TALES FROM A NEARLY NORMAL CHILDHOOD

GYM CLASS

“Finally, some fresh air, a place to breathe,” I thought, moving down the dank, cement steps leading to the gymnasium. “Finally a place to show I measure up and am not overwhelmed by meaty text books, foreign language, Shakespeare, and polynomials.”

The sophomore boys’ gym class had about fifty kids. I took swift inventory, sizing up many as the goons, out of shapes, and clumsies I dominated during my entire PE class career. I started to feel a bit better about Roosevelt High School. “Least one period a day, I can stand out in a non negative way.”

We were sitting on the first row of the pulled out bleachers, waiting for something. What it was, I was uncertain. But expectancy seemed to vibrate through the room. Longhaired kids seemed to fidget more than the clean cut ones. I assumed this was because freaks with rock star locks couldn’t hit a ball out of the infield, scramble in the pocket, do fifteen pull-ups, or make a reverse layin—things I could do in my sleep since I was ten years old.

I looked at how my peers were dressed: hiking boots, loafers, or an infrequent pair of tennis shoes. Nike and adidas, the glitz sneaker industry, hadn’t yet arrived. A pair of clean Chuck Taylors was about as good as it got. Pants ranged from Levis to corduroys to an occasional slack sighting. The guys who wore them were up to no good, I figured. Meaning they were trying to impress a teacher, chicks, or anyone who deemed them classy. As for shirts, it varied greatly, some basic white T-shirts, the psychedelic boys trotted out paisley, while the young republicans preferred tucked in button downs with a snazzy belt.

For myself, I had some old desert boots, broken in 501s, and an untucked shirt of some dubious fashion—to my grave untucked.

I spent all sorts of time studying kids’ wardrobes during junior high and high school. It amuses me now to think about it because I’ve never been into clothes. But I was always sure I was dressed like a loser, a dork--a season or maybe years behind the stylistic evolutions. So, even if I wasn’t doing anything about it, I wanted to know where I stood. And it was seldom in step.

Abruptly, I felt grinding in the earth’s mantle. Teenage tectonic plates shifted into a semi-respect mode, the fifty boys (the majority pitifully groomed) straightened slightly.

Here he came--unforgettable--mildly hunchbacked, a sour-faced, bespectacled PE Instructor carrying a clipboard. He was not amused. He’d done this a thousand times. It appeared each occasion only pissed him off more.

“My name’s Coach Thrapp,” he snarled. “If your schedule card does not say Boys’ Gym 10a, then you are in the wrong place. If you are in the wrong place, get the hell outta here and find the right place.”

He waited about five seconds until a couple boys realized they’d incorrectly read their class schedules and shuffled out trying to mask their humiliation.

After they left, Coach Thrapp shook his head, disgusted. “How the hell they gonna get through three years of high school if they can’t even find a damn classroom number stuck over every door.”

A couple kids chuckled. I didn’t. I was too appalled by this guy’s squinty eyes peering out over the top of his glasses, and his overall negativity. I wondered how he would perceive me as I dominated his class, and how I would interact with him.

“Okay!” he jumpstarted his rhetoric, “this is a semester class. You will be graded on participation. You don’t suit up, that’s your business. Miss three days and your grade drops a full letter. Miss six days, it drops two full grades.” He paused to push up his ever-sliding glasses and pan our worried faces. “You get the picture.

“Now, about showering. You don’t wanna shower, again, that’s your business. The District imposed a rule saying we can’t force you anymore. So if you want pimples, blackheads, zits, and acne and want to walk around stinking the rest of the day, your underwear clinging to you, and everything else that comes with that foul state, then it’s up to you.”

I was uncomfortable with all the skin eruption talk (I mean, he’d called a blemish every name possible) and what kid wasn’t uneasy with his complexion when he was fifteen? I don’t know if it bothered others but it wasn’t doing my pulse any favors.

All I wanted to hear was: what did he have planned for his curriculum? I knew the September weather looked good for least a couple months of football. I was itching to make like Joe Willie Namath and lead my team up and down the dirt fields tucked behind the gym. That was my plot: to quickly win the guys’ respect with my strong, accurate throwing arm--even if I was probably the smallest guy in the class.

“Okay, so you are all probably wondering what we are going to do in here. What games or sports we are going to focus on.”

I watched almost every students’ head perk. This was the cream we’d been waiting for.

“Well, the school board has mandated a tumbling curriculum for the first four weeks.” He let that hang there, like a pie plate of shit on the ceiling, while groans circulated. “We’ll have the mats down for a month. You’ll learn a forward and backward roll. Hell, maybe even a cartwheel for you coordinated ones.”

