The Floating Backboard In The Sea

Tales of the Seafaring Backboards: Tale One ___ by J.J. Solari

Every Morning would find Leroy at the seashore. Leroy no longer spent his nights at home. This was not unusual for Leroy, he had never spent his nights at home, he had spent his nights burglarizing houses, hijacking cars, selling drugs, killing imagined foes after firing fusilades of bullets at his close-up human targets, most of them missing because of the retarded way he would turn his pistol causing 90% of his shots to miss, fucking white chicks in the rectum, and then beating the shit out of them, and drinking. But these nights he would stand at the shore and gaze out to sea at The Floating Backboard. The Floating Backboard was illuminated with powerful and colorful and ever-changing light displays. It had a sound system attached that constantly played the mesmerizing and intense repetitious throbbing pulse of In Da Club by Pipty Tent. Confettii was eternally twinkling and turning and falling in cascading showers from some invisible mechanism. But most tantalizing of all was the perfectly intact string net that hung in white beauteous grandeur from the glowing orange rim. Basketball nets were the only white things in the universe that Leroy liked. As the sun would rise and overpower the lights of the distant Floating Backboard, Leroy would fall asleep, standing in place, his life force shutting down as the sun came up. Leroy would sleep, then, on his feet, in perfect balance, the ability to sleep in virtually any position and at any hour the proud hallmark of his race. Then in the evening as the sun would set the lights of the Floating Backboard would again come into brightness, and by midnight Leroy would be in a wide awake trance rather than a sound asleep trance, and staring at the Floating Backboard, much as seafarers would once listen to the Sirens. The Sirens lived on shore and drew men from the sea. The Floating Backboard lived at sea and called Negroes from the land. Leroy would often ponder, staring at the lure far far away, he would often ponder how he might reach it. "I kood yo 'teal a bote yo an' den dribe de bote yo out to da bakbode yo and t'row some hoops yo." And then Leroy would get sad. "But alas, I cannot swim, ite. I be sink like de stone. I be goes down to de bottom like a anvil. Whatebber a anvil iz." "Why an anvil is a steel dead-weight, used by blacksmiths to make horse shoes," said an articulate white man, approaching Leroy in his frustration. "I think I can help you."
"Yo sho can," said Leroy, pulling a pistol. "Yo can help me to yo WAHLITT!!!!" and he stuck the pistol barrel sideways against the white man's chest. The white man produced a basketball from behind his back and Leroy dropped the pistol and began to tremble and weep. "Can I hab dat pleez?" Leroy begged. The white man said "Why yes of course you can," and he handed the basketball to Leroy. Leroy held and turned it slowly in his hands, fulfilled, and yet feeling a strange frustration. "I can see that you are confused," the white man offered. "You have the basketball and yet you suspect that there is more to life. And of course there is. You need a backboard. With a full intact net without shreds or rips to make life perfect. And yet you cannot swim. You are confused. Frustrated. Being prevented from reaching your goal and your potential and your destiny as a proud black man. You feel it is time to go on a looting rampage and a killing spree with an automatic shoulder weapon. But listen to what I will tell you. The basketball is full of air. Air floats. If you hold onto the basketball and hold it in front of you and lay atop the waves and use your legs as propulsion, that means go forward, you can reach the Floating Backboard without sinking. The basketball will hold you up." The negro man said "YU LYIN" TA ME YU FUKKIN" LYIN" PEECE O" LYIN" FUKKIN WHITE FUKKIN" PEECE O" SHIT MUVVA FUKKA CUZ I WILL FUKKIN FUCK YU UP IF YU LYIN" TO ME NOME SANE????" " Yes, I know what you are saying, and, no, I am not lying to you, everything I have told you is actually the truth. Or 'troof,' if you will." "If I will what." "It's not important." Leroy looked at the basketball in his hands and then looked out at the backboard floating afar off in the sea, and listening to the constant, movement-motivating, driving insistence of In Da Club being pulsated across the dark water by the ten-million-dollar seaproof Bose, Altec Lansing combined speaker system. Leroy looked at the ball in his hands. He looked out at the backboard, watching it changing to every intense bright color in the spectrum, one after the other, like a presentation at the WWE with everything around it in Total Majestic Activity, even including spraying and exploding fireworks, the only thing missing the bellowing voice of Vince McMahon standing in a wrestling ring and yelling into a microphone for Leroy to come out there and fight him. "Yu sho' dat dis belubbed basketball what I now hold and treasure in my powerful and neck-squeezin' powerful big black Negro hands, ite, will hold me up in de wattah?" he asked the white man hopefully. "Let's walk out into the water a bit and let's do an experiment," the white man said. "Yu mean go IN de wattuh?" Leroy said in disbelief. "That's right. We will go in the water." "Sound krazee ta me but ite." They waded in, and the white man said "Now place the basketball on the water and push it down." Leroy said "Ite." Then he said "It hawd." The white man said "What?" Leroy said "It hawd. It hawd ta do." "That's because the basketball is full of air. And air floats." "It don' sink?" "No. Air floats. That means if you hold onto the basketball and splash with your legs behind you the basketball will hold you up so you can get to the backboard." "Yo' lyin'?" "No. I am not lying." "Ite." With that Leroy went farther into the water and then laid flat and held the basketball out in front of him and began to kick and slowly he made his way toward the Floating Backboard. Oh the excitement and happiness he was feeling!! Closer and closer came the Floating Backboard to Leroy! Closer and closer came Leroy to the Floating Backboard! In Da Club was now vibrating his every bone in his every skeleton connection and in his every nerve in his entire nervous system and the Floating Backboard came closer and closer and became brighter and more exciting and the lights flashed and the confetti fell and it was a moment most glorious!! He came within field-goal range and with a deftness and precision beautiful to behold he held the ball with one hand against the back of it and the other underneath it and brought both hands above his forehead and with a beautiful snap of wrist and push of fingers sent the ball sailing toward the bright orange rim but never touching it and INTO the new, never-used net with a softish whap sound as the virgin loops and wraps of the netting caressed and held the ball, where it was secured and enveloped for a moment in the funneling of the strings, and then it slid out the bottom and dropped toward the sea and slapped against the water where it floated and bobbed gently. Leroy never came to get it.