For Jarod

I made mom drive us to Wal-mart. I made her. It was Saturday morning and Jarod rode his bike from his house down the street to eat breakfast with us. We were in the kitchen when he opened the door. “Hey Jarod,” Jack said, as we both looked at him simultaneously. “Don’t call me Jarod,” he said. “Call me Mike.” He was wearing pajamas, but not any pajamas—Michael Jordan pajamas. We flew off our seats to touch the fabric—a soft, supple, cheap polyester. It was an exact replica of the Bull’s 1992 away jerseys. We had watched every game. We knew how many points Jordan had averaged; how many rebounds Horace Grant had, how many assists Scottie Pippen had. We had to have the pajamas and mom knew that we would never shut up until we had them. Had it been anything else, we could have been talked down.
That night we watched Michael and the rest of the Bulls in the playoffs. They won. Mom made us popcorn with parmesan cheese and black pepper sprinkled on it while Dad rolled his own cigarettes in the alcove next to the television before sitting on the couch to watch with us. We sat on the floor, as close to the television as we could get before dad made us scoot back. Our jaws hung loose and limp as we watched Mike glide to the rim for another dunk.
The next morning we woke up early. We pulled the little trampoline to the back yard and set it down just in front of the basketball hoop. We took turns running towards the hoop, jumping and bouncing off the trampoline, skyward to the hoop, practicing our “Air Jordan” technique—legs scissored, left hand slightly extended behind us, right hand palming the miniature ball, arm fully extended. We slammed the balls with all the force in our tiny bodies.
We wore the pajamas everyday. Teachers complained to our parents about our state of dress. But when we wore them, we were Mike. He was us.