my lost uncle during the break in the action.
The United Center was so huge that it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I watched the game on the television sets in the hallway as I walked and looked in vain. When it was all said and done, Michael Jordan scored 41 points and brought the Bulls back to defeat Larry Bird, like he couldn’t do for most of his years in the 1980s, when Bird played for the powerful Boston Celtics. Reggie Miller, the lightning-quick, rail-thin jump shooter, scored 29 points in the 98-94 loss. The Bulls were able to squeak out the home victory, but overall, they weren’t looking too good.
“They need Scottie Pippen back,” Jimmy said as we walked to the car without my uncle.
“When is he coming back?” Walter asked his older brother.
“I don’t know. They keep changing it,” Jimmy answered. “One week he’s almost ready, then the next week they’re saying it’ll be two to four more games. So I don’t know when he’s coming back.”
“Yeah, foot and ankle injuries are hard to determine because they support all of your body’s weight when standing, running, or jumping,” I responded. “A busted knee or a sore back can do you in as well. But you rarely hear about upper-body injures keeping guys out too long. As soon as an arm, wrist, or shoulder heals, you’re basically right back in the game.”
“So, where do you think he is?” Denise asked me, referring to my uncle again.
I was trying my best to remain calm about it. Uncle William wasn’t suicidal or anything. Maybe he just decided to ditch us and find more agreeable company, which was part of his problem. He could always find someone who would put up with all of his bull-s-h-i-t.
I said, “Well, he knows where the car is. We’ll wait around for a few more minutes and see what happens.”
We all climbed into the car and immediately turned the heat on. Walter sat in the middle of the backseat so that my uncle and Jimmy could stretch out their longer legs. Jimmy, of course, had to sit behind his mother on the passenger side, where she could push her bucket seat forward.
“Did you say something to him at halftime?” Denise finally asked me.
I nodded, feeling guilty about it. “Yeah, I did. And maybe he didn’t take it too lightly.”
“Oh,” she responded again with a nod.
After waiting another ten minutes or so, we took one last drive through the parking lot, in search of my uncle, and came up empty.
“Are you okay?” Denise asked me at the end of the night. I dropped her and her sons off after grabbing a late bite to eat. I was just about to head for home.
“Yeah, I’m just going to find out what happened to him. Then I’ll be all right.”
“Okay. Well, call me if you need to talk about it.”
“I sure will.”
We gave each other a
kiss and I headed on my way to Uncle William’s. He knew his way home, so that was the first place I went, over to South Sixty-third Street. But when I got there, no one answered the door. I must have knocked on it five separate times and waited for twenty minutes. I just didn’t want to give up.
When I got back to my apartment, I immediately called my father and told him what happened. He was in bed and had to climb out to talk to me. My mother didn’t even want to hear it. Anything concerning Uncle William was the same old news.
My father said, “Son, listen here. William went back out and found himself a good time. Trust me. I’ve known him a lot longer than you have, and I’ve tried every which way to turn him around, but I finally had to realize that despite the fact he’s my brother, some people were just born to be confused about life. And he’s one of them.
“Now I’m going back to sleep,” he told me. “And you can find your uncle at the same place and same time tomorrow. You hear me? Now go on and get some rest. It’s after midnight.”
I hung up with my father and told him that I would, but I was lying. I was about to sit up and think long and hard about my uncle. What had I said to him that was so hard to take, and that would drive him away from my company? He was a “rolling stone.” He sang that Temptations song ever since I was a young teenager. However, my grandfather wasn’t a “rolling stone,” so where did he get that idea? I thought the Temptations were singing about how not to be. I guess my father was right about his baby brother; he was just meant to be confused.
Then I thought about my own life. I didn’t want to be a “rolling stone.” But what did I have to show for myself? I was damn-near forty, and I had no kids, no wife, and no future outside of trucking. So who would be at my funeral when I died, outside of my parents and my sister?