Slayer of Dreams

Originally Posted Thursday, June 6, 2013

I don't know what this is a picture of.  It was on the roll of film from almost twenty years ago.  I think it is a homeless person downtown, but my recollection is faint at best.  Whatever.  I'm trying to balance.  I'd say half of you want to see titties and the other half doesn't.  And with the internet, you can always see all the titties that you want. 

I've been thinking about Q's post on softball (link).  It makes me giggle.  I think he wrote it the same day I wrote about "boundaries" or "lines" or some other pop psych term.  I'll tell you why. 

I am a pseudo jock--that is, someone who thought he might be one but never was.  Growing up, I followed sports and knew more about the players and even more about the game(s) than the other dolts.  But in high school, they wouldn't let me play for a number of reasons, not the least of which I refused to cut my hair.  Even then I knew I was a better athlete than anybody on the team.  That is what I "knew."  What I knew even more, though, was that I understood more about the game(s) than others.  I got "it."  While the first part was not quite true, the second part was.  Shit. . . I could influence the outcome of games just by will alone. 

That is the fallacy that is the subtext of Q's article.  I think.  Here is the deal.  He plays on a team of (I think he confesses) athletic feebs.  But I know Q.  There is an innate physicality about him that he can't help.  It is genetic.  He is the worst kind of athlete--a natural.  By "worst," I mean worst for the would be or pseudo kind.  He haunts them.  He is a nightmare.  Let me illustrate. 

The "natural" pseudo athlete is what I've described myself to be, the one who is almost religious about "the game."  He knows it, he feels, inside out.  He has studied it since birth.  If in his heart he knows he could never have been a major league star, he still believes he could have played on a major league team if he had been given the right circumstances.  These are usually people who played high school sports, but that is not necessary in the end.  It is just that sports for them represents some universal situation.  They are emotional about it.  They feel it.  People, for instance, who talk about the "perfection" of baseball, of how it is the metaphor for all of life, etc. 

Let me just say this:  they are full of shit. 

But leave that for now. 

So now in his forties, this fellow, this almost-athlete who has never quit playing sports in one fashion or another (YMCA leagues, pickup games, etc.), is on an organized league team.  He takes it seriously and wants to win the league championship to present as evidence of his virtue and virility.  Once in awhile, however, he has to play against some amateurish team who he is convinced is not of a sufficient caliber in that they do not know who won the World Series in 1975 nor why it is important (I do).  Nor other important things/trivia. 

His team runs into Q's.  It is mid-season.  This should be a walkover.  He is irritated that they even have to play such a group of idiots, but at least they will get to humiliate them--there is that.  But something goes wrong.  And by the seventh inning (I think this is the limit for softball leagues of which I have never taken part as it is for sissies and syphilitics), his team is only ahead by two runs.  His team comes to bat.  They are at the bottom of the batting order, and the number eight hitter dinks a ball to third and is thrown out.  Then the ninth hitter plunks a ball between the third baseman and the left fielder and is on.  Now, at the top of the batting order, the batter hits into a force out.  Now our man, the would-be-athlete is at the plate.  He is confident (but what is that nervousness he feels deep down) but pops the first pitch out of play.  He doesn't swing on the second.  "Ball" cries the ump.  He doesn't swing on the third pitch either.  "Steeerike," cries the ump.  "What?" the would-be-athlete cries turning to the ump.  "Are you blind!"  One ball, two strikes, our would-be-athlete is determined.  The pitch comes right down the pike and he swings and connects a line drive that should have been a hit but which is snagged blindly, almost ridiculously by Q, retiring the side.  The simps go wild as Q walks off the field with a clownish grin.  Of course, it says.  Of course. 

Then it is the bottom of the seventh and the infidels are at bat.  All the would-be-athlete's team has to do is put these simps to bed and they can begin getting ready for the next game against a team they have to beat if they are going to be in contention for the league championship later on that season.  Our would-be-athlete, of course, has already justified the out to himself.  Stupid dufus fucking luck.  No problem, he says to himself.  Three outs.  Three outs. 

And then. . . no shit. . . the first batter walks.  But the second batter with a girly swing pops up to the second baseman.  Our would-be-jock is feeling better.  Indeed, he begins to use his coaches voice, the one he knows would have worked for him in the majors. 

"O.K.  O.K.  Let's just E-X-E-C-U-T-E.  There is no reason to be nervous now.  Let's go, PEOPLE.  Just P-L-A-Y T-H-E G-A-M-E."  On the sideline, Q says the same thing in a mocking voice laughing in a give a shit way. 

The next batter hits a double.  Runners on second and third. 

The next simp swings and misses, swings and misses, swings and misses.  Two outs.

Then Q comes to the plate. He is smarmy, irreverent.  Our would-be-athelete can't stand it.  This man, he thinks, has NO LOVE FOR THIS GAME.  And in the sense he says it, it is true.  Q has not followed the game as a devotee.  He likes it, but he would never watch it on television on a beautiful Saturday afternoon when their was a Matisse exhibit, etc.  And there is always drinking to be done. 

Q goofs to the crowd of simps standing and cheering him on.  "What do I do?" he asks with a big grin. "Hitting it over that fence is good, right?" 

Our would-be-hero sees a pretty girl with no bra jumping up and down on the sidelines, screaming, "Yes, yes. . . hit it over the fence."  Oh Jesus Christ," he thinks. . . "oh Jesus Christ."

Q steps to the plate with a drunken grin and points to the right field fence which is the furthest for him as he is right handed.  The pitcher steps onto the mound, does a brief wind up and. . . .

Kuthunk. 

Our undone-athlete watches as the big old softball sails in slow motion like something out of a dream, further and further into the sky. . . on and on and on.   Q merely drops the bat and begins to dance around the bases.  The feebs and simps go wild.

Mother fucker.  Isn't that the way that these things go?  It is so wrong.  I can feel the wrongness of it in my bones.  Our would-be-athlete is destroyed, decimated.  In an instant, he has lost all faith.  There can be no God in the great baseball hall of fame.  What the fuck, what the fuck use is a lifetime of devotion if some hayseed like this can put an end to all his hopes and dreams. 

But that is just how it is.  I've seen it many times.  There are people in the world who can just do that to you, and I can tell you--Q is one.  He is a good man to have on your side even if you lose. 

Now don't take this as some tribute to Q.  I write this disparagingly.  He is the slayer of fantasies, the destroyer of dreams. 

At least for the faux among us.  His secret? 

He just doesn't care. 

Oh, yes. . . and an incredible genetic gift. 

Don't try to keep up with Q.  He is a monster, I promise, like Grendel or Grendel's mother.  It is a hideous and horrible thing to watch.  But it is quite impressive, too.