By Mave Deltzer

It was the day of the game. They were ready. The legs were loose. The spirits were free. The eyes of the Hulkster were bloodshot red. All was fine in the land of Garrett, Davey, and Edson. All except Edson’s rumbling stomach. He had history of having an upset stomach. One day in junior high school, Edson and Garrett had gone to the mall. They stopped off at McDonalds and had their usual Big Mac. Garrett went to the restroom after he’d eaten and he came back to an empty seat. Edson was no where to be found. Garrett thought to look at some of their favorite stores. There was a sports cards shop that they liked to browse. The owner was a Philipino guy who was a big Michael Jordan fan. Garrett and Edson thought it was funny that he as the big Michael Jordan fan, couldn’t pronounce Michael Jordan. It was as if Elmer Fudd jumped in the body of this Philipino man. He would say, “I have some new Michael Jo-dan cards.” Edson and Garrett would get a kick out of that every time. Actually, they’d encourage the mispronouncing. Edson would ask him all the time who his favorite player was, even though he already knew, just to hear the man say Michael Jo-dan. Garrett would ask him like someone who had lived in a cave for the last ten years, “Who is that guy who plays for the Bulls and wears number 23?” And with the proudest of smiles, the man would say, why of course, that would be Michael Jo-dan. Garrett walked up to the man to see if he had seen his friend. The man replied that he hadn’t, but that he had some new Michael Jo-dan cards. Garrett wasn’t interested.

He decided to try and get someone to page his friend over the intercom. He found a man in the middle of the mall and he had him announce over the speakers, “Lew Edson Jamir Lansang, please come to the middle of the mall.” Garrett waited a good ten minutes and his friend never came. Looked like he had to take the bus back home himself. Later that day, he found out that Edson had a bad case of stomach cramps and called his mother to pick him up and take him home. The stomach cramps turned into throwing up and a howlingly bad case of toxic diarrhea. Edson couldn’t stomach most solid foods anymore and for the entire summer was on a diet that consisted of bananas and jello. All because of a Big Mac.

Edson was feeling those same feelings on the day of the game. He had the cramping. He had the vomiting. And worse of all, he had the toxic diarrhea. The game wasn’t until 2:00PM, so the guys had some time. Garrett brought over a bottle of the pink stuff and Edson drank it like it was Gatorade. But it didn’t help. They had an idea. They remembered back to junior high school and the Big Mac fiasco. Edson’s mom had some bananas and red jello and Edson decided to try it. It worked like a charm. He felt better, even though he was worried that he wouldn’t be able to eat winner’s number 9. But they had to play the game first.

Davey woke up stoked for the game and put on his special clean socks. Yes, his special socks were his clean ones. His motto was that underwear and socks had two good sides. Usually, in order to save laundry detergent, he liked to wear his socks the regular way and then flip them inside out and wear them again before throwing them in the dirty basket. Underwear was no different.

Mike and Gary had a different way to get ready for the game. Rather than getting the old Togos wrapper for Gary to sniff, Mike went above the call of duty. Since Gary was in town and tired from driving, Mike picked him up and drove him directly to Togos. Gary was wondering what kind of strategy Mike was trying to use as it was no good to get full before the game. They walked inside together and Gary noticed Matt, his nephew, and Mike, Garrett, and Davey’s cousin was working the sandwich counter. Mike asked Matt to pull out a piece of pastrami and put it under Gary’s nose. Gary took the biggest whiff of all time, and for a second, Matt actually thought Gary was trying to snort the pastrami, but then Michael pulled him away. Gary staggered out of the restaurant like a drunken bar hopper, high off the smell of pastrami. Gary was ready again because next time he wasn’t going to sniff. He was going to bite. And bite hard.

The second match-up, just like the first was to be held at Bird Park, which was close to Davey’s house. Davey was not just Davey anymore. He was now The Duck. Garrett had taken Davey to a wrestling event a few months prior and after the event was over, he noticed Davey was going through some mannerisms. Davey was also mouthing something. He then said out of the blue that if he was ever a wrestler, he’d be known as Dave The Duck and his finishing maneuver would be called the Quacker Splash. Without even a flinch, Garrett started calling him The Duck.

Michael and Gary didn’t need to warm up. Hell, they hadn’t touched a basketball since the last time the two teams played. Garrett, Davey, and Edson had been warming up since the last time the teams played. They were ready. And Garrett was going to shoot for the ball. Gary tried to throw him off his shot by telling him his shoes were untied, but to no avail, Garrett hit the swish and the ball was theirs to start the game. Since Garrett and Davey were the original team, they started first, while Edson was on the sidelines trying to keep loose doing jumping jacks. Garrett knew that Davey was ready, but he would tire himself out early because he was so fired up. The Duck was ready to rock and roll.

