The Good Men Project

"Every story is meant to inspire, motivate and center us on the idea of what we're supposed to be as men."

The Exceptional Man

February 16, 2010

Margin Call

Filed under: Fatherhood, Guest Blogger, Work — tmatlack @ 7:00 am

By DAVID PETRIE

One Friday night, as I stood in the kitchen cleaning up after a late dinner, my oldest walked in from the playroom, visibly displeased. She said, “Well, I’m glad to see you can make the time to do dishes instead of watching a movie with your kids.”

My daughter marched off and left me to chew over what I might have told her if I had thought of it faster. I wanted to explain to her that I was cleaning up so she didn’t have to. My wife and I often speak about giving our children more chores. That night, when my daughter chastised me while I was up to my elbows in dirty pots, she almost ruined a sweet deal for all of them.

As I loaded the dishwasher I thought of the long list of other things I “make the time to do” instead of spending the time with my children. There are the walks I take by myself weekday mornings—from my car to my desk on the third floor. On warm spring mornings I cut through the back parking lot and often catch a whiff of diesel exhaust coming from a tractor-trailer at the loading docks. The smell makes me think of school busses and the field trips my wife chaperones while I edit catalogs and respond to e-mails.

Or there was that afternoon that I spent writing a quarterly report while my wife took the children to get their teeth cleaned. I was likely squinting at a spreadsheet when the dentist appeared in the waiting room and announced that my kids were all cavity-free again. I found this out at dinner that night, but by then the victory in the war against plaque had faded.

Or there was that time I returned to my desk tired from a too-long meeting to find four messages from my children’s school. The boy was sick. In the first message the nurse asked if I knew where my wife was. In the second message the nurse asked if I could come and fetch the boy. In the third message the nurse told me that she still hadn’t found my wife but she had found the friend who we had listed for emergencies and he was on his way. The fourth call was from our friend. He was at my house where the boy had settled in with some ginger ale.

I haven’t told my daughter about how every sunny afternoon around three o’clock I look out my office window and picture my children racing out the front door of their school into an afternoon that holds the promise of freedom and fun and games and laughter. I allow myself a few minutes to think about them before forcing myself to focus on the work on the gray desk in front of me.

I think of how many hours I spend away from my children working with other people and some days I wonder if it is worth it. Yes, someone needs to pay the bills. Yes, we want our children to grow up in a warm and comfortable environment with a little more than the basic necessities. Yes, we want one of us home after school and during vacations and on snow days, and by the luck of the draw and a graduate degree I happened to be the one who could make more money by working full time.

It still hurt on that summer Saturday when I climbed behind the wheel to drive the family to the lake. The boy, experiencing the summer-vacation bliss that allows young children to completely lose track of the days of the week, opened his eyes wide and exclaimed with excitement, “You mean Daddy’s going too?”

Like others who try to balance full-time jobs with family, like my father before me, I push my life to the margins of the day and offer my most talented hours to the highest bidder. I do this for my children. I’ve read about “brave” men who have given it all up to focus on raising their children. Three pages in I usually find where the wife works full time. In those houses the angst and frustration simply shifted.

If my oldest had waited on that Friday night I would have told her that in some ways she was right. Dishes can soak until children go to sleep. Cleaning up after dinner can be another task to push to the margin of the day. But parents need sleep too, so I scrubbed away.

*****

Read more of David Petrie’s writing at his blog, Daddy’s Home, where this essay originally appeared, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/davidpetrie.

 

February 14, 2010

To the Moon and Back

Filed under: Daily Man, Fatherhood, Relationships — tmatlack @ 7:00 am

 

By TOM MATLACK

I met Elena on June 3, 2002, on a blind date. I suggested lunch in a safe location, one where either of us could bolt. I looked up and saw a few white wispy clouds and a finger-nail moon hanging in the blue sky. 

