When I was twelve years old, my father, in one of his more subtle attempts to force me into "boyhood," convinced me to play baseball. “Lump, you’re trying out for little league,” his hands firm at ten and two. Saturday mornings were usually spent in the company of my sister Jes and the Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling. Jes and I would turn our usual sibling rivalries into extraordinary death matches pitting the Farmer’s Daughter against Debbie Debutante—yes, I actually hit my sister. Hard sometimes. Instead my father and I spent the next few weekends practicing, playing catch and shopping for a left-handed glove and a bat. I believe these items still remain in perfect condition in a box in his attic--I couldn’t wait to get back in front of the television.
At tryouts my father watched me as if he were watching an amputee trying to tie his shoe. A spark of hope soon dissolved into pity and mild disgust. I didn’t hit or catch a ball that day but, as one parent put it so justly, “At least he can run.” Yes, I was grateful for that. The next weekend my father told me an informer had written to the Aston-Middletown Athletics Association heralding our bureaucratic indiscretion: My legal residence was with my mother in another township so I couldn’t play. In other words, Son, you were horrible and I’m going to spare you the embarrassment of telling you with this well-constructed and, if I do say so myself, believable lie. I decided the only way to process these kinds of failures was to write about them.
Writing has since remained a process of survival. I cannot imagine coping via any other medium. Beyond the therapeutic aspects of word-purging, I have come to define and value myself in the construction of fictional worlds and characters, building meaning within vacuums and, essentially, living my common fantasies, idiosynchratic notions and subliminal insecurities. Perhaps I’m finally seeking my father’s approval: Hey, dad, I might suck at baseball, but at least I can write about it!
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