In Praise of the Tall Boys

A lot of people have personal places of transcendence, spots on the planet where they claim to reach some kind of a higher existence, where time seems to stand still and they have what in a less cynical age would be known as “a religious experience.” I do, too. But for me, that place tends not to be some far off mountain or meditative retreat. I tend to find my epiphanies among the unwashed, in some odd corner of the city, someplace not hip at all, even in an ironic way, someplace untouched by the moral pronouncements of the well-intentioned classes or the magnetism of the young and beautiful ones. Perhaps my favorite place is located under a small shade tree next to the tennis courts in Riis Park, off Wrightwood Avenue, a block east of Narragansett, on the Northwest Side of Chicago.

I had one of those little epiphanies this Sunday. Andy, my doubles partner for the year, and I had just lost a tightly fought Tall Boys match, 7-5 in the 3^rd set, against Stash, bowlegged and hunchbacked but with cat-like reactions and a bag full of wicked spin, and Ralph, middle aged with a greying flattop, who has a pretty good forehand for a doorman at the Drake Hotel. I was a little grumpy about our loss and almost went directly home. But I was tired. So I sat long enough in the sun in my portable camping chair for the beer to come out.

For the past six summers, I have played tennis with the Tall Boys, who themselves have been playing competitive tennis at Riis Park every summer since 1975. The Tall Boys are a ragged collection of Italian cops and Greek real estate brokers, Mexican tennis bums and Polish day laborers, united in their rejection of the typical 9-to-5 and in their love of tennis and beer. Cursing is the norm. And not generally in a fun way, but in an “I’m about to step over the net and punch your face in” kind of way. A couple of weeks ago, a butch-looking Hispanic girl stomped across one of the nearby courts and began throwing F-bombs at a gangster on the other side of the fence. She stormed back to her car, and at one point I thought it might devolve into gun play. But as distracting as they got, we never interrupted our game.

The Tall Boys are a tough lot. City tough, in a way where you never know when their crazy gene will show itself. For instance, everyone might be winding down, sipping a beer in the shade, and then Lou, a 70-year old Italian dude and one of the patriarchs of our crew, might suddenly lose it, yelling at a 10-year old Puerto Rican girl at the other end of the courts, accusing her of being a fucking cunt over and over again, not once or twice but like a dozen times in rapid succession, all because she was leaning on one of the nets.

But the Tall Boys are getting old, and a lot of them have come down with illnesses, most generally some form of debilitating but operable cancer. All but the Filipinos (or “The Flips” as they are somewhat affectionately known on the Riis Park courts), who seem unfazed by their advancing age, other than to complain of nagging foot ailments and the occasional fungus. I worry that one day the only folks out there playing will be me and a couple of Filipino dudes with bad feet.   

Last year at our annual, end-of-season picnic, Angelo, one of the Filipinos, a guy in his mid-40’s who has faced his share of adversity, from the ongoing effects of an old eye injury that derailed a promising tennis career to the travails of raising a severely autistic child, grabbed my arm. He told me to shut up for a minute.

“Just stop,” he repeated, “and take in this moment.”

I looked around. Milo, my 4 year old, was playing the dozens with Ari, a middle-aged Greek who brings homemade wine and a functioning cannon to our barbeques. Roscoe, my infant son, was rolling around on a blanket. My wife Melissa sat next to him, eating homemade blueberry buckle, courtesy of one of the Traub brothers, and sipping some of Ari’s wine. Angelo’s kid was playing with a small pile of leaves by the tree, content for the moment in his dysfunctional reverie. The rest of the Tall Boys spread across the grass, engaged in conversation. The sun dappled our faces as the wind rustled the leaves on our shade tree.

“It’s perfect,” Angelo declared. “Take a snapshot of this moment. Because it makes all the bullshit worth it.” By this, I assume he meant all our daily frustrations and unrealized dreams.

Sipping a Pilsner Urquell last Sunday, listening to Lou Visconti rave on about how you can’t find another place like this, I came to the conclusion that both he and Angelo were right.