Coach Thrapp, I’d later learn his first name was Bud, consulted his clipboard and flipped a page. I recall thinking it had to be a stall move because he didn’t find any magic bullet. Just a deadly one.

“After tumbling, we go right into a five week program that will finish up the first quarter.”

Nothing could be worse than tumbling, I thought. I was dying to hear the next event.

“It will entail a rigorous wrestling program,” said Thrapp. “You will find someone in your weight class and he will be your partner for five weeks. You will be expected to wrestle him each day. Again, you don’t wanna, you can choose to sit on your butt right where you are now and I will flunk you. If your parents don’t care, I certainly don’t.”

My forehead began to excrete substances never before produced. I was stunned beyond words. I glanced around as an anxious murmur circulated.

“Wrestling,” I thought to myself. “Fucking you got to be kidding me?! No way I’m letting some other homo grab my crotch and struggle to pin me, his sweaty face pressed against mine.” I could hardly even picture it. When I tried, it generated shudders.

I then knew my options.

The first few days I tried the tumbling. Stuck the point of my head on the gray, lumpy mats that seemed to be left over from some levee break, and I rolled unceremoniously onto my back, feeling like a complete fool, wondering why anyone in the academic hierarchy would ever think a teenage boy would enjoy this.

Suffice to say, I was not a tumbler. I hated every second. I quickly invented diversions: OCD shoe-tying jags; repeatedly stepping out of line to strategically reposition myself at the rear; and going to the water fountain like a camel planning to cross the Sahara. When we advanced to backward rolls, my neck would ‘pop’ from strain, then I’d totter--God only knew where I was headed--before landing with a thud on my tailbone. This was a looped nightmare that needed to end and SOON!

So I took action. For one of the first times in my young life I stared authority in the eyes and stopped suiting up. I figured there was no way I was going to participate in wrestling anyhow, and I would flunk regardless of this tumbling charade.

Within a week, there I was, sitting on the wooden bench with other questionable types, potheads, pansies, and losers. We numbered anywhere from three to seven each period. But I was the captain. I came to class every day and sat in my penalty box. Many of the deserters figured out they didn’t need to show up. Instead, they ventured out and got high, or walked to the QFC for snacks. I guess they figured they couldn’t double flunk. I was too naïve to transport my crumbling self-worth from the confines. I showed up each day and watched the other conformers finish their tumbling stint, after which they reluctantly segued into the wrestling portion of PE 10a.

I watched in horror as bodies were gripped and steamrolled and noses smashed like rudders into those same gray mats. I was glad I’d made this decision, but it didn’t alleviate watching from the sidelines, an outcast, while Bud Thrapp strolled the gym with his whistle, shouting vague instructions concerning reversals and escapes that not one kid understood. Hell, we watched fake wrestling and were only familiar with leg whips and bashing masked villains into turnbuckles.

I might’ve been glad I made this decision. My father, however, wasn’t.

“What the fuck is this bullshit?!” cried my dad, seeing my failing gym grade. “I cannot believe any son of mine could flunk gym!” He was so mad he walked away not even caring for an explanation.

I didn’t ever tell him the truth. I offered nothing but a feeble shrug.

Gym class: a time when young men sweat and circle the track and climb ropes and do squat thrusts, unless you went to Roosevelt High School and had Bud Thrapp strangling you. In such case, you were unfortunate enough to grab boys your age and do oafish somersaults.

I despised it then and it disturbs me now even considering it.

I was young and only wanted to race around and show others I could perform a conventional sport at a high level.

“Why do things always have to be so hard?” I recall thinking as a fifteen-year-old. “Why can’t we just have fun?”

And that is a question, I suppose, kids will ask till the end of time.

Ten years later, I had returned to coach the Roosevelt men’s basketball team. I had revived the program and we qualified for State for the first time in nine years. Bud Thrapp’s never wavering black cloud still hovered over the gymnasium, the compounding years only further embittered him. He treated me cordially enough, although I doubt he even recalled me boycotting his class.

One afternoon, during that same season, he and I ended up in conversation, one in which he imparted his typical doom. “Roosevelt will never win a State Championship in anything again. That time has long passed. The kids are all losers now. They are no good. Got no character. They are a bunch of punks.” Then he crossed into the cavern of his gym office, grabbing his dented, metal lunchbox, and vanished behind closed doors.

I recall feeling sorry for him, how life had battered him into a relic, into a Cassandra naysayer. Pitying him, I vowed never to turn on kids, on their hopes, but to try to make them realize their dreams.

For that alone, I owe Bud Thrapp much.

Becoming State Champs a month later made it even sweeter.


The End



LAST RESORT

It was August. We'd just moved back to Seattle from Dallas. In a month I'd be the new kid, once again, starting my sophomore year at Roosevelt High School. With time to kill, I picked up my ABA basketball and headed to a neighborhood hoop to work on my game.

