Friday, 4/12/2216, Part 2

“You watch basketball?” ChingWei asked, looking up at the wall screen of the dingy bar we ended up in.

“A little bit” I mumble, following his gaze to the screen.

So awkward.

ChingWei had come to my house to pick me up in a sleek black Second Gen Oozora ground car, as befits a chief mechanic. I told him I was fine, I promised it wouldn’t happen again, and I thanked him for his concern, but he had insisted. It was a strange predicament, me being a certified wreck and him not exactly being the conciliatory or empathetic type. When he pulled up outside he greeted me with a gruff “I’m here” before walking right into my apartment with an even gruffer “you ready?” and following that up with a softer “come down”. He had mercifully chosen not to comment on Ami, but as he drove around looking for a bar the conversation had… dragged, to say the least. We ended up at a seedy little spot called ‘The Office’. He pointed at the sign and said “fitting, don’t you think?” He didn’t smile. Neither did I. We were the only people there.

The game was between the Plex Pirates and the Macrohard Mavericks. My NAC offered me the live boxscore. I dismiss it with a thought, but not before seeing that the Pirates were running away with it. I used to watch a little bit with dad when I was younger and still watched highlights every now and then. This might potentially be an ok topic of conversation. Anything to stave off the heavy silence that had lingered between us.

“Do- do you?” I stammer out the follow up question.

“Yeah I used to like the Mavs, until that pretty boy fund manager they got running it traded Blyth,” he said, suddenly with some energy in his voice. “Varoufakis isn’t bad, not by any stretch, he’s lights out from deep, but Blyth is a 20-20 guy, consistently. We needed a guy like him.”

Wow. Turns out I really don’t know anything about basketball. At least he was talking though.

“My uhhhh, my dad was a Mavs fan too.”

“Yeah, yeah I know. We used to watch the games. Used to watch some of them here in this miserable dive. We even watched some games from the second to last Interplanetary right here if you can believe that, 12 years back or something.”

“I, yeah, I remember that. He was really a super fan. He always wanted me to get into it but I was already in college at that point and I think he gave up.” How weird is it that ChingWei and dad were friends?

“Ha!” ChingWei laughed suddenly, a sturdy laugh that frayed at the beginning and end. “Yeah, you were always a sad sack. You didn’t miss much though. Edison owns the whole damn Martian League so there are always some suspicious reorganizations of the best teams before the deadline.” As he spoke two beers and two shots slowly rolled down the stained steel bar top until they stopped in front of us.

“Hm.” I didn’t know what to say to that.

“You’d think we’d have the advantage meeting them halfway gravity-wise, but I heard their cities rotate up there so they’re used to 0.7gs.”

“Hm.”

“The Bobcats were so good, the year the war broke out. They didn’t launch the missiles until after the Cats won the Earth Conference. They were on their way…” He paused to glance warily at a group of unemployed teenagers loitering outside the bar. Proof of employment was required to get in, even at a place like this, but I appreciated his caution. Not that I have anything against the unemployed, just better safe than sorry.

“The finals are on Mars?” I asked to get him talking again.

He looked at me as if I had just asked him to fly me there himself.

“Jesus Kriss are you as stupid as you look? Even those high-tech solar sail missiles take over a month between planets. A luxury passenger ship with a full court would probably take 4 or 5. It would be next season by the time they even got there.” He shook his head, “no, it’s better for everyone if they meet at a habitat halfway.”

“Oh,” I said lowering my eyes to look down at the bar, “sorry.”

He sighed.

“No it’s fine, you kids don’t even play sports anymore I shouldn’t expect you to know where the Interplanetary was played.”

“Hm.” I’m hardly a kid anymore, I don’t say, still looking down. I wish I was.

“Anyway,” he started again, regaining his composure as he picked his train of thought back up, “the Martians boarded them in transit, took the Cats into custody, didn’t let them out until after the war. And so Gabe… your dad would say they started the war…”

There was a long pause. Too long. I look up and he meets my eyes.

“So they wouldn’t have to face them.” He finally finished.

There was another long silence after that, as if he were considering his next words carefully, but he just shook his head, picked up his shot glass and raised it towards me. I scramble and pick mine up as well, spilling some on my fingers.

“Here’s to Gabriel.”

“Here’s to dad.” I agreed.

Whatever liquor was in the glass did not go down smoothly. It got caught in my throat as I tried to swallow it, resulting in half of it going down and half of it spraying out, burning everything it touched.

ChingWei laughed, a deep and honest laugh, as I coughed and wiped at the liquor dribbling down my chin with my sleeve.

“Oh how I worry about the youth.” He said.

I coughed, then smiled, then coughed again.

“I’m thirty eight,” I choke out.

“That so? You drink like one of those unemployed teenagers out there.” He said, nodding at the door without looking.

“It’s been a while since I drank alcohol.” I say defensively but with a smile.

“Well it’s on me, I’ll make sure you get home alright… Anyway, so I knew this working stiff from Bosawas, Bobcats guy, company man, loved his team…”