She arrived well-dressed, tall and blond. The thought occurred to me as we sat down that in build and coloring, and even facial features, we could actually be brother and sister. I had a lot of questions for her. 

“Where did you go to school?”

“What was your first job?”

 “Why did you quit?”

 “What do your parents do for work?”

 “What’s the closest living relative who’s been locked up in an insane asylum?”

 “Have you or any of your family members committed murder?

I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t dealing with a crazy woman. I had had plenty of that in the past. But she responded to each one of my questions with warmth and the slightest hint of a smile. She cleaned her plate, which struck me as a sure sign of confidence.  And by the end of the forty-five minute encounter Elena had at least partially broken down my serious demeanor.

We stood outside the restaurant navigating that awkward moment at the end of a first date when both parties are looking for a sign. I thanked her for coming and started to shake her hand. She ignored my outstretched palm and grabbed a corner of the fleece vest I had on. That was all the sign I needed. 

I was careful not to call right away, but I did call eventually, and she agreed to meet me for dinner. Elena came to the door wearing black leather pants. She had curves in all the right places, so it was hard for me to concentrate. It was like a test. “Eye-contact!” I told myself over and over again. “Don’t look down! No woman, and this is some woman, wants to be ogled by a guy she barely knows!”

She asked me to wait in the front hall of her home on Boston’s Beacon Hill.  I was very impressed by the massive glass chandelier, the high ceilings, exposed brick, and detailed woodwork on the wide maple staircase leading to the second floor. “This was the original Beacon Hill Firehouse,” she explained after getting her purse. “They used to back the horses in those huge front doors. My late husband bought it out of bankruptcy and gutted it. I finished it just before he passed away.” 

My first impression was far less sincere. At that point I was driving a blue Porsche 911 convertible with plush leather seats and chrome instruments. I had bought it on a whim after making a killing during the Internet bubble and had almost sold it a few weeks later when I saw another guy driving around town in the exact same car and thought to myself, “What a total prick that guy is!” But then a buddy and I went to driving school and learned how to drive my car close to 200 miles per hour. After seeing what an amazing machine it really was, I decided to keep it, even if I looked like an idiot driving around town in a racecar.

I opened the car door for Elena, put the top down, and whisked her out of town.  I had decided to try someplace intimate and out of the way: an Italian spot in a nearby suburb where I knew the cook.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked with a tone that seemed to imply that maybe I was hiding something.

“Not to worry. I am very single. I just wanted to take you somewhere you’ve never been.”

At dinner the conversation flowed naturally and Vittorio Ettore, my friend the chef, made us his famous tomato sauce. I told Elena about my work and my crazy family and even my kids. She told me about working her way through Northeastern University, going to law school, and trying cases every day before getting sick of the adversity of the whole thing. She explained that her family had always fixed up houses. And she had caught the bug, decorating apartments for her friends through college and law school.  When she got sick of the law she decided to become an interior decorator full-time.  In the law, she explained, she was often dealing with life-and-death issues, defending workers who had been maimed and whose livelihoods were at stake. But in decorating, when a client got upset, she liked being able to think, and occasionally remind her clients, “It’s only fabric!”

The conversation continued on the ride home. I was so focused on what Elena was saying that I drove right by her exit. When she realized my mistake she looked me in the eye and asked playfully, “What are we doing now?” I suggested a walk. So we parked my car at my condo on Commonwealth Avenue, in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, and stopped inside to drop her bag off before heading toward the Charles River. On a whim I grabbed my push scooter, an eighteen-inch graphite board with a handle.

She laughed when she saw it. “What’s that?”

“My vehicle of choice,” I told her.

On the river the moon glimmered off the surface of the water. We kept talking about our families and our lives. Finally, I got sick of the serious chatter and started riding circles around Elena on my scooter.

“Jump on!” I yelled. I loved to ride around with my toddler son, Seamus, tucked in front of me, holding on to the handlebar. He’d smile and then laugh every time we rode down the street together, feeling the freedom of our collective movement and the security of the scooter. After all, I’d spent countless hours perfecting my ride.

