Gavin

 

You know that old saying “when it rains it pours?” Well, that shit really does happen.

It’s like the universe knows when you’re already down on the ground and decides to kick you in the balls just because it can.

And today is my day to get the double-whammy and mother of all nut punches.

Kady left this morning. And I’ll be honest, I think she broke my heart. Not only that, but then I got called in to the President’s office when we got back to Florence. There’s nothing like that pit-in-your-stomach feeling when you are summoned to a meeting and you don’t know the agenda.

Our team flight back to Florence was quick, so we returned in plenty of time to go home, unpack and chill for a little bit before we had to make it back over to the arena for practice. My meeting, according to Coach Lorenz, was scheduled fifteen minutes before practice.

I tried to tamp down all the negative thoughts flittering inside my head and looked for a positive reason for this meeting. While I’d been in a slump recently, and hadn’t received much playing time, my game in Rome was phenomenal. I was on fire and couldn’t be stopped. Eighteen points and ten rebounds isn’t too shabby for a rookie. I also had three assists, helping to tie the game and go into a winning overtime.

The President could want to congratulate me on my stellar performance and offer me a starting position. Or maybe an increase in pay. Or perhaps he wanted to talk about my contract, since mine would expire soon. I suppose there could even be a late-season trade to another team.

Too many possibilities to consider and some could even prove financially beneficial to my career.

On the other hand, there was a likelihood that it could be fatal to my longevity in the league.

I swallow hard, the taste of stomach acid climbing the back of my throat, as I enter the ensuite of the President’s office. There’s a young receptionist who looks up from her smart phone when I enter. She gives me a catalog smile.

“Buon giornio. You must be Gavin Lancaster, no?”

I nod my head, running my hands down the front of my pants, wiping the sweat from my palms.

“Si.”

“Ah, bene. Take a seat, por favore. I’ll inform Senor Coppola you are here.”

I glance around at the lavishly decorated lobby space and cop a squat on the hard, beige loveseat against the wall. In front of me is a stack of sports magazines, mostly European, but I end up snagging a copy of a U.S. Sports Illustrated with a collage of photos from the recent Final Four Championship.

That’s one of my only regrets about my decision to play overseas. Although it was highly unlikely I could have graduated from a four-year college, there had been a few smaller schools who’d offered me a seat on their team. Maybe I would have done okay academically in a smaller school, with tutors who could’ve helped me pass the tough college courses.

I guess I’ll never know. That ship has sailed. I am where I am now and I need to make it count.

My phone buzzes with an incoming text and an unusual thrill sweeps through me. I’m hopeful that it’s a text from Kady, letting me know she made it to Madrid.

Disappointment floods me, though. My heart does a swan dive, crashing hard when I see it’s not from her. It’s Christian.

Yo, bro. Heard you had some good play last night. Right on.

I start typing a quick response of thanks when the receptionist returns and says he’s ready for me.

My shoes feel weighted with lead as I slowly stand and walk toward the double-doors of the office. Suddenly I’m scared to go in there. As if looking for moral support, my eyes meet the girl’s, who just throws back a tight, generic smile and ushers me in with a wave of her hand.

I swallow my nerves and head in. The Fury President, Giomacomo Coppola, sits behind a desk, speaking rapidly into an earpiece, his hands flapping wildly with his vocalized words. I’m not paying attention and really can’t understand what he’s saying anyway, so I take a seat in a leather covered chair and wait for him to finish up.

This could be it. The end of my career. I’m filled with severe doubt over my abilities, the negativity swirling violently in my brain. I’ve only had one other conversation with Coppola since starting with the team and it was literally a two-minute welcome speech after my first practice.

As the President finishes up his conversation, I wonder why I haven’t heard from my agent. If they were going to extend, renew or renegotiate my contract, then my agent would have been notified and we would have spoken before now.

Which means this can’t be good.

FML.

As Coppola ends his call, his eyes latch onto my face, a resigned look in his dark irises, as he strums a hand down his purple silk tie.

