is some form of acceptable piety.
Today, her game was extra intense. Her flashing blue eyes were concentrated, twin lasers. Even her short, chestnut-colored hair had attitude this day.
She really wanted to win this one, more than usual.
I played ball in college and know my way around the court. I’m deadly from twenty, and dangerous from downtown. Even have a spin move or two, and that after arthroscopic surgery on the left knee.
This morning, though, I could not get near the basket.
Sister Mary hipped me every time I got close.
At first, I laughed.
But then she started with the elbows and I got a little miffed.
“You trying to make the Olympic team or something?” I said.
“Bring it,” she said.
Bring it?
I tried, but I was off. Every time I put up a shot, I had this terrier nun in my face.
It was, in its way, admirable. If she had been a litigator, I would have approved. I would have wanted her in court with me. I would have gladly let her cross-examine any hostile witness.
I staged a comeback and tied the score 10–10. “Are you sure you have the holy calling?” I said.
“You sure you want to keep playing?”
“You bring it.”
And she did. She backed me into the paint, the way Charles Barkley used to do it.
Then she tried a little Magic Johnson hook, and I blocked it.
That brought a cry of frustration from Sister Mary.
I got the ball. She was snorting like a bull. I guess I was the cape.
I stayed outside. At the freethrow line I faked right, crossed over, stopped, and put up a fadeaway. It was beautiful. Nothing but net.
11–10.
As per the rules of one-on-one, I got the rock again. I took the ball to the top of the key and let Sister Mary check it. She dropped it back to me.
And got in a crouch. Her lips were tight. Her eyes were beams of blue flame. I thought, if she’s this tough against sin, the Church is going to be perfect in a couple of years.
Boom, I gave her my best move, a stop and go, and was on my way to the hoop. It would be one for the highlight film. I went up.
And she undercut me.
Sister Mary Veritas, Catholic nun, speaker of Latin, gentle little lamb of the flowers of St. Monica’s, went low bridge.
I landed on the asphalt. Hard. Little sparklers went off behind my eyes. I couldn’t believe what just happened.
As I lay there, looking up at the sky, I said, “What was that?”
“Charge,” she said.
“What?”
“You lowered your shoulder.”
“What are you talking about?” My right arm was starting to throb.
“You fouled me,” she said.
“I’m the one on the ground!”
“Oscar nominated.”
Now I was hacked off. I scrambled to my feet. I’d started taking Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu at a studio in Canoga Park, and was thinking about practicing a hip throw on this overexuberant nun. Instead I said, “What is up with you today?”
“What is up with you?”
“You mean what is down with me, don’t you?”
“It’s my ball.”
“How can it be your ball when you almost broke my neck?”
“You want to play or not?”
“Not until we review the Geneva Convention.”
“Just forget it,” she said. She broke into a jog and headed off toward her quarters.
6
I SAT ON the edge of the court in some grass and weeds and looked at the sky. At least, in the immortal words of Randy Newman, it looked like another perfect day.
When the sky is clear in L.A., when the sun shines in the winter, there’s no better place on earth.
That’s what I said.
See, it’s days like this that bring out the envy in other cities. When we’re tossing Frisbees on the beach in the winter, sub-zero curmudgeons dip their pens in bile and write things like Truman Capote once did—“It’s redundant to die in L.A.”
Or the wag who, no doubt with frostbitten digits, typed, “What’s the difference between L.A. and yogurt? Answer: Yogurt has an active culture.”
Will Rogers called it Cuckoo Land. H. L. Mencken dubbed it Moronia.
I call it home.
Even though I’ve been beat up and beat down here. That doesn’t matter, because you can get beat up and beat down anywhere. That’s the great thing about America.
But if it has to happen, it might as well happen in L.A. You can douse yourself in the Pacific or snowboard down a mountain.
You can regain your soul.
Which is not something I used to think about much. But I have been lately. Jacqueline thought about the soul and I want to think