The court was built on the side of a hill. If your shot rebounded too far, it could roll for a block. I combated that by laying a plywood board across the stairs leading down from the court. The sun, innocuous compared to Dallas, ladled on my back while I practiced my dribbling, driving, shooting and free throws every day, often times three hours at a time. I had dreams, even as a diminutive point guard, at starring in high school and becoming wildly popular.

Early on, however, I was sent a test.

"Hey, faggot," came a strange voice, "I don't want this board here."

I turned around to find two kids my age kicking the board over. I'd later learn their names: Kevin Hughes and John Dunn. Kevin did the talking and would continue to do so.

They walked away that time. I said nothing, and when they were out of sight, I returned the board to its upright position.

The next day, as soon as I began my workout, Hughes and Dunn exited Dunn's front door, who lived across the stairwell from the court. Hughes marched to the board and kicked it over. Then they sat on the steps, lit a smoke, and began heckling.

"Hey, nice shot, pussy." Hughes cackled, sparking Dunn's loony laugh. "Get a haircut, you queer."

And so it went for what seemed an eternity. I was too intimidated to reply. I was too hurt by this neighborhood welcome. I silently cursed my dad for moving us from Dallas. I had wanted to stay. Now I was friendless and being insulted by a couple of angry dysfunctionals.

The more they taunted me, the more I loathed myself for not replying. Finally, I couldn't take it any more. I tried the Gandhi approach. "What possible good is this doing?" I responded.

"Shut-up, you fag!" Hughes barked.

I turned away and resumed shooting.

The next thing I heard was my board being tossed down a long flight of stairs.

When I looked, Hughes and Dunn were walking away, laughing hysterically.

I felt worthless.

As the days turned into weeks, the routines of humiliation didn't vary. The board might as well have been a sled as much as it skidded down the stairs. They smoked cigarettes while scorning my misses, clothes and hair. Mostly, they called me names. Especially, Hughes, who couldn't get enough of his own lowbrow humor.

Somehow, I made it to Labor Day enduring their insults. By now, I despised my soul, character, guts--whatever it is that makes a 15 year-old feel proud, feel like he's on the road to manhood.

Then the first day of high school came. My disregard for academics is well-chronicled elsewhere in this manuscript, so I expected a Lusitania on that front.

Spanish crushed me right off. On the first day, my classmates made conversation like they were born in Madrid. P.E. was run by Bud Thrapp, a pinch-faced sadist who rambled on about an elborate wrestling curriculum sandwiched between tumbling and an obstacle course program. Math offered an albino bowling ball with teeth named E.M. Crowston, who relished confusing 50 do-over Algebra II students. English featured an ancient virago we called the "Sea Hag" after the Popeye character. She had a hunchback, wore a shawl, and was in her final year as a teacher. But, boy, did she know Shakespeare. Merchant of Venice, MacBeth, Hamlet, we read them all. It was a nightmare, except I was awake when called upon to interpret.

"Shakespeare," she once told me in front of the class, her eyes gleaming, "is not meant for feeble minds."

Finally, the last bell sounded. And for the first time all day, I felt safe. Exiting, as opposed to entering, schools always lowered my blood pressure. So there was definite lightness of being as I walked towards the bus, which was parked a block from school (we used public transit that year due to a strike).

"Hey, pussy."

There was no need to turn around. I'd heard that voice for a month. It played over in my mind a thousand times like a bad song. So I half-glanced. Always possessing remarkable peripheral vision, I saw Hughes and his sidekick. Problem was, Hughes was bending over to pick up half-a-brick that was sitting in somebody's yard.

"He's not gonna throw it, is he?" I asked myself, knowing no one would possibly have the nerve. However, I was just as curious why anyone might have urge to pluck half-a-brick on the way to catching a bus.

I took some uneasy strides, Hughes and Dunn snickering eight-feet behind me. Then I heard a heavy, dull thud. The next thing I knew, something dense struck my right achilles.

His only defense was that he didn't throw it on the fly.

I whipped around, my achilles only slightly hurt, and shouted, "All-right, asshole! You wanna fight? Let's go! Right here!"

People were now staring as my heart pounded blood into my ears. It was the first day of school and the new kid was going to rumble.

Hughes couldn't hand his books to Dunn fast enough. (Of course, that wasn't my problem.) Hughes was practically wringing his hands. He'd baited me for weeks. He was five inches taller and 30 pounds heavier. He had no reason to fear a pacifist.

One thing he didn't know was that I'd boxed some as a kid in the Boys' Club, and a lot at home. I also watched tons of boxing and had extremely quick hands.

Now I'm not saying I wasn't scared. I was. I'd never been in a real, no back down fight. But as he moved closer, there was a certain calm swirling my veins.

