It’s a story a lot of you have probably heard by now: During the Nets’ loss to Miami on Tuesday, Barclays Center’s roof started leaking, bringing the game to a halt for a half-hour and forcing security at one of the country’s premier entertainment venues to adopt the Crummy home-approved method of sticking a garbage can under it. Twitter and Facebook and all the others had a lot of fun with the newfangled Rust Bowl springing a leak after two years of existence.
I’m someone who knows the ins and outs of the scene inside the upper reaches of Barclays, and I feel obligated to report to you, my loyal readers, the true tale of the Great Leak of December 2014:
Toward the end of the first quarter of Tuesday’s game, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. After tail-grating at a nearby storm drain with my cousin Sal and my buddy Carl, I had assumed my perch in the rafters around mid-court. With a couple minutes left in the quarter, I was about halfway through my first bottle of Thunderbird — in other words, “on pace.”
Then a funny thing happened. Across the roof, I noticed a longtime fan, Jimmy C. from Canarsie, having a little trouble with a bird I didn’t recognize. Scuffles are part of life in the rafters, so I didn’t pay it any mind at first. But soon the squawking got louder and I flew over to have a look.
Upon closer inspection, I realized Jimmy C. had gotten into it with someone whose face I hadn’t seen in a long time: Flatbush Frankie Feathers. My history with Frankie dates back to one summer when we shared the roof of a dilapidated taco stand in Kensington. There were drunken squabbles over taco shell remains, brawls over hens who came around, feuds over whether a foraged Metro Card with less than three rides still constituted rent.
After inquiring as to the source of the dispute between Frankie and Jimmy C., I ignored the explanation and quickly sided with Jimmy C. Old tensions flared, and soon Mr. Feathers and I were going wing-to-wing as Miami held a three-point lead. The fighting escalated, and we circled higher and higher until I had pinned Frankie against the roof and he was trying to wear me out with his dumb rope-a-dope technique. I was bobbing and weaving, giving it to him good, when he dodged a beak-jab that I probably would have landed half-a-Mad-Dog earlier.
Both of us knew the moment it happened that I had pecked a hole in the Barclays roof. Soon, rainwater was dripping down onto the floor and we had flown as far from the scene of the crime as possible. It was a cowardly peck-and-run, but at the moment it felt like the right move. To Mr. Yormark, Mr. Ratner, Mr. Carter and all the other fine folks involved with the Nets organization, I want to apologize, and express my gratitude to management for offering up on Twitter the most nouveaux-Brooklyn explanation for what was actually the folly of two slightly inebriated pigeons: “@barclayscenter: Tonight’s delay was caused by a water leak due to the installation of our new green roof. We’ve taken all necessary steps to rectify.”
As for the rest of the game, well, the Nets are living and dying with the three-ball these days. In the win over Charlotte a couple days earlier, they had made an insane 16 of 23 from beyond the arc. On Tuesday, they weren’t so lucky, going just 8 for 28. Call me crazy, but I might have been on to something this week: To have any chance of making a playoff run, the Nets’ three-point gunners will truly have to make it rain at Barclays this season.
Oh, and this week I am pouring one out for Jeffrey Gamblero, who brought joy to even the most curmudgeonly among us.
