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Enter your comments here…Hi,
I wanted to let you know (perhaps you can share this with your
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Hi
Below is a true story about a man who was mistaken as gay because of a misunderstanding of one word in a short conversation. He suffered 30 years of bullying, exclusion and violence yet not once did he tell his tormentors that he was not gay.
We are running an explosive promotion that can work only with a heartfelt effort by Lady Gaga’s fan sites. We need you to promote Rashomon by a mass email to your members and by displaying the saga on your site if possible. We have put a post in our little monsters forum directing Lady Gaga’s fans to your site.
It’s time to stop bullying, homophobia and hatred. Become part of Lady Gaga’s team by doing your part for the underdog.
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UMSG
.
ps
Rashomon is a 1960 Japanese movie showing different perspectives on a heinous crime.
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This is the true story of a man who was mistaken as gay for 30 years.
Malicious lies were told of him and he was ostracized from his society. He collected his tormentors lies and misdeeds until the day that he would take his revenge simply by reveling the personal secret that each hid in shame. This is that day.
Each actor in this play can confirm only their part in this ridiculous saga, which can be seen true as a whole only after all of the pieces have been proven on their face.
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First Contact: Gordy McLelland
Gordy hired a hooker to be the nanny for his 3 children while his wife was away for 2 weeks. He had the hooker parade half naked for 100 basketball players and several sworn officers of the law. story below.
email: gmclennan@newtonfallsfp.com
Employer: Newton Falls Fine Print who seem to be having some trouble with mill closings
Work Tel: (315) 848-2406
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Rashomon
This is the chronicle of a series of unfortunate events that resulted from the miscommunication of not one sentence but one word with fallout affecting my life even 30 years later. Every word is true, from my perspective, and verifiable by the people named below.
I ask you to email this story to 10 friends and ask each to do the same, in the hope that someday this letter will end up in the mailbox of one of the protagonists and that they will search out the others to confirm my tale of woe.
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“the tragic or the humorous is a matter of perspective” Arnold Beisser
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The Tale Of Mr Poo Hands
My platonic friend Colin MacDonald liked an attractive girl at his work and was making his moves for a date when a new good looking male employee was hired. Colin’s object of affection was wooed and word got around the office that she wanted the new guy to ask her out for a date.
Realizing that his window of opportunity between the boyfriend and friend zones was quickly closing Colin concocted a daring last ditch plan to put up a cock block. Colin waited for the new guy to go to the bathroom and then followed him in. After they both washed and dried their hands at the same time Colin followed him out then made a horrendously disgusted face behind his back, in the direction of a couple of coworkers.
“He went in the stall for a shit and then walked right out of the bathroom without washing his hands, it was disgusting! I am never touching anything that he’s picked up and I’m going to watch him so I’m sure. Mr Poo Hands!”
And that was it, all that it took.
Once the rumor is spoken twice it becomes a fact that would follow the new guy through his job and life outside of the office for the rest of his life: “Don’t shake hands with him, he’s Mr Poo Haaands! He gets shit on his hands and doesn’t wash after going to the toilet! The guy is fucking disgusting!”
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I look back on my life not as a continuous stream of time but in moments, instants in time that can alter the course of a life forever. A loved one dying, being told that you have cancer. One second – one word – of miscommunication that can turn the course of a life forever. After that instant in time nothing is ever the same again, like walking through the looking glass.
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Tracey Bowie (aka Smiley): The Love Of My Life
I met Tracey when I was a councilor at a UPEI summer basket ball camp which she attended as a player. I was immediately smitten but according to the unwritten camp councilor honor system suggestions one does not approach romantically the players. So each time I was laying beside some girl that I had drunkenly picked up at Gentleman Jim’s bar that week I thought – “When this camp is over …. “
A few days after returning to UPEI for the fall semester I broke up with my long time girlfriend Jen to go out with Tracey. I wanted Tracey to feel valued and for her father (ex RCM Po-lease who might have shot me) not to think that I was just going to ravish their teenage daughter, so I thought that I’d wait a week before getting to the ravishing.
7. Whole. Days.
Tracey and I were together for 4 days, the happiest 4 days of my life. Then she jumped ship and landed on the virile Jimmy Dowe of the Charlottetown Rural boys basketball team. She was rumored to say about me: “It was like going out with my brother Trevor, a girl has to get some action.”
So I took Jen back, who had lost 23 lbs starving herself over the 4 days Tracey and I were together. I knew that Jen must’ve been really happy going out with me because no matter how poorly I treated her or how many times I broke up with her or how many times I cheated on her – she always found her way back to me to apologize. And then put the weight back on nicely.
I knew that Jen would always treat me fairly when speaking to others.
I tried to set Jen up with my platonic teammate Ron Valentine, sitting Jen beside Ron at team gatherings. Nothing happened and I think that Ron thought that I might kill him out of spite.
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Mike “Bunny” Morgan: Alpha Male of the shower stalls
Mike reminded me of a velociraptor – great big legs with skinny little arms and upper body. He always jumped off two feet and had an incredible move for getting open to get his shot off. He would jump off two feet and land on both feet about 3 feet to the side where he’d launch himself with another bunny hop and sink a great 10’ jumper.
I thought that Mike would be great at breaking a full court press, he could jump around like in a Mario Brothers video game, turning sideways for two jumps to get around the defense then turning back to the basket and hopping away to the Mario Brothers music.
As amazed as I was with Mike’s bunny hop prowess I was equally amazed that this move was legal under CIAU rules. But Mike went on to be an All Canadian player while I played in the Pedicodiac River Valley men’s winter basketball league so what the fuck do I know.
