frog life presents "starting five" by patrick trotti (vol. 2 oct 2012)

7/31/2019 FROG LIFE PRESENTS "Starting Five" by Patrick Trotti (Vol. 2 Oct 2012)

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Starting Five

Short fiction by Patrick Trotti


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FROG LIFE MAGAZINE

http://froglifemagazine.tumblr.com/

Created Fall 2012


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Rajon Rondo 6

J.R. Smith 9

Danilo Gallinari 12

Kevin Love 15

Andrew Bynum 18


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Rajon Rondo

Rajon Rondo just didnt feel like playing a game that particular day. Nothing major,every player goes through it at least once a season. But this was different. His apathywasnt connected to an injury or an illness. It was just plain laziness. So instead of lying

to his coach he decided to play. Itd be easier that way, he told himself.

During warm-ups he calculated the amount of money hed be getting for this sole game.The number was too high for the performance he was about to give. They were playingthe Lakers, in Los Angeles, on Christmas Eve on national television. Five years ago hedbe anxiously anticipating the opening of presents at this time but now he was a man witha driveway full of cars, a legion of fans, and a list of responsibilities that was so long hehired some Ivy League grad to be his personal assistant.

A few minutes into the game, for no apparent reason, he elbowed Kobe Bryant hard inthe ribs while fighting for a rebound. Kobe, shocked at first, withheld the temptation to

strike back. During the next timeout he calmly explained Rondos transgression to thereferee knowing full well that his seniority would dutifully pay off later on in the game.

The second quarter was grueling. Between constant fouls and the over abundance ofcommercials, the game was taking forever. At this pace hed be taking a late flight homeback east and wouldnt get in until early Christmas morning. He needed to do somethingif he wanted to see the inside of his house before Christmas started.

The next play called for an isolation, with Kobe to hold the ball and take his opponent offthe dribble to the basket in the hopes of making the shot or, at the very least, getting tothe foul line. Before Kobe could make his move, Rondo gave him a sucker shot with his

right elbow directly into his chest. It was blatant, no gamesmanship, no attempt to hide it.Kobe fell over in equal parts pain and over acting. Rondo stood over him, shook his head,untucked his jersey and stepped over Kobe, making his way directly to the bench.

The referee had thrown him out immediately. As the whistle blew and the mans wordsdescended upon the tired Rondo, he slightly changed his course, making his way into thetunnel leaving the court, and his teammates behind him. He was heading for the lockerroom. A security guard escorted him, for safety reasons.

What happened man?

Dont feel like playing, Rondo said without looking over at him.

He quickly changed in the quiet of the spacious locker room. Every once in a while, thecrowds applause shook the locker room. He hooked up his Playstation 3, an item henever traveled without, into the large television that was usually reserved for watchinggame films of your opponents. He played Donkey Kong for a few minutes beforerealizing that his team would be joining him for halftime soon.


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He found a marker perched on the ledge of the dry erase board in the middle of the lockerroom. Scribbled offensive plays and diagramed defensive schemes littered the board. Hewiped most of it off and wrote, Sorry guys. Just didnt feel like playing. It was one ofthose days. Merry Christmas. RR

He packed up his bag, changed clothes without taking a shower, and left the locker room.He still had his bright green Nike game sneakers on as he walked through the playersparking lot in the back recess of the expansive stadium.

Speeding through the security checkpoint, Rondo felt free. He felt like he was back inhigh school. He typed In & Out Burger into his GPS, his mouth salivating for somethingthat would continue his day of breaking the rules. He sped through Hollywood thankfulfor the afternoon off, looking forward to a cheeseburger.

Before he got out of the car he threw on a hoodie and put on sunglasses just in casesomeone noticed him and hounded him for an autograph. Hed worked hard for this

abbreviated vacation and he was going to make the most of it. The game was on in therestaurant, the Lakers had broken out to a twenty-point lead, but Rondo didnt care asketchup dripped form the corner of his mouth and salt stuck to the tips of his fingers. Ashis replacement dribbled the ball off his foot for another turnover, Rondo ordered a refillfor his Coke and got another burger. He never felt so happy.


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J.R. Smith

All he wanted to do was take his girl out for a nice dinner. It wasnt their anniversary oranything but J.R. Smith felt he needed to show his girlfriend how much she meant to him.Especially since those pictures surfaced of him in a hotel room with another girl. Fucking

Twitter. His agent warned him about that months ago.

He chose a swanky midtown restaurant. It was supposedly the best new Cantonese placein the entire city. Ever since he got back from playing a year in China hed made it ahabit of eating some sort of Asian food at least once a day. American food just seemed soprocessed and superfluous.

