monday night basketball

I am surprised to find myself busier with social activity, albeit of a more community minded ilk, than i did in either of the cities i have lived in of late. No doubt becuase of the lack of social familiarity, the lack of like minded individuals, or at least a lack so far, that the social drinking aspect has vanished from my life. A couple of beers with the folks or a bottle of wine at dinner, but refreshingly drinking has been pushed to the back of the social agenda. Not for the town of course; it remains a high priority for most of wyndhams residents.  The fact that i am working for myself and on my own means that my way of finding social interaction is not to simply head to the pub after work with colleagues, which is in a way a huge relief.
Instead I find myself wanting to get involved in various community clubs and events, such as the basketball/ping pong night on monday.
Both sports are held simultaneously at the recreation centre. The basketball basically consists of a bunch of dudes from the port and from town gathering together and creating a few teams in a first to twenty/winner stays on scenario. Full court, local old white-beard referee and even an old school steel scoreboard where you flip the numbers over.
Down the road from wyndham there is a prison farm, where jailbirds from the kimberley (kununurra and wyndham mainly) go to chop trees and shit like that. They used to come up to town on a monday and use the outdoor court, a gravelly mess adjacent to the new (semi) indoor court where the locals play, but the sport and rec officer decided to let the prison boys join in the monday night games, as long as things went smooth.
I went down for ping pong originally, but got interested in the basketball and started to watch. There were 3 teams plus the prison boys, who were sitting in the stands in a group looking surly. There was one good team, with some athletic skillfull players, who had employed the services of one of the prison boys, a 6 ft 6 monster who was built like and played like shaq, and they were undefeated so far. Not a one man team by any stretch, they had some killer guards as well, but this big fella stood out due to his size and standard issue prison garb, which consisted of a baggy dark green t shirt, jeans and sneakers.
I watched a few games and the other two teams rotated, but the prison boys were yet to put their hand up. The rec officer, todd, told me to hang around and just ask if i wanted a game, and theyd probably let me play. So i waited until the end of the game and went and asked the team who wer warming up if they need anyone else. "Nah not right now eh but if dis bloke fuck around or start shit we'll kick 'im out and then you can play". Not sure who he was referring to i sat back and waited for the game to start and hopefully for old mate to loose his cool and give mitchy an opening.
As i was watching, i saw a dark green shirt out the corner of my eye, and sort f ignored it at first, hoping he wasnt talking to me. Then he tapped me on the arm.
"eh bro...you wanna play?" came the shy, almost apologetic question.
shit.
"uh...yeah... sure, have you got room? i dont want to kick anyone off or nothing" came the stuttering response. Shit maybe he's in for murder.
No response, just a little thumbs up to me and one to the other prison boys, sitting together all surly in the grandstand, whom he rejoined while i sat there looking at my new teammates form afar.
Kept watching the game from behind the backboard, then decided i should get over and sit with my new team, or at least get a little closer. So i idled up to them, trying to look casual, maybe make ey contact and get a nod or a wink, but they all looked back at me pretty deadpan or not at all, except this one bloke with a big grin on his face.
There was one white boy, a short little stocky dude with jailhouse tats, a bald head, wild goatee and a few teeth missing, wearing a faded blue wife beater, light denim jeans and some trainers. He did not look at all like a basketballer and my immediate impression was that he was only there to stretch his legs and maybe his fists if someone gave him a reason. The guard who accompanied them wouldn't have reassured any participants with misgivings about taking on some convicts on a concrete basketball court, being about 5 ft 5, 60 yrs old and unarmed, looking more like a gardener than a prison guard. (if i had stopped being judgemental and thought about it rationally i would have realised that nobody would let properly dangerous criminals to serve their sentences on a prison farm in wyndham, let alone play basketball with the locals and kids on a monday night accompanied bynobody else except Don Burke, but i was a bit excited and caught up in the moment, and they did looked pretty bad ass).
As the game finished up, with the star team remaining undefeated, both us and one of the other teams stood up to challenge them. They thought they were next and so did we, but it didnt take many words from one of our lot for the other blokes to sit back down.
As we walked on court, however, we realised that we only had four players. We turned around to the bench and there were 4 other prison boys just sitting there, deadpan, grimacing back at us, no reaction to the call my team mates. "eh wally, (invented name) cmon, come play". "cmon tony, cmon, need five people or what". Nothing, just folded arms and staring straight back. I was starting to feel a bit awkward, standing in the middle of the court, looking at them, feeling pretty white. One of these guys, a lighter skinned aboriginal bloke also with the faded blue singlet (the only other seemingly priveledged one), stared back at his inmates with such ferocity i thought he was going to get up and smack someone out, and even the boys who were trying to get him to play only passed over him briefly, knowing that if he wanted to play he would, and that he didnt take kindly to pressure.
Finally a smilee broke out from the back of the stand from one of the guys, who had been the most heavily targeted of the indifferent. But he seemed keen in the end, maybe he was just shy.
So finally we had a team and were ready to take on the champions.
As the game progressed, Shaquille Oneal started to dominate, and i thought id try and defend him, because defence was definately the main thing lacking in all the local boys game. So next time the ball was in their court, i got into the key and tried to defend him, getting goal-side and putting my forearm up against his huge frame, looking up at him with a kind of stupid grin on my face. He just looked straight down at me, then cracked slowly into a huge grin and a slow ogre like chuckle puttered from his lips "uh huh huh huh heh heh". A good natured laugh and smile, i knew i could try and get physical with him nd he wouldt get pissed off and swat me ( not that he would probably notice my most robust and physical defensive display anyway). But alas, he got the ball and turned me inside out with his agility, not even using his strength, and scored over me a few times, laughing to himself the whole time.
each time i went to try and pick him up he laughed a bit harder and more enthusiastically, until i gave up and tried to defend someone else.
The white guy, little chevup bikie man, was a hilarous teammate. Every time he would get the ball anywhere near the vicinity of goal (anywhere in our half) he would take a few bounces and charge forward, before leaping and hurling the ball at the ring, where he would be lucky to even hit the backboard, reminding me of Murray's michael jorda-like lay up technique demonstrated in yrs 8 and 9 basketball. Each attempt was accompanied by some loud profanity and a punch into his palm, followed by some hard yards defensively, as though he was really annoyed at himself for missing such an easy basket, when he clearly had never played the game before in his life.
We lost, but at least i know if i need any standover men or if anybody tries to fuck with me down at the shop, i have a 3 hour window on monday nights to employ my new teammates.