Rhapsody Suite
Six
TEMPE WAS AWESOME—awesomely hot! It was close to ninety degrees when we landed and it was not going down. Fortunately, every place we went was air conditioned. Unfortunately, it was a real shock to walk into a cold room after being in the heat. I spent my time alternately sweating and shivering. We checked into our hotel and I was pleased that Lissa and I were next door to each other, though there wasn’t a connecting door like I’d hoped. I was wound so tight by the time we’d tossed our bags in the rooms that I was bouncing around and just wished she’d hold me before I exploded.
But Lissa was all business. She told me to change into my workout clothes and my school warmups, bring my court shoes and be ready in ten minutes. I did as ordered, and was ready when she knocked on my door. We drove over to the University Student Recreation Complex and I was blown away. The place has thirteen racquetball courts! Number fourteen is configured for squash. As soon as we signed in, I was assigned a court time for practice. We got our credentials and headed for our court. A guy smaller than me was running around the court chasing his coach’s serves. We watched and Lissa gave me a running commentary on what she saw. It helped me get focused. I was bouncing again when Lissa pounded on the court door at the stroke of the hour.
Lissa got me settled down pretty good. We worked up from basic exercises to a short scrimmage so we could get loosened up. It was only thirty minutes, but by the time we were finished I was more relaxed than I’d been all day.
There was a huge dinner that evening for all the coaches and competitors. There were thirty men’s singles competitors in the Gold Division that I’d play in, but there were around two hundred total competitors in the various divisions with men, women, and doubles, gold, blue, red, and white. The schedule was packed. My first round on Wednesday morning would be at nine. It was a double elimination tournament, so there would be eight matches on eight different courts at the same time. The other five courts would be used for warm-ups and training. I would be on court four facing a guy from LSU. After the first flight of men’s singles, there’d be a women’s flight and a doubles flight, then the second first round flight would go. The winners of the first flight would take on the next eight players.
Friday afternoon at 4:30, sixteen losers would play to see which eight players would be the first ones eliminated. I just didn’t want to be in that group.
Lissa and I went back to our rooms and I lay in bed texting Melody for an hour. Then Melody and I got to texting Lissa and she laughed about us being next door and told me to go to sleep. I sent an “I love you” message to both girls and eventually dozed off.
Yanni, Live at the Acropolis. I’m embarrassed to say I even have the piece, but it was my dad’s from someplace back at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius and I liked the energy. It blocked everything else around me out as I stretched and warmed up. Lissa tapped me on the shoulder and I pulled the headset off as the announcer was giving the pairings for the first round. I got the first look at my opponent.
Shit!
The guy reminded me of Rod at the club. He had a good six or eight inches on me and arms like an orangutan. All he had to do was stand in the middle of the court and he could reach anything. He won the toss and served first. The game was on.
The less time I spend talking about this match, the better. His first serve came skidding down the right wall and he was only barely out of the way far enough to keep from being called for a hinder fault. It went downhill from there. It’s not that I didn’t score, but I couldn’t hold a rally against him. I lost in two straight games and was one of the first losers on the board. Thank god, it’s double elimination. Every player is guaranteed at least two matches. There were other matches going on, but I was done until the first elimination round at 4:30.
“Hey. Go watch the cute girls play in the next flight,” Lissa said. “Don’t be upset. It’s your first collegiate tournament.”
“But Lissa, if I don’t do well, they’ll take my scholarship away.” God! I sound like a whiny baby. I just didn’t want to be embarrassed when we went back home. I imagined that everything good that had happened to me in the last month would suddenly evaporate. And I’d already started concocting a fantasy about coming home with a medal and invitation to the National Singles Tournament.
“Who told you that?”
“I just assumed. They give me an athletic scholarship, they expect me to perform, you know?”
“Tony, nobody is judging you by your first college tournament. Be realistic. You’re a freshman. The guy who just beat you is a senior and is seeded fourth in the country. It was a bad draw. Relax.”
I could think of one great way to relax, but she shoved me toward the bleachers and I plopped down to watch the women’s first flight. I just stayed in front of the same court I’d played on. I pulled a sketchbook out of my bag and a piece of charcoal. I caught a couple people in the crowd who held still for a few minutes while they talked and I quickly sketched them. I flipped to another page.
Sketching action is difficult. You have to put your brain where the action is and freeze the scene in your mind. Then you’ve got about thirty seconds to draw before the scene evaporates and you have to pick a new one. We used to do exercises back in high school. Ms. Stone had us go to various events and we had to come back with at least three sketches of what went on. I’d sketched basketball games, school plays, the PTA meeting, and a horse show. Now that one was a challenge. Nothing like sketching a horse turning barrels. The trick was to ignore any of the extraneous stuff like shadows, saddles, and costumes. You had to just focus on the line of action. I started sketching the girls as they played.
I put down half a dozen sketches and moved to the next court. I had a soundtrack from Cirque du Soleil’s Allegria playing in my ears as I spent an hour just plopping down in front of each court, making half a dozen quick action sketches, and then moving on. By noon, I’d sketched some of the doubles and was ready to work on the second flight of men. Lissa brought me a sandwich and a cup of coffee and stayed as we ate. She didn’t say much, but looked through my sketches, occasionally making a comment on one of the competitors.