Smith had the week off. The owner and general manager had suspended him for threegames, hoping to circumvent the league. Despite being in the twenty first century, theNBA still had an archaic stance concerning social media. Officially, he was disciplined,without pay, for tweeting during a game. Technically it was halftime but he wasnt going

to fight it. His Twitter had been blowing up since the photos leaked, hundreds ofmessages and posts every day. His phone was still on ring and went off in the lockerroom. He waited for the coach to finish his speech, out of respect, before checking hisphone. Normally he wouldve just ignored the messages and gotten ready for the secondhalf but this tweet read @J.R.Smith you got some ugly ass taste in women! Hope youdont have any babies. The same person, his profile picture showed him wearing aLakers hat in full on MySpace pose, tweeted again, @J.R.Smith You have no game,more tats than points! lol.

He didnt care about the rest of his team game planning for the second half. He didntcare about his coaches huddled up in the middle of the room comparing notes on how to

make up for the ten-point deficit. He needed to respond. Couldnt let people think that hewas going to be punked out like that in front of everyone and not respond.

In the middle of his fourth consecutive tweet the coach approached him.

Put that away and get ready for the second half. Well deal with this after the game.

Busted, like a schoolboy. J.R. spent the rest of the game on the bench. Even though bothhim and the coach knew that they could utilize his shooting skills to get back in the gamethey both knew that a point was being made. J.R. grabbed a towel and slung it over hishead and zoned out, picturing meeting up with his newest Twitter pal and punching him

right in the face.

But that was history. He had bigger things to worry about than repairing his image withhis coach. He needed to get his girlfriend back, the mother of his children. After a fewdays of texting she agreed to meet him at the Cantonese restaurant. J.R., having not beenthere before, told her dress casual.

She arrived twenty minutes late but J.R. was still in the front, waiting for his table.


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Hey, you been waiting long?

Nah, just trying to straighten this out. I knew I made a reservation but they lost it orsomething.

J.R. was dressed in a plain white t-shirt, blazer jacket, and jeans. He was wearing hislucky chain, the first one he bought for himself after he signed his rookie contract. It washanging to his belly button and under the dim lights of the place was sparklingobtrusively.

Im sorry sir, but we dont have any tables at the moment. If you could just wait anotherhour well have you set up with a beautiful booth.

I know I made a reservation. Look, dont yall know who I am?

J.R.s girlfriend rolled her eyes at this and remained in the background. She preferred thesubdue J.R., the one she met when he was just a teenager with nothing.

The man behind the booth took a moment and looked deep into J.Rs eyes, then scannedhis girlfriend before responding.

Im sorry sir. I dont listen to rap music.

What!?! Oh hell no! Im not a rapper you asshole! Im a ballplayer. Dont you watchbasketball?

Oh, like Michael JordanYes?

J.R. sighed, took a step towards the man before his girlfriend got in the middle.

Baby, lets go. Come on, its not worth it. We can eat somewhere else.

J.R. took a napkin from the counter and scribbled something before slamming down ontop of the reservation book.

$3,275,500

Thats what I made last year bitch.

J.R. stormed out of the restaurant hungry for some pizza or fast food.


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Danilo Gallinari

Dude was a straight g. Young, rich athletic, handsome, and European. There was onlyone major problem: he played in Denver. This meant that, except for the summer, he wasstuck living amongst the cold terrain of the Rocky Mountains.

He felt bad complaining. After all, he was making a couple million dollars per year, butthings had gotten worse over the past year or so. Being traded from the Knicks really gotto him. Having to put up his penthouse apartment in midtown for sale, leave the luxuriesof Broadway for the mile-high altitude of Colorado depressed him. It was the first time inhis young life that somebody didnt want him. Hed never been cut or traded from a teambefore. This was his first professional breakup and it was being broadcast on ESPN.

Of course he wanted to win a championship regardless of where he went he couldremember watching Jordan dominate as a young boy back home in Italy but he wasstarting to look forward to the offseason more and more. The Mediterranean was calling

to him, the lure of espressos in the late morning and early dinners of homemade pasta andsauce were too enticing.

And then there was Adrianna, just one word, no last name. When they met he was a topamateur in Europe, the best in all of Italy. He was 17 and she was just 16. She appeared atthe Championship that year; sat courtside. She was coming off a winter campaign on therunways in Rome, Milan, and Paris and that spring her face was on billboards all acrossEurope. They were the two hottest Italian exports and her manager saw an opportunity.Pair them up, hope he goes to the NBA and shell be able to make her stateside debutquicker.

Part of the plan worked. Danilo went to New York, became a crowd and media darlingbut Adrianna found herself stuck in Italy surrounded by a drug scandal that includedrumors of bribing the local police chief to get out of a possession charge. Danilos agentswarned him, pleaded with him to get rid of her, to find someone less visible here in NewYork but Danilos heart was back in Europe.