It dawned on me what I was going to do. I sized him up as a semi-coordinated bully who didn't play sports. This knowledge gave me a sudden surge of confidence.

I'd set his ass up.

Fake a lead left. Follow with a straight right.

Elementary? Yes. But I was certain he'd bite.

So, as our fists rose in the age-old fighting posture, I set my plan in motion.

I baited my left, then took it away. He opened up like an unlocked gate. It was too late. My right was true, coming in on a malicious schedule.

There was no deflection, no wasted motion. A direct hit. I felt nothing, a home run on the sweet spot of the bat. His nose squished against my bone.

Hughes dropped to his knees, his nose already a piñata.

I grabbed him by the hair, got him in a headlock (by now I felt sorry for him), and shouted, "You ever gonna give me shit again?!"

Hughes cried, "No."

So I took his head and softly kneed it away from me, he collapsed to the ground. Then I turned to Dunn.

"Okay, you're next!" I yelled, approaching him.

"Oh, no," he said, backpedaling. "I never said anything to you."

"And you'd better not!" I shouted, adrenalin flooding me. Then I entered the bus, kids looking at me as I moved quickly toward the back.

A few days later, my mom cornered me. "Did you get in a fight?" she asked.

Never offering information, I asked her why.

"Because an ex-sorority sister of mine said that she had to take her son to the hospital because he had a broken nose. Her son mentioned your name."

I said I might have got in a scrap but that I was unbelievably provoked.

My mom dropped it.

A day later, my dad entered the kitchen, where I was reading the sports section. "I understand you got in a fight." His tone was almost jubilant. He had a good idea what had happened but he wanted details. He wanted to hear that he had passed on a superior genetic code.

So I gave my dad a play-by-play from day one. I told him how I set up Hughes with an Ali sucker lead. I told him how Hughes's nose exploded like a cherry tomato. I told my old man how I backed down Dunn, Hughes's unofficial second. I told him everything, and repeated things he wanted to hear again.

I'm not so sure that my dad was ever prouder.

The End


FUNNY BUTTER

It was one of those lazy Sunday afternoons. The Cowboys were on and the Kalina men were gathered, en masse--the four boys and my dad--in the living room. It was our house on Villanova. I was in fifth grade (houses are how I know what grade I was always in. Redmond: first grade. Clyde Hill: 2-3-4. Villanova: 5. Gillion: 6-7. Euclid: 8-9. 55th NE: 10-11. 50th NE: 12. As a writer it gives me valuable time-frame landmarks).

Somewhere during that game my dad made a request. "Why doesn't somebody go make some popcorn."

None of us ever jumped at orders unless my dad was gripping a paddle (after we moved to Dallas in that same year he stopped spanking us). We weren't Peace Corps material.

"C'mon," he asked again, "somebody go make some popcorn."

Our eyes shot to the floor. We were lazy, doing anything to avoid making eye contact and being singled out to fulfill my dad's wish. The guy had only kept us in mitts, toys, bikes, clothes and food since birth. God forbid we extend him the slightest favor on his day off.

My dad saw through our pathetic indifference. I'm sure it turned his stomach. "Bruce," he ordered disgustedly, "go make us some popcorn."

Bruce offered his best shot. "I don't know how." He tried to sound distressed.

I didn't know if Bruce knew how to pour cooking oil into a saucepan and add popcorn, but I sure as hell wasn't going to flush myself into the open by asking.

My dad started to speak, then took pity. Bruce was in second grade. Older quarry were in the room. So my dad looked away. It was down to Jeff or me.

"Jeff," said my dad, unpleasantly, "go make us some popcorn." That was music. At this point I knew my dad wouldn't back down, plus I always enjoyed seeing Jeff squirm.

"I don't want to," Jeff began. "I wanna watch the-"

"Get in there and pop me some friggin’ corn." The debate was over. Jeff made a face and trudged into the kitchen.

Soon, the familiar pinging of corn firing into a stainless steel lid sounded from the other room.

After a few minutes, my dad started to get impatient. "What's taking you?" he shouted.

"I'll be there in a minute." Jeff's voice was detached.

A short time later, Jeff returned carrying a large bowl of popcorn. He set it down and we attacked it like starving dogs.

We each had eaten a couple fistfuls when my dad made this sour face. "What the hell did you put on this?!"

Jeff shrugged. "I just used some butter from the refrigerator."

"Tastes funny," my dad said, inspecting a handful.

And that was it. Funny or not, we dug back into the bowl, gradually depleting it even though it tasted strange.

A short time later, my dad noticed Jeff hadn't eaten any of the corn, not a kernel, and stopped in mid-chew. "There's something wrong with this," he said, dropping a handful of corn back in the bowl. "What the hell did you do?"

