That's what my condition was, like it always was, whenever my Dad would challenge me.
I was a winner!
I won and always, and in several ways, since, and before, that first time I can remember.
I was five. I was with Dad, the one I'd rather be with more than anyone.
Mom was great,
a good mother, but Dad was Dad.
I was crowing in triumph, giggling. I had just beaten Dad at wrestling,
(and in record time
too!), and I was trying to get him to go again.
And now I was thirteen, and there was Dad with the new home model video
game
machine, and he was trying, as he said, "to make more sense out of
the game's rules than
they were written to have."
The rules were unrolling on the screen, and he was staring so hard that,
if eyes could start
fires, he would have burned a hole clear through the screen. This was
more than fifteen
years ago. Video games were pretty new. Dad got the idea to buy a game
machine for us
to play. We went to the store together and picked out the one we wanted.
Together, we
opened the box, read the instructions and hooked up the machine.
The first game we played was practice, and so were the second, third,
fourth and fifth,
but the sixth was to separate the winner from the slacker, and that
game I won, though
barely.
The seventh game, I won by a wide margin. The eight game was a blow-out.
I blew Dad away good.
As I watched him review the rules for the twenty-fifth time, my thoughts
kept wandering
back to the endless string of bright and brilliant, shining and awesome
victories I had over
him, victories of me getting the best of him. My earliest memories
include many scenes of
Dad lowering his head in utter shame and magnificent disgrace, and
of me bragging, to high
Heaven about my wonder- kid prowess, and telling Dad that he should
be thankful to me for
holding back and not completely clobbering him!
When I was five and Dad and I were wrestling, Dad told me that I didn't
know my own
strength, and that I should hold back some to keep the contests interesting.
The wrestling
contests were wrestling Indian-style and father-son style. Of course,
I beat him consistently,
up until I was about twelve and we stopped wrestling each other. Usually,
he would be
winning nearly to the end, then I would burst forth like superboy and
pin him without raising
a sweat.
"Besting (your) Dad at anything doesn't come easy," Mom often reminded
me. "Remember
how it is," she said.
I remember. I often sat right across Dad's stomach, and, with my bare
hands, I pinned his
shoulders to the floor. He groaned and moaned, and breathed like he
was completely out
of breath and couldn't move a muscle, and I screamed, "I win! I win!"
And he made terribly
ugly and funny, and terribly determined-looking faces, and bellowed,
"Give me a re-match!"
Sometimes I gave him a re-match, only to beat him again. Sometimes
I just said, "Dad, you
know you're going to lose when you wrestle me, but if you want to go
at it again, then I
guess that is how it has to be." Dad then steeled himself, took a deep
breath, drew in his
chest and held it in, as if he was able to draw on a secret stash of
power from somewhere,
and while holding his chest in, he usually said in a deep, funny voice,
"I'm ready to take you
on, man." He often paused, let out the air, said, "C'mon!" I always
bragged, "Again?" And
we went a second or a third round, sometimes a fourth, and always the
result was the
same: I won! And not just at wrestling. At age seven, I beat him at
cards; at eight, I
clobbered him at checkers; by age nine, I had chomped him in monopoly;
at ten, I
crucified him, when we played chess. And don't mention poker. Starting
back at age seven
I owned him when we played cards. I could out bluff him and I could
always get the
winning hand. Then, came the video game, and --
As I watched Dad review again, for the nth time, the rules of the video
game, my thoughts
kept wandering back.
I was eight and I was convinced that I would never learn how to play
baseball. I was no
good at it. At school, when my teacher made us play at recess, I couldn't
hit the ball. I kept
swinging and kept missing. I couldn't catch the ball either. It would
go through my fingers
and drop, no matter how hard I tried to hold on. I was awkward and
clumsy. The teacher
was patient, but the kids weren't. They didn't want me to play on their
team. Dad and I had
played ball back when I was younger than six. The ball was a big red,
bouncing ball, twice
as big as my head. Dad tossed the ball at me. It was big and easy to
grab. I tossed it back
at him. Dad told me how good a ball player I was. Playing with him
was easy, and playing
the kind of ball we played was simple. Dad took me to a few ball games.
Once he brought
me a kid-size L.A. Dodgers' T-shirt. In my fantasy, I was the star
of the World Series. I
could grab a ball going ninety-miles-a-hour, out of the air, and I
could lay the bat on any
pitcher's best, and knock home runs like a home run was nothing.
I got knocked back to reality by the verbal knocks that I got from the
kids at school. I must
have been sitting in my room, feeling like the ceiling had fallen down
on me, because I didn't
hear Dad when he knocked on the door. I had been moping around the
house for days, and
he knew what the problem was, because I had told him and Mom, after
they had dragged it
out of me. I'd even repeated a taunt one of the boys had made: "I played
ball like a baby, I
couldn't even hit my nose or catch my thumb."
