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| Peep the relaxed pose. I thought we had Game 5 in the bag. |
In stark contrast to the ending of any sporting event, the mass is mostly silent, save for a few murmurs. Even if they wanted to discuss the game, it's unclear if they even knew what just hit them. Probably not. A teenager at the bottom of the stairs digs into his black backpack. He pulls out a Dirk Nowitzki jersey and throws it on. One guy begins to chant, "Nowitzki, Nowitzki..." He doesn't know the "W" is pronounced as a "V."
The symbolism is clear: Dirk Nowitzki will save us from validating the Miami Heat's season. They were good enough to beat the Bulls, but if they choke in the Finals? That would be almost better. One year down, five more to go. But Dirk Nowitzki isn't adding to the Bulls trophy case and the mass knows that. The Mavericks can win the title and it might make some of them feel good momentarily, but it won't change the fact the Bulls will end the season with practically every trophy except the one that matters.
The Nowitzki chants slowly fade as the man realizes no one is chanting along with him. But perhaps most amazing, is the teenager wearing the Nowitzki jersey expects no acknowledgement. He didn't try to play to the crowd or search for approval. He simply put the jersey on and continued to walk. His own one-man protest. But did he think the Bulls even had a chance at Game 5? Was the Nowitzki jersey just a precaution or the acceptance of an inevitable defeat?
After about ten minutes of silent waiting, my girlfriend and I squeeze into the #20 bus. We grab the two available seats closest to the driver. A massive woman with sad eyes and a shower cap atop her head sits across from us. She takes up two seats.
"Who won?" she kindly asks me. I can't tell if she's a sports fan, but I detect a tone of indifference in her voice.
"Not us," I mumble. I have the tendency to do that.
"What?"
"The Heat," I say.
"Oh," she responds softly.
In a strange way, her presence is very comforting. If anything, she reminds me that this isn't the end of the world. There are people, in the city of Chicago, on the bus outside of the United Center at that, who could care less about the outcome of this game. We don't say another word to each other for the rest of the ride.
"It's alright, we just need a little help," a man who steps onto the bus a few stops later says. "We just need to get rid of Boozer and we got three picks this year. We just need to get that boy [Rose] a little help." If it was only that easy.
As I step off the escalator up to the second floor of Ogilvie Train Station a man in a suit approaches me from my right. He takes one bud out of his ear and asks if the Bulls won. I tell him they didn't. "What?" he screams, as shocked as he is angry. A man to my left confirms, "The Bulls lost?" I nod my head. They both go on their way.
I'm the bearer of bad news. The guy in the Rose jersey intent on bringing everyone's mood down. Kill the messenger. Tomorrow is Friday for God's sake.
My girlfriend is in line at Dunkin' Donuts. I lean against a trash can. The confident, "I'm with the GOAT" swag from the picture above has disappeared. I feel like an extension of the trash can. A woman sitting near me is bundled in blankets from head to toe. She must have at least three blankets wrapped around every inch of her body. She has three blankets, a small coffee, and a beige handbag. It takes her a moment, but she is able to adjust the top half of her first blanket enough to peek her head out.
"Did we win?"
"No," I smile.
"So that's it?"
"That's it."
It took uttering those two (three?) little words to finally accept what had happened an hour ago. This was it. I remembered back to last summer when this current roster was being constructed. I remembered scouring the Internet, hoping for the latest news, or amusing myself with some of the rumors. I remembered, as the season drew on, feeling the Bulls would win every game they played. I hadn't felt like that since 1998. I remembered thinking, sometime in February, that the Bulls were good enough to win it all.
I realize now that I've never felt so strongly about a team as I do this one. The 1990s Bulls were an inheritance. I wasn't alive during the down years and too young to remember the battles with the Pistons. I was lucky enough to be born in 1987 in the state of Illinois. My childhood coincided with the second half of Michael Jordan's career and some of the greatest teams in NBA history. My childhood was the Bulls and I did nothing to deserve it. I was simply born in the right place at the right time.
The 2011 team felt more like a well-deserved promotion. I continued to support the Bulls through the 2000s and this year's team felt like repayment for the ups and downs (mostly downs) endured over the last decade. If any fanbase could claim to have paid dues, it's Bulls fans born into the glory of the 1990s who continued to stick around through the 2000s. On the Jumbotron before the game they showed a mix of highlights from the Championship teams and juxtaposed them with the 2010-11 highlights. Knowing already this wouldn't be they year, I nearly cried. A successful Bulls team, to me at least, is more than just having fun and watching good basketball. A successful Bulls team is a large chunk of my childhood and it's that feeling that I always hope can be recreated.
On the train ride home I pondered the different ways to write about this game. I thought about what I believed to be the slanted calls in the third quarter, the deja vu moment when Rose missed his second free throw to tie the game (I was at the December 18th game against the Clippers when Rose missed the game-tying free throw with less than a second left), fuckin' Boozer, our lack of 4th quarter offense, the unbelievable way LeBron took over the 4th, etc. It wouldn't occur to me until the next day that the only way I could appropriately write about this game was to relay the moments after and the interest this team garnered, even amongst people who probably didn't watch a game all year.
I attempted to give the Bulls a standing ovation moments after the game ended. I stood and clapped alone. Maybe it looked too much like I was applauding the Heat, or maybe others weren't willing to follow the lead of a man screaming obscenities all game. Either way, I felt the Bulls' season-long effort deserved to be recognized. This was never supposed to happen. But somewhere along the line, all of us became so convinced this was the year.
My girlfriend and I stepped off the train and made our way to the 7-Eleven across the street. Dark and nearly one in the morning; the traffic lights were turned off. All we saw were a bunch of flashing red lights. Kind of fitting. My brother had parked the car in the 7-Eleven parking lot. He sat against the hood smoking a cigarette.
"How did ya like that third quarter?" I asked.
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