Jeff looked at the nearly empty bowl, then back at all of us. Without blinking he said, "I stood up on the counter and pissed on it."

My dad's eyeballs rolled into the back of his head. He couldn't believe this perversion came from his first-born son.

"You what?!" he said, more sickly than loud.

"I peed on it. That's not butter." Jeff was almost exultant.

"I can't believe what I'm hearing." My dad looked like he'd just seen photos from the Holocaust. "You did not."

Jeff was done talking.

My dad looked at Jeff then back at the corn.

"That's the sickest thing I ever heard," he said. "Go to your room!"

Jeff arose and did as he was told.

My dad looked at Bruce, Paul and me. We'd all eaten the corn. The room was thick with a shared shame.

My dad released a few more "I can't believe it, that kid's sick."

But most damning to all of us, the unspoken truth, was not the act of being duped into eating urine-soaked popcorn, but the fact that even though it tasted terrible--the gluttons that we were--we still devoured it.

That's what stung. Felled by one of the seven deadly sins.



The End



PEGGY CATHCART

Despite my size, I was fairly strong as a kid. My dad emphasized sports and stuff like push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups and even the standing broad jump. Sometimes, he'd give us money if we could do certain amounts. A quarter for ten pull-ups. Fifty cents for thirty push-ups. Incentives like that. After a while, he'd made it so we wanted to improve. So if I had a little edge on my peers early on, that's probably why.

Another thing my dad got us into was arm-wrestling. We'd square off against each other. Me versus Jeff. Me versus Bruce with two hands. I got to be pretty good at it and I could usually beat anybody in my class.

Mrs. Brown's fifth grade in Dallas wasn't any different.

One day the boys staged a battle royale before school started to determine the strongest arm-wrestler. Being the new kid, a puny one at that, I knew they wouldn't expect much. But after all the wrists were knocked backward, mine was victorious.

I gained a lot of respect from that triumph and it made me feel proud. Strength, like power, is a bewitching nostrum. And I bathed in its scent for as long as possible.

Then one morning, no more than a week later, I entered class to a sobering sight. A girl, a squat girl with canned ham forearms, had a line of boys at her desk for wrist wrestling. She was blowing them out like dandelions in a gale.

Her name was Peggy Cathcart. The sight of her pinning those guys’ wrists gave me the chills. I thought about ducking into the restroom until the tardy bell. But I was spotted before I could flee.

"All right, Kalina's here!" roared about half the boys upon seeing me in the doorway. "He's our only hope!"

About five guys rushed me, explaining how Peggy Cathcart was mopping up the boys. How I needed to re-establish order to male superiority.

I remained quiet, watching for myself as Peggy Cathcart easily dispatched Dale Slater, who then rubbed his bicep and remarked, "Damn, she is strong!"

Now the entire class was gathered, even the girls, who weren't vocal, but it was apparent they were rooting for a new gender champ.

There would be no ducking it. Any excuse would be worse than actually losing. So I marched up to Peggy Cathcart and confidently sat in the seat across from her.

She was not an attractive girl. Scrub brush brunette hair, pie tin face, squared shoulders, and those forearms, where that Amazonian power generated.

I don't recall any dialogue. I just looked her in the eyes and positioned my right arm in the 12 o'clock en garde.

It was go time. I gave it everything I had. The quick strike was always my tactic. Gain advantage and close the momentum with a sharp pin.

This instance, however, I might as well have been pushing against a fallout shelter.

Our arms were still straight up. Kids were shouting for either side. Then the pressure coiled in her forearm began an inexorable toll.

For the first time, I doubted the outcome. But I couldn't quit. I would give her everything I had. If I had to cough up an organ to win, then that's what I would do. I was pep-talking myself, putting my mind in a competitive arena few people know in their life. I tuned out my environment. Faces were vague, voices mute.

Then, suddenly, it was over.

Peggy Cathcart released some air and her arm went noodle, my wrist pinning hers to the wooden desktop.

The guys pounded me on the back.

Peggy Cathcart didn't care. Winning was indistinguishable from losing.

I was just relieved I didn't lose.

Class started, and by recess my deed wasn't even mentioned. Now if I had lost . . .

And, you know, I might've if Peggy Cathcart wouldn't have spent all that energy defeating the other boys. But, of course, I never brought up that obvious point.

Thank God no one else did. For I'm afraid there might have been public clamor for a rematch.


The End


FIRST CUTS ARE THE DEEPEST


My sophomore year at Roosevelt was probably the worst of my life. Academics were a disaster, I had few friends, everyone was smoking pot, and all these things were happening while my parents' marriage fell apart.

Probably in part to hide, and as a symbol for my world, I grew my hair out (I didn't get it cut for two years).

