Coach Bobby

Yesterday, in a burst of physical energy which pushed me through all of my morning and most of my afternoon, I conquered the garage.  Specifically, a wide spot of dried weather-cooked egg  spread beneath the refrigerator and embedded in the fibers of a space rug.  A tumble of fresh eggs late last week caused the odoriferous accident but because it was outside, it evaded my easily distracted radar.  Hank the Wonder Pup's radar, however, was fully engaged; he attempted to help reduce the crusty yellow spill during the course of the weekend.  I began to think this might not be very good on his stomach.  I also scrubbed the dusty cobwebby grime all along the inside of the garage door.  It was the sweaty satisfying kind of housework which is its own simple reward.

To keep my mind occupied and quiet my busy thoughts, or maybe to center them at times, I keep a variety of NPR podcasts loaded on the ol' iPhone.  (I don't have a name for this one.  Yet.  The smartphone, that is.)  This time around, "This American Life" was on tap.  One of my absolute favorite newsy-type research programs with just enough quirkiness to balance the intelligence of the material.  The topics they cover run the gamut, from outlandish levity to weighty seriousness.  Often combining the two in a pleasing mental swirl which always manages to keep the listener from fading away or switching it off.  I believe I've referred to it in a previous entry or two.

The stories pouring into my head in the midst of my scrubbing and spraying of egg, dog hair and dirt centered around a common theme of Crime Scenes.  The whole thing was excellent but one segment held my attention above the rest.  An ex-con, literally a convict AND a con-man, returns to his old neighborhood, the place where he cheated and swindled family and neighbors for years, to try and retract some of the damage he inflicted by doing a good deed.  Specifically, to coach a little league baseball team of local kids.  Kids with street knowledge, smart mouths . . . and not a lick of experience with a ball or bat or glove.  The field in which they met and practiced was overgrown and rundown.  It took quite awhile for the boys to begin to trust him; when they first called this man, Bobby, coach, he felt he was finally worthwhile as a human being.  But he struggled with his anger and the desire within him to be a better man.  He was also a recovering drug addict.  His voiceovers, telling of his adventures in little league and revealing his fears and neglectful youth, were compelling.  The reporter covering the story had been his neighbor and acquaintance growing up, and she was well aware of his reputation and history.  Initially dubious about his intentions, it took only one time seeing him with the kids, hearing his concerns, conversing with him afterward, to recognize his complete sincerity.

I had no problem recognizing his sincerity, sensing his ongoing inner battle, understanding his guilt and regret, his fear and angst.  Bobby the Ex-Con/Little League Coach was as familiar to me as . . . well . . . as my own brother.  As I absorbed his story, fully rapt, I only wanted to stand toe-to-toe with him, hug him, tell him he was worthy beyond the sum of his past.  Applaud him for allowing those boys to teach him as well as learn from him.  He was never late or absent from one practice or game, even when the other teams didn't show.  He faced those he had wronged, allowing them their opinion, their vent, their judgement.  He followed through.  I also wanted to write his friend, the woman who covered the story for the broadcast, Katie Davis, to encourage her to keep on doing what she was doing.  To make sure she realized her job mattered because her material is reaching people.  And about that time, Ira Glass enters the end of this segment (it originally aired in 2000) to update listeners: though Bobby did go on to coach basketball, too, and his team won first place at a local Boys & Girls Club tournament, he relapsed, heroine, and eventually died in a halfway house.  A CD copy of this NPR story was one of the few possessions he had.

And there, crouched in front of the hose caddy, shaded by the oakleaf hydrangea bush, with water gushing from the nozzle and spraying dried egg down the driveway and into our fading lawn, I cried.  For Bobby.  For my brother, Gary.  For those boys.  For me.  For every addict who has tried and succeeded.  For each addict who has tried and succumbed to old demons.  For the very imbalance of who lives and dies in this world . . . because it is all so riddled and wracked by unfairness from my limited human perspective.  I gave full rein to the emotion, allowing it to wash through me, to join the wet yellow bits as they rode the bubbles and out of my sight.  Then, I dipped the scrub brush into the brackish bucket of water and returned to the job at hand.  I turned off the hose; I turned off my tears.  It was all I could allow in that moment.  But the imprint in my mind?  It never fades.  The shadowed room in my heart?  That door never closes.

I love my life.  All of it.  I love the gummy egg which took up an hour of my Monday morning.  I love the white and brown spider sacs which clog the joints of my garage door.  I love that I can simultaneously clean and cry in equal measure.  I love the freedom I enjoy unfettered from any sort of life-altering addiction.  I love the people who share space with me through family, friendship, church, even at the auto mechanic's shop.  I love Gary, just as he is.  I love men and women like Bobby.  I love this hard because I can.  Because it's apparently how I'm made.  Because it is within me and has yet to come to an end.  And I love because there are those who have been thus consumed, digested, defecated, and find themselves unable to fully experience such love, regardless of their desire to do so.  I refuse to allow their portion to lay in waste at the side of the road, buried beneath the detritus of despair and collapsed effort.  I'll carry their burden of unused love . . .

. . . and spread it as far as I can.  Disseminate it through words and wind and wonder.  So that the forgotten are not truly forgotten.  So that even the smallest amount of balance can be restored to the big equation of this existence. 

Coach Bobby's Story: CLICK HERE to listen to "This American Life"