Mark Putzi
AM Radio Inspires with Hope
In ’72 the Bucks were playing out their first season with trade acquisition Oscar Robertson. They’d set a franchise record for wins, and Lew Alcindor had legally changed his name to Kareen Abdul-Jabar, but I didn’t want to call him that. I didn’t understand the need, the dedication, the faith. That night they might have played the Kansas City Kings or maybe the Salt Lake City Polygamists. (Roundballers, I’m BSing you!) None of the other teams wanted to start games at 2:30 eastern on weekdays. Radio was scratchy AM depending on the weather back then. I forget the frequency. Some damn station anyway. Milwaukee had a lot of damn stations and one hot team in February ‘72.
Back then, a death in a snowstorm was a big deal but privacy wasn’t. I heard Pop’s name paired with the icy road and the river beneath the bridge. He had a faded, red four-door Buick. That’s how the Jesuit priest saw him, that cream-of-tomato flashing across his lane in the whiteout, bouncing over the guardrail. It was God’s Will, and the priest, a hero to some, got the opportunity he took his vows for. He slid to a stop on the gravel shoulder and raced down the hill just in time to catch the old man pulling himself from the open window into the rushing, freezing water. The priest was brave. Literally, a fisher of men.
They said nothing more. Details pended. Pop had been carted off to some Sinai by divine intervention. I crossed my fingers. Who else could it have been with that last name, crossing the border into Naperville to help pour a basin so the submerged fuel rods could subvert a meltdown? This was the seventies. Nuclear was all the rage! Pre-Three Mile Island! And Pop was accident-prone, constantly tripping, lopping the top off a bottle of Jack while flicking shut a cabinet door on Christmas Day, subsequently straining its contents through a nylon bag, so he could drink it down without drinking broken glass. Pop squeezed out his own lemonade with zest. Nothing if not self-reliant. A hater of God but willing to grab an offered hand, even if it was attached to a collar. Better than being swept all the way to Chicago. He relished a chance to torment his progeny into the future. No love for Bob Love, I guess.
I closed my eyes and said a prayer: “God, I hope he’s dead.” And there was nothing. Nothing all the next day too. Then, the following morning, in the paper, I read of the Jesuit’s heroism. “Goddammit!” I said. I’d only recently learned that word from Pop. I don’t remember—did the Bucks win that night on their way to their only championship? Kareem demanded a trade a couple of seasons later, said he’d always wanted to play for the Lakers. But he was baptized in Milwaukee. Just like Pop. And then finally, both renounced Christianity. Pop and the inventor of the skyhook, the indefensible shot.
Mark Putzi received an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee in 1990. He has published fiction and poetry in numerous online and print venues in the U.S., Australia, and other countries. His most recent publication is the short story "It's Rush Hour" in the blog In Parentheses. He lives in Milwaukee and works as a retail pharmacist.