I never did homework; instead I watched TV or played sports while doing as little as possible around the home. I wasn't a bad kid. I never got into real trouble. It's just that my life was hollow as a bubble.

It's hard to remember, exactly, but I can't believe I really liked or respected myself during that time. It would be two years before I'd gain confidence from coaching basketball.

My sophomore year consisted of my schlepping from class to class, overwhelmed and clueless to the subject matter, worrying if my clothes were hip, and waiting to be discovered as worthwhile to somebody--maybe even a girl. But I felt so obscure, so minimal, that I continually second-guessed myself.

My environment became a chute between our TV room and Laurelhurst gym. I had four friends, all of them caught between mutants and dorks. It was the leanest of Gemini loner times.

I wanted to try out for Roosevelt's JV basketball team but the cuts came and went before I got wind of them. So I got on a park team I organized with one of my few friends, Gary Reese.

When spring arrived, I was determined to make the JV baseball team. Baseball had always been my best sport. Size didn't matter. I was certain I'd make my mark there.

So the tryouts began and I was there, glove in hand. I hadn't played since eighth grade because we'd moved during the summer of ninth grade. I figured to be a little rusty. But when batting practice started, I drove the ball further and with more frequency than any of the other 40 kids trying out.

"What's your name?" asked the coach, perking up.

"Kalina," I answered with pride. "Gregg Kalina."

The coach took note. And when I told my dad of that incident at supper that night, he was proud, jabbering questions at me. From his voice it was obvious he really hoped I'd make that team.

The next day the weather soured and we took grounders in the gym. When it was my turn, the first ball struck the wooden floor and scooted under my glove before I had a chance to get set. I felt a rush of embarrassment wet the back of my shirt.

"Take another," instructed the coach.

I pounded my mitt and bent down. Another ball went under my glove in a blur.

"Next!" shouted the coach.

I shuffled back to the end of the line, mumbling about how fast the ball skipped off the basketball floorboards. Some kid nodded vaguely, saying, "Yeah."

I didn't realize until later that this was survival of the fittest; that every kid secretly wished every other kid would flub up, choke, trip on a base or strike out.

I just felt rusty. I hadn't taken any grounders in two years. Coupling that with the fact that I had always been a pitcher, I rationalized away my sub-par afternoon.

Day three. The weather cleared to a raw mist and we went outside, where each kid batted in a live pitching situation with a 2-and-1 count. Not used to live pitching, I took the first offering on the outside corner to even the count at 2. The next pitch was waist high and I took a mighty swing and missed everything.

"Next!" shouted the coach.

I remember jogging off the diamond, head down, that familiar lump gathering in my throat, just like in Little League when I'd want to cry after striking out. I grabbed my mitt and stood idly around watching other kids take their chances. Nobody really hit the ball hard the whole day so that made me feel a little better.

I rode the bus home that evening weighing the next day's cuts. No, I didn't think I'd done that great, but I reasoned that my hitting alone on that first day cemented a spot. Of that I was confident.

The cut list was to be posted after homeroom that morning on the P.E. office window. When the bell rang releasing us for second period, I hustled--not too conspicuously with another 40 sophomore boys--down the stairs to the gym. It was already crowded, urgent boys elbowing, craning to see their name listed amongst the elite 18.

The first time through I didn't find my name. But then I thought I'd been too hasty, so I searched again.

Nothing. No Kalina. Nothing even close.

I stared at the list for another moment or so, almost as if I was trying to will my name to appear from some magic ink or something. But I knew I was kidding myself and waded a path through the others kids, then trudged up the locker room stairs toward my next class, that goofball expanding into fist of granite.

The feelings of shame, inadequacy, of meagerness pressed down upon my shoulders like I accounted for nothing. The one thing I thought I was good at--sports--was now yanked from under me. It was a terribly crushing moment of my life. Humiliated in front of all those other guys reading the list, the ones who made it. I wondered if they secretly laughed at me when I walked away. I wondered if they even knew who I was. At this moment, I didn't even have a good idea of that.

About three months later, on my birthday, May 26th, I was eating lunch at Roosevelt when a kid told me about a summer baseball team tryout to be held that day after school. He told me he was going and that the team was looking for players. I'd almost forgotten about the earlier spring humiliation. And as I processed the information, I concluded that it was just a fluke I didn't make the school team, that I really was a good player, that it was my birthday and this was an omen to show that I'm not a quitter, and that I'd be back playing at a level I knew I could.

"Yeah, I'll be there," I told the kid. "I even have my mitt here from gym class."

That afternoon, I hung around school until the tryout was to begin at 5:00 p.m. I don't remember anything other than it was poorly attended and loosely organized. The guy in charge let me bat one time. The pitcher was pretty good, mixing curves with a knuckleball. He struck me out and I went to the dugout, grabbed my mitt, and split without anyone even noticing.

