I want to break into REI and tear down the climbing wall. Or dig
deep ditches every 10 feet along the Burke-Gilman Trail. Or fill all
the golf holes with cement. Or pretend I have biblical powers and fill
Safeco Field and Qwest Field with poisonous frogs and carnivorous
locusts.
I want to take away their sports because mine is being taken from
me.
I want to kidnap a
basketball hater. I want to drive him to a
high-school gym in Reardan or Wellpinit, my hometowns. I want to sit my
hostage in the bleachers and point out the grandparents, parents,
siblings, cousins, and townspeople who have gathered to cheer for their
team, for their families.
I want my hostage to understand that when I cheer for the Sonics, I
am cheering for the city of Seattle. I’m a small-town kid who, through
his basketball love, has changed this metropolis into my community. You
are my family.
This is a love story, damn it.
Once, in KeyArena, after a big Sonics win, I hugged a stranger and
he hugged me back. We were men crying in each other’s arms.
Can’t you see the beauty in that? 