# You Met Me at Ringer Park

By [POAPs Gone Wild](https://paragraph.com/@poapsgonewild) · 2024-02-05

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White Mouse was a white guy. Short, greasy dark hair, maybe 20. Pale. Very pale. Turned out there was a reason for that. I think he wore a wife beater, baggy pants barely propped up by one of those cloth belts, and skate shoes, but that may be my mind amalgamating other kids in their late teens/early twenties from my days at Ringer. Though I tended to collect their You Met Me POAPs – but not White Mouse’s, I’ll get to that – they rarely used an image of themselves so it wasn’t a reliable tool for recalling their actual appearance. The most common art was some graffiti bullshit or a popular meme from the week they’d created it, usually featuring someone obese and underdressed.

I met White Mouse on a chilly September evening, light fading, a weekend, usually a slow time. The scattered scrubs at the court, myself included, had gathered like ants to sugar by the prospect of a game and managed to get three-on-three. I don’t remember, but I’d wager the ball had a smooth rubber exterior, possibly blue. A few of the guys were ones I saw at Ringer a lot. Then there were a couple Hispanic teenagers who did not speak English – friendly and quick to smile, the poor bastards. Because then there was White Mouse. This was my only White Mouse encounter during two summers of going three to four, or more, times a week to the park. It was also my only encounter with the friendly teenage buddies. Perhaps they planned on coming by a lot and this was their feel-out session, and they understandably never returned (and if they had You Met Me POAPs, I didn’t have a chance to collect them).

The rest of the regulars all seemed to know White Mouse. Any time he touched the ball, _Yo, White Mouse_ this and, _White Mouse, yo_ that and, _What the fuck, White Mouse, bro_. They rarely addressed him without also saying his name. He kept stopping the game to pull his NFC card from his shoe and beg people to mint his POAP, and it became a side game to refuse. _Get the hell away from me that thing stank like your moldy socks_, or\*, Cops be trackin’ your shit for sure I don’t wanna be on no lists\*, or, _Gonna get a virus you touch that_. One guy did mint it, because White Mouse grabbed his phone and then threatened to throw it over the fence if the kid didn’t tell him his ENS. _Better send that to a burn address later_, someone snickered under their breath.

One of these regulars was Dave. White guy, blonde hair in a ponytail, thin-rimmed glasses that looked more appropriate for reading a novel than playing basketball. Point guard, not tall, pretty strong – you wouldn’t want to catch an elbow to the gut from him, though there was a good chance you would. He was quiet with a deep voice that conveyed a just-fuckin-dare-me level of rage simmering under the surface. He often arrived via skateboard and frequently refused to play, preferring to hang out on the benches or in the small, rocky hillside at the edge of the courts. Or, sometimes, he’d save a game of full court by agreeing to be the 10th when nobody else was around. Dave had an older brother who showed up less frequently, and who looked very similar to him, and carried himself with a similar level of that certain type of confidence that certain people seem to get from spending their entire life in one very specific area of one very specific neighborhood.

When Dave’s teammate, if you made a bad play his frustration was muted but appeared rooted in true disgust. If you made a good play he was often indifferent, though some rare days, when it appeared he decided he cared, he would hop around and hoot with excitement. When his opponent, he would wear you out driving the ball, find the open guy and make the right pass, and body you up on defense, sometimes full-court, hands in your face. He had a solid jumper and knew how to use the backboard.

Dave usually had a guitar. When I cut through the park midday to get to goat curry at Wan’s Deli, or after dark to get an 18-pack of Rolling Rock at Blanchard’s, I would see him guitaring with some of the regular kids by the court, drinking and smoking. He dealt, weed mostly I think. Despite never having a real conversation with Dave that didn’t revolve around organizing a pickup basketball game, a few times I directed business his way when people in the park asked if I knew where to get weed (he never knew I’d been so benevolent).

