Hey, Waterboy!
Growing up, I never cared much for team sports. Not wanting to settle into the homogenous mix so popular in small towns like the one I grew up in, I decided to just do my own thing. During my middle school years, rebellion sparked me to grow my hair long and pierce my ears, stretching the holes larger with plugs I made from household items. Anything circular was fair game. This got me kicked out of a friend’s house once, because “the Lord doesn’t want men to have earrings.” Leaning into my dance with the devil, I convinced my sister to push a needle through my eyebrow while we sat in the tiny kitchen of her apartment. On the first attempt, due to a crooked pinch, the needle exited the soft skin of my eyelid. She cried and eventually, with enough pleading, tried again. Most of my afterschool time was spent kicking around on a skateboard, looking for something to do, with no direction in mind.
I’m not being entirely honest. In elementary school, I did play basketball. Apart from being a stout body merely sacrificed for the good of the team, being short and wide in those years, I had no real gift for the game. Before that, I took a swing at playing baseball. During one swing, the ball hit lower on the bat and ricocheted directly into my right eye. I opened both eyes to a circle of hovering heads as I was flat on my back. They gathered me, an adult under each arm, and walked me to the car for a trip to the hospital. I’ll never forget the dirt-faced girl in the group of gawkers gathered around as we walked, who repeatedly asked, “Is his eye falling out?” It didn’t, but the following year Mom made me wear a helmet with a facemask, which no one wore in those days. My great return earned me the nickname Mighty Mouse, which I liked about as much as I liked baseball. Uninterested, I hung up my glove for good at the end of the summer.
In fifth grade, before the long hair and skateboards and piercings, I swore a pact with my cousin, Nate, to sign up for the football team. I made it as far as the parking lot but never got out of the car. Seeing the other, more experienced players, I suddenly felt way out of my depth. As if somehow through the windows of our Plymouth Acclaim, even as I melted into an anxiety-filled puddle in the seat, the other kids knew what a fraud I was. I begged Mom to take me home, never once lifting my head back to above-window-height. She did, though she was plenty pissed off about wasting the gas for the hour-long drive. Nate signed up that day. He hated it, constantly being singled out and roughly tackled for being the new guy. His mom wouldn’t let him quit, and he never let me forget it.
But something changed when I was in eighth grade. No longer was my physical form that of a round stone. I was taller and thinner and wanted, for some reason, to test myself. The brutal world of pain and collision, which I associated with football, had become oddly appealing to me. This, I recognize now, was clearly a precursor for all the self-imposed suffering, first with alcohol and later endurance running, that would surface throughout my early adulthood. But back then it was the risk, not the game, against which I wanted to prove myself.
The season had already started, but a few guys on the team told me to show up at practice and talk with Coach. I never even had to ask who Coach was, as I nervously marched down the grassy hill, my socks exposed through griptape-torn holes in my shoes. A short man, face pinkish red with anger, was already opening a can of whoop-ass on his black hat, stomping it repeatedly into the field. Bruce, which no one ever called him, was apparently not too happy with how last weekend’s game had gone. He was letting the boys know about it, taking youth sports way too seriously as we Americans are prone to do. He caught sight of me as he was adjusting his hat back onto his head, blades of grass now stuck to it. The team ran laps around the field, thinking about their piss-poor performance.
“Is there something I can help you with, son?”
“Got room for one more?”
He chuckled and launched a brown stream of tobacco juice into the thick August grass. “Season’s already started.” But then he smiled devilishly, staring at, if I had to guess, my long locks, and wiped his mouth against his forearm. “You could earn a spot though. You gotta prove your worth to the other boys.” He paced proudly to an outbuilding where the team’s supplies were kept.
I wasn’t following. How was I supposed to earn a spot?
“We need a waterboy. If you wanna play, show us you’re committed.” He tossed a black jersey at me.
I started showing up to every practice, waiting and looking for my cue to bring bottles filled with water, and sometimes Gatorade, over to the team. At first the other boys gave me shit. I heard every Bobby Boucher joke a person could think of. But that jersey acted as chainmail. Once I slipped it on, always tucking it into my blue jeans, nothing could phase me. I even traveled with the team, riding my own post-game high in the back of the bus, where passing the communal spitter become somehow roped into my duties.
The summer heat gave way to the chill of early autumn. Under the lights, as I made my rounds onto the field, spirals of steam rose off shoulder pads and glossy helmets. In my commitment to showing the team how worthy I was, I hadn’t realized I still wasn’t playing. After a home victory, standing under a yellow moon hung between the uprights of a goalpost, that old familiar feeling of being a fraud caught back up to me. It was as if everyone was in on a joke I’d been left out of. I felt it percolate, stuck dead-centered in my throat, and no amount of water could wash it away. I wasn’t really part of the team, was I? At that moment, I knew Coach had never intended to let me play.
Amber headlights cut through the darkness as cars left the school, illuminating maples dripping with burgundy leaves lining the road. In such a fitting moment, though not necessarily the way I’d mapped it out over countless daydreams, that test I’d been looking for had finally arrived. A moment to prove myself. I found Coach chatting with someone near the bottom of the grassy hill leading up to the parking lot. I walked confidently toward him, the black jersey wadded in my hands. My white undershirt, untucked, nearly glowed in the dark of October. On the wind rode the dank, earthy scent of crushed leaves. Aggressively, I made a handoff right into Coach’s midsection. I didn’t say a word, just kept on moving, climbing up the grassy hill with a smile on my face. I know I’m a little biased, but I’d bet that was the best play he saw all season.