Mike had a peculiar habit in the showers after practice, he would walk into one of the two occupied stalls and pivot his hips back and forth to swing his ample penis while trying to hit his opponent on the hips or the buttocks. Mike’s penis had been named The Weapon by Ayon, which told me more about Ayon than I could see about Mike. All of the players would cheer on their favorite in a one sided battle which usually included Mike and Curtis:
Curtis: “AAAAAHHHH! GIT AWAY FROM ME MIKE! DON’T TOUCH ME O LORD JESUS SAVE ME!”
“GIT HIM MIKE!”
“GIT UNDER ‘IM AND BUNNY HOP ‘IM MIKE!”
“LOOK OUT CURTIS, HE’S GOING TO CORNER YOU!”
This was the first time that I had seen a naked black man climb a sheer wall and hang from the celling.
I was somewhat concerned as I had watched enough prison movies to know what happens to pretty white boys who showered with 11 black men. But I wanted to give them a chance, to really learn the inner city culture and to understand my teammates from their perspective.
After weeks of observation and analysis of this dance I finally realized my mistake: these guys weren’t butt pirates, this was some kind of inner city shower ritual that ensured the alpha males a warm shower where hot water is a limited resource. How could I have thought these guys were fags when all they were doing was slapping their dicks against each other’s hips and ass in the shower stalls then chasing each other around the dressing room naked to the cheers of the rest of the team?
I now understood why Ron would tilt his head 15 degrees to the side and shake it back and forth while he grimaced at the spectacle. Ron didn’t think that Curtis was about to have sex that the rest of us had no business watching, Ron was thinking: “Damn! My nigga’ Curtis be git’n schoo’ed! Be cold showers again t’night.”
I was glad that I had taken the time to understand some of what it is to a black inner city ball player and that I didn’t ruin our blooming friendships but I had my grades to consider so I moved to a different residence where I could have a single room and shower behind a locked door with all the hots water I wants.
I figured that I would save a lot of time, what without all the shower bustling and penis namings, that I could devote to drinking until I could no longer remember the day’s practice.
Instants In Time
I was taking Psychology 101 from a 40 something professor who was still cool because he smoked pot. We had an open discussion on Anal Retentive Behavior and I had to admit that I was myself obsessing on details and I had to relax a bit. The professor also joked that “Anal Retentive” could be shortened to just “Anal” and we all had a great laugh and were smug in our new found knowledge.
After class I was walking toward my fortified dorm room when I crossed paths with Mike outside of the engineering building. Mike was an always friendly, warm and smiling guy and chirped out a “How ya doing!” as we approached with each other and I replied “I’m stuck in the Anal stage Mike.”
For some reason Mike didn’t laugh and his face was frozen with his mouth fully open and I deduced that Mike did not know what Anal meant.
The term anal-retentive (also anally retentive), commonly abbreviated to anal,[1] is used conversationally to describe a person who pays such attention to detail that the obsession becomes an annoyance to others, potentially to the detriment of the anal-retentive person. The term derives from Freudian psychoanalysis
My first thought was “Don’t embarrass Mike!” about his poor vocabulary. Mike was a product of UPEI’s infamous “You’re accepted if you pass your first year” enrollment policy which afforded 11 of our 12 players a chance to earn a good education for a year.
So I cut the conversation short, said bye and turned to walk away as Mike remained frozen in place, mouth still drop jaw open and his face showing a mixture of horror, terror and disgust in varying proportions.
It wasn’t until I took my third step that I realized that Mike did indeed know what Anal meant. I felt a chill sweat travel through my body and I couldn’t remember what I was suppose to be doing and finally realized that I’m a breathing animal and I had to pull air in and push it out of my lungs via my mouth.
This was one of those instants in time in which nothing was the same after as it was before and the consequence of this short greeting would certainly affect the course of my life forever.
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Ayon Pettigrew (sexual predator) – the only black man to earn the title “Poor White Trash Lazy”
Some people thought that Ayon was slimy because he took the time to carefully plan a peep hole between the men’s and women’s basketball change rooms. Ayon worked the equipment cage at night and used his time to drill a hole through both plaster board walls with a pen. But not just a straight line of sight to the opposite wall as one might think. Ayon took the time to measure the holes’ angles to give a line of sight straight through the two holes to the middle of the girls dressing room. This was the most enthusiasm and work Ayon showed as both a basketball player and student while at UPEI.
Other people thought that Ayon was slimy because he’d tape record young girls during sex then try to get them to say that he was good, then play the recordings for the team to hear while wearing his teeth together shit eater grin. “eeeyeahaaa” was a sound that I would hear once too often in the coming months.
Still other people thought that Ayon was slimy because he had a penchant for driving other peoples’ cars, and yet once again Ayon was misunderstood. You see what had happened, and what Ayon freely told the Po-lease, was that Ayon had rented the car for a week from a black guy on a street corner and there was no paper work because the black guy didn’t want to pay tax on the income.
Personally I was amazed that any black man could earn an income by renting their $75,000 luxury car from a street corner to strangers without asking for paper work or a driver’s license.
Unfortunately for Ayon the “a black guy on a street corner” defense only works for white people and I’ve always wanted to ask Ayon if was better to give a blow job or take it up the ass while in lockup.
The very best that I can say about Ayon is that he was the absolute worst university basketball player that I have ever seen. Ayon was a 5’9” guard who could not dribble twice in a row with his left hand. He could not move side to side while dribbling with his right and could only go straight ahead after revving up for 2 seconds, his tell. Ayon could neither sink a 15 footer nor a left hand layup and was sketchy at best when defended on the right. He could only pass to an open stationary man and could not remember the simplest of offensive plays, often blaming his missteps on the defense. Coach Hilton openly called him “The Excuse Man”.