Dave’s You Met Me POAP was, expectedly, basic; his personality was built around revealing little about himself. A beach at sunset with a sort of _Endless Summer_ vibe, and in black block font _You Met Dave_ across the top. The description just said, _this proves we met_. I don’t think he’d ever surfed because to do so would require he leave Boston. He rarely pulled out his NFC card to drop some POAPs. Usually it was at the end of a long run of victories, and usually a line formed. If he hadn’t liked someone’s play, it wasn’t uncommon for him to turn them down with a side smirk and shake of the head, maybe a little shooing motion. I witnessed this many times but didn’t get in line, not for fear of rejection but more as a protest for the whole ceremony. But one time after I drained a game-winner I saw him go for his card and walked over with my phone out. He kinda chuckled, but obliged – I surprised myself to be so forthcoming but a true collector can rarely fight the urge to collect for long.

There were lots of other regulars that I never got a POAP from, because they didn’t have one. It was just the “kids” into it. I never understood who started the trend.

There was Mo, the jacked black dude in his late forties who’d roll up on his mountain bike. He’d roughhouse down low with people half his age and size with no shame and then trot up the court whooping in celebration after a putback bucket. He’d get mocked for this, _congrats bro you beat up someone half your size_, but he couldn’t have cared less. He also had one of the brokest jumpers but that didn’t stop him from shooting, and more than once he banked in a winning 2 and let everyone know he’d just called game. We teamed up regularly; the older crew tended to stick together (I wasn’t nearly as old as Mo, tho). The other 40+ regular was a short Asian guy with huge calves. A pure point guard. He wasn’t a bad shooter but seemed allergic to trying to score. Even wide open at the top of the key, he was looking for cutters. Though he could usually hang with the people running on court one, he’d typically opt for court two and tell me, _come on, let’s play over here. None of those guys pass the ball, they don’t like passing._

There was Jerome, the shaggy-bearded skinny black dude with a lazy eye who rarely spoke above a mumble and wore the same faded reversible penny. He tended to move slow as molasses and anyone new would underestimate him. Because he could basically take the ball, slowly move one direction, rock back the other, rise up, and never miss a shot. It didn’t matter if he was in traffic. He just moved at his own pace like the defense didn’t exist, sprinkling in a blow-by here and there. Or he’d shimmy around until he was near the hoop, hop in the air, and float there for seemingly as long as he needed, adjusting around arms and hands until, eventually, a smooth lay-in before touching the ground.

Shaggy beard would show up with his friend, who was the spitting image of 50 Cent, just a little smaller, but not that much smaller. Fitty always wore a baseball cap and a big white tee. He could dunk but he basically never did. He was an excellent shooter and superior driver but preferred to attempt a fancy no-look dime. He got winded easily. He was always positive and encouraging everyone on his team. I never once saw him angry; he chuckled off everything. The two of them could have won about any game they wanted, but rarely cared to take over except for the occasional time someone got cocky and attacked them repeatedly one-on-one, and even then 50 was chuckling. At the start of my second summer, I showed up after playing indoor all winter and 50 said, looks like you lost some weight, and I thought, yeah I guess I did, and also, damn, yeah I guess I did need to.

There was the pasty guy with a headband who looked like The Professor and played like he thought he was. He hated when things got physical. Once I came from behind and swatted the living shit out of him, spiked the ball into the ground, and he said, _Hey guys come on, we don’t want anyone to get hurt_. There was the Russian bodybuilder-looking asshole who once got mad at a foul call and kicked the ball into the baseball field; I grabbed another ball, dribbled up the court and pulled up from the logo for a game-winner (not real logo distance, this is a park court sir), and yelled, _don’t kick the fucking ball!_ To my great surprise, he apologized.

There was Mike, white dude with a scruffy beard who wore muddy construction boots and didn’t bother tying the laces. He smoked cigarettes between games but could run for miles, and never stopped running and crashing the boards. He shot the ball from the wrong side of his head and only liked to shoot from the wings so he could use glass, loved getting in the midrange. There was the kinda chubby stoner kid with long corn rows who would grab a rebound and push the ball up court like a train off the tracks, sometimes straight into a turnover but you had to love the hustle. He worked at a restaurant near my place and I’d see him on the T all the time. There was the hyper-fit tall guy who showed up with two mint condition gym bags, all clean cut with clean gear, way too good for everyone, which he only revealed in short bursts and elected to mostly stroll around and casually shoot 30-footers; there’s always one of those.

