The one where I punch Cob

Today I punched an obnoxious kid in the face while playing pickup ball at Illinois' own CRCE. It wasn't undeserved. After drawing first blood (the field goal variety) on a breakaway steal, I remarked that the ball felt off-balance. One kid on the other team began complaining, saying, "It's a basketball. Let's just play basketball. It's just a basketball." And so forth (every sentence ended with: "...basketball.")

"Look man," I practically burst out, "please don't start talking shit already. The basketball is just off-balance." One former game against this fellow had demonstrated that he was a little bitch, so I decided it was best to nip this in the bud; plus I was merely ensuring that we would all be playing with a superior ball and thus enjoy a superior game. The only appropriate words besides none would be those of thanksgiving.

Instead the lovely gent--I'll name him Cob--kept mumbling afoul. They missed a shot and on our possession I drove hard to the basket and tipped in my own rebound in his eye.

"That's just basketball," I said, meant as a mild but potent rebuke. Without warning, he caught the ball and pegged me directly in the nose.

Taken off-guard, I fell to the ground. But in that moment--and for the first time in my adult life--I knew I was about to punch somebody in the face. So I got up and cracked him one good on his left cheekbone.

My two friends Dane and K. got in his face too after that, but he kept running his mouth. He soon irritated Dane, who is usually very even-tempered and moderate.

"We can handle this like men and go outside to straighten things out," said Dane furiously, "or we can handle it like you--like a girl--and file assault charges on you." (Cob said he was going to tattle on us in the midst of his continued trash-talking). The guy likes to talk but not act... sickening. In any case he eventually slunk out with his friend in tow. His other teammates had already mysteriously disappeared without saying anything... quite strange.

Then we waited for a while for anyone to play us... the bloodsport interaction (or was it merely a dust-up?) didn't exactly inspire immediate competition.

Eventually we took on five semi-fluent Chinese youth who traveled, carried, double-dribble and grunted a lot. We almost lost but pulled it out twice in two sweaty, God-awful ugly games.