8/12/97

8/12/97

I think they should make a picture book about the first day of college like they do about the first day of kindergarten - only instead of numbers and letters and apples and new friends, it would be a cartoon version of spring break where everyone is trying to reinvent themselves to get laid. Day one, I met (re-met) that guy Jay from orientation who kept calling all summer. I met a guy named Jonah who is like a poor man's Anthony (less pecs, less Catholic). I met Eric and Ken who both look like Ken Dolls. And they all wanted to go out ("go off" they call it here), and that was before our new team even started our pick-up game. (First day and I'm going to go ahead and call a starting position for myself.) Then some time after lunch that pecker head Chip came by my room asking Cindy if "Blake" was here and I had to go through the whole story about how Blake was a bball player at my HS - who throttled Chip's team, by the way - and we shared the same # and bought the same shoes. So Chip just thinks it's the funniest damn joke to keep saying it. Cindy was not impressed.

He wanted to go for a run and so I said I would because I'm a dumbass, and it was stupid because we were both acting like we knew where we were going and it's the first day for both of us in this one-cow town. We got lost and I think we probably ran six miles. He said he'd come by later and we can drive it to see but I think I'll pretend to be asleep. Then he wanted to play one-on-one and so of course I said yes to that. I told him about how the home fans at his gym SPIT ON ME the last time we played there and he seemed PROUD of it, and said he remembered I was in foul trouble in the first quarter. And I guess he must have been in the locker room or something because he didn't remember I scored 22 in the second half IN A BOX-AND-ONE thank you very much. So I beat him once and he wanted to play again and so I beat him again and he said three out of five and I beat him three and then just because he kept asking for it I beat him five. But check this out. Game five, he's down by four and backs me into the lane - I'll give it to him that he's ripped up, strong - but I was up in his grill hard, and he turned around and elbowed me in the face and I know it was ON PURPOSE. He scored, right, and took the ball to the top of the key (we were playing make-it-take-it) and asked me if I wanted to call the foul. Of course blood was just pouring out of my nose and all over my shirt and I said, "What foul?" because I grew up playing with assholes twice as tough as him. I beat him anyway and my nose was bleeding the whole time. He tried to take off his shirt for me to mop up the blood but it was covered in sweat and it was his HS basketball shirt so it was also probably covered in evil and I'd rather bleed to death than wipe my face with a LOGANVILLE BASKETBALL SHIRT.

I hope he's not in any of my classes tomorrow because I'm going to have at least one black eye and he'll probably think that's just as funny as when his classmates spit on me.

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He was in one of my classes the next day. In fact, he was in all of my classes the next day, and the day after that. He told me later, our feet dangling off the edge of some unnamed cliff in the night, that I was the first girl to ever beat him at basketball. I smiled, reached for his hand in the dark. Because I knew by then he'd be my first everything.