Getting into the shower tonight I had a flash of junior high. The humidity and temperature the last few days has been mild. Today’s temperature was too, but the moisture built up throughout the day and made it so that the temperature clung to you, inside and out. Impossible to not immediately sweat while outside, shivering inside in the conditioned air. Getting into the shower with a chill and feeling the contrast of the hot water and cold skin took me back to when I was a child, showering at night in preparation for school the next day. I could smell the hallways, feel the fear of girls, the rubbery smell of the wrestling mat, the taste of trough water during football practice. It’s an emotion that is discomforting and nostalgic at the same time.
Sometimes I forget what those days were like. I think my life to be so complicated now in comparison. During the flashback, I was reminded of the complex internal and external negotiations that made up everyday school life. The fear of girls mixed with the hormonal longing for them. The lack of any experience to that point that would allow me to navigate through those rough waters. The chuckle that Coach Webb got when I called my lower body garment “breeches.” Now I realize that the joke was largely on him. He was a gym teacher after all. I wonder what became of him. Probably 30 years old at the time. Younger than I am now by 4 years. If that was 1988, he would be 50 or so now. Does he still torment his players? Does he have players? Did he know that I skateboarded 10 hours a week despite his prohibition of such things? We were never state champions. Never even close. Beat Lowes Grove once on a day when I got to play defense as well.
Did he and Ferko realize that I would still laugh at the embarrassment they inflicted upon me while reenacting me getting plowed over on kick return during the previous weeks game? An even that was played out three times: once on the field when it happened, once when we had to watch the video of the game (yes, we had video of junior high football games), and the third time when the coached did their little act, full with description of the large grass stain left on my ass from the contact and subsequent contact with the field. I tell the story to get a laugh, but that it stuck with me for so long is not purely because of its humor potential. It’s not even that funny of a story. It’s how you tell it.
I had to work today. The normal Sunday guy couldn’t be there so I was covering the desk today. In on the bike by 9 a.m., leaving around 5 p.m.. Bicycling in after taking last week off from the bike commute even though the weather was much more welcoming to such a thing. Lungs still straining on the hills and the constant replay of, “I must quit smoking! I must quit smoking!,” only to arrive at the office and realize I did not have any cigarettes, all of them having been consumed last nigh – birthday party, beers, pizza, back home, conversation, cigarettes and cigarettes and cigarettes. I had to launch a search for nicotine in downtown on a Sunday morning. Amazing how addiction works. How easily your mind can change with absolutely no conscious effort.
The excursion took me by Sean, who I just met today. Fresh out of 7 months lock up at Fulton County Jail where, apparently, he awaited trial, failing to make bail, until the identity theft charges were finally dropped. That was his story. It all started with him helping to fix a guys car. There was a check that bounced, and then the trouble came. That was about as much as he wanted to tell. He had come back to God in jail as many inmates do, or so we are told. He had been praying a lot lately, explaining that 7 months is just long enough for you to lose all of the life you had before you went in.
He told me that $33 could change his life. It would get him a state ID card that would allow him to get out of the bad shelter and into the Salvation Army shelter where they would help him get a job, and would let him work in the thrift store until he found solid employment. The usual Korean market was closed, but he took me to another store that he walked past earlier that he knew was open. He waited outside. I bought the Winstons with a twenty dollar bill and gave him the $15 change. I tried to shake his hand, which he grabbed and used to hug me. He told me that he had prayed about this and talked to a preacher friend. The friend had told him to go today somewhere where there was people and that the Lord would provide. He told me no one had stopped until me, that I was the answer to his prayers. The weight of that I would rather not think too much about.
It’s hard for me to imagine that $33 could change someones life, much less $15, but it seemed like he thought it meant that his whole life would be different in just a matter of days. He told me I would not see him on that corner again. I told him I better not. I try not to think too much of what the real story might be. I would prefer to believe his story, to believe that the hug was sincere, to believe that God was watching over him. I am trying to live outside the cynicism that has characterized much of my adult life these days, to live in the world as I would like for it to be, even if the evidence and accumulated facts seem to point to something different.
Ultimately it makes things different, less stressful, and less complicated. Talking to girls is easier now, and I don’t have to deal with junior high school football coaches any longer. I do what I want and feel mostly good about it. The nostalgic simplicity that I imbue my memories of childhood with seem false. On the bike ride home I did not regard those children leaving the basketball game with the jealousy that I normally do. I wouldn’t want to go do it all again. I am fine where I am.
The days are getting shorter, and as this one came to an end, there was the threat of thunderstorm that ultimately never came.