Pointgod
We tried our best to change her mind but it was all in vain.
The summer before the fifth grade, the only practicing point guard in our neighborhood moved out of town with his mother. It was a clear sign that our adolescence was destined to a more troubling start than we gave it credit for. The rumor had it that Pointgod’s mom had finally found a job at a club in the next town over, one that didn’t require her to strip in front of strange men. To suck the gas out of the passing-by truck drivers for scraps.
The movers arrived with a truck on the morning of the move. They unlatched the singlewide from the sides as if it were a suitcase. They towed it away when the family was still inside the house, the mother’s words barely audible through the ajar windows. We hopped on our bikes and raced the truck all the way down to Clemancy, where our school’s basketball court was situated. It was the same court on which Pointgod twisted a lot of opposition ankles, crossing the ball between everything that moves. There was a reason why we called him Pointgod, with reference to Chris Paul, our local hero.
However many points he would score on that court, however many juvenile hearts he would break without guilt, without regrets, his mother would always find a way to disrupt his son’s flow, his divine artistry, the last being their unexpected move out of town. We tried our best to change her mind but it was all in vain. We thought of alternate ways to get one back at her. To make her realize her mistake. To make her kid stay put and have the path open in front of him for a hefty college scholarship instead of making him follow her around like a stray dog. We tried to talk some sense into her. We wrote her anonymous letters. One of us even went as far ahead to write her a death threat, which only helped solidify her resolve. The letter read something around the lines of, Zone 3-2, all eyes on you. It wouldn’t take a genius to say it wasn’t our best work.
The night before Pointgod and his mother would leave for good, we invited him over to the court for one last matchup. To witness his magic firsthand, before he would soar away and start performing it for others. Almost every kid in the neighborhood was present on the court that day, jostling each other on both sides of the chainlink fences. Even Jayson’s dad sold hotdogs for the momentous event.
At first, we gave Pointgod the ball and let him wiggle around the paint like a bird. We let him hit the rim a little. Everyone but me. I stood before him to defend him good, to give him a farewell of my own. He dribbled. He shot the ball. Like, one time, two times, three times. When it was certain we were down by five, I closed in on him with a renewed determination. I squinted my eyes. I gritted my teeth. Just when he crossed the ball over to his left for another ankle-breaker, I lunged at him in one fell swoop. He staggered backward. He fell on his back. All the sounds on the court came to a jarring halt. We all stopped in our tracks, aghast. Pointgod looked back at me with an expression I couldn’t at once decipher. I offered him a hand, which he accepted only after a moment of hesitation. We stood face to face. In that moment, I knew we both knew it. What I’d done just had to be done. That it was just another rite of passage.
The next morning, we woke up early and rallied just outside of Pointgod’s house before the movers arrived. We were ready waiting for him at the mouth of the driveway when he stepped out with his mother, the latter of whom went on to climb down the porch stairs and plant the PATCH ON-SALE sign in the front yard. I was holding a brand new basketball as a goodbye gift. Pointgod stood at the doorstep and absorbed us all in his gaze. He threw in our direction a faint nod but didn’t approach us at once. We all stood like that, staring at each other, with smiles on our faces, tears in our eyes, and our arms wide open like Jesus on the cross, ready to say goodbye to yet another god that failed us.
A Turkish writer, Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, Trampset, Vestal Review, DIAGRAM, Normal School, Lost Balloon, and Maudlin House, among other journals. His stories have been selected and nominated for anthologies, including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. He's currently at work on his first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.