Rock art by Tim Christensen
At my hotel's lobby elevator, a tall older man waits in front of me. He's using a cane—clearly not purely decorative—and I notice he's preparing his body to move with it. He may not be any older than I; after sixty, there's considerable variance in how our cells resist the changes age brings. When the doors open, I defer to the cane, but before he can take a second step, the steel doors start closing faster than he can move. I didn't notice who put a hand, or was it a cane, in the opening to keep the elevator from escaping to the 14th floor.
We get on, and that's when the answer presents itself: there's a third person with us, a woman. She's almost as tall as the man, and she's asking if he's moving okay. He nods unconvincingly. Except for the cane, the two look similar in the way that couples merge their appearances after decades together. They're both tall, hair a similar shade of gray, dressed alike (if one accounts for gender). One thing is different! Right above where the Superman 'S' would appear on her beige sweatshirt, the word "Pickleball" appears in two-inch embroidered cursive.
Did pickleball four times a week hone her reflexes so she could thwart closing elevators so quickly? I check to see if she used one of those overgrown ping pong paddles to part the doors. Is the husband with cane because he doesn't play pickleball? Did some demented younger relative or friend gift her that sweatshirt, or did she buy it on Etsy or make it herself? Maybe like the light going off or not when you close the refrigerator door, could she have already been inside the elevator? Schrödinger's paddle? Is this even the same elevator interior?
Earlier that day, I was wandering the hotel grounds and came upon an outdoor basketball court. One of the hoops was bent and had no net. The other pole slumped like a truck had backed into it, more or less the way I feel after Dwayne—11 years younger and far more athletic than I—backs me down in the key. No one was playing. Even I wasn't tempted. Wearing a bathing suit and thongs dissuaded me. And years ago, my knees and feet informed me—via two sleepless nights, multiple hot baths, and an emptied bottle of ibuprofen—they were too old for cement.
I now stick to a three-on-three, losers out, half-court version of the sport played on wooden floors, called "Senior Basketball." I've never been good at it, but I still love playing two to three times a week, even if I sometimes wonder if anyone else—even the guys my age—wants me on their team anymore. Well, that was going on well before I got old.
Behind the basketball court, an assortment of construction equipment was resurfacing two long-neglected tennis courts. A cottage sported a sign designating it as the hotel's tennis director's office, but I suspect the director isn't coming back unless it's to drop off Uber passengers. Now and then, the former director probably laments that the last American man to win a grand slam tournament was Andy Roddick in 2003. The resurfacing was clearly a repurposing: four new pickleball courts with near ocean view. Was the basketball court next? Maybe the elevator lady simply booked her stay too early.
I now stand on one side of the elevator, and the couple stands on the other. "I take it you like pickleball," I say innocently enough.
The elevator suddenly goes dark, the eerie sound of a steel drum playing Bill Withers's "Lean on Me" filling the interior. Or... maybe multiple compartments share this elevator shaft, and I've stepped into one headed to an alternate set of floors?
The lights come back on. The woman is now several inches taller. She nods and pulls her shoulders back, then grows another three inches. She flicks her wrist, instantly sending the old man into some other dimension, but not before I first see my face on his body. Samurai style, she reaches behind her back and pulls out a paddle, brandishing it inches from my face. Her voice echoes off the walls. "Pickleball uber alles! Don't you watch the Bachelor?"
"A little," I lie.
She hisses. "I suppose you only watch it to keep your wife company, and you've never watched the hot tub scenes."
"The pickleball tournament in the Golden Bachelor was clearly a paid product placement."
She snorts, "It was my idea."
"Was destroying that basketball court your idea, too?"
"What do you think?"
Anger pours through me. "So, it was you!"
"Tennis courts, basketball courts, trial courts. Soon, we'll be taking all of them."
I have to stop for a moment to consider the merits of having a highest pickleball court in the land. Given the current Supreme Court, maybe having them decide cases by playing a best-of-nine pickleball match might be a more credible than whatever they're doing now to reproductive choice and executive regulatory power.
"You... you... destroyed a perfectly good outdoor basketball court! How dare you! You call this America?"
"This isn't America, it's South Florida."
Two things jumped out at me. The man with the cane, whose body momentarily morphed with my face before Pickleball lady vanished him into the matrix, wasn't a stranger. Eight years ago when I started playing basketball again, I found myself waiting for a game with an even older man who told me he work for 30 years for the Washington Star (they ceased publication in 1981). Barney moved well for an 80-year-old, was accurate from ten feet in, and had surprisingly long arms. We would tell one another, "If I get to Barney's age, I hope I can still play, too."
Of course, there were some unspoken Barney rules. We observed a two to three foot no-go zone around him. If he was guarding you, you might drive on him once a game, but no more than that. There was also the whole business of those long arms poking the ball away and really embarrassing you. Now and then, Barney would fall down for various reasons (I ran into him once), and he'd yell at us, "Do you know how old I am?"
One time, he fell and hit his head, a terrifying moment. Ultimately, he got up and refused to let any of us drive him home or even follow him. I did get him to text me that evening. It turned out Barney was afraid his wife would forbid him to play again if she found out what happened.
I did notice Barney started having a harder time figuring out who was on which team during our pickup games. During COVID the gym closed for 12 months, and we'd heard Barney had a stroke followed several months later by a story that he had passed away. We even talked about a memorial gathering of some sort once we could meet somewhere. Months later, one of my friends went to basketball and nearly had a stroke of his own: Barney walked in, just to say "Hi." The stroke part was real (he was now using a cane), but he'd driven to the gym on his own.