How did this happen? Who was to blame?
Certainly not Coach Hilton who had inherited the team intact as the interim coach. Cutting Ayon from the team would be the pleasure of the new full time coach the following year.
Certainly not assistant coach Courtney Betty who had somehow learned how to put Ayon out of his head during his previous year as a player.
And perhaps not even the stately Coach David Nutbrown who had recruited Ayon as a 31 year old working part time in a Mr Sneaker outlet. It was actually the strain of coaching Ayon that was the catalyst for Dave’s decent into madness until finally Nutsy was banished to a locked gym at Acadia University, never again to enjoy the red sands of Prince Edward Island.
The first day of pick up I was playing defense on Ayon when he pretended a two handed pass over my head and when I turned around to follow the pass Ayon pulled the ball back over my head. When I turned back Ayon, still holding the ball above his head with 2 hands, fashioned his best shit eater grin and through clenched teeth and said “eeeyeahaaa”.
I thought “Huh, they do that in university ball?” I quickly made a devilish plan and the very next time up the floor when Ayon faked his pass again I put both arms straight up in the air, stood up and walked backwards, knocking the ball from Ayon’s hands. I turned to pick up the ball and passed it to Billy Redman so he could do some kind of Larry Bird thing and I could learn something about basketball from the day.
Confident that I had seen Ayon’s entire repertoire I was awed when he adapted so quickly. Instead of faking the pass Ayon would still hold the ball with two hands but was now moving the ball to the back of his head and bending forward at the waist while looking me in the eyes. “eeeyeahaaa”.
Out foxed I retired to my own private dorm room (now named Masada), showered, then set about my nightly ritual of spending an hour meditating on the day’s hoops, from the change in temperature between the outer and inner gym doors to my escape from shower bustling after practice.
I came up with a move that would later evolve into a rebound steal that won me so many friends among forwards in the Moncton Beer League (MBL). When Ayon took the ball up and back I would put my hand by Ayon’s forehead, palm away from head. When he brought the ball forward, which he had to do at some time, I would flick my wrist and knock the ball out of Ayon’s hands, pick up the ball, pass to Billy. I practiced the move in my room that night then again the next day in the gym during my 2 hour pre practice practice. I was ready.
Fortuned smiled upon me that day as my defensive move worked one hundred percent of the time. I thought that I was the cat’s meow until my physics professor told me that mater cannot occupy the same space with other mater so my ploy was about as complicated as dropping a coin in a gum ball machine. She was Asian so I figured that she knew what she was talking about and I was humbled.
As time went on I saw that no one was going to do anything about Ayon so I decided to blind him.
The next practice Ayon went into his regular “eeeyeahaaa” routine and I moved my right hand from it’s usual forehead high to chin high, palm up. When Ayon bent at the waist I drove the middle finger of my right hand into his left eye socket up to the second knuckle, using Ayon’s own forward momentum against himself. He only got to “ee …”. I thought that that ought to do it but when Ayon’s skull slowly feel off my finger and onto the floor I noticed that there was no blood or eye juice and I knew that couldn’t be good.
I’m not sure how long Ayon was out of practice but as the maxim goes: a minute is an instant in the arms of a beautiful woman but an eternity over a flame. Ayon was gone but for an instant and back for what seemed an eternity.
For all this Ayon might have been my best friend on the team. After I became Mr Poo Hand’s Ayon tried to set me up with teammate Evan Forbes by telling me that Evan said that I was rugged. I always meant to thank Evan for the compliment but I’d have to hurt his feelings by telling him “Sorry man, I’m not gay.”
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Down Town Curtis Brown: The King Of Smooth
I have never had nor will I ever have anything but good to say about The King. Like his soulmate Ron, Curtis was always a gentleman’s gentleman.
There were 3 distinct situations on the court in which all eyes had to be on Curtis and this was when he was at his best, a showman.
The first is when Curtis ran fast down the left side of the court, catching the ball and changed direction 90 degrees, getting 30” off the ground in a quarter second. Perfect form jumper from 25 feet that hits nothing but net.
The second was when he did his run from the left side dribbling right handed, turn sideways jump and dunk with his right hand over his head as he floats towards the baseline.
And the third and most important of course was to do his pretend defensive slide back below our foul line extended after completing one or two, palms out chest high, eyes bulged, lips pursed and looking straight ahead into nothing while not breathing.
I needed a test subject and Curtis was it, easily the fastest runner from free throw line to free throw line on the team. But how could I use my knowledge of Curtis’ game for the advantage of all humanity?
Earlier that day I walked by a TV that showed two guys running into each other full speed then flying backwards about 10’. “No way!” Little did I know they wore wires to pull the runners backwards and no one bothered to tell me. This was an invitation to disaster.
As the team warmed up for post season scrimmage I tossed the ball in the general direction of the hoop while I scanned the team with my peripheral vision, judging Curtis’ energy level for the day. I had decided that the only way to get Curtis to terminal velocity while looking up was to create an open court loose ball situation that could quickly develop into a sideways dunk if Curtis picked off the loose ball in time, a rare pleasure.
I read the play like a book and I reached my maximum speed just before Curtis redirected his momentum to jump upward for the loose ball. Terminal velocity! Criss Cross!
