by Fernando Mendez

I play to escape. I have a lot to escape from. I play to forget. I have a lot I want to forget. I play because I am out of work, out of school, and going out of my mind wondering what to do next. I play to find the answer to the question I have been asking myself day in and day out: Where does my life go from here?

For two years, I’ve come out here to the basketball courts, losing myself in the game, looking inward for answers. I wake up at ten in the morning—no reason to wake up earlier. I eat breakfast/lunch, and run the five miles to the park to play. As soon as I pass through the court’s gate my worries shed like a cocoon, the outside world is cut off at once. I play all day, shooting until my arms and legs scream for me to stop—playing to escape.

Other guys regularly show up that I play with. I don’t think I ever learned any of their names, but it never mattered. They help me escape. My mind transforms them, and they become the embodiment of all my problems: the guy with the “Sandra” tattoo is the troubles with my girlfriend; the guy with the messy hair and sleepy eyes is my inability to find a job; the guy with the two-hundred dollar Jordan shoes is my lack of money. It is either beat them, or let my problems overtake me.

“Wanna run?” one of them asks.

I nod. We exchange names, which my mind doesn’t bother to file away. We shoot around for a while, warming up, preparing for battle. We split up in teams of three. I get picked last. They don’t realize that this is more than a game for me.

My teammates ignore my shouts of “I’m open,” and start chucking the ball up—nothing but bricks. Frustrated, I grab the rebound and take it to the top of the three point line. The court becomes our battlefield; the angry sun, shooting its heat down on us, is our only witness. My enemy stands before me—the guy with the expensive shoes—but my mind only sees him as an obstacle to my happiness.

I fake left, go right, behind my back, back to left, drive, lay up.

The air is filled with the clang of the ball careening off the goal, the echoing boom of the ball bouncing off the blacktop, and our yells:

“Foul!”

“Get off of me!”

“You can’t hold me!”

“Is that all you got?”

The heated blacktop bakes my feet inside my Nikes. My knees plead for me to stop, but I won’t let my troubles beat me, so I ignore their protests.

Four hours later, our fifth and final game, my team needs only two points to win. The ball is passed out to me on the three point line. My eyes focus on the goal as I go up for the shot.

All net.

Game.

After they leave, I continue to shoot around, mostly because I don’t want to go home—I have no reason to go home.

Alone once again. I sit up against the fence and close my eyes. My problems defeated for another day, my mind is finally at rest.