With Elena my motivation was not as pure as with my son. She protested that it wasn’t safe and she had on the wrong shoes. But finally she agreed. I told her to position her feet at the very front of the board and asked her not to move—to let me do the work.  I stood behind her, wrapped my arms around her waist, and held on to the handlebars.  She placed her hands between mine. I put my right foot at the back of the board and pushed off with my left. We glided along the river in the moonlight. Elena giggled.

***

A week later, I found myself buckled into something called the Tower of Terror, suspended a hundred feet in the air. I tried not to look down, only at the tobacco barns and rolling Western Massachusetts hills on the horizon. Then the massive spring, which was holding us in place, let go. We went into freefall. Terrified of heights, I screamed bloody murder. At the bottom, we bounced and headed back up, almost to the top of the ride again. My eyes stayed firmly shut the whole time. Only one thing could have gotten me onto that ride: a beautiful woman.

Elena had suggested going to an amusement park after our dinner date and scooter ride. I had gone to the old Riverside Park while growing up in Amherst, just south of the city of Springfield. Six Flags had long ago bought the place. The oldest roller-coaster, a rickety old timber job painted white, reminded me of childhood trips to the park. Elena and I rode a bunch of coasters, including the new Super Man, and ate some cotton candy before calling it a day. We climbed back into the Porsche and headed home. By the time we arrived back in Boston, Elena was asleep on my shoulder.

A few days later I was walking down Newbury Street in Back Bay, which was packed with tourists, and stopped at Ben & Jerry’s with a friend for ice cream. As I came out with my cone, Elena passed by me within a yard, a very handsome gentleman on her arm.  I could have sworn she looked right through me, as if she had seen and completely ignored me. My heart sank.

Out on the sidewalk, my mind was racing. I was fuming. “This couldn’t be. I really thought she liked me. Things had been going so well. How could she be out with some other guy?” But then the demons were talking to me, “You idiot. She is way too good for you. You have to be kidding yourself that she actually liked you. You are one pathetic motherfucker!” 

I ignored the voices in my head and backtracked down the sidewalk and ran into the ice cream store, looping around the front of the line to try to hide the fact that I had been stalking her. I brushed up against Elena. She looked up innocently, recognizing me with a big “Hello, Tom!” Before she could introduce me to her friend, I leaned in and planted a wet kiss on her lips. Mission accomplished, I briefly shook her date’s hand and left.  

The next time we get together, Elena and I agreed on a trip to see Monsoon Wedding. I had already seen the movie with my sister, but I kept that fact to myself, hoping that the romance of the film would rub off on the woman I wanted to be my girlfriend. After the pageantry of the wedding scene, Elena and I emerged from the theater to face a real live monsoon, Boston-style. We ran for it, arriving back at my condo soaked. I offered her a dry T-shirt and set about seasoning chicken and slicing red peppers and eggplant while she changed. With dinner on the grill, Elena sat on my kitchen counter wearing an old rowing shirt of mine, a grin on her face.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, standing close with my hands on her waist.  

She finally admitted to me that the friend I met at Ben & Jerry’s, who I assumed was some other guy she was dating, was really a gay interior designer from her office.

“But I appreciated the concern,” she said with a giggle before kissing me affectionately. 

After a few weeks together, I began to see that, like me, Elena came to our relationship after some real-life challenges. She had been married before. Her husband, a vigorous young man, learned he had cancer on their honeymoon. Eighteen months later he passed away, leaving Elena a too-young widow. I could tell that along with her outer beauty this woman had inner strength that I could trust, even with my most precious possessions: my daughter, Kerry, and son, Seamus. For years I had kept any woman I’d been involved with completely separate from my kids. I had bled and sweated to make myself into a good father and wasn’t willing to risk that for anything. I yearned to be able to share my whole life with someone, not just the bachelor part, but so far I just hadn’t met the right woman.