His game started to suffer and he was traded to Denver. A cold NBA purgatory. Hisyouth would be tied to these six month long winters and gasps for breath amidst the highaltitude. Still he stayed with Adrianna, he even believed she could maybe land someacting gigs in L.A. which would bring them closer. He missed her; he missed not havingsomeone in the crowd specifically there because they loved you. Not admiration, that was

different. He had plenty of fans, a barrage of autograph seekers after every game but hewanted more, he wanted that special someone waiting outside the locker room just forhim.

Isnt this place great? We always get the best table, no questions asked.

There were only two guys on the team without wives and Danilo would find himselfbeing pulled out to clubs for all night celebrations of wins, their wealth, their manliness.


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Not bad, Danilo would say whiling obsessively watching his phone for Adriannas text.

Women would begin to flock to their table, in search of free drinks, a fun story, a brushwith celebrity. Danilo would coil up and face the wall, play drunk and unresponsive or

just act like his English was so bad that he couldnt master the rudimentary one-linersnecessary to pick up women.

Hed become expert at the different time zones and had, in recent months, tailored hisschedule to fit windows of time that Adrianna could possibly get in touch with him. Butbeing half a world away made it impossible. Hed finish practice and find five missedtexts. After a game hed find a voicemail of Adrianna, still in bed, sleepily wishing himgood luck and good morning from Italy.

Hed trade all of the money, the game winning shots, the invites to all of the socialgatherings of Denver for just one Sunday late morning brunch in bed with Adrianna. He

could picture the rolling hills out in the distance, equal parts green and brown, and thebeautiful bright Mediterranean sun shinning in through the French windows, wind calmlyblowing through the second floor balcony, tossing Adriannas hair across her face, hidingher beautiful almond shaped eyes for just long enough for his heart to skip a beat.


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Kevin Love

Kevin Love hated the cold weather. Snow was the worst. The bitter Minnesota wintry airaggravated his still young joints. He wanted to be back out on the west coast. Hedchosen to go to UCLA because of the weather, the promise of televised games, national

exposure and beautiful beaches with gorgeous girls. Now he was living the prime yearsof his life as a wolf, literally, he was a Minnesota Timberwolve. Hed never seen one,probably couldnt identify one if it came through the woods and into his drivewayanyway. He wanted to ask his teammates what it was specifically but all they told himwas that it was wolf.

The team, it seemed, was content with mediocrity. When he first visited UCLA henoticed all of the championship banners hanging down from the rafters. The blue andyellow colored flags looked like remnants from a New Years party. But here, in themiddle of nowhere, closer to Canada than home, he had no history to embrace. He feltalone.

The only thing worse than putting up huge numbers and not getting any national attentionbecause his team was losing the majority of their games were the off days. Boredom setin quickly. The state was made for outdoor people, hunters and fisherman, but he likedbeach volleyball and clubs. He couldnt watch tv either. All of the local sports stations,when they werent fawning over homegrown star Joe Mauer of the Twins, wereridiculing him for being a good player on a bad team. They made it seem as if it were hisfault that his team was losing. Theyd say that he wasnt a leader, he couldnt will histeam to victory, they questioned his toughness.

By his third year, not wanting to demand a trade and alienate the locals further, he bought

a large map of the state and began counting each and every one of Minnesotas lakes. Hewas tired of seeing the slogan Land of 10,000 Lakes everywhere he went. On licenseplates, travel brochures, and commercials, they flooded the state with their proclamationsof water.

On his off days, hed take his large mug of coffee and box of ring dings and go to hisman cave in the basement and spread out the map on the coffee table. His dish had beenacting up, every time there was a large snowstorm, which seemed to be a few times aweek during the season, he would lose signal and be forced to call for assistance. Ofcourse the men working on the dish hookup would always hang around a little whilelonger after they were done not wanting to ask for an autograph or picture outright. It was

awkward hed rather just hand them a tip and close the door, keep them on the properside of the invisible boundary line between famous athlete and regular person.

He reached 300 by the All-Star break in February. When he came home from the breakhe found his dish not working again. He got drunk, by himself that night, and took hisbow and arrow, given to him for free by the local sports store, outside. It was stillsnowing and the relatively dark but the metallic dish could be seen reflecting off of hisoutdoor lights hed installed to keep the animals off of his property.


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It took two arrows to make contact with the dish, and a third to finally knock it from itsplace. He stumbled back inside content with the job hed done, feeling, for the first time,that he was a true Minnesotan. As he looked for lake number 301 he could hear the dishbang up against the roof with every gust of wind.

