dodo

There was a long stretch  in my youth where i was adamantly opposed to pro-creating, i mean so much as a slight utterance from a female about wanting children or how much they liked kids and the mental notebook would open, a notch would be made and based on some horribly chauvinistic calculations an equation would be drawn as to whether to ever speak to this female again, of course if this conversation came up any time post-coitus and i'd be inquiring about the nearest Planned Parenthood or the closest Greyhound station, i was an incredibly selfish and arrogant prick often spouting some well worn re-tread of shit i had read and clinging to it like a priest to an altar boy, but of course things change...

I will however be the first to admit that i was woefully prepared for this parental shit, i mean i didn't read any books or pay much attention to shit people told me, fucking how hard could it be? i looked around and so all kinds of imbeciles raising perfectly fucked-up spawn so i figured i couldn't be any worse, right? then of course Kid A came along three weeks early and it just so happened that it was my last big night on the town before i settled down for the home stretch and so i stayed out until a few hours after the bars closed exhausting my not so little wrap of powder because come morning i was gonna be a fuckin' responsible sort, at least that's what i told everyone and anyone who would listen as i chain smoked and guzzled beer and made frequent trips to the bathroom to key it up... and so that next morning after 45 minutes of sleep or so, as the girl got ready for work and wondered why she kept peeing herself, i stared at the ceiling trying not to admit to myself how absolutely fucked i was, how i knew that Kid A was coming and his old man who was hoping for a few decent nights sleep in the next few weeks would not be getting one for the next few fucking decades...

And now this pompous and arrogant prick can admit he was wrong, fucking all wrong, i don't know what the fuck i'd do without the boyos, all that youthful posturing of mine, i like to remind myself of it as a way of proving to my thick skull that it is still possible for me to learn things, and of course it is different times we live in out here in the suburbs, the fucking level of organization when it comes to the youth of 'merica is staggering, the fucking burb i live alone has organizations for every sport you can name and that doesn't include all the clubs in the area as well, which brings me to my first foray into the world of youth club futbol...

Sometime around the year 2000 i began to spout off how someday i was going to build a better midfielder, a Yank midfielder who incorporated the qualities of the athletic "merican while instilling in him the intelligence, grace, and guile of the European footballer, fucking Paul Pogba with a midwest accent, it was a joke of course and it still is, i don't push the boyos to do anything other than be active, they still get their video game time and shit, i'm not some fucking knob, i played video games as a kid and it didn't do me any damage, i'd wager to say rock n' roll and books were more harmful (depending on how one looked at it) than video games, but they gotta do something other than sit on their ass and move their fingers, hoops and footie and swimming seem to be the big ones but like their old man they'll play anything as long as it's in season...

So they boyos play the futbol and while Nick Disaster has to wait another year to play club futbol his older brother, after a year on the community travel team, decided he wanted to give it a shot, as with most clubs around these parts their were two teams and the academy (which is what they offer the kid who doesn't make it cuz what organization turns down money), the blue was the A team and the yellow was the B team, and so the kid laced up his boots and walked out onto the pitch with 60-70 other hopefuls, a two day tryout, each day an hour and a half, i told the boy on the way there the same thing he will hear from me the rest of his life, to just go out and do his best cuz that's really all he could do, that his old man was gonna love him regardless and i wished him luck and he smiled and off he went...

One of the great pleasures of my life is watching the boyos play whatever it is they're playing, futbol and hoops are probably my favorite but honestly i'll watch them play checkers with the same wonder and awe, what i won't do is watch the tryouts and though i didn't have to the first day the second i had no choice cuz i fucked up and went to the wrong field first and blah blah blah but basically i got discombobulated and forgot my book and didn't know anyone or want to talk to anyone so i sat and watched... and there was some talent, maybe more than i expected to see and i wondered how the kid was doing and hoping he was doing alright cuz i knew how bad he wanted to make this team, around his school he's known as a bit of a footie whiz and these days even the 4th/5th grade crowd can be a rough lot, (of course maybe they always were) and since the kid has this beautiful innocence and sensitivity about him i was being like any old dude and worrying about him...

Well fucking hell cut to the chase dammit... the kid comes off the field and we're walking to the car and he's talking about his chances and he thinks he can make it but he surely thinks he can make the yellow squad and i can tell it's weighing on him and i tell him not to worry, that if he put it all out there he'd be fine and all that zen non-sense i so love, and so we get in the car and i let him play what he wants on the radio to get his mind off shit and we drive home and since we have all these UK coaches here teaching the game, and one was staying across the way from us, and it just so happened that night he was driven home by the coach who would be head of the blue team and he saw us and waved and watched the I-mac trot up the steps and waved me over, i smile and tell him i wouldn't want his job and he smiles back and gives me a thumbs up, i give a bit of a quizzical look and he smiles, he made he says, he's on the blue team, and i smile say can i tell him or should i wait for tomorrow and so he says wait and so i talk a bit more and then head in...

Now the young boy does not know that once upon a time his old man was a young hood and if a young hood wants to someday be an ex-hood and not an ex-con he must know how to keep a secret... which i did until the next day when i got the email and read it to him, i watched him and his expression, it was one of those things, you'll know what i mean if you've seen it, because you'll never forget it...