That July I invited Elena to meet us in the city of Providence, in Rhode Island, near where Kerry, Seamus and I were staying at a beach house. The kids and I baked cookies and brownies and drove to meet Elena. When she pulled up, the kids greeted her with sweets. We got an early dinner of pizza on Federal Hill and then drove up to the East Side of Providence to play Frisbee and run on the soft grass of the Brown University quadrangle in the early evening light. At one point, while we were playing hide-and-seek, Kerry caught Elena and I kissing.  She laughed and made funny noises of protest, “Ewww, gross!” But she was smiling and seemed pleased to see her dad happy. Kerry was eight and Seamus was six. Before saying goodnight we all got ice cream and sat outside licking our cones and laughing. 

***

Just three months after our first date, I invited Elena to our family house on an island on Maine’s Lake Megunticook. We arrived with Kerry and Seamus, joining my parents, brother and sister.  The second night we were on the island, I arranged to have my sister and parents watch the kids. I put on too much cologne, which my sister in-law ribbed me about as Elena and I left the house. We walked along the waterfront in the town of Rockland. The demons were talking to me: “You don’t deserve this woman…You can’t leave the safety of your apartment…How will the kids take the news?…Are you really capable of being a good husband?” 

We sat on a bench, looking quietly at the boats in the late afternoon sun. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a ring, holding it tightly in my hand so Elena couldn’t see it. I used my diaphragm to squeeze the base of my lungs, forcing air up to whisper, “Elena, will you marry me?”

She wept and grabbed me, gently whispering the word “yes” in my ear.  

Back on the island, I ducked my head into my parents’ room to tell Mom I needed to talk to her right away. She came wandering out in her pajamas, toothbrush in hand, looking concerned. Dad was in his usual nighttime spot, reading a pile of newspapers in a corner rocking chair.

“Jim come sit with me,” Mom said motioning to him. Dad sat next to her on the couch.  They both turned expectantly to me, now holding Elena’s hand. 

“We have some important news,” I started. But before I could continue, there was a bright flash of color up the lake. We turned to look at orange and then blue streaks in the sky. Dad was out the back door and on the porch, trying to see what was going on.

“Those are some serious fireworks!” he reported back. We all watched until they were done. Then Dad sat back down beside Mom.

“Where were we?” she prompted.

I cleared my throat, trying to pick up where I had left off. “Elena and I have decided to get married!”

“Oh, Tom!” Mom cried as she jumped up and down with joy. I could see the relief on her face. This had been a long road for her, worrying about her boy. Elena’s eyes were full of excitement too. She and Mom whirled around the room together.

“That’s great!” Dad said rising out of his chair, looking more than ever like a giant teddy bear. He gave me an engulfing hug and then grabbed Elena and gave her one too.

 ***

On December 28, 2002, Elena and I were married in Tuxedo, New York. We exchanged vows by candlelight, as snow fell gently in the dark. A tenor belted out Ave Maria.  Kerry was so excited she kept standing on Elena’s dress. Seamus rang the church bell at the end of the service. On the way out of the church I noticed Elena’s late husband’s father. A gentle man who had always greeted me with a hug, he had tears in his eyes. His wife was comforting him. They both looked happy and broken-hearted at the same time.

At the reception, each table acted out a verse of the twelve days of Christmas, family members standing on chairs, waving napkins wildly in the air and singing with all their might. Dad gave a heartfelt toast, acknowledging the distance Elena and I had traveled to get to that day.

Inside my wedding band Elena has inscribed “TO THE MOON AND BACK.”

***

Valentine’s Day, 2005. The television was showing the finals of the Bean Pot, the annual hockey tournament between Boston’s four major college teams. Northeastern had sent the game into overtime with a late goal. The nurse asked Elena to look up at the screen to get her back in the right position as she pushed and screamed in pain. I snuck a peak at the game as I held Elena’s hand.