Garrett posted up Gary on the first play which was a surprise to Gary since he outmuscled his young nephew in the first game. But Garrett was a little bit stronger this time, and while not stronger than his uncle by far, he was able to hold his own a little better. But he wasn’t on the block to post his uncle up and take him to the bucket. He had developed a nice little fade away and used it here. One fadeaway jumper, one point. He immediately took his uncle to the post again, and hit another fadeaway. It was almost too easy. Young bucks 2, old dogs 0. Garrett figured that The Duck would be good for a little more than half the first game. Since they were playing two out of three, it was important that Edson and Davey were fresh every time they were out on the court. What was an extra player good for if he was tired? They were going to substitute smartly.

Gary and Mike were a little cold but that was to be expected. Since Gary lives in Arizona, they couldn’t practice together, but not like they would anyway. Gary decided that enough was enough, and he played Garrett’s fadeaway perfectly, but as Garrett faked the fadeaway, Davey cut to the basket, and Garrett hit him for a third bucket. Davey then started to do a dance reminiscent of a chicken running around with it’s head cut off, and Garrett had to remind him that it was only 3-0. Garrett hit another fadeaway and it was 4-0. While Gary expected the game to be tougher, he didn’t expect to get run over. And while Gary was the go to guy on the team, it was Mike who got them back in the game. He took The Duck’s dance to heart and it fired him up. He took Davey to the hole and to his own surprise, he hit a lay-up to start the scoring for his team. He actually jumped up again to grab his own rebound thinking he was going to miss his lay-up before it went in the basket. He then hit a short jumper off a feed from his uncle and the lead was cut in half. Garrett dribbled the ball off his foot out of bounds and Gary saw that as an opportunity to find his game. He hit two short jumpers and the game was all of a sudden tied. Garrett looked over to the sideline where Edson was jumping up and raising his hand like he had the answer to the teacher’s question, waiting to get in the ball game. But it wasn’t time yet. The Duck still had some playing to do.

Davey was a little frustrated. He expected himself to play much better this time, and while he was, it wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to dominate his older cousin Mike. Garrett saw the frustration and knew he could get his younger cousin’s confidence back up. Garrett had told The Duck that every time he beat Gary off the dribble, Mike would have to come over to help out and if Davey cut to the basket, he could get an easy lay-up. Garrett decided to try and get by Gary so Davey could score a bucket or two and start feeling like he was getting the best of Mike. It was a little harder than designed. While Gary was strong, he was still pretty quick. Every time Garrett would go right, Gary was right there. He would cross over, and Gary would be right there. Then Davey did something very smart. He decided to set a screen. Garrett rubbed right around the screen, and Mike had to help out, which let The Duck, cut right to the basket and got an easy bucket. It was now 5-4.

One thing Davey was famous for was running. The kid could run around the court and not stop. He’d do a lot of needless running, but he had a ton of energy. And Mike was the beneficiary of the nice sweat that Davey had worked up. The game was still early, and Davey had already taken off his perspiration soaked shirt. He threw it towards Edson and it created a big sweat splotch on the outside of the court. Garrett figured that Davey had maybe 3 points more in him until they had to substitute. Garrett put a Davey miss back in and it was 6-4. Gary beat Garrett off the dribble and it was now 6-5. Garrett wanted Davey to go out with a bang. He set Davey up for a short jumper and Davey was done. He played his hardest and went out of the game with a 7-5 lead. He had done his job. Enter Edson.

Edson had his socks pulled up to his knees and he entered the game and immediately slapped the floor to indicate he was ready to play some defense. It made Garrett laugh because if anything, Edson was a shooter, not a defender. He was the type of player who would get the ball and immediately shoot it without thinking. That was great when he was on fire, but horrible when he wasn’t. Mike was happy that he didn’t have to deal with the ducklike defense of Davey as well as the shower he took while guarding sweaty Davey, and he started to catch fire. He hit a nice jumper on Edson and then rebounded a Gary miss and put it in to tie the score. Garrett wasn’t worried though because offensively, he and Edson had played a lot together and they knew each other’s game. He knew they could finish it out. They only needed four points to win the first game. Gary hit a runner to give the old dogs their first lead of the game. The momentum was on their side.

