Audio: Read by the author.

The ex-basketball players

want to tell me what

it was like playing youth

tournaments during

the war how hilariously and

inappropriately they were dressed

this guy was shot they say

pointing to their point guard

now a conductor

a detail that produces roars

he has scars

for a moment I think he’s

going to lift his shirt the quietest

and drollest of the group

instead he talks of an all-night drive back

to Sarajevo in 1995 and how

bandaged and bleeding

into his uniform he told the bus driver

I can’t go back

got out with three friends in

Slovenia 4 A.M.

we took some sleep he says

in the park and phoned a friend of

a friend who asked how we were

three teen-agers in a park at dawn

I had this much money in my pocket

we said fine we are O.K. but two days

later we weren’t we had just twenty

euros our agent stalling she

didn’t want us showing up smelly in

Italy so the friend of a friend took

us in for a few days it was nice showers

hot food no shelling but by day three

claps hands that’s it boys so it’s time

for our agent to come through and miraculously

she does we’re on a train

across Europe as if our homes aren’t on

fire sitting with travellers reading

newspapers as if our sisters aren’t

being shot and for months the agent

she shopped us around Europe

taking us to tournaments tryouts

maybe our price was too high

the four of us it was fucking hysterical

no one wants a refugee on their team

we were like four monkeys on a rope

That’s when they all double over in

laughter and form a circle and hug

and someone changes the subject

Source: Newyorker.com

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