basketball

He drives himself and the other guy through the parking lot because their legs are tired. He carries a bucket and so does the other guy. The one with a card key unlocks the door and the one without a card key holds the door for both of them. They shuffle into the gym with their bleach and their paper towels and their masks and their goggles.

There are forty-one stalls in the women’s room and sixteen stalls in the men’s room plus twenty-two urinals. He bleaches the men’s room while the other guy bleaches the women’s room. They meet in the lobby and sit for a minute and refill their bleach spray bottles.

They walk through the gymnasium. The floor is shiny. He comments that he hopes their tennis shoes don’t scuff the gymnasium and the other guy says they probably will.

“Is this really the size of a basketball court?” he asks. “I remember seeing a basketball game and thinking the court was a lot bigger.

“Not sure,” the other guy says.

“I think the lockers are this way,” the other guy says. They walk through a door and a second door and he uses his card key to unlock a third. Behind the door is a weight room.

“Shit. I thought this was where the locker room was,” the other guy says.

“Fuck it. We can skip it,” he says.

He walks back through the gym with the other guy and he comments again about the size of basketball courts and also that there are six hoops. “I don’t think basketball has six hoops,” he says.

“Would be funny though,” the other guy says. “Like if that one and that one you score in and if you score in any other goal you’re disqualified or you score for the other team or something.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Would be funny if we brought a basketball one night and had a game. Imagine if one of the security guards came through the building and saw us.”

“Ha. Yeah. Two thirty-year olds with knee problems learning to play basketball in the middle of the night.”

“That would be funny,” he says.