Mike hit a jumpshot to give the old guys a two bucket lead. It was their game to win, but the young bucks had something up their sleeves. Edson had yet to get a bucket, but he knew that he only needed one to get started. But it wouldn’t come with the next bucket. Gary hit another jumper and the old men were one bucket away from winning the first game and sticking a dagger into the hearts of the young men. It was 10-7 and it looked like the young bucks would have to wait again next year. Davey was frustrated and wanted back in, but Garrett was confident that they could pull it out. They just needed to get Edson hot. While Garrett had told Davey to cut to the hoop when Mike would help, he told Edson the opposite. He wanted Edson to go to the corner for an open jumper. And it worked to perfection. Edson hit two buckets from that spot to get them within one score. If the game was tied at 10, the game would continue passed 11 as the winner had to win by two points. On the next possession, Garrett beat Gary off the dribble and instead of helping, Mike stayed with Edson and that allowed Garrett to get a lay-up. The game was tied, and the old dogs were frustrated.

Gary walked over to Mike and said that they had to win the first game because if they didn’t, there would be no way they could win two in a row with only two people playing against three. It was now or never. Gary got the ball off an Edson miss and he was determined to go to the bucket. He went right at Garrett and Garrett was with him every step. He put the ball up and it was slightly off target, but Gary got the rebound. He then went right back up, but Garrett got a piece of it. Gary got it back again, and went back up, but couldn’t score. Garrett got the rebound and wanted to finish the game off. He looked at Edson and twirled his index finger around. That signaled the alley, no oop play. He passed to Edson and ran outside of the key while Gary followed him. He then cut right back toward the hoop and Edson threw a pass that was perfect for the play. For someone that could dunk, it was a great alleyoop pass. But for Garrett it was a great alley, no oop pass. Garrett jumped in the air, grabbed the pass, and while still in the air, laid it up and in for the score. The alley, no oop play worked to perfection and the game was one point away from being over.

Garrett dribbled the ball out and noticed that while Gary might’ve been tired, he was still ready to play defense. His legs looked fresh. It amazed Garrett because he figured at least late in the game, he would have the advantage because of the younger legs, but he was wrong. And then something happened that would cause the game to change. Gary slipped. Garrett took advantage of the slip and went right for the bucket. Mike had to help out or else Garrett would hit an easy lay-up to win the game. As he helped, Edson went to his favorite corner. Garrett sent over the perfect pass and Edson had forever to take the possible winning shot. As he was getting in his form, he started saying, “extra mustard, heavy on the pastrami, no onions, or tomatoes, and extra peppercinis.” Mike and Gary looked at each other with surprise. They couldn’t believe this guy was calling his shot. He was actually ordering his sandwich before shooting his shot. They both looked at each other and sprinted toward Edson as he was taking his shot. Edson hurriedly took the shot as Gary and Mike flew at him. He threw up an air ball, but there was one problem. Garrett was right under the basket and caught the air ball and put it in the bucket to win the first game. Garrett looked at Edson and was impressed that Edson was able to psychologically work his magic for the final bucket and win the game. While Garrett knew that it wasn’t a real pass, it was still sort of a pass, and Edson rarely passed except when he had to. But still, it was a great play.

The second game wasn’t much of a match-up. Gary and Mike spent all of their energy in the first game and the young bucks won the second game fairly easily by the score of 11-5. The Duck even had a couple more dances in the second game. After the second game was over, Gary was dejected. He had waited for Togos all day long. Mike made him sniff the meat without giving him a taste. He was drooling like Pavlov’s dogs. But all of a sudden, he started smiling. And then just like he had at the end of their first meeting a year ago, he screamed “I’m going to Togos! Yeah baby!” Garrett, Edson and Davey looked at each other wondering what their crazy uncle was doing. But all Mike could do was smile. He knew what Gary was doing. “He knows he’s getting Togos, win, lose, or draw, even if he has to pay for it,” Mike said. That was it. Gary was just happy the games were over and he was going to get his Togos.

At Togos, they made Matt put away the scale that they use to weigh the meat. These sandwiches were old school. Matt made the sandwiches so big that you couldn’t even see the bread. Everyone was eating with glee and Gary and Garrett tapped their sandwiches together as a toast and they both said at the same time, “Ain’t gonna be no rematch, ain’t gonna be no rematch, ain’t gonna be no rematch.”

By the way, Davey wasn’t at our last get together to take the new picture, but here’s what he looks like now, sitting on top of Santa’s lap. And one more thing, Edson is single. Shoot him an email if you think he’s hot stuff. But you may have to wait in line. Like at Togos, you might have to take a number.

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