I was shocked when my experiment didn’t produce results anything like those on TV. My eye’s flashed white and my left arm was numb and I had a pain in the left side of my chest. I circled Curtis’ prone body counter clockwise, opening and closing my left fist to work out the numbness in the arm. My left lung was paralyzed too so I had to suck in air though clenched teeth and snort it out though my nose in what must have sounded like an angry predator snarling as it circled it’s downed prey because our team mates formed a semi circle about 4 feet out from my circling radius and watched Curtis wondering if he was going to die.
What hurt me more that the crushing realization that I’d never breath normally again was my fear that Curtis would be depressed by our failure. But as Curtis had always been there for me in the past he came through big this time with his best William Shatner in The Wrath of Khan, reaching from death’s door as Curtis reached up from the floor: “K’all! K’all!” (You have to say each syllable with one outward breath, like you’re coughing the word, the last sentence all in one breath, start again) “K’all! K’all! I’m going to kill you K’all!”
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Doris MacPhee: Jesus’ roll model
Doris was a cute little girl with nothing upstairs, neither in her chest nor her mind. I helped her through a relatively simple finance class taught by professor Bob Rorak. The 3 segments of this crippling business course were simple linear algorithms so I thought the tutoring would be easy. Have you ever spent your night with a female Scooter?
Doris repaid me for my kindness one night by yelling to me “We’re going to pick up some guys, wanna come?”, then enjoying a good laugh with her clique A true catholic if ever there was one. I followed Doris to church one day to see what that might get me and Father Pete said “Good for you, I knew that you’d come to us eventually.”
Doris hopped groups for the final project of the degree so she could bask in the holiness of an all heterosexual group, just as Jesus would do. So to fuck with her tiny mind I told her that I was going to get an 80 on the course then got exactly that. I did George the same way after I got tired of class and flunked 4 of 5 courses just because I refused to be bullied into writing exams. I told George not to worry about it, that I’d make the dean’s list next semester. Which I did to the decimal point and zeros over 5 classes.
I met Doris for the last time at a women’s alumni basketball game, I asked her when she played next, that I’d come watch the game. Doris replied:
“No don’t come.”
I was denied yet again.
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Ria and Paula: A most unfortunate sequence of events
I had been working on the north shore of PEI for the summer, running a shock and awe campaign from my latest travesty of business. When I went back to UPEI I dropped by the gym and met 2 of the most beautiful young ladies that I had seen in some time, Ria and Paula.
We talked and got to know each other a bit, but I was in a rocky relationship with a girlfriend who would later become my wife, the mother of my only child, and soon after my ex wife. I had acquired the most perplexing habit of not cheating on girlfriends, which I would regret for years. I could never ask out either Paula or Ria until I was single. Code.
Later that weekend I made my way back to the gym, hoping that I wouldn’t have to pick between my two new friends. I walked up to the equipment room smiling a “Hi” at my best buddies and they stared at me unspeaking, a disgusted look on both faces. I had been at the beach all sumer and hadn’t thought about him for even an instant but I was once again Mr Poo Hands.
A few years later I brought a couple of players from Dalhousie and Acadia University to an Island tournament, 2 excellent young men: Reggie Obletay and Dave. I picked them up in Halifax as neither had a car and we chatted during the 6 hour drive at night because of the white out snow storm. They crashed at my place, we played some afternoon hoops the next day, then headed to the tournament becoming fast friends. After our Friday night game we all headed to Smiley’s bar and got blind drunk. Reggie and Ria made friends and I was happy for them because they were both great people.
The next morning I was in the change room when Reggie came in glaring at the floor. I said “Hi” and Reggie glared at me without speaking, looking like he’d lash out at me if he dared. The term “Tough Basketball Player” is an oxymoron, sure I’ll always have Rodman and Charles Barkley but where is the love in today’s NBA?
Perhaps the last time I shot hoops in the old UPEI gym was the same last time that I saw Mike Morgan. It was early in the fall, before the allowed preseason when it was still illegal, under CIAU rules for a coach to be in the gym with the players. I remember this because Coach George Morrison walked the length of the gym to Mike and said “Go tell that fucking cocksucker to get the fuck out of the gym!”
How do I know this? I had studied George when I was a player and his body convulsed when he swore and convulsed differently with different words. We had heard fuck, fucking and cocksucker enough to know the convulsion signs. If we wanted to look.
George’s first year as a coach was tough, he was rather new to basketball and the task before him was daunting. During his first year George asked me to come to his office to talk about co captains. This didn’t concern me as my ex roommate and good friend TJ Allean was the team leader and captain and the other position was merely a sign of respect, as was George’s talking to me about the mater as he had already decided to go with Mike and TJ. I could use the time saved from pretending to listen to the referees at half court before tipoff to meditate until I no longer heard George’s voice and could finally think about the upcoming game.
George asked me who I would pick as co captains, I wanted to make him work a bit so I said that TJ and I were the only ones I’d pick. George said “So would I but black players only respect superior athletic ability.” to which I replied “Then you have to go with Mike.” who surpassed me both in athletics and social hierarchy centered around their hive of rooms at the residence. Mike was the correct choice for the team. I said goodbye and left through the side door to avoid being pulled into any wayward shower bustling. Verbatim.
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Years later, while training in UFC style fighting with my good friend and wrestling coach Tony Cecchine (Catch Wrestling) and my boxing sparring partner and good friend Mark Adams (Canadian pro boxing champion, 7 national titles) that I learned just how fragile a human life is and I therefore trained my club to respect life by following the maxim “If you break your toys you’ve got nothing to play with.” I would often enunciate that rule by randomly smashing my teammates with a broom stick while they sparred, screaming orders that even I did not understand. Platonic brotherly love.