“It’s time,” the nurse said. “I’ll go get the doctor.”

Elena and I had been at home on a Sunday night, watching the Grammys. Melissa Ethridge came on stage, head shaved as a result of radiation treatment. It was her first public appearance since recovering from breast cancer.  She belted out Janis Joplin’s Piece of My Heart with so much courage and strength it brought tears to both our eyes. At that very moment, Elena turned to me with concern to report, “Tom, I am leaking!”

We checked in at Boston’s Mass. General Hospital. Progress was slow at first, but there was no turning back. Realizing the baby would likely be born the next morning, Valentine’s Day, I had plenty of time to think of related names. Cupid and Valentino were my favorites. The nurses found me amusing; Elena not so much.

When things eventually became serious Valentine’s Day evening, the doctor on duty was nowhere to be found. We had been told that this particular ob-gyn, whom we had never met, was an expert in “high-risk” deliveries. A midwife came into the room and asked to observe the birth. She discretely stood in the back of the room as Elena labored on. Finally, the nurse went to find the doctor, only to come back empty-handed. He was delivering another baby. The nurse told the midwife, “Scrub in, you’re delivering this baby!”

Moments later Cole Timothy was born. Elena was crying, this time tears of joy. And so was I.

In the years that have followed, Cole has sealed our family together as one unit. Kerry and Seamus adore him almost as much as he worships them.  And every day, I look forward to crawling into bed with Elena and holding her tight.

*****

Tom Matlack is the cofounder of The Good Men Project.

 

January 29, 2010

Good Vibrations

Filed under: Daily Man, Relationships — tmatlack @ 6:00 am

By TOM MATLACK

On the final day of a recent vacation in Miamiat a condo in one of those all-inclusive complexes where you are steps away from the beach, a pool, and tennis courtsmy wife made a surprising discovery while checking to be sure we werent leaving anything behind. In the bedside table, in a drawer neither of us had opened all week, she found a vibrator.

The condo had two bedrooms and a den and a lot of South American art. We noticed the full-body mirror in the middle of the master bedroom and the stack of 10-pound dumbbells that nearly blocked the path to the shower and the treadmill wedged between the bed and the sliding door to the balcony and the big picture of Obama in the den. But we didn’t think much about those items until we found the vibrator. Now all these details became clues as we tried to construct a profile of the condos owner and determine, vis a vis the vibrator, whos getting excitations.

I immediately assumed that our bachelor landlord must have a girlfriend, or even a string of girlfriends, whom he liked to satisfy with artificial stimulation. But my wife had an alternative theory, that our man might use the device with another man or even on solo missions.

“That’s crazy,” I protested with the type of bravado that only a true idiot can muster. “Guy’s don’t use vibrators. That’s a girl thing!”

At the pool and later at dinner, we took informal and less-than-subtle polls. Among the giggles were fairly consistent responses: Most of the guys were with me; the women were quite sure we men were in denial.

Perhaps it was because of a fear of what I might discovera fear of losing my virginity when it comes to knowing all about sex toysor because of some lingering homophobia, but I didn’t want to consult the web or my many gay friends to answer this question about men and vibrators. I have lived 45 years but have somehow remained remarkably squeamish when it comes to some of the basics of plumbing and sexual behavior.

However, after a couple of weeks of hearing woman after woman tell me (when I asked them) that vibrators are not just for their gender, I succumbed to my curiosity. A quick trip to vibrators.com revealed that these devices are intended foror at least marketed tomen as well as women, to heterosexual as well as homosexual men.

Maybe my wife and I were both wrong. Maybe the condo owner is a straight guy who likes to use the vibrator when his girlfriend isn’t around. Who knows? I do know that the episode showed me how quick I can be to assert as fact an opinion formed only from my own experience.

Maybe that, too, is guy thing.

*****

Tom Matlack is the cofounder of The Good Men Project.

