Excerpt from “Untitled”
based on actual events,THIS STORY FOLLOWS three Palestinian-American boys sent to live in Palestine during the early 90’s after the first peace negotiations. this excerpt IS ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF BASKETBALL IN THEIR school, a school for English-speaking students that came from America.
Yes, they paved over the grass and pulled out the trees to turn the land into basketball courts. And pretty soon, they bought the land beside the school to add more courts.
Here's the thing about basketball. It was the one thing that was 100% truly American and everybody was okay with it. This school and this country and their parents may all be denying these students everything they loved about America – the way they dressed, the music they listened to, the food they loved, the culture they grew up with. But basketball was the one exception – the one thing that brought everyone together. There was no religion that could stop the girls from watching. There was no authority that could make rivalry wrong. There was no taboo around dreaming about the hoop. There was no war as important as the battle on the courts. To these people, there was no other sport. To these kids, there was no other anything.
No, they didn't have the best equipment. A ball that wasn't flat was a treasure. They didn't wear fancy shoes or had nets on their rims. But nevertheless, each game had every bit of theatrics that could fit into their basketball life. Show-offs threw three pointers with their eyes closed. During lunch hour, wanna-be's practiced layups and dunks and flying. People trashed talked and then had to pick up their trash after they lost. The younger kids would cheer on anyone on the court with songs they learned before they were sent there.
Wally (or insert name).
Wally (or insert name),
He's our man.
If he can't do it, no one can.
And when things got heated
Fight fight
Arab and a white
Arab don't win we all jump in
People were nicknamed Shaq, and Jordan and Barkley, and everyone pretended they could one day be a famous player. Moves were invented and technique was refined. They lived to be posterized in each other's memory.
Everyone played. No matter how short you were or how uncoordinated, you played. No matter if you had enough players for a full game or just a one-on-one, you played. And you got good. Teen girls in headscarves had enough game to make you forget they were in headscarves.
You got respect for handling the ball like all these kids did. And no one got respect like the guys good enough to play on the school's team.
After all, the school week was lived for the Thursday afternoon game where the American school played some other Arab school. But never underestimate your opponent. They may not have the swagger and songs of the American kids, and they might divide their time with the unamerican version of soccer they call ‘fUtball’, but these Arab teams did have their own NBA contenders, players who would never know how good they were. Fans would crowd the streets, cram the court side, and cheer like their honor depended on it.
Adam, Dillon, and Rasheed were too young to be on the school team but they were at every game like everyone else. They were there at the Championship Game against The Friends school. The Friends school had been in the West Bank for a hundred years, and was much more critical of who they accepted. It did have its own English-speaking track, but the tuition was crazy high, taking advantage of the parents who didn't want their kids to go to the delinquent-filled American school that Adam, Rasheed, and Dillon went to.
The Friends school team had better coaches and good equipment. And they were really good. But they didn't know how to show it off.
When the Championship Game was tied at the end of the fourth, it was one of the show-offs from the American school that threw a 3-pointer buzzer beater (without even looking) and won it all. The crowd erupted so loud, the Israeli soldiers at the nearby checkpoint thought a bomb went off. The mosque's call to prayer was drowned out. The jewish settlement nearby stopped construction for a moment.
It wasn't just a game. Basketball made everyone forget, for a while, that they were in Palestine. And maybe, it could even be a way out.
Many nights, hours after school ended, the neighborhood would still echo with the repeated heavy bounce of a basketball being dribbled on the school court. It was Rasheed, practicing his free throw, with nothing else as comforting to go home to.
When the violence with the Israelis got really bad, games would need to be canceled. And that made the violence get even worse.