Scortched Earth
I think back about Mike from time to time and one of my painful regrets in life was that I didn’t reach out with one hand and crush his windpipe like a vacuum cleaner hose then walk away while he died. As Prince Edward Island has Canada’s longest standing “Blacks can’t own land” law the homicide would be labeled “suicide by self throat strangulation”. If anyone ever tied me to the corpse I could used Prince Edward Island’s “The black man came at me” defense. Now my only respite from regret lies in the prayer:
So long as we draw breath there is hope.
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Raymond Burns: Dreams of young boys naked and covered in maple syrup.
I did some house painting during the summers when I was in University and hired Ray and two other junior high kids to do tasks that I didn’t want to do, mostly painting. I paid them by how high they’d climb a ladder, Ray made $20 on a good week and he wasn’t the lowest paid painter on the crew.
When I moved back to my home town after being away for a few years I saw this old guy with thinning male baldness pattern hair and bulging gut that looked like Ray and I wondered if it was his father. It was Ray. The ball players around town called him “Mr Burns” – not as a sign of respect, rather that his personality’s resemblance to the Simpson’s character.
The first time I went to a gym that year Ray was coaching a junior high girls team, another invitation to disaster. My exotically beautiful yet platonic friend Krista Harrison told me that Ray had told all of his players when they looked my way to see who came in the gym “Don’t bother with him, he’s gay.” Thank you Mike.
I let this slide as a gimme and took Ray on a few drive arounds after a girl would pick me up at a running event and we’d go to a casino hotel or go sailing, and at each place Ray would go off to a corner and sulk instead of picking up my routine as I had hoped. I was good to Ray, he had more problems than being physically disgusting.
Krista and I played on the same summer basket ball team, I taught her how to yell at people while playing and she fed me raw gossip from our basketball circuit. The latest news from Ray was that I was stalking Krista and I thanked her for the heads up.
This was the last straw for Ray who I screamed at incoherently. As if Mr Poo Hands wasn’t enough. Ray got me later by saying that I took a girl from the high school basketball team, who had an incredible ass, sailing for an afternoon. If only.
The last I’d heard about Ray was from a newspaper when he had a misunderstanding with the law similar to Ayon’s. As with Ayon, Ray was not to blame, it was a simple misunderstanding of a couple of points in a couple statutes. Regrettable Ray must now inform his neighbors each time he moves and cannot live within 400 yards of a school.
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Scooter MacKay (AKA Tosk): Ritalin’s poster child
Scooter had never been closer to death than at this moment in time.
I heard no sound, through neither my ears nor my mind, and the entirety of the universe was focused on Scooter’s head on the floor below me.
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Scooter, Gordy and I were driving to some beer league outdoor half court tournament early one Saturday morning. I don’t like getting up early for any reason, let alone for a game on pavement and with clanky rims. I was tired, I was sick to my stomach and I just didn’t want to be there and only did so I could laugh at Gordy and trip Scooter on asphalt. My eye balls were aching and Scooter was going to pay for it.
Gordy, as usual, was going on about some story he had stolen off the CBC radio earlier in the week while he was driving around selling paper or whatever the fuck he does. I remember this CBC story in particular because I had heard it two days before on the CBC radio and the caller didn’t sound anything like Gordy.
It seems that Imaginary Gordy and his university roommates would cook hotdogs in the same water all week and then on Friday they would make something disgusting like hotdog water soup or Kraft dinner or something. Pretty much exactly like the guy as the radio but with a different voice. Which was quite a coincidence once again.
Scooter was sitting in the middle of the van’s back seat, bouncing up and down with a ready question about cooking hot dogs in the same water day after day whenever Gordy slowed his story. True symbiosis.
My head was splitting, I was near insanity from playing with Scooter and Gordy and the only good thing in the entire tournament was watching Chris Roworth saunter down the key on defense then get his elbow above the rim and toss his opponent’s shot out of bounds. It was interesting to see a glimpse of the man who was before he crawled into the bottle.
I had made it though the day and was walking out of the gym with Scooter when he inexplicably jumped off his feet and put me in a flying head lock. I hadn’t had any headlock escape training at this time and with each moment my rage was increasing at an exponential rate, like the ever increasing tension in a fault line just before an earthquake.
The entire world disappeared, I grabbed Scooter by the balls to get him to let go of the headlock and brought my hand up into a hammer fist to pound Scooter’s head into 14 pieces of skull with brain mater and blood over much of the gym floor.
Why didn’t I kill him? Scooter scurried back so fast in horror that I thought that he was Curtis. A piece of floor opened between us and I knew that: not only would I not get the blood cleaned from the floor before discovery, Gordy would never let me take Scooter’s body in the Gordo Van.
And those two reasons are why Scooter McKay is alive today.
Why did I grab Scooters balls to get him to let go of the headlock, breaking the unwritten Bro rule?
1. It worked.
2. As there can be no pact between man and lion there can be no pact between Scooter and I.
To this day I regret not killing Scooter, it seems that I have a lot of regrets in life. I thought that maybe Scooter couldn’t be killed so I designed a series of experiments to test my hypothesis.
I don’t want to make it seem like Scooter and I didn’t have any good times in our platonic partnership, we had a great summer league team with only 7 players so we could get a good run in. We beat a team by 100 points because they disrespected us by bringing their girlfriends to the game. In fact we only lost one game all summer, to a group of 16 to 19 year old kids who had to drive in from a small community 90 minutes away in their borrowed parents’ cars. Good kids, played great and beating us was like going to Disney Land for them. Polite, well mannered and gracious in victory.
We walked silently to the car and I thought about the day’s game, where we went wrong. As I put on my seatbelt I realized that once again I had only Scooter to blame for our loss so out of pure spite I started my car and backed into the passenger’s side of the other team’s ride.
