The Friday before last, Patrick, Katie & I had arranged to play cut-throat (3-way racquetball) at 5 pm. P. and I arrived at the court at about the same time, but Katie wasn’t there yet, so after warming up, we started a game. P scored first with a blazing serve that I only waved my racquet at feebly. (Let it be noted that this was with my “good‚” right hand.) P’s next serve was a wall grazer that my racquet just managed to touch, but the ball didn’t make it to the front wall. 2-0 Patrick. His next serve was a hard one that I played off the back wall, but my reaction time must have been slow, so I misplayed that return, too. 3-0 Patrick. My thought process accelerated‚ Gadzooks! What’s wrong with me? And where is Katie, so she can rescue me from a debacle?

Finally, just as Patrick was about to serve again, Katie appeared, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. We changed over to cut-throat, and had two long relaxed games. P won one, KT won the other, but I don’t really keep track of those 3-way games. I lose most of them, and don’t care a whit.

The next week was Thanksgiving, so we switched our Friday game to Tuesday. Katie had said she needed to start and end early, so we played cutthroat from 4:30 to 5:30. Katie left after winning the 2nd game, and since we had the court till 6:00, Patrick & I got set for a game or two. I had been playing backhanded while KT was there, and it felt great to swing fore-handed again. The score was 3-0 before long, and this time it was in my favor. I was going for “kill‚’ shots, and every one was hitting the mark‚ The “sweet spot‚”, the right wall one foot from the front wall and one foot from the floor. P made many spectacular recoveries, and dove for balls that I would never attempt. Then he’d roll over, and dash back, catch up my returns going to the rear, and play them off the back wall with his trademark back-hand wrist smashes.

But my kills were still working, and the score gradually moved up, 5-0, then 7-0, and when we got to 9-0, I could begin to relax a little and let the adrenaline drain off. P scored 3 points, then I killed the ball on 6 successive returns. For as long as I can remember, I’ve never had such a one-sided game against Patrick. It may be because P has been playing left-handed in our cut-throat matches that he’s forgotten how to play right handed. For myself, maybe playing right-back-handed for 4 weeks had improved my back hand and even my forehand.

So we went into the second game, and P couldn’t score for several serves. I was up 4-0 and on my serve, I thought to look back at him and check that he was still playing right handed. (Yes.) My kill shots in the “sweet spot‚” continued to work. Patrick had many a spectacular recovery of the front kills, and also side-grazers, low backwallers, and z-shots, but I wore him down, and kept him to only 6 points. Age and treachery again beat youth and skill.

Afterwards we talked to a big black guy who had been watching our game. He was shaking his head at some of our better moves. He wondered how long we had played against each other. When I told him that my daughter had just left after winning against us, he said, “Wow!”

Three days from now I head for Japan for 3 weeks. Should I bring my racquet? Do the Japanese even play racquetball?