Competing with Stalin

It bothers me to admit it, but I am a competitive jerk. I am not proud of it. It actually brings me great shame. I have a lifetime of bad examples I could share.

When I was a young man I would come home from school and go to my neighbors house almost every day and challenge my friend Stalin to a game of basketball. Stalin was the only child of ironic hippies, which are officially the very worst kind of hippies, if you ask me. Mr and Mrs Lennon only had the one child and for whatever stupid reasoning they used when he was born, Stalin was the name they selected, that’s right, Stalin Lennon.

He was roughly my age, my height and my skill level. We were both about equal players, which meant that as far as winning any single game would go, cheating would become a key element, and injuries. As we grew he became a better natural athlete than I, but I became a more brutal player, so that kind of balanced out.

Stalin and I would play through most injuries. When I had a cast on my foot from a broken bone, we played Horse for 2 months, loser had to make the other a peanut butter and banana sandwich. The sandwich quickly became the punishment for losing and the winners trophy. For at least 3 years after that I grew fat on Stalins inability to hit the three point clutch shot.

It became like a ritual. I would get home, walk over the Stalins house, sweep off the basketball court, he would come out huffing and puffing with threats of court domination and we would play some calm warm up games and then we were on. Usually it was a game of 21, winner had to beat the other by 4 points and each basket only counted as one point. The games could go into the 60’s because you had to win by four baskets and we played each other as if our lives depended upon it. We called the obvious fouls, but mostly we played tough, aggressive, hurtful basketball.

College came and Stalin went, I stuck around our home town for another year, hanging out with this girl I knew. I was gone the next year, but we would see each other some summers for a while, and when we did one of us would challenge the other to a game, sometimes for money, sometimes just to see who could beat the other. We still played as if the game was the most important in the world, and at the time, I guess it was.

Stalin got married at some point, I moved to New York, he moved to Denver, I moved to Alaska, he changed jobs and was then in Chicago, I ended up in Seattle, his wife left him for a woman and he left Chicago for Birmingham and every few years, miracles would happen and we would be in a gym somewhere, older, slower, fatter, in ill-fitting shorts and new shoes and flabby midsections and a new ball and we would play. Now when I would elbow him he would call the foul.

A few years ago I was living on Lookout Mountain in Los Angeles and there was an elementary school about a half mile down the hill from me. Stalin showed up with a broken leg and a former model named Patrice. His claim was that he was injured, but if I was desperate for a game, she could play me. She was a little taller than I was, but then, most everyone is. She also weighed about 90 pounds. I bet Stalin dinner at winners choice that I would mop the court with the bimbo. Bet on.

We drove down to the school, Stalin too hobbled to walk. Short story, Patrice was all false advertising. I was lucky to have made a basket. I think the final score was 21-3. To make matters worse, she trash talked me the entire game and to make matters even more worse, she was one of those light weight women who could eat like a horse. I think dinner cost me 750 dollars.

I picked Stalin up at the airport yesterday. I told him on the phone, if he had a limp, a cast or any other obvious defects we would just leave him there. He bounded out of the airport and jumped in the car. We drove to my house and the entire trip was the most disgusting trash talking one could imagine. It had been years since either of us had played a game of basketball, but the way we were bad mouthing one another, you would have thought we not only played daily, but hated one another.

“You wear a dress to play tomorrow?”

“Nah, you always looked best in a skirt. Hey, you gain weight?”

“Yeah, bout half as much as you.”

“Seriously, since you started going to AA you look a lot healthier.”

“I was gonna say, you can hardly see the Botox scares anymore.”

“As fat as you are, you should stop taking Viagra.”

“Your boyfriend would cry.”

“Already does.”

“Speaking of ugly mistakes, you still married?”

“Did the appeal go thru on the child sex abuse charges?”

“Understand you’re working on the Gingrich campaign.”

On it went, until we reached my house, had dinner and I plotted for a game that would be the end all of basketball revenge games.

There is a small gym near our house and the next morning Stalin and I were there, warming up at opposite ends of the court. His shots were clanging off the metal rim, mine swishing right thru the net. I walked down to his end, said we should get underway and he smiled.

He pulled off his sweat top, revealing an official Los Angeles Lakers jersey and a shaved chest. That’s right, a completely shaved chest. Not sure what neighborhood you grew up in, but in my little Jewish neighborhood in Southern California, when boys got chest hair, and the Jewish boys in my neighborhood got lots and lots of chest hair, they were proud of it, shirtless proud, bragging proud, incredibly stupid proud. The idea of removing chest hair for any reason was obscene.

He caught my look. “What’re you lookin’ at?”

“What the hell happened to you? Got a date with Lance Bass all of a sudden?”

“You got a problem if I did?”

“Don’t think he’d be worth shaving your chest is all I’m saying.”

“Have to have a procedure on Friday. Thought I’d help out with some manscaping.”

“Serious?”

“Yeah, little work on my ticker.”

“You don’t tell me this?”

“Need to know basis.”

“Game of basketball gonna kill you?”

“If it does…”

“Not a bad way to go.”

We played. I beat him, 26 - 22. I thought about letting him win. Somewhere around the point where he was ahead 2 points to my 1, and then I forgot about that thought and rampaged him. It’s a game and I am a competitive dick. Everyone knows it. I’m not proud of it.

We walked off the court. I told him I was going to let him win and he smiled, “no you weren’t.”

“I know, right?”

“Play to win.”

When we were kids we had this saying, play to win, which was our constant refrain during any game we played, chest, a running match and every basketball game we ever played, even all those horse games when I had a cast on my broken foot. If it was worth playing, we should play to win. I admire Stalin for a lot of things, not the least of which is that he, like I, takes competition very seriously, and he and I both play to win and right after we drop the competitive jerk stuff and go out for a beer, a pizza, a drink or a date with Lance Bass. After all, it’s fine to be competitive and all, but in the end, it’s just a game.