CHALLEGE COURT

For Fred Copeland, lost to a heart attack on Court 10

In the Challenge Court you have no set partner

and the matches come to you like blind dates

with their many unexpected quirks: odd

styles of service, surprise shots and strange

nuances that bring mystery and a certain

edgy anticipation to every game. It is there

that I often found him, with his Ex-Marine handshake

and congenial look-you-in-the-eye smile…before and after

our play. He was the gentleman hunter—when you

became his game, his style was a kind of stalking.

I remember my old Austin friend and partner, Jim Sellers

with his awesome animal athleticism—relentlessly attacking

the ball straight on with stunning velocity, as if it were

some huge and lethal insect, swatting it time and time again,

anticipating its geometric flight like some expert Entomologist

gone mad, most volleys ending in dramatic and resounding

bottom board kill shots, whereas, Fred’s style was smooth

and confident as his demeanor and his ageless pompadour,

only with fisted waves, curls, and left hooks—deceptively deadly

and yet, not extreme, not like “Captain Hook” Reeve,

with his jaw-drop—ball hopping, Fred’s way was subtle…like some cancer

that after being diagnosed in the first prophetic shots, brought a predictable

and deadly end to the remaining volleys. That one such as him,

with such control was downed with that single shot to the heart

is not ironic, there is no poetry to our loss—there is only the stillness

of that quiet valve: the Handball Challenge Court—waiting

in the Downtown YMCA in the heart of Houston’s tangle

of arteries and the question that comes to mind every time

I now stoop through the small passage way to begin

another challenge match: How could a totally empty

20x40x20 room with white walls seem more vacant?

Dave Parsons

414 Oakhill Dr.

Conroe, Tx. 77304