Dec. 14, 2009
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Tiny moments can leave a lasting impression
The Family Guy It was a damp Saturday afternoon. A bunch of neighborhood boys had gathered near the middle of the block around a basketball goal. To call it a game would be a stretch one kid used his skateboard on a lay-up. I watched 'em off and on while planting a weeping cherry tree for My Lovely Wife. The kids made me feel old and slow as I looked down at my dirty hands, coated with blisters. That was when I saw him coming down the street all alone, bouncing an old basketball slowly, and staring at his shoes. The rhythm of his movements were very unpracticed and unconfident. I didn't know the kids name or where he lived. All I knew was that he had a black Lab mix named Dude that he walked up and down the block almost every day. The only reason I knew that much was because late one afternoon, Dude got off his leash and we spent 15 minutes trying to catch him. The kid never said much of anything. Just petted the dog and grinned. He was slower than the other kids and overweight, watching as he walked past my house towards the game, I could almost feel his fear at being rejected or maybe I was projecting my own fears. These were kids after all, and teenage boys have a tendency to be cruel, an unfortunate instinct that allows them to sense the weakest of the heard and attack them mercilessly, often with words but sometimes with something much worse exclusion. When he got to the game, he stood on the curb for a long moment not saying anything. Can I play? he said finally. We already go next, one of the older boys shouted. No we don't, the skateboard kid said obliviously. YES! We do. And that was that. He'd come all that way, dribbling the ball, working up his courage just to be turned away. I wanted to say something, to do something. But that wouldn't have helped. I was a grown-up, a stranger meddling in a boy's game. They had no reason to listen to me. I wanted to warn them about how these little moments could come back to haunt them, to be something that, for whatever reason, they regretted. This tiny slight could be a rock in their shoe, something that no matter how hard, they couldn't shake loose. It would be a lecture born out of experience. I hurt a lot of feelings when I was a kid. I said and did some mean things some awful, cruel things that I thought nothing of until years later when I'd run into that girl or guy again. As an adult, I'd want to apologize for what I'd done as a kid, to take it back and make it better. But by then it was too late. Words, once spoken, can't be taken back. I wanted to tell them all of that, but it wouldn't help. They wouldn't hear me. They weren't bad kids necessarily; they just had the upper hand and couldn't comprehend how powerful that made them. Eventually, I went back to work, dug my hole, got the tree planted and went inside. I wish I could say that I lingered long enough to watch the kid get picked, to see him catch a pass and hit the game-winning shot a moment he'd carry around for the rest of his life. But that probably didn't happen. When I left late that afternoon, the game was still going on, and he was watching from the curb only he wasn't alone. He'd gone home and brought back his dog. And somehow that made it all right. Brett Buckner is an award-winning former columnist for the Anniston Star. He lives in Columbus, Ga. with his wife, daughter and stepdaughter. His humor column appears regularly in The Post. Contract Brett at brett.buckner@yahoo.com. |