And there was the crazy old guy with curly white hair in a bright yellow t-shirt and khaki shorts. He sat in the rocks behind the hoops, settled in between two big ones with his legs up like it was a La-Z-Boy in his living room, and shouted at everyone endlessly. He shouted about aliens, and corruption, and how anybody walking by was wearing a stupid hat, or stupid shoes, or a stupid headband. One kid was skateboarding in front of crazy guy and he kept shouting how stupid his skateboard was, but the kid didn’t hear because he had headphones on so he kept going back and forth as his friends howled with delight. But crazy guy’s favorite thing to shout about, what he came back to without fail every 5-10 minutes, was how Georgetown was a dreadful university and how Patrick Ewing had received no education during his time there. _One, two, four, seven, ten! Patrick Ewing couldn’t even count! Twelve, fourteen, seventeen!_ Even though his behavior indicated the comfort of someone at the park all the time, I only saw him once. Just like White Mouse.

White Mouse. As the game wore on, he continued to talk an escalating level of shit. Everyone found it amusing. I didn’t really give a fuck except I began to realize that no exercise at all would have been preferred over participating in this charade. For all their niceties, the Hispanic kids were unskilled, to say the least. The rest of the regulars, Dave included, were in it more for the socialization. And by the socialization, I mean the observation of White Mouse.

White Mouse’s favorite saying was, _Jail ball, bitch_. He said it after clanging in a lucky-ass shot, or making a very standard perimeter pass, or snatching a rebound with nobody near him. And he especially said it after fouling the living shit out of people in this game of “basketball.” Every time he said it, the regulars would laugh harder. The friendly teens seemed to take it in stride, possibly because they were concerned that not smiling would be viewed as confrontational. Luckily, I was on his team. So all I had to do was pass if I got the ball, not get near White Mouse, and I was generally safe from his jail-ball-bitch maneuvers. I wished desperately to leave, but worried my abrupt departure, which would put them at an odd number, would incite some reaction from White Mouse. So I patiently waited as everyone flung themselves wildly about, and occasionally, miraculously, managed to allow the ball to fall through the rim, and the score inched closer and closer to game point.

Though White Mouse was skinny, he was also, unsurprisingly, in terrible shape. Despite the half-ass-edness of this half-court game, his breathing soon became labored. Then. He drifted to the sideline, fell to his knees, and projectile vomited. That was also white. He had avoided the playing surface, but been unable to muster the strength to go a few more paces and reach the grass. It looked like someone had spilled a bucket of oatmeal on the red cement. Of course, all the regulars lost it. This was the funniest thing they had ever seen. One of them was so amused that he got on a bike and circled the court as he laughed and laughed, like he was searching for someone with which to share this moment of joy, like Jimmy V after knocking off Houston.

I thought this meant the game was over. But White Mouse would not let this battle of will end in a draw. Like Jordan in his flu game, or Willis Reed limping back to the court, or Paul Pierce changing out of his shart shorts, White Mouse staggered to his feet, wiped off his chin, and declared the game back on. Unfortunately, once they composed themselves, everyone seemed to agree. And we continued, as I now steered especially clear of my ill teammate in case he hadn’t quite gotten it all out.

I don’t remember how it ended. I don’t remember who won. My memory isn’t too good. That’s another reason I like to collect POAPs, but in that moment I sure as hell didn’t care about a POAP (though of course looking back I wish I had one to commemorate this… game). Also, I don’t think anyone at the park ever gave out anything except a You Met Me POAP – it just occurred to me that those kids probably thought that’s all POAP was. Maybe some MIT kids had showed up to the local high school and given everyone pre-loaded NFC cards but did a shit job of explaining the rest. Like some give-a-man-a-Web3-fish-feed-him-for-a-day-shit. Damn.

Damn.

But, finally, after White Mouse stopped play a couple times to gag, _someone_ hit a bucket and the game came to its merciful end. I said I had to go, and quickly – but not too quickly in case I would attract attention – I grabbed my backpack from where it was propped against the chain link fence, and left, eschewing my ritual of sitting a few minutes to change out of my shoes. I was willing to lose a little tread from the sidewalk if it meant exiting the general vicinity of White Mouse that much quicker. Plus, once White Mouse saw I had two per (_Big Boy_), he seemed like the type who would inquire, _Yo what size are you? Lemme try those out_.

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*Originally published on [POAPs Gone Wild](https://paragraph.com/@poapsgonewild/you-met-me-at-ringer-park)*