On Thomas Beller’s 'Lost in the Game'

Last summer, while playing pickup basketball in Brooklyn, after knocking down back-to-back threes, I turned to my opponent and said, “The pandemic’s over! You’re giving me too much space!” I was just having some fun, but the guy took it personally. A territorial challenge of sorts ensued, and having lived in the neighborhood for a decade and played on these courts for years, I was obligated to accept. Things escalated quickly. The physicality of the game was taken up a notch. An open path to the basket was a trap. My glasses got knocked off. In the end we won the game, but I didn’t feel good about it, and I apologized to my humorless adversaries afterwards.