He speaks English with a fluidity of a wealthy bi-lingual. “Thank you for joining me today, Gavin. I’m sorry it’s such short notice. I hope it did not inconvenience your schedule.”

I shake my head in acknowledgment, words drying in my desert throat. A trickle of sweat beads at my temple, as the coolness of it trails down my cheek. I wick it away with a flick of my finger, dropping my shaking hand back in my lap.

Coppola clears his throat and stands, facing away from me as he looks out the window into the landscape.

“I shall get straight to the point of this meeting, Gavin,” he says, his thick Italian accent making my name sound somehow exotic. “You have been cut from the Fury’s roster. Your contract will be paid out through the end of next month. There is no need for you to practice today.”

My ears ring with loud, harsh white noise. So loud it hurts. Like the time Christian and I jumped into this reservoir by our old home from high atop of a bridge. When I broke the water line, it felt like my eardrums burst.

I stare at him dumbfounded. “Excuse me, but what do you mean?”

The words were painful enough the first time around, but my confusion prevents me from comprehension. The severity of the situation is tough to digest.

He sighs, exasperated over my density and having to repeat himself. Well, fuck him. He’s damn well going to give me this courtesy.

“I’m sorry, Gavin. But your play this week, aside, was a little too late and not enough. You have not met our expectations and we need a stronger and more aggressive defense. The decision is final. Your last game was yesterday.”

The words sink in and I’m reminded of the time that I was told by my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Halvorson, that I would never amount to anything. That I was dumb and didn’t have the intelligence to excel.

I guess she was right. Maybe she was clairvoyant about my future. If I’m not a basketball player, what good am I? I have nothing to fall back on. No degree. No skills. Absolutely no brains to do anything outside of manual labor. Nothing that requires an education, at least.

Coppola continues to speak, but I only hear bits and pieces. He mentions something about my unrestricted free agency. Play somewhere else. Go back to the United States.

“You may see Marella before you leave and she will provide you with all the paperwork. The terms of your contract will be sent to your agent. It was a pleasure knowing you, Gavin, and I wish you well.”

And just like that, my career ends with the buttery smooth English of an Italian man. Coppola moves around the desk toward me, where I awkwardly stand, feeling like a gangly baby giraffe, and take his hand.

“Thank you,” is all I can get out as I turn and leave.

I do as he instructed and stop by the receptionist’s desk, picking up the paperwork he referred to and then walk out into the hallway.  My body is on autopilot as I head to our locker room to clean out my personal items.

A numbness snakes through my limbs, even though a fiery anger and disappointment begins a low boil in the pit of my stomach. It’s bubbling by degrees, notching up steadily until I know it will erupt over the top. There’s nothing I can do to stop it.

I’m angry. Over losing my spot on the team. Over losing Kady. She’s the first person I wanted to talk to, but I can’t. She’s gone. She left me and I don’t mean anything to her now.

My anger seethes deep and I want to punch something. I’ve lost the only two things I care about most in one fell swoop. My girl and my basketball career.

Life sucks. What the hell did I do to deserve this cruelty from the universe?

My mother’s voice comes barreling through my thoughts, as if she stands right by my side. I’m filled with her soft-spoken, motherly words of wisdom that she’d always dole out to me as a kid.

“When God closes a door, he opens a window.”

It never made sense to me before. I didn’t get it. Sure, I’d faced adversity before and had gone through tough times in my childhood. But not as an adult.

I sneer down in hostility at my packed duffle bag which contain all my basketball possessions from my locker. I feel claustrophobic. I can’t see any proverbial open windows right now. Just an old, metal locker door that I want to smash my head against.

I sit down on the bench, hunched over with my elbows on my knees, and I begin to laugh. Unrestrained laughter pours out of me until I’m nearly sobbing. With grief. Loss. Agony. Defeat.

Crying over the heartbreaking loss of the two most important things in my life.

And feeling like a mother fucking failure because of it.