Picking Sides

Without fail, the lunchtime crowd arrives, dressed in matching navy shorts and gray T-shirts. The first four players to arrive enter the court. Late-comers are banished to the upstairs gallery to watch, to wait, to retrieve wildly hit balls, to referee close calls, to settle score disputes, and, of course, to heckle.

We separate into teams according to some unspoken protocol. After so many years of playing together, we know each other's skill levels. Instinctively we understand what will make for fairly even teams. Occasionally though, according to another set of unspoken rules, we chose teams like children, hiding our hands behind our backs, counting to three, and shooting for odds or evens. On even rarer occasions, we play Lefties against Righties, or The Toms against The Bobs (which includes Roberts, Bobs, and Robertas). And even less frequently, our identical, athletic department garb confuses us so that there are lapses when we don't know who's on which team, and the whole concept of partners falls apart.

But most of the time the entire process works automatically. A short warm-up period (where it's understood that we take turns hitting the ball), a silent division into teams, an arbitrary decision about who serves first, and the lunchtime racquetball game begins.

Sometimes the games are deadly serious. No one speaks except to call the score. (Sometimes we even skip this courtesy and the score becomes a matter of silent reckoning and honor code.) Other times entire conversations take place between points. The server pauses to finish a story. The players discuss their golf games, their recent travels, their injuries. (What we do not talk about: our personal lives. No mention of spouses, romances, kids. This in another unspoken agreement.)

Ultimately, what takes over is the game, the rhythm of that bright blue ball contacting the strings, careening off the walls, the players shifting in and out of position in a fluid (not to be confused with graceful), improvised dance. With each bounce of the ball, the work waiting back in the office drops further away. Problems, difficulties, conflicts, disappointments, and worries become a ball that's smashed into the wall, until all that's left is this room, these four walls, the sound of the ball, the squeak of shoes, the cursing, the complimentary "Nice shot!" or "Nice try!" For the space of an hour -- as long as it take to drive to a local restaurant, order a beer, eat a sandwich and soup, and drive back to work -- for that stolen block of time, nothing else in the world matters other than winning the next point.