I took my time getting my insurance papers then slowly got out of the car, tilting chin to chest and looking at the kid as a predator stalking it’s prey. I slowly wrote out my insurance information without saying a word, stopping my writing every few digits to glare at the kid.
I held the insurance paper between the thumb and index finger of my right hand palm up, upper arm against my side so the kid had to take a half step forward and reach out to get the paper, all the time holding back his tears.
I got in my car without saying a word and turned left onto the street so Scooter and I could glare at their team as we drove by. The kid was now openly sobbing and still holding the insurance paper between thumb and forefinger of his left hand. I thought of calling the kid’s parents before he got home and telling them that the kid was doing donuts in the parking lot and hit my car but it seemed like overkill.
We’ve got our shower rituals too and Scooter and I were the alpha males of the parking lot. On any given day you couldn’t know if we were going to mediate parking disputes or make the players empty the gym and move theirs cars so we could park diagonally over the 8 spaces closest to the school.
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Scooter, Gordy, Pete and I were playing 2 on 2 at the Mt A University gym one Saturday afternoon and Scooter was screwing the pooch as usual. He wouldn’t play defense and was standing flat footed on the free throw line while checking the ball to me so I lit him up with a couple of 3s hoping to find some spark of dignity. What I found nearly cost Scooter his life once again.
Scooter started ticking my elbow to a side when I shot, he couldn’t get to the ball so he was screwin’ around. I called him on it and he gave me the “Oh you’re not going to call that are you?” So the next play I didn’t call it.
Scooter picked up the loose ball and stretched out his stride for an easy right hand layup. I stood up, flat footed and straight back, and as Scooter ran by me I reached my left arm straight out, picked him up by his chest and threw him backwards and down, bouncing the back of his head off the gym’s hardwood floor.
As I looked down at Scooter I was amazed at how peaceful he looked with his eyes shut and lying on the floor and I thought that he must be dead but suddenly Scooter jumped up and said “I’m out of here.” and left. Gordy turned to watched him walk out of the gym until Scooter could no longer been seen, then said to no one in particular “I’ve never seen that before.”
This left Gordy, Pete and I to play 3 way one on one (no pun intended) bringing us to the next Scooter chapter.
To get distance from me Scooter went to the one place that he thought I’d never go: UPEI. So I made sure that UPEI’s first home basketball game that year was against the Moncton Beer League All Star Team.
Little did Scooter anticipate the treatment he would receive at UPEI when he mentioned my name in the athletic department: Coach Hilton rolled out the red carpet and embraced Scooter like his own lost child, a sure spot on the team, preferential treatment in the dinning hall. Not quite what Scooter had expected.
I got the MBL team ready, starting early in the year. We overwhelmed a frightened Mount Allison University which closely resembled a poorly coached high school team. We doubled them in 147 of the 148 10 minute games we played that afternoon.
We had to leave early after the 148th game because it was Halloween and Ted, Gary and Kevin had earlier broken into Biage’s house and had stolen 3 of Biage’s Royal Canadian Mounted Po-lease uniforms and now Teddy wanted to get some beer and drive his truck drunk in full costume.
We went to the University of New Brunswick and doubled them with a team consisting of an All Canadian center, an all conference forward, 2 semi pro guards and a drunk All Conference Teddy Branch coming off the bench as 6 man when sober.
I was now ready for Scooter.
Late in the week before the big UPEI game my key players started dropping out: our All Canadian center coached a high school basketball team and couldn’t go; our left side semi pro guard had to work; and I think that Chris wanted to get started drinking early so he could stay ahead of Ted for the night. Believe it or not in this part of the world players of this quality are hard to replace on short notice.
Concern turned into worry when the guys showed up at the UPEI gym and Teddy was limping and Biage was shuffling. I asked what had happened and was told that Biage, a Po-lease, wouldn’t let Teddy drink in the car so he got in the trunk for the drive over.
Our only hope for the game had been to get a few good minutes out of Ted between beer timeouts. We now played without hope.
The game was no longer about winning or loosing but about slowing the tempo down enough for Biage to shuffle from key to key, arms bent up at the elbows and hands out like a praying mantis. Biage shuffled up and down the court like Mr Burns on the Simpsons and I hoped that I never had to help him up if he fell down because he’d surely get a spiral fracture in his arm from osteoporosis.
I split my game time between distributing the ball on offense to whoever wasn’t dry heaving that trip up the court and the rest of my time full court pressing a university team by myself in the hopes that I could give Biage an extra 2 or 3 seconds to get back to our key on defense. All the while lulling UPEI into a walking stupor that no one noticed. I didn’t want this fetal atrocity to become a game.
We were behind by 20 points near the end of the game and no one had any gas left in their tank. While Teddy opened his second beer of the timeout I unfocussed my eyes and saw George mouthing to his hunched team “That cocksucker hasn’t scored a fucking basket all game and I fucking don’t fucking want him to. You cocksuckers get up above the fucking 3 point line on fucking defense! Fuckdidlyfuckfuckfuck!”
So after Drop Jaw Gordy inbounded the ball to me in our back court I dribbled up the court so close to George on the sideline that he could have reached on to the court and pulled my Sleaman’s jersey then I drilled a 27 footer in George’s eye, my only shot of the game. George went fucking ballistic at his closest guard and I near feel down and pissed myself laughing.
The game was over and we were humiliated by 20 points, my plan for Scooter didn’t come to fruition and Gordy was warming up his story voice for the trip home. Once again things did not turn out as I had planned.