He reached number 310, way up in the northeast part of the state before realizing that hehad been recounting several lakes. His number, his job, had been compromised. Hedhave to go back to the store and buy a new map, swallow his pride and look like an idiotfor buying a second map (how many does one person need?) in front of the high schoolcashier who would undoubtedly remember him. Maybe the great lakes project should beshelved, he thought to himself as he rolled into bed that night. Fishing season was comingup soon, if nothing else he could get away from everything he hated on land and losehimself in the slight rocking of waves on lake number 103, nearest his house.


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Andrew Bynum

Look, Andrew were all here today because we care about you and we believe in you. Imean everyone here, in their own way, is deeply invested in you. We just want to cometogether and see if we could figure out a way to maximize your potential, Max said.

Andrew Bynum had just arrived in Philadelphia from L.A. and wasnt feeling well. Theonly reason he agreed to this meeting was because his agent, Max, suggested it. Theydbeen together since he declared for the draft straight out of high school. When othersquestioned his move, called him crazy, his agent was busy getting him workouts,spreading his name, hyping him to anyone in the league that would listen. And it worked,a few months before his 18th birthday, he was chosen in the middle of the first round bythe Lakers. He went from having to share the court with scrawny sophomores andundeveloped juniors and seniors to playing with Kobe Bryant.

Im gonna cut right to it Andrew. Youve got an image problem. And my partner and me

are in the business of turning weaknesses into assets. The team hired us to get you backon track in order for them to protect their investment in you and ensure that youre futureis secure. Do you have any questions before we begin?

Andrew looked at Max for some sign of confirmation. That was his default action whenhe was confused. Max was the man with the fancy suits, all of the right contacts, and thewall full of degrees in his office. He nodded back to Andrew with a seriousness that hehadnt seen since draft night.

What exactly is wrong with my image? Im an All-Star and I have a ring.

The room fell silent for a few moments.

Good question, well

Andrew cut him off.

Who else have you worked with in the league?

More quiet. The two men from the PR agency and the members of the teams front officewerent sure if this was Andrews legendary attitude that had preceded him or if he wasjust confused.

The PR men took hold of the meeting once again leaving the teams people convenientlyquiet and in the corner, able to just observe. They didnt want to get on Andrews badside before the season began.

Unfortunately, due to the nature of our job were not at liberty to divulge that sort ofinformation. You know, with confidentiality agreements and all. But rest assured thatyoure in good hands.


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Alright, whatever. You guys sure can talk a lot. Can we just get on with it already?

The PR guys looked at the team representatives quickly and nodded before speakingagain.

Right, okay. When people think of Andrew Bynum a few things come to mind. Our firmconducted a poll asking people what they associated your name with. The most recurringanswers were bad attitude, talented, immature, immense potential, and selfish.

Look, I appreciate the honesty and all this trouble you went through but why cant myplay on the court do the talking?

Max jumped in, Thats the problem Andrew. Youre with a new team, new city andyoure coming up on a contract year. We need to reshape how people think of you if youwant the kind of contract you think you deserve.

Bullshit. If I put up 20 and 10 a game Ill get a max contract no matter what. Yall knowthat. And if you dont know then you dont know basketball.

All the cards on the table, the PR guy was taking a stand. I might not know basketballlike the rest of you guys but I know that Dwight Howard is also due for a contract andwhen people see him they see a bubbly personality, wide smile, and think of Superman.

All I know is, you dont have to be nice to be rich in the NBA, Andrew said.

The room went quiet again. The teams representatives were busy scribbling notes downon their legal pads. The PR guys had loosened their ties, sat back in their chairs andexhaled in frustration. Only Max and Andrew were still full of energy.


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Patrick Trotti will always root for the Boston Celtics, despite having anappreciation for the beauty of Magic Johnsons game. He loves the bounce

pass, detests the rise of super teams and thinks that rebounding is the mostunderrated aspect of the game. Some of his favorite players are/were JohnHavlicek, Moses Malone, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, CharlesBarkley, Allen Iverson, and Rajon Rondo. His previous books are Sadly,

Forever(Scars Publications),Frayed little toothpicks reaching for the

clouds (planetary ebooks),Life, liberty and the pursuit of twitter followers(#imgaypress), andAmerican Idle (forthcoming.) His work has appeared invarious literary journals, both online and print, and hes the founder andeditor of the online publication (Short) Fiction Collective as well as the co-founder and co-editor of THOUSAND SHADES OF GRAY. He works asan Editorial Assistant for Tiny Hardcore Press and, when he has the time,writes book reviews for jmww. Check him out at www.patricktrotti.com.

frog life presents "starting five" by patrick trotti (vol. 2 oct 2012)

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