The Absolute Randomness Of It All

I hated, hated, hated, HATED going to the barber. Even now I can't really articulate why, so you can imagine what a problem I would have had if I tried to explain my tonsurephobia (yes, I just looked that up, sue me) when I was seven years old. I imagine I disliked having strangers with razor sharp scissors in such close proximity to my head.

Whenever the inevitable call 'Next!' came and I was the unfortunate victim, I would walk at an agonizingly slow pace to the chair. Once at the chair, I would merely look at it with dread and father, or sometimes the barber himself, would lift me up and put me on the booster seat.

Once the cape went on, the wiggling began. I just would not, or perhaps could not, sit still.

One day, this went on just a little too long for father's liking. Fed up, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shouted in my face, "Shut up and be still, or I'll MAKE you shut up and be still!"

I had never seen him so apoplectic, and I had never been so scared in my life. Had I not obeyed instantly, I truly believe he would have hit me, and I mean truly hit me. He had spanked me two or three times, but nothing near 'child abuse'. The other patrons and barbers looked on in stunned silence. I immediately decided I was far more afraid of father than of the barber, though I was still plenty scared of him as well. I sat still and waited nervously, but stayed still, until the cut was over.

I got down from the chair and father paid the girl working the cash register. I followed him out the door and to the car. He got in the car, reached over and unlocked the passenger side front door. I got in and sat down and put on my seat belt, then I moved as close to the door as I could get.

Neither of us said a single word all the way home. When we did get home, I rushed to my bedroom and read my Peanuts comic book. Somehow, it didn't seem funny that day.

I respected father, if you can call primal fear 'respect', a lot more from then on.

And loved him a lot less.

The year before, my Little League baseball team made the playoffs. We got wiped out by the best team in the league in the first game, but, hey, at least we made the playoffs!

Based on that positive experience, I signed up for baseball the next summer. From what I could see from my limited perspective as an eight year old, I thought we just might have a fairly good team, and I looked forward to playing.

The manager changed that attitude.

He liked to give all the guys private instruction on how to hit the ball when in the batter's box. (The other members of the team would be running around the baseball field, in case you were wondering). The previous summer, I had developed a batting style modeled after my favorite player, Juan Gonzalez.

The coach absolutely despised Juan Gonzalez and 'all that he stood for' (whatever that was supposed to mean, he was 'just' a ball player as far as I knew). He thought, and told me often, that his patented leg kick before he hit a ball was 'sissy' and 'gay' and another word I won't bother repeating but suffice it to say it began with 'f' and ended with 'g' and the only vowel in it was NOT 'i'.

At one practice, which would be my last practice in organized baseball, the coach noticed something when I swung at the ball. Apparently, I was closing my eyes as I swung the bat. This did not meet with his approval.

"Why're you closing your eyes when you swing?," he asked me, loudly.

I didn't know how to answer, as I was unaware that I did that.

He got close to my face and said, with breath reeking of beer (though I didn't know that at the time, I just thought he had really bad breath), "Ain't you gonna answer my question, son? Talk to your manager and tell him why you close your g--dam eyes when you swing the damn bat!"

What could I say? So I just said, "I don't know."

For whatever reason, this response really set him off. "Oh, you don't know, do you? So you just don't know. Well, let's see what we can do about that." He walked around me, making me nervous, as he seemed to be in some weird 'mood' I had never seen before. "I got it now!," he shouted triumphantly behind my back. Startled, I jumped up a little bit then turned around. He held a little stick in his hand.

"I'm going to take off two little pieces of this stick, just two little itty bitty pieces." He shook the stick in front of my face. "And do you know what I'm going to do with those two itty bitty little pieces of wood? Do you? Do you?"

Once again, I felt compelled to answer, "I don't know."

"You don't know much of anything, do you, son? Well, I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do with those itty bitty pieces. First, I'm gonna hold open your right eye, and put one piece in there to hold your right eye open. Now, now, tell me son, what do you think I'm gonna do with the other itty bitty piece of wood?"

I didn't bother dignifying that question with a response. Instead, I said, "I need to go to the bathroom. Bad." With that, I started walking, very quickly, towards the bathroom at the practice field. And I continued walking past the bathroom and I walked all the way home. It took me over an hour when it should have taken maybe half an hour because I was upset for some reason and got slightly lost a couple of times.

I never played baseball again.