It was time to fuck with George. (racist homophobe)
George was happy with the way his team played the game and equally happy that Grant MacDonald, Steve Gillet and Chris Roworth didn’t show up for his first home game of the season. He told his guys good job, shake hands, I’ll see you in the locker room in a few minutes.
George was gracious and I apologized whole heartedly and sincerely for bringing this rotting corpse of a team to waste his and his team’s time. I remembered that he had told me years ago that if a team gets beat by 20 points they should forfeit their guarantee and I was so humiliated that I could only agree and suggested giving him referee and coffee money as well.
Out of respect I asked George to tell his guards that I wasn’t full court pressing by myself for the full 40 minutes because I thought that I could steal the ball from them even once but to slow down the game just enough so Biage could get back on defense before we changed to offense. I pointed out Biage’s arthritis and when George turned he saw for the first time that night not the legend but the man who is Biagio Caresse, still shuffling back to our bench even then, his gnarled arms twisted in the Steven Hawkins pose.
I apologized for not bringing the all stars I had promised. I apologized even more for Gordy, who along with 2 of our 7 players had not played high school basketball. And last but not least I apologized for Teddy who was now passed out drunk laying flat on the bleachers with a beer dangling from his hand.
George silently looked from player to player, finally seeing what I saw. His breathing came deep as though he were holding back a great force.
I once again thanked George for not trouncing us and told him of the team that Scooter and I had beaten by 100 points in summer league just because they disrespected us by bringing their girlfriends to a game. George nodded in agreement, eyes now bulging and pupils fully dilated, still staring dumb founded at my team as Biage, god love him, made his final turned for the final leg of his journey back to our bench. I said that if a team comes onto my court they better show some respect and come ready to play. I knew then what a man looked like just before having a stroke.
George and I said our goodbyes and the rest of the story comes though Scooter’s eyes.
George came into practice the week before and called the team together to tell them about our up coming game. According to Scooter it went something like this:
“That cocksucker might bring over NBA cocksuckers then you cocksuckers will all be on the fucking court sucking cock together! FUCK!”
I personally thought that George communicated with his team through enigma code but I could not for the life of me figure out how the players deciphered and interpreted the orders in real time.
The team was stoked when George told them that they had played well and the dressing room was a veritable Good Time Charlie bar that night. The players smiled and laughed, talking about their exploits when a mighty crash jolted them upright as one and George stormed into the dressing room. All present averted their gaze and shied away, hoping that it was another who had brought forth the demon. George came into the room blazing, throwing every sneaker, every piece of clothing 360 degrees at the same time while the team dove for the corners.
“YOU FUCKING COCKSUCKERS COULDN’T BEAT THOSE BROKEN DOWN FUCKING COCKSUCKERS BY MORE THAN 20 FUCKING COCKSUCKING POINTS?! YOU WILL RUN AND RUN AND FUCKING RUN UNTIL YOU’RE TOO FUCKING TIRED TO SUCK COCK AND THEN YOU’LL RUN AGAIN YOU FUCKING COCKDIDLEFUCKINGCOCKFUCKINGSUCKERS! FUCK!”
I won’t get into the rest but as I understood the situation from Scooter no one on the team could understand what had happened to George between the team huddle after the game and the locker room 10 minutes later. All that we all can be sure of is that Scooter sure did run for the next few days.
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Post Script:
Theodore Branch is now a sworn officer of the law keeping Ottawa’s streets safe from drunk drivers.
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One night I was on the telephone with Tracey Bowie and I had no idea how that had happened.
I could not think of even one reason why Tracey would call me and I had no idea where she was or how to get ahold of her and we hadn’t talked since university so I could only conclude that Scooter and I had been out drinking earlier that evening. I thought “Well, make hay” so I asked Tracey if I could come to visit her, wherever that was. She said “Sure, but you’re sleeping on the floor.” I thought “No problem, it’d be great to see Tracey aga … oh yeah, Mr Poo Hands.”
I wished Tracey well and said my good nights and that was the last time I talked to my soulmate.
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Gordy McLelland: passive aggressive manipulator
email: gmclennan@newtonfallsfp.com
Employer: Newton Falls Fine Print who seem to be having some trouble with mill closings
Work Tel: (315) 848-2406
Most people said that I kept Gordy on the team just so I could have someone to laugh and yell at and they were right. Gordy had never played high school ball and it showed, but I analyzed Gordy’s game and found a spot on the left baseline for him where he could do the least damage.
The first thing I did when Gordy came on the floor for warm up before a game was to figure out if we’d be seeing Level Head Gordy or Drop Jaw Gordy that night. Level Head Gordy was almost tolerable, he might tie his season high 4 points by canning 2 of 9 jumpers from 10 feet out on the left baseline, flat bald head perfectly level, and be mostly benign on defense. I had one rule when we played: no zone defense, so we couldn’t hide Gordy and I had to direct the ball to the opposite side of the floor from where Gordy had dug in and was defending his Maginot Line from all comers.
Drop Jaw Gordy was another animal entirely.
If I let Gordy drift into the key like a forward or edge out to the side of the court like a guard I may as well have just run back on defense then and there. Off his baseline habitat Gordy would catch the ball and hold it a foot and a half in front of him while looking straight ahead. He didn’t even square up to the hoop, he just put one foot about 4 feet in front of the other, chest over front knee and head angled up so he could see, and his neck muscles pulled his jaw open. Try it.
To see different players Drop Jaw Gordy would pivot to face them as he could only see straight ahead, often turning to what seemed completely random angles to the hoop. My biggest fear was that Drop Jaw Gordy would inadvertently disable one of our contributing players during warm up, it was like dealing with Pee Wee Herman and a slightly more pathetic Pee Wee Herman with a deluded sense of self entitlement.
