The need to write has become more of a compulsion than a pastime. I sit down to write with a lot of figurative dark clouds looming overhead. I feel as if I am in a River Hawk, off Cape San Blas, near Mexico Beach, with a big storm rolling onto the scene. Though Gene and I were once skunked off this particularly interesting landmass for tarpon, we did bear witness to its once hilly-steep dunes that obscured the horizon line (at least the Cape had this feature pre-Hurricane Michael); but if my present moment was this figurative day, I now could see the squall line in the absence of the wind-swept dunes. A hurricane had been through, and he was not Michael, rather it was my Tazmanian devil-son-Trey.
My wife hated her life, and felt miserable most of the time. This last weekend we thought she may have appendicitis, kidney stones, or some other infection malady. After a disaster week at work, and an even worse Friday evening, as I tried to beg my stubborn wife to go to the hospital for fear that she ruptured something internal. She refused my counsel, and slept it off in spite of the jabbing pain. I gave up my Saturday plans to go have a drink with one of the most influential teachers in my life on the occasion of his retirement from teaching at UA-Tuscaloosa, but the lot of American Studies professors and grad students surely didn’t miss me. It was me that missed this event. I did so because I do really love my wife, in spite of our occasional differences of opinion on the cleanliness level of the house. I certainly did not want her to be in pain. It was a rough weekend because I took care of my potentially autistic child from Friday to Sunday morning, allowing my wife valuable rest. I say “potentially” because he is too young to be accurately tested, but there are signs of impending precipitation on his human aptitude for a “normal” education. Just yesterday, I picked him up from school only to find him in time out. His caregiver said, “He is in timeout, because even though the other kids know Trey is different, I have to be consistent, or it would be chaos.” I got bogged down by the word “different.” Why is Trey different? Was I absentee? Did I afford the boy too much screen time? Did I not teach well enough as a father? So much of what I do is done to leave a legacy for Trey. Will he even recognize my efforts if he is that different?
Sunday afternoon I drove to Winchester, TN for a golf tournament. I was playing with my best friend and his childhood friend, and a really good lady golfer. The event was a scramble format, and we were all able to meet informally for a practice round the afternoon prior to the tourney. The twilight round gave me a glimmer of hope for our team as we posted a 13 under with some solid putting. Tournament day we bested that score by four strokes. I was thrilled by the excellent golf we all played. But towards the end of the tournament as we awaited the announcement of the winner, I started thinking about getting home to my boy. When I left him on Sunday he was sitting in the window crying as I left. Why had I left him with a sick wife? How were they doing? I needed to go. Just then we discovered our score had tied for first, and then we lost the back nine scorecard challenge. The prize from the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce for second was fifty bucks. Our lady golfer partner did receive a raffled Tv, though.
I could have holed out a par three to win 25,000 dollars. But I didn’t. Sometimes five feet from 187 yards jacks you up enough to leave your priorities behind for the gamble of it all. I hit it perfect too. I played as if I was a man possessed by the spirit of John Daly’s alcoholic superego. I made very few mistakes, and when I did, my team had my back. We played so well that I began thinking victory is possible by hole 16. I never feel like that in a tourney. It’s always such a slow trickle of birdies that the good golfers are classed above me by two or three flights. This time I was the ringer. If you don’t know who the sucker is, then it is you who is the sucker. Before we began this round I saw 124 suckers in Tennessee Volunteer ball caps.
For this tourney my buddy Graham took me to a course that I played for the last time during competitive high school golf. I played this course well back then, and I got in such a groove at age 39 that I knocked a driver off the deck to two feet for a tap in eagle. Then I made the tap in. I was on fire.
For the sake of honesty, I only hit my driver off the deck 220 yards, so it was a far from herculean effort.
We really played quite well as a team, but it was a long ride home when we tied for first, and then were awarded the fifty dollar rebate from entering the 130 dollar tourney.
Back in Bama on the return trip, around Hampton Cove, I waited in line for twenty minutes at Taco Bell only to have the girl at the counter tell me they were out of beef. I did not even know there was a chicken menu at Taco Bell. I ordered a chicken quesadilla, and then stopped in Attalla an hour and half later, feeling the need to check on Attalla’s beef supply at their Taco Bell. Apocalyptic beef disappearance is as scary to me as the disappearance of toilet paper. All was right with the world until I got sick from my acid reflux fighting with the Attalla soft-shell beef tacos during my planning block today.
After a long day of encouraging kids with terrible attitudes, then I went to get my father to ride with me to pick up Trey from school. He asked me to write his obit so he could proof it. His request made the day more tiring than usual. But then I considered all his differences. Like my own son, my father’s differences are what I love about him, and perhaps he loves my differences as well.
Then my buddy from the golf tourney sent me an email about tickets to see JJ Grey and Mofro. I was not a big fan, but I knew my wife used to be, at least before all the difficulties with our son. I doubt she has seen any show in eight years which is about how long we have been together. It was going down in August, and it was something to look forward to that was not fishing. This made it a true enough mother’s day gift because of all the selflessness of going somewhere to not fish.
The storm approaches as my teaching wraps for the year, and I invest in my writing life by returning to the Sewanee Mountain this summer on the Cumberland Plateau for writing classes at the School of Letters. I have a cabin and a dream, and the hope that my wife will come visit me with my son for at least a few weekends. In the absence of Lake Guntersville, Sewanee is my Lochloosa now. Only time will tell…
My Talk with Hiroto Hiyashi about writing
Once you come to recognize the only "normal" people you know, you don't know very well, you realize '"normal" is just a setting on a washing machine.