Daddy's Home

My dad, Red, played baseball for parts of 7 seasons.  Most fans would look at his baseball card and say that he sucked.  Yeah, he wasn't that good.  He was "serviceable," which meant when a roster spot called for a guy to breathe, my dad fit the bill.  That was basically his contribution as a pitcher with a lifetime 4.51 ERA.

We didn't get along so well when he was alive.  The blame goes both ways, although since I'm me and therefore biased, more blame goes onto him than me.  That said, there was still a tiny hole in my heart on Father's Day.  I didn't want to think about him very much because that would mean remembering things I didn't want to remember.  But when you play games like that, you always lose.  At least, I always do.  Yesterday, I was a big time loser.

We were never friends and, I hate to say it, we were rivals more often than not.  Imagine that.  A dad and his son rivals.  It's not supposed to be that way.  But "it is what it is," as my mom says quite often now when she talks about how he's not with us anymore.  As I fought myself to not think about Red Scott yesterday, I ended up thinking about him quite a bit.  I wanted it all to be bad, because humans like to revel in misery for some reason.  Listen to your local sports station.  Who are people calling about, the guy with 18 home runs already or the starter hitting .218?  I couldn't revel yesterday, much to my dismay.  One simple story, kept deep in the bowels of my mind, kept coming to the front.  I figured I share it with you.

I was probably 7 or 8 years old.  Red had been away on a road trip for a long two weeks.  He didn't make much money, so I only got to speak with him on the phone once or twice to say hello, probably for a grand total of 30 seconds.  On this particular Thursday night, getaway "day" for Red and his team (me thinks Detroit, but don't quote me), he was supposed to stroll through our front door (the front door of our rental apartment) around 10PM.  It came and went.  Nothing.  10:30 came and went.  Nothing.  Soon it was 11:00 and Mom was ready to call it a night.  I kicked and screamed, wanting to wait for Red to come home.  Mom wouldn't have it.  By 11:30, all the lights were off except for one small 40-watt bulb in the front hall.

I tried to sleep but couldn't, rolling and tossing and turning.  Sometimes I'd stop mid-turn or mid-toss because I heard a creek outside my bedroom door.  Was that him?  Nope.  The waiting was killing me, mainly because it was boring.  I had no videogames to kill the time; no TV in my room.  I didn't care for reading.  So it was just me and my thoughts, occupying the space between Red Scott and his boy.

I must have fallen asleep at one point, because suddenly, he was there, looking down on me.  As he walked away and slowly closed my door, I realized why I'd awakened.  My cheek was moist with the trace of a kiss, my father's kiss.  At that single moment in time, for that very special tiny fraction of my life, before we both found a way to grow up and become jerks to one another, my father loved me and I loved him.  The wait was worth it.

Today, I wished I had remembered that story before my father died.  It would have been nice to share with him.