TGIF

The basketball was rugged and beautiful.

Elements of speed, explosion, dance and raw emotion tailed away after two hours on a pedestrian Friday. The players exhausted but thoroughly satisfied converged in the locker room for a beer on the 6th floor.

“Good god, you sure were handing it out down in the paint today, Karl,” Mick Collins still wearing his blue scrum jersey shining with sweat spoke with an air of authority and the noise in the room naturally dimmed to a wavering silence.

Rumbles of agreement and congratulations came from the group seated at the two tables in the middle of the locker room. Karl stood up with a hint of quickness not obvious in such a large man. “Mick, I thank you and what can I get you to drink?”

“I’ll have a Bud Light and thank you Karl,” Collins the elder of the group was barely able to register a pat of gratitude on the giant’s back.

“Hey,” what does everyone want to drink?” “Michael?” “Steve?” “Mark?” “Dan?”

“Budlight… Amstel… Heineken… Nothing,” came the replies.

“Dan. You sure we can’t get you anything to drink,” the former offensive tackle spoke in a tone of benevolence and concern reserved for a man the size a flea, but possessing a heart as big as Saturn.

“I don’t deserve it today,” replied the man seated in the sofa next to the tables.

His face was flushed from the workout imposed by the game and he possessed a look of fatigue completely alien to the normal ebb and flow of the health club. Naked except for the workout shorts clinging to his legs, a dark cellphone lay next to him on the couch. Every two or three minutes he would look down upon the phone as if waiting or hoping that some sort of magic would occur.

Disappointed, Karl slowly turned towards the sports shop and ordered the first round of drinks. “Just let us know when you are thirsty Dan,” his voice thundered over the basketball game on the television. “You played great as always.” Faintly in the background the voice of Collins was perceptible, “That Dan is so fast.”

The players of the late pick up game drank until the bells of six o’clock rang and on into the trumpets of seven. The room resembled a recycling plant with the empty beer bottles almost covering the two tables. Stories about combat, wives, kids excelling at school, and growing up in Seattle ended with wave of laughter crashing down the reality of the week and sweeping way any mundane and tiresome thoughts. At three in the afternoon there had been twenty and now there were six enjoying the simple bonds of camaraderie and shared intoxication. And still the man sat perched on the sofa, transfixed by the presence of the phone and protected by five icy, but full cold bottles of Budweiser.

Diplomatically, Karl gently lowered his voice and spoke to the man. “Buddy are you okay?” His concern was genuine as he sipped his beer.

The man looked up with a fear in his eyes as if contemplating the fall from three thousand feet to an ultimate doom. The eyes tired and sad and a complete dichotomy from the inspired bounce and play of the body on the court. The guise was complete after an acrobatic shot from the baseline in the second game and hovering in the air with an illusion to all the normal senses.

“What’s going on Dan?” he almost whispered as if to save his friend from any pending embarrassment.

He looked straight into the man’s eyes on the couch. The alcohol only heightening his persistence and his overall empathy to make everything right in the world.

“I… I’ve lost her,” the man struggled to even mutter the words. Words not meant for basketball and the carnival of Friday afternoons and bordering on sacrilege.

Through his clouded spectacles, it was clearly apparent to Karl that the man was admitting this reality to the world for the first time. In the testosterone circus and whirlwind of noise, there existed a funnel of utter silence for the two men.

“I’m sorry,” the big man ignored the newly spilled beer next to him slowly pouring from the table in a puddle of foam and nodded his head.

“Hey guys!” the voice reverberated around the room and knocked the television into mute.

“Guys!” “Dan's girlfriend finally dumped his sorry ass.”

“Is that why he sucked so badly today,” Collins interjected with a sneer. “Just kidding there Dan,” Collins said with a wink. "I took her out last night."

"How did you screw this one up," proclaimed Mark, the lawyer of the group, his red Stanford shirt wet with beer.

"We were all banking on you getting married and finally losing a step."

The man smiled faintly and nodded towards the group in mock gratitude. For a moment, the room fell to an eerie silence and shock as they had all heard on numerous occasions, how truly wonderful she was.

“Dan, I want to tell you something,” Collins gulped his beer loudly as if to cover the awkward noiselessness.

“After I lost my wife, I moved away to Arizona. I needed the time to heal or whatever.”

“The sun was great in Phoenix, but I felt like I was missing something,” he stopped to look around the room.

“I have played basketball here since 1965, or at least tried to play,” a light laughter filled the room.

“I knew I had to come back to Seattle. This is what I was missing,” Collins looked around to each man and then paused to study the label of his beer.

“Everyone in here has dealt with the pain, loss, confusion, but we have all bounced back.”

“So stick with us and this is what you can look forward to,” Collins heartily smacked his ample belly to a collective cheer and clinking of the bottles.

“Drink up, young man.”

Dan Williamson stumbled smiling and stupid out of the glass front doors of the health club and into the colors and warmth of the bustling crowds and biting December winds of 6th avenue. He was a blank sheet of paper against the quaint sophistication of the vibrant white Christmas lights, softening the trees and buildings. After laboring a few steps to the South, his backpack loosely held in his right hand and swinging against his knee, he reluctantly stopped and gazed back towards the greatest concentration of people. Somewhere within the confines of his mind the fog of loneliness and alcohol extinguished any ideal of hope and the illusion of confidence built on the 6th floor faded with a sudden gust of the wind. For he knew that he had lost the love of his life in the blink of an eye. He walked swiftly up the hill and into the darkness of the South. The headache from the hangover already began to bombard his forehead.