I didn't feel like crying this time. I didn't feel anything. What I had secretly wished was to go home and surprise my dad with the news that I'd made a team. That's all I wanted for my birthday. But where I had succeeded in sports all my life, now I felt like a failure.

When I arrived home around 7:00 p.m., my family had gathered for a special birthday dinner. My dad was curious to know where I had been.

I lied. I made something up my parents swallowed.

After all, it was my birthday, and all they wanted was to make the day perfect.

I've never told anyone about that day until now.


The End


TALKY TINA

There is one universal word that is a bane to all kids. The word that sets off more tantrums and peeved sighs than all others combined. It is, of course: bedtime.

My brothers and I would use any trickery to find ways to skirt around it, extend it another fifteen minutes. Outright lying was legal.

"It's nine o'clock," my mom might say, intimating it was time to retire.

"Oh no, mom," one of us might reply. "That's the clock that never got set back from Daylight Saving's Time, remember?"

Pitiful, sure, but when you're in second grade, and smack in the middle of directing an army men siege on Dracula's castle, absurdities of all kinds spring from your mouth.

As we grew up my parents established bedtimes according to age. Nancy in fifth grade got a 9:30. Jeff and I as second and first graders were an hour earlier. Bruce and Paul conked on their own. As the years passed, additional half hours were tacked on. By the time we hit junior high, bedtimes became obsolete.

Most of our youthful bitterness concerning bedtimes revolved around television shows. We'd plead to stay up and watch Bonanza on Sunday nights (9-10 p.m.). Sometimes our bedtimes were negotiated an additional hour, depending on the whim of our parents' mood. Other times there was no gray area. 9 p.m. meant 9 p.m.

There was one show, however, that drew Jeff and I like Ulysses' Sirens. It still remains one of my favorite all-time shows. It not only captivated me, sent my mind to worlds beyond my adolescent comprehension, but it also scared the occasional crap out of me. It was The Twilight Zone.

The Twilight Zone came on late, anywhere from 9-10 p.m. in its broadcast history. And Jeff and I used to fake like we were asleep when my parents would come and check on us the nights it came on. We were in second and third grades the night we sneaked down to the rec room to watch the episode I'll never forget: Living Doll, starring Telly Savalas.

The storyline went this way, Savalas, a mean stepfather, becomes irate when his wife buys her daughter an expensive doll. Savalas throws the doll against the wall and the doll responds-when no one else is around-with "My name's Talking Tina, and I don't like you." This sends Savalas into a manic rage and he tries destroying the doll with a band saw. But the doll is spunky and can't be cut. Panicked, Savalas shoves the doll in the trash and stacks bricks on the lid. That night, Savalas walks into his stepdaughter's room and is shocked to find Talking Tina sleeping with her. Savalas then hears, "My name is Talking Tina and I'm going to kill you." Talking Tina makes good on her promise, tripping Savalas down a flight of stairs, snapping his neck.

This episode numbed me with fear. I remember being scared to walk back to my bedroom, imagining all sorts of boogiemen lurking in the shadows ready to drag me into unfathomable dimensions of no return.

Eventually, Jeff and I made it back to our bedrooms, where we both trembled under the covers in a damp fear for about five minutes before Jeff finally spoke.

"Gregg?"

"Yeah . . ."

"Did that Talking Tina scare you?" he asked.

Trying to play it as cool as possible, I replied, "Oh, I don't know . . . did it scare you?"

Jeff had the same m.o. "Oh, I dunno . . . maybe."

"Yeah, maybe." I remained frozen, my eyes the only things uncovered.

"But it was fake, you know. It's only a TV show." Jeff's tone had all the courage of Don Knotts spending a night in a haunted house.

"Yeah, I know . . . " I tried to make my voice brave.

A few moments passed. I glanced at my closet door, praying it was shut. Spooks, I well knew, dwelt there for years.

"Hey, Gregg?"

"Yeah?"

"You wanna sleep with me?" Jeff asked.

Not wanting to appear too anxious, I delayed my answer. "I don't know, you want me to?”

"Only if you want to," he said. "No big deal."

After another delay, I replied. "Okay."

Then I gathered my quilt and hustled into his bed, where we fell asleep feeling confident no bad guys or things could get us both. That safety in numbers deal, I guess.

The next morning my mom awoke us, catching us in the same bed. "Oh, you boys watched The Twilight Zone again."

"No, mom, really!" we alibied with sand in our eyes.

But she knew all too well. Jeff and I were never tight. It took fear to bring us together.

Too bad there aren't any pictures for proof.