Everything was about racquetball. We were in an incredible sports facility. I was watching people play. I was even occasionally cheering a great shot. But I wasn’t thinking about playing racquetball. With my sketchbook and charcoal in hand, I was able to separate myself from the game. When the second flight of men’s singles started, I parked myself in front of court eight to watch most of the match. I’d be playing the loser of this match in a few hours. I sketched the two guys as they went back and forth. They were beautiful. I was way into Deep Forest when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I pulled my headset off and turned to see a tall brunette with flashing eyes and a great figure smiling at me. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her brown eyes looked like they went down into some shadowy depth that mere humans couldn’t fathom.
“Hi. I’m Allison Perkins. Couldn’t help but notice you drawing. Did you do a sketch of me while I was playing?”
“Oh. Tony Ames. Um… probably. I hope you don’t mind. I just do it while I’m watching.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure. What court were you on?”
“Six. One of the shortest matches in history. If you weren’t there early you probably missed it.”
“I hear you. I got whipped good in straight games. My first collegiate competition and I didn’t last a full hour.” I started flipping through the pages of my sketchbook until I saw the court number and time that I wrote at the bottom of each drawing.
“Who were you up against?” she asked while I found her court.
“Rob Snyder, LSU.”
“He’s an asshole.” She snorted as if she’d had personal experience with the guy. “You’re lucky you lasted long enough to get on the court with him. Did he try that thing where he almost gets called for a hinder on the first serve? I swear a receiver can’t see where that ball is coming from.”
“Yeah. Took me right out of my game. Here it is.” I held up my sketchbook to show her the page with her sketch on it. It wasn’t bad. She looked at it intently.
“Uh… Tony. Where are my clothes? I did not play that game naked.”
“Didn’t have time to draw them. I’m just sketching the action, not really doing portraits.”
“What about my right leg?”
“You moved. Look, if you want a detailed drawing, take off your clothes and stand in the middle of the court for fifteen minutes in a good action pose. I’ll put in all the detail you want.”
“Kinky.”
“Naw. I’m just an art student.”
“Kinky.” She insisted, still giggling. We watch the game for a while and I turned back to a blank page. She watched as I did a thirty-second sketch of one of the guys. “He needs a cock.”
“Can’t see it, can’t draw it,” I said, pointing first to the court and then to my drawing.
“Is Lissa Grant really your coach?”
“Yeah. You know her?”
“Like my idol. I saw her at Opens last year. I’ll be watching you.”
“Allison!” A voice barked at her from off to our side. “Let’s get loosened up. Your flight starts in thirty minutes. You need to get focused on the ball.”
“Instead of the balls,” Allison whispered. “Coach calls. Hope I’ll see you later.”
I waved at her as she bounced down the stairs. That girl needs a stronger sports bra.
I watched the first consolation round for the women. It looked like Allison was out to set a record for least time on the courts. She lost eleven-two and eleven-one in twenty minutes. I didn’t get to say anything to her, though, because Lissa called to have me start warming up for my 4:30 match.
I can draw with almost any music playing, so I’d had my player set on shuffle. If something I didn’t like at the time came up, I touched a button on my headset and moved to the next song. When I’m painting, I prefer to work to classics and a selection of highly charged electronica. But getting ready to play racquetball, I was discovering I really like the energy of classic rock. Creedence Clearwater Revival was ‘Lookin’ Out My Back Door’ while I warmed up for my match. I was rockin’. Just before I stepped onto the court, Lissa stopped me and took my headset and music player, handing me my goggles.
“Tony, I know you want to go home a champion—maybe even go to the Ektelon National Singles, but the most important thing right now is this game. Not even this match. Just this game. Put your head in it and forget about everything else.”
I nodded and went in to meet my new opponent. As much a giant as my last opponent was, this kid was littler than me. I’d seen him practicing with his coach just before my court time when I got here and again in a match this afternoon. I knew he was pretty fast, but he was way overmatched when I saw him play earlier today. We shook hands and each batted a ball around a bit to get warmed up until the ref called attention and came in to flip the coin. He won the toss and I prepared to receive.
I was still grooving to CCR in my head thirty minutes later when I walked off the court with my first match victory of the tournament. It was a little sad, because that meant that Jim, my opponent, was done. Man, that sucked. I played hard, but not over-aggressively. The poor guy just couldn’t return anything I served him. I’ve had days like that. I just kept pumping serves across the short line and he kept bobbling them. I wasn’t even trying to make him run the way his coach did. We shook hands as we left the court.
“Glad you got a chance to practice your serve so much,” he joked. “You should be warmed up for your next match now.”
“Hey, everybody has days when things go wrong. Should have seen me get slaughtered in my first match.”
“It’s great just being here, though, isn’t it? I never thought I’d even make the team. Good luck.”
Nice guy. Lissa hooked my arm and told me to get a shower and change and then we’d grab a bite to eat. She wanted my uniform dried out before my next match at 8:30. We were down to twenty-four players in the tournament now and after the flight tonight there would only be sixteen.
I had to work for it, but by 9:40 I was still in the hunt. I called Mom and Dad to tell them that I was still playing and my next match would be at nine in the morning. They wished me luck. When I talked to them last week, I was a little disappointed that they wouldn’t be coming to the tournament, but I didn’t really make a big deal about it. Dad said they’d been following the results on the Internet and that made me feel kind of proud. Then Lissa and I called Melody while we waited for my uniform to finish in the hotel’s coin-op laundry. At 10:30 Lissa checked up and down the hall and then leaned in to give me a luscious goodnight kiss.
I hadn’t done more than pull my shirt off when there was a knock on my door. I just assumed it was Lissa, so I didn’t even look out the peep-hole before I swung the door open. When the girl with flaming red hair and hot tight body pushed past me into the room, I was speechless.
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