April 27th, 2016
Cold. He was cold. His eyes fluttering open, the first thing he saw was white. Slowly, as his eyes gained focus, he could make out the divisions between the whiteness. Pulling his arm from behind him -- and his shoulder screaming at him for the effort -- Max placed his hand under him and pushed.
He managed to get himself on his side and immediately felt his stomach lurch. It only took a moment for whatever was sitting in it to come surging up his throat, but in the moment Max had found his way to the toilet and took aim.
Ten seconds later and he was empty again, a foul taste of ... something ... in his mouth.
He was in the bathroom of his office and he wasn't sure how he got there, but he vaguely recalled coming back there after last night's game.
At the thought of the game his stomach lurched again but it had nothing in it now. Max knelled there, head over the toilet, for what felt like another hour but was really only minutes. Slowly, he worked his way from his knees to a standing position.
Only when he stood did the headache hit and
god it hit hard. He stumbled from his bathroom into his office, taking measured steps till he found his desk chair, and then allowed himself to fall into it.
He closed his eyes and ignored the dizziness. He remembered now why he was feeling so ill. He cracked one eye open and focused on his desk.
A half-drunken bottle of Jack Daniels greeted him.
"I hate you," he mumbled at the bottle -- and at himself -- before he allowed his eye to close and the darkness to overwhelm him. He fell asleep for a few hours before the sun started hitting his eyes, which roused him from his unpleasant slumber.
He didn't feel
as bad this time, but he still felt like trash. Not feeling like he was going to hurl, he spun his chair towards his desk and tapped his mouse, waking his computer up from sleep mode.
Taking a deep breath, he focused on his screen and found his way to ESPN. The headline for last night's game was exactly as he thought.
"Sonics win," he said with a laugh. How? How in hell had they
won?
Their 20-point lead had been turned to seven at the beginning of the fourth. The team was sputtering on offense and playing too loose on defense. Repeated timeouts from Hollins did nothing to slow the bleeding, they were
losing the game and the scoreboard simply hadn't caught up to them yet.
The crowd was out of it and the Thunder were very much in the moment, playing their best ball. He was watching a nightmare and he knew Clay Bennett was sitting in one of the suites above him, laughing.
Beside him was Teddy and Gill, both as mortified as he was in their own ways. Teddy wasn't as invested in the hatred of the Thunder, but he didn't like them simply because their uniforms looked like "a baby drew it" which annoyed him.
Gill was disturbed because he was witnessing it in person. It was his first Sonics game, ever; Teddy had seen the two games against the Suns in the first round, so the plucky six-year old (soon to be seven in June) was schooling his father on what to do.
But Max was convinced all three of them were going to witness one of the most crushing defeats in all of Seattle sports history. He had never believed he'd be a part of such a thing -- victory was his goal -- but the basketball gods looked like they were going to be cruel.
And then the fourth quarter turned into a battle of fates, of destinies: it was like a struggle between gods was being waged on the court before them. The highs, the lows, the crushing misses and clutch makes ... all of it was too much, yet not enough.
They survived and made it to overtime: there, they stole the game back from the Thunder and sent every Sonics fan in that arena home exhausted.
Poor Teddy about fell asleep holding his father's hand after the game, the kid was so worn out. Gill looked like he had just run a marathon and Max felt shaky; after Gill and Teddy left, he had come up to his office for a steadying drink.
And it took half the bottle before he could stop his hands from shaking and his mind from screaming at him for how poorly he had constructed the team, how flawed he had made them that the squad nearly
blew a 20-point lead in the most important playoff game since the '96 Finals -- and maybe more important than that.
Despite the win, the victory felt more like a set-up for an epic thrashing in Game 2. The Thunder, as a team, said all the right things; Westbrook took the blame for the loss, Durant backed up his star teammate, Donovan talked about how the team got too comfortable at the end, but all of it sounded by-the-book.
They were coming. They were coming and Max could feel it.
He stared a good minute at that bottle of Jack Daniels before he stood, picking it up and unscrewing its cap. The scent of the alcohol hit his nose and it only confirmed what he had to do.
He promptly took the bottle to the bathroom and poured it into the toilet. He made sure to flush and wash his hands, then walked back over to his desk and tossed the bottle in his recycling bin.
He wasn't about to let his fears control him; he'd seen what that could do to a person first-hand. He put on his jacket and left his office.
He was going to grab a big, juicy burger.
And then he was going to go do the one thing he knew would relax him and ease his fears.
He was going to play some basketball.