The End


MARVIN'S WORD

One afternoon, when I was in second grade, my brother Jeff and I were goofing around on our block when we spotted Marvin Pearson. Marvin was a fifth grader with a gut and a fierce widow's peak. He was also the neighborhood bully, pounding you for nothing. One of his favorite past times was to throw you to the ground then pounce on you. That accomplished, he'd pin your arms with his knees, just below your shoulders, and drool loogies like spider strands until they were within fractions of his victim's face. Usually, he'd suck them back up--often times spectacularly, especially if he'd recently drank orange juice. Other times, however, they'd snap off, settling on your cheek.

This particular day, my brother and I were trying to avoid Marvin, and began to make a casual retreat.

"Hey, Kalina brothers!" shouted Marvin. "Come here."

We thought about disobeying, but realized the repercussions would have been worse. Besides, there were about three other kids our age surrounding Marvin and we figured he couldn't torture us all at the same time.

"Come here!" Marvin repeated.

So we did as we were told.

When we joined the group, the younger kids' eyes were expectant.

"Okay," began Marvin, panning our servile faces, "I'm gonna tell you guys what the worst word in the world is."

A collective gulp sounded from five kids with bad haircuts.

I remember thinking, "We'd heard crap and hell. What could be worse than those?"

Marvin took a long pause, sweeping each of our eyes. "The word is fuck."

We all played around with that one syllable in our heads, nobody daring to utter it aloud.

Finally, a kid named Derek asked the obvious. "What's it mean, Marvin?"

Marvin glanced around, playing us like wind-up toys. "I'll tell you what it means. It means every bad word rolled into one."

I swallowed, not believing my luck: a word to end all words, a word that made the others obsolete.

Shortly thereafter, my brother and I walked home. Eager to try out this new weapon, I aimed it at everything in my path. "That mailbox over there," I said so my brother could hear, "that's fuck." Pleased, I continued. "Those sticker bushes over there, they're fuck." I was rolling now. "That dog-do right there . . . that's fuck." And so it went all the way home.

I kept it up the rest of the day.

My little brothers, Bruce and Paul, were five and three at the time. I walked into their bedroom, where they were playing with Lincoln Logs and army men. "Oh, that's fuck." Then I walked out, invincible.

I don't know how many times I used the word that day but I know it was too much. When my dad came home, I was summoned.

He gripped the big paddle like Ruth in the twenties.

"I've been told you've been saying a word," my dad growled, turning the handle over in his palm.

"Word? What word?" Feeble as it was, the bluff was my only hope.

"You know what word!" My dad's face was snarl. "Now bend over."

It was the second worst paddling I ever took. He struck me at least five good ones. I was bawling before first contact. Then I blindly ran to my room, whereupon I threw myself prone--in deference to my blazing ass--on my bed and continued to cry while zapping hexes on my dad.

Suddenly, I was halted by the perfect idea for revenge.

Mopping my eyes, I went to my desk and gently sat down.

"This'll teach 'em," I thought, reaching for one of those wide-lined tablets that shouts second grade. Then I put a fat pencil to work on the paper. In the margin I slashed "1" and followed with a period.

"Number one," I thought, completely void of any Christian thoughts the nuns might have hammered into me the last two years. "My dad is a F-O-K."

Boy, was that therapeutic.

So I curled a "2" and kept going.

My dad is a F-O-K.

All the way down to the bottom of the page.

When I was done, I held it aloft for admiration.

Thomas Jefferson had never produced such a document.

Proudly, I tacked it to my bulletin board. It remained there when I went to sleep

The next morning, I awoke--undoubtedly groggy as I have my entire life--and hurried to the Sacred Heart School on my bike. Somewhere near the bike racks I remembered my 95 Theses.

I sweat the entire day like never before. The odds of my mom going into my bedroom to make my bed or pick up dirty clothes were at least 50/50. So I kept looking out Sister Anne's classroom toward the church steeple located across the playground and asked for help.

Finally, the dismissal bell rang. I hopped my bike like Tom Mix and pedaled for my life. All the way home I kept up my mantra, "God, let it be there. God, let it be there."

Crash-parking my bike, I raced inside, sped past the kitchen, and jumped over the two stairs that led into the kids' part of our home. I continued through the first leg of the hall and hung a hard left towards my bedroom.

I was only a few strides away.

We had a picture of Jesus at the end of the hall. Our eyes met. I pleaded once more.

Finally, I was in my room, my eyes fixed on my bulletin board. And there it was: the grammar school tablet paper with fuck misspelled at least twenty times.

I snatched it and tore it into confetti.

"Thank you, God," I said. "I'll never do anything bad again."

When you're eight, it's not that you don't mean those things; it's just that there are so many distractions, signals and stimuli rushing at you that your promises get flushed away.

The End