In the fall of 1967 I was in a full leg cast for a medial
collateral ligament tear and following my favorite football coach up the
metal ladder that lead to the roof of the school. It was from there we
would spot for the game against Haverstraw H. S. This was a perspective
I had never seen before.
The week before I would have been in the locker room hearing
the muffled sound of the band. I was usually quiet before a game with my
preparation. First in line to be taped. Well, to be honest, there was no
line. I would have to wait on one of the coaches to get there. Then I'd
go off by myself until it was time to get dressed out. Once uniformed the
adrenaline would build. It was a rush.
But now, on the roof, I watched the influx of fans, some
of the cheerleaders doing their thing, then the gathering of the band to
blare the H.S. fight anthem, its music stolen years before from Notre Dame,
("bring out the whiskey, bring out the rye…"). It was crisp
New York autumn air, breezy. The flags of the color guard beat time in
this breeze. The panorama a vista of the fall climax. Coach Hoffman, a
man we called "Coacheese" because of his florid completion, nudged
me with his forearm, then gestured with a nod of his head toward the view
splayed out before us and said, "How can anyone not love a football
game."
-- D. Bormann
I probably didn't play center field half as brilliantly
as I remember, but I'm not thinking about my own imagined prowess anyway.
I'm thinking of a tee-ball game I stopped to watch like I do sometimes
to smile and remember what sports are supposed to be. There was an outfielder
in that game whose work was all done by sheer will. He didn't so much run
as hop in a jerky sideways gallop like he was pretending to ride an imaginary
horse. Something was wrong, of course, cerebral palsy maybe or some malformation
of his hips. I remember him leaning forward as much as he could before
each play, only a slight arch of his back--I don't think he could set his
hands on his knees--but he popped his glove with his fist like he wanted
the ball. It didn't take long to notice something else too. The coach of
the team at bat was whispering to the on-deck batters, and you could see
what he was telling them, because his head would turn a little toward right
field, and the hitters turned their stances in that direction. It took
a few minutes to believe it was actually happening, but there was no mistaking
it, three, four, five balls in a row all hit to right. Some of us got mad,
of course, when we were sure, but what we did or said doesn't matter. What
matters is the kid galloping sideways after the ball regardless of how
far it rolled. He never caught one on the fly--this wasn't fantasy--he
had to slide to his knees even to pick up the ball, then sling it over
his head like a hand grenade. And each time afterward that kid arched forward
and popped his glove. It's that pop I want most to remember, the pop of
the spirit.
-- S. Taylor
Both of us, of course, turned to literature to summon
the power of memory and hear the pop of the spirit. The title Suicidally
Beautiful comes from a line in the James Wright poem "Autumn Begins
in Martins Ferry, Ohio," which, as the poet contemplates the start
of football season, conjures the psychic complexity, the grandeur, sacrifice,
and delusion embodied in sports:
Therefore
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.
The same, of course, now holds true for their daughters
as well, and the range and quality of stories collected here powerfully
amplify this complexity.