[Image bymoria]

 

January 26, 2010

Male Bonding, Part 2

Filed under: Childhood, Coming of Age, Fatherhood, Guest Blogger — Tags: , — tmatlack @ 6:00 am

By TODD MAULDIN

As men we pay a heavy price to teach the lessons that must be taught. And basketball is often involvedand a little violence, and love.

When I was a young man of 13, I used to play my father in backyard basketball games. My dad wasn’t very good, but he was always game, and our matches often got heated because no matter how I tried, I couldn’t dominate him like I wanted to, like the gap between our skill levels should have allowed me to.

I’m convinced now that my dad looked on these games as bonding experiences. At the time, I considered them combat. I wanted to humble him. I wanted to prove I was more man at 13 than he was at any age.

One day, during one of our games, things were getting rough as usual. A lot of fouls were going uncalled. As the tension rose, my dad fouled me hard while I went for a layup. I turned around and slugged him in the arm, ostensibly because he fucked up my shot, but it was really about him refusing to let me be the Man.

Now, let me say that my dad didn’t do the spanking thing. He was never physically aggressive to me or anybody, really. I’d heard stories of him being a delinquent back in his teenage years but never believed them. His punished me only by giving me long, long talkings to for transgressions, and occasionally he grounded me from stuff I liked to do.

So the blank look I saw on his face when I punched him, the far-away eyes, wide nostrils, and furrowed brow were completely foreign to me. He announced in a voice barely containing his fury that he was going to kick my ass. He whipped his baseball cap off his head and began to thrash me with it about the head and shoulders in a flurry of stinging blows that left me feeling as though I was in a cloud of hornets.

He chased me off the court, past the pump house, down the side of the house, and back to the backdoor. He never hit me with his hands (thank God), never left a mark, but he soundly kicked my ass in such a way that I knewI knewwho the Man was.

He’s 70 now, and I’m 43, and we’ve never had another fight. He’s frail and old, and I still don’t want to fight him, no matter how much he annoys me, challenges me, or frustrates me. He’s still the hand of God. Ive remained unafraid to fight anybody except women, the police, or my dad. He showed me where the line was, and were I belonged relative to it.

A while ago, my nephew, who I’ve been raising like my son for the last few years, was 12 or 13 and had just hit puberty. He had always been an angry child, partly by genetics, partly by what he’d been through over his life. He and my wife were in the kitchen one day, arguing about something, when he behaved very aggressively toward her. He made a threat. He’s big for his age and doesn’t know how strong he is. I decided it was time to show him where the line was, just like my dad showed me.

I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him into my backyard. I told him that he must think he is a man now so I’d treat him like one. And if he had hair on his nuts enough to talk shit to my woman, then I’d treat him like I’d treat any man who threatened my wife.

I made him stand in the backyard and watch me take my rings and watch off. I told him we were going to fight, and I didn’t want to cut him all up. After I got ready, I shoved him, yelled at him, told him to take a swing.

He wouldn’t fight. Again, thank God, because there was no way I was going to hit this young man, but I couldn’t let him know it. There was a newspaper in the backyard, left from the morning’s coffee we sometimes took on the back patio. So I rolled up the paper and unleashed a flurry of whomps on top of his head. And I told him that if he wasn’t going to fight he better go find someplace to think about acting like an asshole to my wife again.

Then I left him, went in the bathroom, got in the shower, and cried for about 25 minutes. I cried because of what I’d just done. I cried because of the risk I took with our relationship. I cried because I was afraid of the anger in me and in him. And I cried because I remembered what my dad had done that day with me to show me where the line was.

I guess it worked. My nephew is a good young man, now 16 with straight As, a plan for the future, friends, faith, a job, and outside interestsand a healthy disinclination toward beating women, fucking with cops, or fighting Dad (me). But it sho nuff cost me a price.

My dad paid the price and gave me the gift, and I paid it for my nephew. And hell pay it for his guy, God willing.

