#96 - He Shoots, He Scores, He Loses

He Shoots, He Scores, He Loses

9/17/06 (#96)

Between my 6th and 7th grades, my family moved from Massachusetts to Maine. My oldest brother had gone off to college that year, so the three remaining siblings experienced the common yet brutal discomfort of leaving a school at which we knew everyone and had lifelong friends, and becoming "the new kid" at schools where everyone knew each other and had lifelong friends. When we moved in, we were greeted warmly by a neighboring family who had a 7th grade son of their own. The father assured me that Morgan would love to walk to school with me the next morning and introduce me to all of his friends. Morgan nodded along silently, but I recognized the burden for which his father had carelessly volunteered him. A few mornings later, I met him at the end of his driveway, and we walked the five blocks to Garland Street Junior High benignly probing into each other's life. When we arrived, he dutifully found me my homeroom, bid me farewell and then disappeared to find his friends. I understood---he had extended more courtesy than a 7th grader should be required to display, and didn't want to ruin his own day in an effort to make mine.

At least that's how I remember my first day of school in Maine---a collection of facts, devoid of emotional context. Junior High is like a mental scrapbook full of semi-animated photographs of individual episodes: The day they were teaching dancing in gym class and the lovely Virginia Macintosh selected me as her partner---and her subsequent request that I "loosen up a little" (a request I was unable to grant, as her beguiling allure left me with two left feet, both made of granite) or the first week of football practice, overhearing an older student remark how easy I was to knock on my ass moments before he easily knocked me on my ass. (I quit football shortly after---I was terrible, and the sport had no appealing aspects except that most of the school's pretty girls seemed to date guys on the football team, which made the squad plump with second and third stringers hoping that one of the school's dark-haired maidens came included with the ill-fitting shoulder pads.) When I think of these events, I can imagine what emotions I felt, but those feelings are not imprinted along with the memory. I don't think it's a matter of imperfect recollection: At 12 years old, we are all so much a work in progress---why would I know myself in hindsight if I didn't know myself then?

There was one evening during junior high, however, that I recall with distinct emotional clarity. It was early in our 8th grade year---Morgan and I had become friends, but I was always second-tier to the kids he had grown up with and always felt like an outsider in his crowd, which happened to be the "cool" crowd at Garland Street. We knew each other's names, but little beyond that.

Morgan was hosting a party, and all of those cool kids were going to be there---the prettiest girls, the jockiest guys, and (most likely at the behest of his father) me. Morgan's folks would be chaperoning the party, and they had helped prepare by getting the basement all cleaned and organized, setting up card tables for his rod-hockey rink and flip-up Battleship boards, creating an atmosphere that would have been ideal had it been offered a few years earlier in Morgan's life.

But these kids were now 8th graders, that transitional time when parents suddenly reveal their latent squareness. Many of the attendees were already dabbling in pot and hard liquor, so they snickered at the board games while joking about spiking the fruit punch, and delighted when more "mature" entertainment arose---Morgan produced a bottle of maple syrup made to look like a whiskey bottle and invited Jason Lewis to partake, the gaggle of boys bursting into laughter when he grabbed the bottle, took a big swig, and spit a thick, sugary plume of disgust into the air. Boys huddled behind the water heater and examined sloppily rolled joints, girls sat by the stereo and talked about whatever it is that 8th grade girls talk about, and I stood upstairs next to the grill making labored small talk with Morgan's dad. I felt like an awkwardly shaped puzzle piece that had found its way into the wrong puzzle box.

Eventually I tried to mingle, and felt relieved when one of the boys from my English class challenged me to a game of rod hockey. (For those not familiar, rod hockey is a classic tabletop game that involved a simulated hockey rink and a little black puck slapped around by opposing teams of two-dimensional metal cut-outs who were controlled by movable twist knobs at opposite ends of the table.) I had been schooled at the game by my older brothers, and had no trouble holding my own against the football-centric crowd. In the first game to five, I allowed only one goal.

Despite having scoffed at the game upon arrival, a couple of my classmates were eager to play the winner. I faced another kid, a braggart who raised the level of trash talk but not the level of play, and dispensed with him quickly, my confidence growing along with the crowd of people watching. The third game was heated---Warren Caruso could play (and more importantly, stop shots with his goalie), and there was never more than a single goal lead. We berated our sheet-metal cutouts when they flubbed a pass, we cursed our barely-mobile goalies when a shot blasted past, and we reveled in the electric atmosphere that had begun to fill the basement. It felt good to be a part of that energy---even the source of that energy; everyone was enjoying the show as we battled for our mock Stanley Cup.

The game was tied at four for several minutes, each of us thwarting certain defeat with dramatic defensive plays. Even the girls had crowded around, and I felt a pubescent rush when the adorable Debra Chason touched my shoulder to console me on a heart-breaking in-and-out shot that would have won the game. For a few glorious minutes, I wasn't the outsider I had been all night, or all year---I was just one of the guys playing rod hockey, and I was one goal away from victory. I offered animated commentary, took every opportunity to explain to Warren when his moment of doom had arrived (as he did to me), and enjoyed every sensation of the game---the brittle sound of the rods moving beneath the plywood "ice", the thin slap of the wooden puck against the plastic "boards", carefully planning a strategy for victory. I got the puck on the right wing, slid the rod out to move my player to center ice, and unleashed a slapshot into the left corner of Warren's net. Game over!

There was a minor swell composed of both "yeahs" and "ohhhhs", and then as Warren stood up, the crowd quickly dispersed. Naturally, they had all been rooting for their friend, not the eternal new guy, and while they could cheer a competitive battle, they fully expected Warren to emerge victorious. When he didn't, the game that had held everyone's attention moments before was again just an adolescent toy, fit for a child's birthday party, not a teenager's no-occasion bash. I had become the champion of the lamest thing at the party, and witness to the moment when the thrill of victory becomes the agony of a much larger defeat.

I recall nothing else from that night---I may have slipped out the porch door and gone home, I may have retreated grill-side with Morgan's dad, who knows. I just recall the burning shame of my too-enthusiastic performance, the awkwardness of having fancied myself the star of the circus, only to realize I was still a side-show freak.

I suspect the diplomacy of letting Warren win would have served my social standing more effectively, allowing the hero to be a hero while providing me the status of hard-working up-and-comer---maybe Virginia Macintosh might even have sat to console me. But I was too young to recognize the value of such political maneuvering, and wouldn't have done it even I had weighed the perks of taking a dive: when you play, you play to win. You can regret not playing your hardest, but there's no shame in losing.

At least not as much as there was in winning.

©2006 wpreagan