The two people who reported the news of Barney's death insisted they'd been told by someone else; they just didn't remember who or when. The friend who saw Barney that day never claimed to have seen Barney drive up or away. Instead of a still-alive Barney, could the friend have seen a kind of ghost? Had I seen the same ghost? Basketball Barney now being backhanded off to the Pickleball underworld?
The LEDs on the two floor indicator panels flash in an intricate pattern. We are between floors, but which floors is unclear. I move towards the red emergency stop button. A bright yellow ball drops from the ceiling, and the sound of carbon fiber on plastic follows, the unnerving unnatural sound of pickleball on paddle. The ball zips past my outstretched hand.
I laugh. "I've been hit by wiffle balls before. It's no big deal."
"For the last time, it's not a wiffle ball!" She shrieks, "The holes are placed differently, and they're not exactly the same size."
"It's tennis for people who can't run any longer," I yell back.
A second ball whizzes within an inch of my nose. "That had to be out," I say.
She lets out a resigned growl. I think to myself, This is a truly strange way to die. Or worse, will I wind up like Barney, trapped between compartments of some elevator hotel?
I reach behind my back, hoping to find a pickleball paddle of my own to defend myself. Instead, I'm holding a basketball. It's both the first time I've ever been able to dribble behind my back and palm a basketball. It turns out that's still true. This isn't a real basketball. There are holes in it, the size of the ones in bowling balls. The ball itself is plastic. "What the heck?"
"It's pickle basketball. Everyone shoots underhand, the basket's seven feet high, and no one can go within six feet of the rim unless the ball bounces first. What do you think?"
"This is what I think!"
I throw the ball with all the force I can summon right at her head. It curves wildly away, missing her by at least two feet, and bounces harmlessly off the back wall. "I told you it was really a wiffle ball," I yell.
A third yellow pickleball hits me directly in the stomach. I crumple to the ground. I'm lying in the kitchen. That's when I remember the second thing. The woman towering triumphantly over me also isn't a complete stranger.
Last year, I was riding a bike in Indian Lakes, Florida, when I came across a set of well-maintained public tennis courts. It was a beautiful late morning, and I noticed all the parking spaces were taken, but only two people were playing tennis. Apparently, the bathroom had been blocking my view of the other side. They'd converted half the facility into pickleball courts, and a long line of senior citizens were standing by the fence awaiting their turn to play. A tall, gray-haired, older woman saw me and waved as if she knew me, something I found both friendly and menacing. I would have stopped to watch, but I was afraid they'd attack me, eat my brains, and leave me wandering around, bouncing a yellow wiffleball off one of those overgrown ping pong paddles, asking strangers if they can use a fourth for doubles.
"Now do you remember me?" she asks.
I clutch my stomach as I struggle to breathe freely again. I ask, "Why me?"
"When did you last play tennis?"
"Six years ago. I whiffed on my forehand multiple times and couldn't get to the net. I got too fat."
"When was the last time you ran a mile?"
"I'd rather not say."
"It's time for you to play an appropriate senior sport."
She drops the paddle and ball on my chest. The elevator stops and it just happens to be my floor. Still dazed, I gain my feet and wander down the hall. Could they maybe turn down the air conditioning in here, and did the woman really say, "Nice talking to you. Hope you give it a try some time soon," before she disappeared into the ether?
For the rest of our stay, I take the five flights of stairs down to the lobby. Once home, we stop at the market and I find myself checking out those red electric carts with the baskets in front. My wife has to pull me away.
The next day after a three-hour nap, I drag myself to senior basketball and proceed to airball two layups and miss half a dozen three pointers. I get in position for a rebound, and someone behind me plucks it away. I dribble the ball off my foot when no one's within four feet of me. Barney never played this old. This is what it must feel like to be Klay Thompson these days.
Taking advantage of the honor system, I even start calling fouls when I screw up. Worst of all, no one even bothers to call me out on it, not even the 5'2" 60-year old woman who's guarding me. Once I didn't take the ball back to the three point line after a change of possession, and they let me get away with that, too. It might not be today, but the time is coming. I confess the only thing I do well at this point is be the guy who keeps track of the score.
That weekend, I ride my bike to the park across the street where they've turned all four tennis courts into 12 pickleball courts. Once again, the parking lot is full, and I hear the chorus of plastic on plastic before I see anything. All the courts are occupied, and at least a dozen more people are waiting their turns. Two of them are talking about how the food court at the mall is being converted to 24 pickleball courts. At least jury duty will be a little more fun the next time I get called. It's 42 degrees outside. Surprisingly, most of the people playing are well under sixty.
I tell myself I won't give in, but I'm holding the paddle and ball I brought back from the hotel. Is that Barney over on the far court with two people who disappeared from senior basketball last year? The next thing I know, a tall, gray-haired woman in a sweatshirt with the word "Pickleball" sewn onto the front approaches. She's unusually friendly and asks if I can be their fourth for doubles. I think she told me her name, but I can't remember it. Reflexively, I nod. She walks away, and I see the back of her sweatshirt for the first time. It bears the word, "Lifer."
At the county senior games last year, I saw an 80-year-old woman run an 18 second 100 meter. Should I get to 80, that's not going to be me. I have to accept that. I call out the wrong score as I start my underhand service motion.