I need to go tell my dad thanks for loving me enough to tangle with me and show me what it takes to tangle.

*****

Todd Mauldin is a bluesman who performs with his partner Jack D. Doyle as The Hellbusters. He also leads the A-Men Mens Ministry at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Reno, Nevada. In his spare time hes an account manager for a large telecommunications concern, a youth soccer coach, a dad, husband, uncle, cousin, friend and son.

[Image bydaveynin]

 

January 25, 2010

Male Bonding

Filed under: Daily Man, Fatherhood — Tags: — tmatlack @ 6:00 am

By TOM MATLACK

There’s a gash under my left eye. My right thumb throbs like a sonofabitch. I keep seeing stars. My whole body hurts. I’m 46; Im too old for this shit, I think on the flight back to Boston from Florida, where I had been sucked into an all-out basketball war by Seamus, the one person who can do that to me.

My strategy during the games was to pick my spotslook for a momentary lull in his defense and go Kamikaze through that opening before returning to my slumped-over, hands-on-knees defensive posture. The court was slick after a tropical shower, making the ball heavy and footing tricky. Halfway through the contest I felt sure I was going to have a heart attack.

As we do whenever we play, Seamus and I agreed to complex rules of engagement: best two out of three games to 15, and you have to win each by two; loser’s outs; use of profanity is a one-point deduction (I lost more points than I care to admit); shots made from beyond the arc are worth three if you are down by six, otherwise they are worth two; one timeout per game for me (I spent each lying on my back, with a shirt over my eyes.)

I have four inches and 50 pounds on my opponent. Im right-handed, but Ive developed a behind-the-back move to my left. I can’t shoot lefty, but if I get good enough position going left I can get the ball to the rack. And I’ve been working on a pull-up jumper as well as a reverse layup to the left. Seamus is worried enough about my ability to go left that once in a while I can glance that way and burst right for an easy bucket.

But I don’t have the legs to win in a three-game match. I have to win in two or its lights out for me. So I always work hard to win the first game and then settle in for a slugfest in game two. Our game-two scores usually go into the 20s. If the score is tied late, I launch balls from behind the arc. More often than not, pure desperation provides the motivation for me to try delivering the dagger shot.

On this day, I won the first game, 15-13, on a couple of hard drives right. I was ahead in the second game, moving to the hoop with relative ease until one time, as I tried to make a layup, Seamus pushed me in the back. And then on another layup, he did it again.

“Don’t do that again,” I warned him.

The next time I got the ball, I set up sideways with my left shoulder forward, dribbling the ball low to the ground in a posture faintly reminiscent of Magic at his peak. I glanced left, found a clear path to the right, and thenanother push in the back.

I waited until Seamus had the ball before retaliating. He has a better shot than I do and 10 times the energy. But he still seemed afraid. He doesn’t quite know what it means to play hard, really hard, when it counts.

I let him go past, and as he approached the basket and jumped for his layup, I pushed himhard, maybe a little too hard. When he landed on his back, I heard the ugly sound of shorts and sneakers and flesh scraping against pavement.

He bounced up with rage in his eyes. If I were anyone else he would have punched me in the nose. Instead, he looked down and muttered something to himself. He called the foul and took the ball.

From there, the game was like skiing downhill: It was over quickly; I couldnt score another basket. Game three was closer. I got a little run going, but Seamus put me away with a bomb that I didn’t have the legs to get out and contest.

His defense was smothering. He had found a different gear, and I couldn’t keep up.

We didn’t talk on the walk home, until finally he noted that I should expect to get older and fatter every day for the rest of my life, while he, at 13 years old, was expecting to grow taller and stronger. That night, I heard my son tell people that he not only beat his dad, but that he beat him up.

He was right. My body, wedged into the airplane seat, is aching. But I smile anyway. Getting beaten up hurts, but getting beaten by my son feels good.

*****

Tom Matlack is the cofounder of The Good Men Project.

[Image by StuSeeger]

 

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