Biage always seemed to be running a practical joke of some kind, often mixing the short con jokes with a long con joke so no one could figure out what was going on, he kept us in stitches and we bowed before his genius. Gordy watched the admiration that Biage received and wanted it for his own, a Gollum of the soul. “My Precious.”
Only Gordy didn’t understand that the quality of laughter lie not only in humiliating a friend for the amusement of others but as well for the love of designing a complex sequence of events and watching the dominos fall by themselves as the joke progressed into an inevitable preplanned outcome. Like putting a coin in a gum ball machine, regardless the course the gum has to come out eventually.
Gordy’s practical jokes were simply to get someone to say something then schmoozing with whatever athletes or business people he could attach himself to and concoct a story to make himself out to be an avenging genius humiliating imbeciles. Think: Hot Dog Water Soup Gordy.
Gordy’s name came up on my call display one day, years since I had seen him last, and I thought “What’s the game.” Seems that Gordy and a friend were starting a business and he thought that it would be great for me and that they needed me to make the business work. What an opportunity.
So I let Gordy beg me to visit him 2 hours away until he finally said “Well am I going to have to come to see you?” And my brain exploded “Fuck No!” How do you get rid of Gordy in your own town? A more neutral setting was required.
As Gordy lay the business plan before me I thought that it sounded a whole lot like groceries by mail and I knew then and there that I wanted in and that I was getting 3 weeks free groceries by mail even if I had to get Scooter to call Gordy telling him that he wanted onboard as my downline.
But Gordy had no brochures, not even a black and white on plain paper. He would not let me sample the service before signing up, there was no preparation or forethought and his only goal was to get a binary answer that he could exploit. All that he wanted was for me to say that I was in, asking this again and again and again so he could tell his schmoozing buddies that he made a fool of someone.
I had witnessed enough. Wanting no more of Gordy I told him that I had to leave because I was getting my brain waves scanned in the next strip mall over by a woman who was working towards her massage therapy certificate. It seems that my brain had been running too fast on one side and I had to adjust the idle. He sincerely looked concerned, this was the first time that I had seen real empathy in the face and ample forehead of Gordy McLelland.
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The day before leaving for an away tournament Gordy called me to say that he had flown in a nanny in from Calgary while his wife was away for 2 weeks and that the nanny would be coming on the trip with he and the kids. I found this odd, both the reason for the telephone call and the veracity of Gordy’s claim. Again I waited for Gordy to come to me.
I was already at the gym when Gordy’s brood walked in. I looked for the nanny and immediately thought “Damn! My nigga’ Gordy makin’ some serious coin an’ be spendin’ it wisely!” Everyone in the gym stopped what they were doing and turned to watch her climb the bleachers, like hounds stalking a rabbit. It occurred to me that everyone might know something that I did not.
Leaving the Hotel later for Smiley’s bar (no, another Smiley) this beautiful young lady looked up at me smiling and said “Gordy’s say’s that I’m to be with you tonight.” Never had a sweeter sentence been spoken. Gordy had finally found true altruism as there is no greater demonstration of platonic brotherly love than loaning someone your hooker.
We got to the bar which was packed with the players from all the teams and she took off her coat for me to check and all that she had on was a bra. She told me that this was the fashion in Calgary and I said that I know where I moving to. As we walked into the bar the legion of ball players parted like the Red Sea and she and I strolled through as royalty.
As the night went on I smiled my thanks to Gordy in the bar and wondered who was looking after his 3 children at the hotel.
She stayed beside me at our table all night, intelligent, articulate and gorgeous, a geisha. We left the bar together to a roaring cheer, I was now the conquering hero with poo about to be washed from my hands. We drove around the harbor like a real date, comfortable conversation as she curled up in the passengers seat pulling my jacket close around her.
This is where my madness began.
I walked her to her room and she asked me if I’d like to come in yet somehow I heard my voice saying “I’m married.” It was as if my mind were torn asunder and I had broken my brain. I kissed her on her cheek and went back to our room to see what Scooter had done with the drunken sasquatch he had found.
What had I done. What had I done.
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I am not nor I have never been homosexual. I am not nor have I ever been bi sexual. I am not nor have I ever been bi curious. I have never had sexual contact with a male. I have never propositioned a male. I am completely heterosexual.
I will not become Tom Cruise fighting a sand storm that can never be stopped.
It would have been nice to stay in contact with some old friends from basketball but people are just uncomfortable when they’ve been told that I’m a bi sexual or a necrophiliac. I am creeped out my own bad self when around some homosexuals, if they stare at me too long. I just want to be gone but I know that some fag will look at my ass while I walk away. I understand the uneasiness.
This will be the last I talk on the subject and I want to be perfectly clear so there is no doubt left about my sexuality:
Fags give me the willies!
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I ask you to email this story to 10 friends and ask each to do the same, in the hope that someday this letter will end up in the mailbox of one of the protagonists and that they will search out the others to confirm my tale of woe.
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So long as we draw breath there is hope.
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I don’t know who wrote the above, but its all true. I wish I could figure out who it is. I have a few names in mind, as I recall twho was there when we got dressed up in Mounti Uniforms and went down to theShediac Hotel for Halloween. Bar tab was high, and i got stuck with most of it. We were a bunch of guys trying to play ball and have fun. We succeeded at both.
Ok, just scrolled above and saw that karl Doucett was the author of the B-ball and drinking stories. Damn, forgot about little karl. Gordy always had something on the go for us. He would sign us up for tournaments and then beg us to attend after the fact.