"May I come in?" Dad asked.
He was already in my room. He had a big smile on his face and stared
easily into my sad,
frowned-up face, in an effort to put a happier face on me. I looked
up as he came to my
bed and stood over me. Dad was big. He must have looked like a big
man to grown
people, to a kid, he looked like a giant. He was way over six feet
and had lots of muscles.
He had already changed into his afterwork clothes, and had a baseball
bat slung over his
shoulders, and carried a glove on his right hand.
I bet Dad could hit the ball, I thought. Dad's not like me. I can't hit a bucket of spit.
I felt like a little fool.
"Excuse me," Dad said. "I'm here to play baseball, but I don't have
anyone to play with
me."
"Mom did tell you that I was taking a nap?" I asked.
He nodded.
I said, "I bet she told you I was up here moping around. Well, I'm taking
a nap, because
I want to take a nap, and not because of any other reason."
"A real nap?" he asked.
"Daddy, what do you want me for? I'm taking a nap," I said.
He leaned his head down to mine. "You look like my son, I want us to play ball."
"I can't play ball, " I said.
He asked, "Why?"
I said, "Daddy, you know why, because I can't. Everybody knows I can't.
You can ask
Terry and Wallace, and the kids at school."
"Man," he said.
"Yeah?" I said.
He smiled.
I said, "Mom sent you up here to stop me from moping, didn't she? She
told me that when
you got home you would stop me from moping."
Dad put his finger on my nose and wiggled it. Normally, I would have
giggled, which I
usually did when he wiggled my nose. Back then, when I was eight, I
was very ticklish, but
that day, all I did was to frown more.
Dad stood back and looked at me, and then he looked about the room and
asked, "Is this
my best buddy's room? Are you my best buddy? My main man? My son?"
"Daddy, you know I'm your son."
"I want to play baseball, do you mind playing with me?"
"I don't know how to play, "I said. "I'm sure I told you that before."
Dad said, "I'll show you."
I said, "You see it won't do no good. I'm no good at it."
"I'll show you," he said. "What do you think fathers are for?" he asked.
Then he said
with a smile, "Maybe to buy their sons presents?"
"Okay," I said. "If it would make you feel good, I'll try. But remember what I told you."
He laughed, "C'mon, man, let's get started while there's still daylight outside."
For a hour that day Dad taught me and I learned. For a hour everyday
that week, and a
hour every other day the following two weeks, and a hour each time
during the following
month, when he could manage, he taught and I learned. It was not hocus
pocus magic. It
wasn't even easy but I learned, because he taught patiently. Mom told
me that Dad was
good at baseball, when he was in school, and that since I had Dad's
genes, I would be
good at baseball too. And she was right, for soon I could play as well
as any kid in my
class. And as you may expect, one Saturday afternoon Dad invited me
out into the
backyard.
"We've been practicing," he said. "Practicing is over, and now just you and me, one-on-one."
"Sure thing," I replied, pushing back my chair, and even before I got
up, reaching for the
closet in my room, where we kept the baseball equipment. The "one-on-one
not for
practice" session I won. I knocked balls over the backyard fence, and
I struck Dad out a
couple of times, beating him at the game he taught me! I won all around.
And the video game --
Dad was asking me, "Don't you think we ought to play this video game again?"
I replied, "Sure thing."
Soon I was pushing the machine's buttons. I was so cool, so relaxed,
as if I was
easing-it in the livingroom, leaning back in Dad's favorite chair.
I was ringing up the score
and whistling like a champ.
Mom came into the room, told Dad that he had a phone call. Dad took
the call but told
Mom to hold all others, that he would be busy for the next hour or
so, and did not want to
be disturbed. He closed the door and even mumbled that he wished there
was a key to
lock it.
I grinned. "No, but I won't let you escape the whipping I'm going to give you!"
Dad shook his head, gave me a funny grimace, that ugly and sad look
of his, then shed
his coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves and sat on the edge of the seat,
facing the machine. His
feet, apart, were planted firmly on the floor. He leaned forward, as
if to encroach in an
intimidating stance onto the machine's space. Dad scowled, "Alright,
machine! I'm ready!"
And suddenly it hit me in a flash and I felt just fantastic! Oh Lordy,
I felt fantastic! I
realized that I had finally bested Dad at something for real! I mean
FOR REAL! Not like it
had been all of those years when I was a little kid and he would let
me win. I was thirteen!
I was no longer a little kid! I had bested Dad, and for real! And did
I tell you? I felt fantastic!
(c) 1993 Franchot Lewis . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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