Swung

Written During the Keyboard Catharsis Writing Program at Passenger Recovery, Hamtramck, MI.

Photo by Zachary Olson on Unsplash

Fourteen, finished my first ever pint of Captain Morgan’s.

Not the first pint I ever touched, but my first time going from cracking the seal on the top to staring, if I was capable of making my eyes focus enough to call it a stare, at an empty bottle.

Complete.

Victory.

I guess.

I wanted a baseball bat. A very specific one.

An Easton Crimson Ghost, wide barrel.

It was my birthday, which my mom would use as an excuse to tell me that when her water broke with me the rug she made herself looked like it had an ocean in the middle of it and she had to discard it.

I got a cake, a sheet cake way too big for a family of three, and it looked like my mom got it on sale and partially scraped off a Happy Graduation message.

The cake turned out to be too big for a family of two.

My dad called.

As soon as I heard my mom say “oh hi Joe” I snuck/tiptoe/ran to the bedroom to the second phone.

I wanted to hear him say he was at Dick’s Sporting Goods and they were out of the Easton Crimson Ghosts, because I had snuck there three times in a week and they only had two left and he wouldn’t have gone to a pay phone to call my mom if they had the Easton Crimson Ghost , so I just wanted to hear him say…I didn’t give a fuck just something, he tried, whatever, he’s gonna get whatever, if not the Easton, a bat, any damn bat…

And he told my mom he had syphilis, hadn’t cheated on her since he was stationed at Fort Benning, so it must have been her, it must have and he wasn’t coming home.

There were candles on my cake, but nobody lit ‘em, my mom was on the back porch, sobbing, but sobbing in a way she was trying to stop herself, maybe to come in and light my candles, I didn’t know, I didn’t care about candles, I didn’t care about shit.

Sixteen, Captain Morgans was breakfast, my mom had proved to me with a doctor’s note that she didn’t have syphilis, that my dad was just looking elsewhere for happiness, and I know she meant she didn’t make him happy, I know that but I didn’t make him happy either.

My coach got me the fucking Easton Crimson Ghost, got it for the team, but I knew it was for me, the damn bat was on sale now, because they had way better models.

Coach was buying me pints too, pints after games to make me promise I wouldn’t drink em for breakfast.

On a trip to Waukegan, Great Lakes Invitational, Coach turned me on to Chambord, with a few ice cubes it was the same color as that Easton Crimson Ghost.

We were looking at an instructional video on how to gage the spin on a curve ball, and I thought it was something the whole team should watch, but it was just me and coach.

The TV got blurry and Coach did some octopus imitation, I should have panicked, I should have, but I didn’t know how to panic, then my dick was in his mouth and the seams of the curveball were revolving in my own throat.

Eighteen, the Chicago Cubs drafted me in the fifth round, the fifth round, told my mom they might convert me to pitcher.

I was sober three weeks, and the scout told my mom I would have gone in the second round if not for the questions about my character.

I thought my character, my character? I could finish a pint of Captain Morgan’s at fourteen, that shows perseverance and dedication.

They said they’d provide me a counselor, to discuss my substance abuse issues, and I sad fine, Jack, sure, I’ll sign.

Twenty two, I’m still in the minors, I still have a counselor, the counselor asks me a question.

I start to cry, because the answer is the octopus, and I don’t want to talk about the octopus, and I don’t want any more baseball bats and I kinda want a pint, but that doesn’t feel like a victory anymore.

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Author’s Note:

One of the new attendees at the writing program I moderate had been sober for two and a half weeks and was feeling that heady, manic, “what do I do with all this energy” feeling. He wanted to write something that directly involved his sobriety so I morphed mine into a story in a similar vein in solidarity.

The prompts I drew were Octopus, Baseball Bat, Ocean and Chicago.

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