“There is only one time when I put aside my passionate hatred for the Weekday Warriors and their country-club bullshit,” the Colonel told me, “and that’s when they pump up the air-conditioning in the gym for a little old-fashioned Culver Creek basketball. You can’t miss the first game of the year.”
As we walked towards the airplane hangar of a gym, which I had seen but never even thought to approach, the Colonel explained to me the most important thing about our basketball team: they were not very good. The “star” of the team, the Colonel said, was a senior named Hank Walsten, who played power forward despite being five foot eight. Hank’s primary claim to campus fame, I already knew, was that he always had weed, and the Colonel told me that for four years, Hank started every game without ever once playing sober.
“He loves weed like Alaska loves sex,” the Colonel said. “This is a man who once constructed a bong using only the barrel of an air rifle, a ripe pear and an eight-by-ten glossy photograph of Anna Kournikova. Not the brightest gem in the jewellery shop, but you’ve got to admire his single-minded dedication to drug abuse.”
From Hank, the Colonel told me, it went downhill until you reached Wilson Carbod, the starting centre, who was almost six feet tall. “We’re so bad,” the Colonel said, “we don’t even have a mascot. I call us the Culver Creek Nothings.”
“So they just suck?” I asked. I didn’t quite understand the point of watching your terrible team get walloped, though the air-conditioning was reason enough for me.
“Oh, they suck,” the Colonel replied. “But we always beat the shit out of the deaf-and-blind school.” Apparently, basketball wasn’t a big priority at the Alabama School for the Deaf and Blind, and so we usually came out of the season with a single victory.
When we arrived, the gym was packed with most every Culver Creek student – I noticed, for instance, the Creek’s three goth girls reapplying their eyeliner as they sat on the top row of the gym’s bleachers. I’d never attended a school basketball game back home, but I doubted the crowds there were quite so inclusive. Even so, I was surprised when none other than Kevin Richman sat down on the bleacher directly in front of me while the opposing school’s cheerleading team (their unfortunate school colours were mud-brown and dehydrated-piss-yellow) tried to fire up the small visitors’ section in the crowd. Kevin turned around and stared at the Colonel.
Like most of the other guy Warriors, Kevin dressed preppy, looking like a lawyer-who-enjoys-golfing waiting to happen. And his hair, a blond mop, short on the sides and spiky on top, was always soaked through with so much gel that it looked perennially wet. I didn’t hate him like the Colonel did, of course, because the Colonel hated him on principle, and principled hate is a hell of a lot stronger than, “Boy, I wish you hadn’t mummified me and thrown me into the lake” hate. Still, I tried to stare at him intimidatingly as he looked at the Colonel, but it was hard to forget that this guy had seen my skinny ass in nothing but boxers a couple of weeks ago.
“You ratted our Paul and Marya. We got you back. Truce?” Kevin asked.
“I didn’t rat them out. Pudge here certainly didn’t rat them out, but you brought him in on your fun. Truce? Hmm, let me take a poll real quick.” The cheerleaders sat down, holding their pom-poms close to their chest as if praying. “Hey, Pudge,” the Colonel said. “What do you think of a truce?”
“It reminds me of when the Germans demanded that the US surrender at the Battle of the Bulge,” I said. “I guess I’d say to this truce offer what General McAuliffe said to that one: nuts.”
“Why would you try to kill this guy, Kevin? He’s a genius. Nuts to your truce.”
“Come on, dude. I know you ratted them out, and we had to defend our friend and now it’s over. Let’s end it.” He seemed very sincere, perhaps due to the Colonel’s reputation for pranking.
“I’ll make you a deal. You pick one dead American president. If Pudge doesn’t know that guy’s last words, truce. If he does, you spend the rest of your life lamenting the day you pissed in my shoes.”
“That’s retarded.”
“All right, no truce,” the Colonel shot back.
“Fine. Millard Fillmore,” Kevin said. The Colonel looked at me hurriedly, his eyes saying, Was that guy a president? I just smiled.
“When Fillmore was dying, he was super hungry. But his doctor was trying to starve his fever or whatever. Fillmore wouldn’t shut up about wanting to eat, though, so finally the doctor gave him a tiny teaspoon of soup. And all sarcastic, Fillmore said, ‘The nourishment is palatable,’ and then died. No truce.”
Kevin rolled his eyes and walked away, and it occurred to me that I could have made up any last words for Millard Fillmore and Kevin probably would have believed me if I’d used that same tone of voice, the Colonel’s confidence rubbing off on me.
“That was your first bad-ass moment!” The Colonel laughed. “Now, it’s true that I gave you an easy target. But still. Well done.”
Unfortunately for the Culver Creek Nothings, we weren’t playing the deaf-and-blind school. We were playing some Christian school from downtown Birmingham, a team stocked with huge, gargantuan apemen with thick beards and a strong distaste for turning the other cheek.
At the end of the first quarter: 20–4.
And that’s when the fun started. The Colonel led all of the cheers.
“Cornbread!” he screamed.
“CHICKEN!” the crowd responded.
“Rice!”
“PEAS!”
And then, all together: “WE GOT HIGHER S-A-Ts.”
“Hip Hip Hip Hooray!” the Colonel cried.
“YOU’LL BE WORKIN’ FOR US SOME DAY!”
The opposing team’s cheerleaders tried to answer our cheers with “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire! Hell is in your future if you give in to desire,” but we could always do them one better.
“Buy!”
“SELL!”
“Trade!”
“BARTER!”
“YOU’RE MUCH BIGGER, BUT WE ARE SMARTER!”
When the visitors shoot a free throw on most every court in the country, the fans make a lot of noise, screaming and stomping their feet. It doesn’t work, because players learn to tune out white noise. At Culver Creek, we had a much better strategy. At first, everyone yelled and screamed like in a normal game. But then everyone said, “Shh!” and there was absolute silence. Just as our hated opponent stopped dribbling and prepared for his shot, the Colonel stood up and screamed something. Like:
“For the love of God, please shave your back hair!” Or:
“I need to be saved. Can you minister to me after your shot?!”
Towards the end of the third quarter, the Christian school coach called a time-out and complained to the ref about the Colonel, pointing at him angrily. We were down 56–13. The Colonel stood up. “What?! You have a problem with me!?”
The coach screamed, “You’re bothering my players!”
“THAT’S THE POINT, SHERLOCK!” the Colonel screamed. The ref came over and kicked him out