Chapter Thirty-Nine: Marcus

Joshua came into my room Friday morning and woke me up, even though it was a snow day and I had a game that night if the weather cleared, and I needed my rest. Like he has a habit of doing, he started in on me while I was still rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. He said he had good news and bad news and which did I want first, and I said the good.

To my surprise, the good news was that he had been very impressed with my shooting guard play, that I was shooting very well and was showing "excellent quickness." He also said that I had waited patiently for the chance to start and hadn't given Coach Henson any "unsolicited, unwanted coaching advice" or in other words "lip" like I had Coach Dell. My brother told me that his only criticism of my play was that I was still looking to shoot first instead of passing first, that if I tried to be a more multi-dimensional player, that whoever was guarding me would have to play the pass, the shot, and the drive which would open it up more for me to shoot. I told him I had never thought of it that way, but he was right. If whoever is guarding me doesn't know what I'm going to do, that will only result in more shot opportunities for me. Finally, he gave me a huge compliment and made me think of something that I had never thought of. He said that I just might be a better basketball player than football player, and that I ought to keep that possibility in mind down the road, that maybe the sport I should concentrate on for the long run might be basketball. Then I told Joshua that I really appreciated the compliments, so what was the bad news?

The bad news, he said, was that too much of the time I was an" insufferable little jerk," that he was sick of it, and that even Jordan had commented on how immature I was, and Mom and Dad were worried about it too because he had overheard them talking, and Jordan didn't want to double date any more with me and whoever I was going with at the time unless some serious changes were made in my attitude. He laid so much on me at first, that I didn't have time to take it all in, especially the part about me being insufferable. I confess that I had to look it up on my phone later and the definition was "unbearable to be with," which was a little harsh if you ask me, and not true at all. But that part about Jordan not wanting to double date with me was more than a little scary because I can't drive this year and most of my sophomore year and how I am going to go out with the ladies if I don't have a car.

Then Joshua said he had one more bad thing to discuss. He said I had already gone through two girlfriends and the year was barely half over and at the rate I was being dumped by women, I would run out of girls to date by my junior year. He said if I would promise to at least act in a mature fashion, he would see to it that I have a blind date next Friday night with Jordan's first cousin Tameka who goes to Westside High School. Joshua said she's a freshman like I am and very pretty and very sweet,according to Jordan. But if I should greet her like I'm the planet's gift to women, then Jordan would see to it that it was both my first and last date with her, and the era of our double dating days would be over.

So I said no sweat, I can behave and be mature, and my brother said, that was fine, but I had one more thing to promise. I asked him what was that, and Joshua said that I was to promise three things, based on what he and Jordan had talked about. First, I was going to ask what were Tameka's opinions about various things, and I was not to talk about things just from my perspective until she had finished and gotten her comments in.

Second, I was not to use the terms, "my lady," "my woman," or any two dozen or other similar combinations of words when I was talking to Tameka. That nobody was going to be my lady unless I grew up some more, and that using all these ridiculous phrases about girls was another thing that was insufferable about me. And the third was that I was in no position to tell anyone else how to act or think, and life would go a lot smoother for me once I learned that. So I thanked Joshua for looking after my best interests. After all what else could I do, tell him off and have to wait until the second semester of my sophomore year when I would have a car and have a chance to go out.

You know, maybe I should turn down the heat two or three clicks with the ladies. Joshua has been going with Jordan for almost two years, and things seem to be going really well between them. He must know something about women. But I don't want to admit to him that he may know more about women than I do.