Four for a Quarter: Fictions

Author's Notes

1. Michael Martone was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is a largely airborne vapor prone to gather over deforested landmasses and to accrue at times in ice pack at high altitudes. It is believed that he originated as a weather assault planned by inland aboriginal peoples upon their coastal colonial oppressors, though records are vague as to how his instigators lost control of him. If Martone currently has a political bent to the wetnesses he perpetrates, such inclinations are unknown. For a time, he was the proven accomplice of a herd of bison that assembled from the aggregate oatmeals of various air caves. He roamed with these creatures, providing a necessary buoyancy for their frequent rituals of cloud mimesis. Martone also served as general counsel for a society of basil plants that sought to expand its collective bargaining potential during the Herb Riots of the previous century. He converted himself into a kind of olfactory grid, transmitting coded scents at supersonic speeds and thus greatly accelerating the conclusion of that conflict. In perhaps his most legendary pursuit, Martone became intimately involved in translating the languages of several quartzes, salts, and bituminous coal veins on the high plateaus of a few interconnected deserts. During his sessions with these substances, he would acquire a luminescence frequently misconstrued as the hallmark of a divinity. It was only when he snowed upon the chiefs of these tribes — a sign of mutual vulnerability nearly forgotten among the consolidation of ceremonies from one generation to the next — that they accepted him as a benevolent force, a fog of kindness. Once the confusion was resolved, Mar-tone quickly developed the crystalline mnemonics necessary for cataloging various tenses and cases within an octadecimal index easily replicated by most research institutions on islands and peninsulas alike. In more recent eras, Martone has preferred to disseminate himself among the vernacular rains of infatuated corks and other highly permeable substances. He says he enjoys the sensation of thinness he feels at such moments. He says he enjoys being all around us.

2. Michael Martone was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is regarded as one of the most dominant athletes and arguably the most gregarious personality in sports history. He wrote an autobiography (Martone Talks Back), preserves an online presence for his fan base, produced a number of albums (Biological Didn't Bother, Martone-Fu: Da Return, etc.), and starred in select movies (Steel[1997], Kazaam[1996], Blue Chips[1994]). He has played for four NBA teams: the Orlando Magic, the Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat, and currently the Phoenix Suns. Martone graduated from Louisiana State University and is the only current NBA player with an MBA (Master of Business Administration). Martone is also one of the few NBA players in history to reach the NBA Finals with three different teams. His charisma on and off the court helped create his worldwide reputation as “Godfather of the NBA.“ As a result of his father's influence and military background, Martone has made public service a priority in his life, ranging from donating to charities and organizations across the country to working as a reserve police officer in Los Angeles, Miami, and Phoenix. He intends to pursue a career in politics and/or sports ownership upon retiring from the NBA. Martone has many famous quotes, and his wisdom has earned him the nickname “The Big Aristotle.“ However, his most famous quote may be in response to an inquiry as to whether or not he had visited the Parthenon during his trip to Greece. Martone replied, simply, “I can't really remember the names of the clubs that we went to.“¹

3. Michael Martone was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and was a two-sport athlete at North Side High School. While the majority of Martone's athletic success came as a football player — he gained fan-favorite status as the goal-line fullback in the Power I jumbo-package, the pro-Redskin crowd drawing out the O in his last name whenever he made a particularly effective block — he had always had a love for basketball, like most Indiana schoolchildren upon learning the fabled story of the 1954 Milan High School basketball team, the smallest school ever to win a single-class state basketball title in Indiana. Furthermore, Martone's obsession with the number “4“ caused him great stress while playing football, as it was difficult to score four points individually — the great pride that Martone would feel when crossing the goal line for a touchdown would often be marred by the disheartening feeling that he had scored six points and scoring four points that evening would be unattainable, unless, of course, Martone would have a career day and score seven touchdowns and one two-point conversion, bringing the amount of points scored to forty-four. Therefore, Mar-tone would feel a sense of relief when football season came to a close and basketball season began, as the scoring rules of basketball were better suited to even numbers. Martone lobbied the coaching staff to play power-forward (otherwise known as “the 4“) despite having the body type of a guard. During Mar-tone's senior year, the Indiana High School Athletic Association adopted the three-point field goal in men's basketball — a curious move not only in Martone's eyes but those of the Indiana basketball purists who associated the three-point line with the flashiness of the American Basketball Association and Indiana's own Indiana Pacers, who exuded a more up-tempo and high-scoring style of play. Martone, an excellent shooter from long-range, suddenly had a new moniker, one he believed to be a pejorative: a three-point specialist. Martone would release the basketball at its highest point, and the Redskins faithful would again shout his name, extending the O to almost agonizing lengths as the ball inevitably would find the bottom of the net, sending the crowd into a frenzy and Martone sulking back down the court to play defense. Once, a defender from nearby R. Nelson Snider High School crashed into Martone as he was shooting a three-point basket. As Martone stumbled into the Panther bench, the ball found its way through the basket and Martone was awarded a free throw and a chance to complete a four-point play. Martone, overwhelmed by the chanting crowd and his excitement in finding some sort of loophole within the game of basketball, missed the free throw badly to the left, where it was rebounded by a member of the visiting team. From that point forward, Martone would stay after practice shooting three-point baskets while Happy Walters, the son of one of his mother's friends, would shove Martone while Michael Kern, another son of one of his mother's friends, would kneel behind Martone, causing Martone to learn how to make a three-point shot while falling over in hopes of increasing his chances to complete a four-point play. This technique of kneeling behind a person while an accomplice shoved the aforementioned victim, causing them to topple over, began to be known as “Martoning“ or “getting Martoned,“ and thus Martone became synonymous with bullying techniques in school yards across Indiana, whereas the four-point play would become associated with five-time NBA All-Star Indiana Pacer Reggie Miller, with whom Martone has had little interaction.

4. Michael Martone was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on August 22, 1955, and he often wonders what date will be the date of his death. Is this the day? Or this one? Or this? Martone wonders if there is a zodiac for the dying, a dead astrology, like the one that casts its influence over the newly minted. Martone likes the idea that one's course of life is plotted by the arrangement of the heavenly bodies at the time of birth. Or is it the time of conception? The notion that a particular concoction of electromagnetic forces monkeys with one's subatomic genetic grouting in order to predestine the randomness of one's life intrigues Martone. The physics of the universe act in concert or in conflict to narrate an interesting, eventful, illustrative, entertaining life that most often masquerades as a series of random accidents, happenstance, bad breaks, and stupid moves. Death, being for some a mere transition in the ongoing incremental perturbation of life post-life, rearranges the dénouement into another, a mirroring rising action on the other side. There — is some kind of dark matter at work, a negative mechanical deus ex machina, nudging this new plot of plot points there in the grave plot? He wonders. So, to be safe, Martone celebrates each day as his last, the end of his story, his death-day, on which he lights the candles on the cake and never blows them out, swallowing his breath, telling everyone the wish he didn't make.

1From Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com.