I never knew anybody who died.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve lost dogs, great aunts and uncles and family that only my parents knew. But I never knew anyone who died like this.
This past summer, I lost someone that I knew I would see again. Or at least, I thought I would. I was so sure I’d see him again that I kind of forgot he died.
Let me explain.
You see, my friends and I are in a fantasy football league. We go all out. We play for money, the loser has to do something horrifically embarrassing, and the draft board hangs in my living room.
Being college kids, we make the draft order by writing numbers at the bottom of red solo cups and shooting ping pong balls into the cups. You make a cup, and the corresponding number is your draft position.
Our draft was a couple of weeks ago. We set up the cups just like we always did, and lined up to shoot our shots. As we were about to start, someone said, “What are we gonna do about Ben?”
“What do you mean?” I thought to myself. Then it hit me.
I scanned the porch a few times, did a double take. I was so used to Ben being a part of the group that it took me a second to register that I wasn’t going to see him. I’d been to his funeral and seen his body, but I still expected to see him.
That’s what I meant earlier. No one misses the draft. You get chewed out if you’re late. Naturally, Ben was on my porch with the rest of us. It was common sense.
“Whatever cup is left, that’s what he’ll get,” someone else said.
I snapped out of my daze. We started shooting the ping pong balls. First shot won the seventh pick. Then the fifth, then the fourth, then the third, then the eighth, then the second. So it was down to the first or the sixth pick for Ben.
I probably don’t need to tell you what happened next. For whatever reason, these things have a way of working themselves out. Nobody knew what numbers were under which cups. Nobody tried to give Ben the first pick. But some things are indeed just meant to be.
I haven’t matched up with him yet. I imagine that’ll be another one of those weird experiences. Rooting for my fake team to rack up fake points while my real dead friend is the person I’m trying to beat.
It’s gonna be weird when I go to talk smack in the group chat and there’s nobody there to talk back. It’s gonna be weird when whoever loses has to take the ACT and he’s not there to sit outside the window and taunt with us. And it’ll definitely be weird when he somehow ends up winning the league despite losing his first “pick” to injury to start the season.
Maybe eventually we’ll get used to the ever present feeling of someone missing. Maybe we’ll get used to being an eight-team league with seven people.
But for now, I still feel like I’ve never known anyone who died.
Jimmy Watkins is a reporter for The Post.
