The Worst Thing About Watching Your Father Stab Himself to Death

Written By: TMC

Posted on February 3, 2007

On the soccer field, he was alone, but he was never lonely. Like a monk deep in meditation, a Buddhist perched beneath the Bodhi tree, he crouched between goalposts, an 8 foot by 8 yard sanctuary that no one could violate. Every step an opponent took inside the box, even a toe across the 18, was a threat that had to be warded off by any means necessary.

He’d been described, by various terrible writers, as a whirling dervish, an unstoppable force, a madman in a technicolor dreamcoat. He’d been an inspirational story, a cautionary tale, and a flash-in-the-pan, sometimes all at once. The pain of loss, one writer said, was etched on his face, carved into the premature wrinkles around his grey eyes and evident in the military set of his jaw as he assaulted a sailing corner kick.

Eventually, the terrible writers from the local papers were overtaken by mediocre writers from the national papers. They flocked to Northeast Philly to pimp his pain and fill the void of human interest stories, left by a lull between runaway brides and dead American girls in Aruba. For a week, he was the human interest story, the kid whose father had stabbed himself in the thigh during a meth binge and bled to death on the couch, and whose mother was dying of AIDS in a prison cell. A great story, a real American tragedy—the confluence of drugs, violence, and sex in a crumbling city. If only he were black; then they could really push it to the next level.

They took pictures of his shadowy profile and wrote captions like, “Standing in the darkness, Mark Winslow hopes soccer will bring him into the light.” They mentioned how his childhood nickname had been “Slow,” and not just because it was part of his last name. His teachers had thought—and still, probably, did think—he was retarded; he was so recalcitrant and aloof that he was almost impossible to deal with; he was worse, even, than some autistics. But, they were always quick to add, he could hardly be blamed for his sadness, what with his parents and all.

He laughed when he thought about the time he’d spent in class with the kids they’d called troubled; if anyone was dumb enough to be in those classes, it was the reporters, who embarrassed themselves with their patronizing questions. What, one reporter asked when shoving a microphone against Mark’s mouth, does it feel like not to have parents? When I get hurt, no one’s there to make it better. Explain to us, another demanded, the worst thing about watching your father stab himself to death. The blood. How do you manage to focus on soccer with everything else going on? If I didn’t focus, we would lose. Are you afraid you’ll turn out like your parents, since, after all, that kind of self-destructive behavior is often hereditary? Someday I’ll probably be dead too.

His face was plastered all over ESPN (Look at the redeeming power of sport!) and CNN (Look at the way our cities are crumbling!) and even Fox (Look at what the welfare is doing!), and suddenly, everyone was his friend. The ugly kid with the flat nose and retard haircut in his homeroom talked to him for the first time in a year. “Hey man,” the kid said, “sucks about your parents.” Mark didn’t respond, just as he didn’t respond when the girl in front of him added, “Yeah—why didn’t you ever tell us?” He should have ignored his Geometry teacher who patted him on the back and said, “I know how it is. My father died last year. Cancer.” Instead, he curled his head upward, brushed the hair out of his eyes and smirked at the teacher. Not the same thing, he said. Cancer happens to people who don’t deserve it. The teacher placed a conciliatory hand on Mark’s shoulder and Mark shrugged it off. He stomped away, thinking about that teacher’s father withering away in a hospital bed, kicking and screaming as death dragged him off by the collar. That’s not how his parents went—they packed their bags for hell and waited outside with a hitcher’s thumb in the air and shame plastered on their faces.

A week later, some pro football player tried to sneak a loaded rifle on an airplane, and Mark wasn’t front page news anymore. The people at school ignored him again, forgot that he was a real person. No more reporters came to the house, and only one or two local idiots stayed on the high school soccer beat. Just as before, he spent his days at school, evenings at practice, and nights in his uncle Steve’s basement, reading—Vonnegut, Heinlein, Asimov, everything he could steal from the library—and silently burning things beneath the window.

And on game days, he stepped from the fringes of real life into the spotlight again, striding calmly onto the field in his oversized jersey—splattered with colors like a Jackson Pollock canvas—and the cleats he’d fished from the dumpster behind the YMCA. Colin, the team’s thumb-built sweeper, followed him onto the field and slapped him on the back. “Know what you oughta do?” he said, and Mark kept walking. “You ought to punt one right into that guy’s head,” he said, pointing at one of the reporters. “Dumbest motherfucker I ever seen.” Mark laughed. Soon as we’ve got a lead, I’m going for it.

“Long as you don’t go giving away our lead,” Colin said. Nobody’s taking anything from me. Mark turned and jogged toward the goal, leaping and slapping a palm against the crossbar, launching when he landed into a full sprint toward the right post, and then back to the left, which he pounded with a closed fist before running out and planting himself on the six yard line. There, he stared out toward midfield and his sucked in several deep breaths. Later, he wouldn’t remember doing any of this; he never did. Not until last year when an article mentioned his “frenetic, vaguely simian” pre-game ritual did he even know exactly what he did prior to games. Always, he remembered walking onto the field, and he remembered the opening whistle, but the interim was a warm darkness, like being buried deeply beneath the covers at night.

The whistle woke him from his stupor and he locked eyes onto the ball. For the next 90 minutes, he had to know where it was, how quickly it was moving, how it spun, where it might hit a divot and take an awkward bounce. If he lost track even for a second, they’d beat him and he’d have nothing left. He’d have to trudge off the field and relive the goal through the night, his dreams reminding him that he was a failure.

The opposing goalie punched a dangerous cross out toward midfield, and the attack was mounting toward Mark’s end. A crisp through ball to the outside midfielder sparked a break down the sideline. Three attackers charged toward two flat-footed defenders, and Mark took two decisive steps toward the ball. Thirty yards away and skittering off the attacker’s foot, the ball would be there soon, and Mark locked onto it. He heard nothing as they hurtled toward him; the fat reporters on the sideline melted beneath the heat and disappeared, their notepads lying in sweaty puddles; the coaches burned beneath the sun and a cool breeze whisked their ashes away; the other team disappeared, as if someone had hit a switch and turned them off; and everyone else’s parents died right there, struck down by some god who thought it fair to even the odds. All that remained were his scrambling teammates and the ball, pushed ahead by some ghosts he couldn’t see. The ball jumped across the box and changed direction in mid-air, screaming toward the side of the net, but Mark pounced on it, cradling it in his arms and lying on top of it in the razed dirt of the goal mouth. Part of him wanted to never let it go, to run away and disappear forever, to swallow the ball whole and carry it with him until he died, but he knew that wouldn’t satisfy him. He needed to kick it away. It would come back, it always did. He punted the ball downfield, launching it as far away as he could, and he stood in the silence of his empty goal. His teammates rushed away, but they would be back too. As long as he did his job, they would be there, and he would be one of them. The ball ping-ponged between his teammates and the ghosts but Mark never lost sight of it. He bounced on his toes, counting the seconds until they would need him again. Drinking deeply the silence, he wished the game would never end.

© Copyright Sport Fiction • Powered by Wordpress • Using Detour theme created by Brian Gardner.