| My own existentialism There are lights high on giant telephone poles, showing the way, illuminating the obvious. There is water, water in surprising places and in your shoes. The water doesn't matter, but changes everything. The rain stopped an hour, a minute, a whistle ago, and now the sky is clear and cold, but you are not. You are hot and breathing mud and blood and leather. A seventeen-year-old son of a contractor is your sworn enemy, the evidence of your existence. The universe is a green patch of ground, quickly turning brown, and the world is a white globe moving in it. You repeatedly align yourself with the globe and your enemy, seeking a solstice. Outside, somewhere, undefined, you know that there are other people, not you or your enemy. They are shouting, cheering, and drinking apple cider to keep warm. They are ghosts. Identity I am not an athlete. That has been my reply many times, when invited to join a baseball summer league, play rowdy rugby or tackle football on a Sunday afternoon. I am not an athlete. I am not positive what I am, but I am young and this is certainly excusable, at least for a couple more years. Perhaps I will discover what I am by determining what I am not, and I am not an athlete. Daily Doubles It is early, earlier for an August morning than for a September or March one. People my age are still enjoying the last few weeks of summer. They know they will soon be forced to rise at an early hour, but not this early. Even the overachieving yuppy adults who live in the development near my house (where the dandelion field used to be) haven't yet risen, donned their suits, grabbed a bagel and headed to work with the New York Times (New York is 3,000 miles away) under their arm and an espresso stain on their tie. They will soon, but not yet. I am at the bottom of a hill with a giant, hairy, cleated hero on my back. At the word, I will charge up the hill with my teeth grinding and my piggybacked partner slapping my sides like a horse. My cleated feet dig into red clay. It is a race, and the loser will return to the bottom of the hill and charge up it again. I am not the loser. Smith Contracting Cobras Halfway through first grade, my family moved to the Big City from Lufkin, Texas. For the third time, I was the new kid in school. Three times in two years. For some reason, my parents signed me up for soccer. Perhaps my (very athletic) father thought some time away from books and toys that beeped and buzzed would do me some good. And perhaps he was right. That season of first grade soccer, we never won a game. Not a single one. But after our last game at a pizza party to "celebrate" the season, everyone on the team was given a plastic trophy and a shirt that said "Smith Contracting Cobras" on it. Thespianism I played basketball for a year in high school, a clumsy guy too big to be much of a guard but too small and skinny to be much of a forward. My arms were too short and my legs were too long, but the bench fit just right. In the gym I discovered what I have already told you; I am not an athlete. In the offseason, I found the theater, almost by accident. When basketball season came back, I intentionally, deliberately retreated to the theater away from the basketball court, and fell in love with the theater. I think more than anything, I loved putting on another personality and being able to cuss and throw things around without having to apologize or clean anything up. Makeup, pressure, acting theories and lighting and costumes, I ate it like candy. All of high school from that point on, I was in every production and pushing for more productions. Except for the ones in the fall. Fall was soccer season. Varsity Halfway through my sophomore season, The left defender sprained his knee in the middle of a game. The evil forward on the evil other team kicked him right in the kneecap and I still think that guy did it on purpose. It took a full fifteen minutes to get him off the field on a stretcher. He was a tough guy and I had never seen a tough guy cry before. I went into the game in his place shocked, wide-eyed, half-afraid and half-vengeant. We won that game, nine to zero, which is a blowout in soccer terms. Three days later, on the home field under the lights, I started a varsity game for the first time ever. My parents were not there to see me start. It was the only home game they missed all season. Little House in the Big Woods One of the sacred truths of elementary school social structure is that the new guy is, by default, a dweeb. Teachers don't know this, but teachers don't know much about the way things work. The new guy's status at his other school makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. He must prove himself a nondweeb in some heroic way (like lifting the teacher's skirt) before he can gain acceptance. If he likes to read books or do math, he is doomed. And, if his first day at school, he gets a perfect score on a test about Laura Ingalls Wilder because he's read all the books, you might as well take him out and shoot him right then and there. Sudden Death, Part One According to the referee's handbook, a playoff game, which cannot end in a tie, is decided in a very simple and orderly manner. First, two overtime periods consisting of five minutes each are played. If the score has not changed or is still tied at that point, a ten-minute "sudden death" period is played, in which a goal ends the game immediately, and the scoring team is declared the victor. If this, also, does not produce a resolution, shootoffs commence. Five players from each team, selected by the coach, line up on the eighteen-yard line and shoot on goal, guarded only by the goalkeeper. First one team shoots five times, then the other team shoots. The team which scores the most out of five wins. If the game remains tied after one round, another round is played, and this continues until one team scores more than another. Power Junior and Senior year, I was a soccer player. I started every game � leftside fullback. Defense. No man through, unless through me. I was the senior who kicked the butts of the freshmen in practice and then slapped their backs in the games. I charged up hills to build up my legs, I slide-tackled and dove and when I bloodied myself, I licked the wounds. I had power, in my own body, and I knew it. I wore jersey to school and people got out of my way in the hall. I bloody yelled, bloody played, bloody loved it. Sudden Death, Part Two The best and the worst all come at once. The game is a battle, a struggle, an exchange of passions and yells and grit. There is no flow, no dominance, and nothing comes together in patterns. Everything is a clash, and with every clash there is a primal call. When the stripes finally blow the whistle, nothing has been decided. Nothing has ended and what is left is an exchange of luck that has nothing to do with the better or worse team. High elation is followed by destruction by uncertainty by elation by disillusionment. It is the most exhausting emotional exchange in the history of organized sports. Trophies My parents come to see me at college the beginning of my junior year. It has been two and a half years since my last soccer game, unless you count church camp games with fifth graders and fathers. I am not an athlete; I am a scholar, maybe. Maybe a counselor. Maybe, if I am lucky, a writer. My dad sits on my bed with his hands folded in his lap; a posture I've learned to mean he is struggling to say something. "Son, you never got much recognition for playing soccer in high school. Didn't you win an award your senior year?" I reminded him that yes, I had won Third Team All Conference, but it was really no big deal. I didn't play soccer for awards, and it wasn't much of an award anyway. "Yes, I know," he says, and I see a tear in his eye. "But still, that was an achievement for you. You kept at it, with soccer, and I know it wasn't easy for you, and I think...I think you should get something for that. I'm..." the tear runs down his cheek. "I'm really proud of you and what you did there. School always came easy for you and you won a lot of awards and things in school, and I'm not saying that wasn't important. But soccer, sports, didn't come easy for you, I know that. And I just think you should get some recognition for that. So when I get home, I'm going to go down to a shop, a trophy shop, and see if I can get something engraved for you. But I... I want to know how you feel about it. Would it embarass you if I did that? I just think what you did was really great, and I'm, I'm proud of you. And you should be proud of you, too." Father and Son When I go home for Thanksgiving in a month, my father will have a trophy for me. And I will accept it with pride, and I will display it with pride. It will not be the pride that comes from persisting through four years of varsity soccer, or being awarded Third Team All Conference. I fell in love with soccer, probably in first grade, and played simply and purely for the love of it. Awards made no difference, and persistence seems foreign to me. But I have made my father proud, proud enough to cry, and I will display my soccer trophy for that reason. |
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