The Cliché

by

A.J. Daulerio

All illustrations

by Edith Zimmerman

A couple of months ago, I began this ritual with my therapist, Marty, where he and I have a softball catch on his sidewalk for about ten minutes after we finish our session. After some of our more grueling ones, this is a wonderful way for us to decompress. 

I’ve written about Marty before, but some more details are necessary for this particular essay: He is 75 years old but carries himself like a man who’s 45, or rather, a man who’s 45 and played sports in high school, but maybe not as well as he hoped.

In one of our early information-gathering consultations, Marty asked me if I was ever a “ballplayer.” I told him I had never played in high school, but it was probably my best sport. I was an okay Little Leaguer and made a few All-Star teams as a centerfielder. Got cut after freshman year. I remember the exact moment it happened–got sloppy with a couple of ground balls off the blacktop during tryouts. One bounced off my chest, and then the coach whacked a second ball at me even harder. That one bounced off my wrist and spun away underneath a parked car. “NEXT!” he yelled. I knew that was it for me. 

But I did play in the Babe Ruth league that year, which is where all the kids who didn’t make their high school teams get to play super low-stakes organized baseball for a couple more years before it’s time to become an adult and stop wearing uniforms sponsored by dry cleaning businesses. I hit my one and only home run in that league. It was the first half of a doubleheader on an early morning in mid-May, and there was only one spectator in the bleachers. But on my first at-bat, with one runner on, I got a low fastball down the fat part of the plate and sent it over the right-centerfield fence. I remember the kid’s first and last name who was pitching that day. I remember the way he snapped his head around after contact. And I remember I stopped at second base because I thought it was a ground-rule double. All of these minor details are so specific and so vivid and they just fell right out of me. 

I don’t know if he was actually interested in my athletic history or if this was a way for him to suss out if he could talk freely and ebulliently about his men’s 50-and-over Los Angeles County Synagogue Softball league. He often does, and I don’t mind one bit. 

We had one more session before I went to go visit my parents in Florida, and I was very much in it. “Bringing my glove today,” I texted.

I anticipated a heavy one because I was feeling the loss of my father, or rather, I longed for him in a disorienting way. I’ve been so preoccupied with resolving the memory care situation that the grieving process has been hijacked. And part of the ghoulish, wheel-of-deathliness of dementia is that the end is either already here or far away. Will my father fall down and hit his head on the toilet seat tonight? Or six months from now, will he forget how to swallow and choke on a piece of rye toast? Good times.

That Tuesday morning before therapy, I had this groaning urge to find something to take the edge off. I imagined what I’d do if I were still drinking. I’d call in sick to work so I could thrash around in my self-pity and be sad-ass drunk by 2 p.m. Then I’d do the same thing the next day, too. When anyone questioned my motives, I’d tell them my father was “basically dead.” 

(POUR ME.) 

As pathetic as that scenario is, I found the memory soothing. But instead of daydreaming about slamming vodka at the Frolic Room, I decided to watch “Field of Dreams.”

When my father was lucid and able-bodied, he loved this movie. He was so excited when he found the DVD on sale at Best Buy. When there was nothing else to watch, he’d pop in “Field of Dreams.” It would make a much better story if it was my father’s favorite movie, but it wasn’t. No, I think his favorite movie was “The Waitress,” starring Keri Russell, even though he could never remember the name of it even before his dementia. (He insisted it was called “Lulu’s Pies.”) 

So, “Field of Dreams” was probably his second favorite movie. Wait–it was either “Field of Dreams” or “Mama Mia!” But neither would ever compete with “Lulu’s Pies.” I would love to say that my father “contained multitudes,” but he did not. 

But I also don’t want to suggest that I’m above overly sentimental, emotionally manipulative treacle. I can admit it–I’m a total mush. I know this, and I’m sure you do as well. I have even described the tone of this very newsletter as “Chicken Soup for Jesus’ Son” to plenty of people.

But last time I watched “Field of Dreams,” my sense of nostalgia about baseball being the balm for complicated relationships between fathers and sons was replaced by hostile cynicism. Depending on how I felt about my dad determined how much I enjoyed rewatching “Field of Dreams.” Many times I declared it was the worst movie ever made. 

Yet, there I was on a Tuesday morning, curtains drawn, A/C off, alone on my couch jonesing for it. It worked–and it didn’t take long for the snotty tears to arrive. It was right about the moment when that psycho Ray Kinsella kidnapped reclusive civil rights author Terrence Mann to take him to his ghost-filled baseball farm in Iowa. From then on I was a mess. I was practically hyperventilating when they finally got to the “Hey, Dad? You want to have a catch?” crescendo. If only I had spent the day relapsing, falling asleep in my own vomit beneath an overpass, I could have maintained some dignity. 

“Why did you need to watch it today?” Marty asked. I knew why but I didn’t want to say it out loud. 

*****

A couple of weeks after returning from Florida, Marty invited me to play in a Sunday morning scrimmage with some players from his temple. I hadn’t swung a bat in six years and had not thrown a ball any further than the 15 feet between us on the sidewalk after therapy. But I was more nervous about snapping my Achilles running to first base than any softball rust. I was looking forward to it–baseball is a balm. Or, in this case, a medium-speed no-windup softball scrimmage between the Beverlywood Boychiks and the Santa Monica Synagogue is a balm. 

And here’s the deal: I wanted to watch “Field of Dreams” for closure. Myth or not, that’s what I’m after. Some days–his “good days”–there are still flickers between us on Facetime. For all the shitty ways my father made me feel and all the shitty ways sobriety has illuminated it, it’s hard for me to let go of those shitty feelings. I have written hundreds of eulogies for my father since I was 12 years old, some vengeful and extremely unkind. I want a different ending to our story.

I don’t fool myself, though–I know whatever is left of him is all I get. Now I’m staring over this cliff and waiting for a nudge toward how I’m supposed to feel. Is this a gift from God or just a big gaping hole?

As for the Synagogue Softball scrimmage, I made a snow-cone catch in right field that impressed several old men with bad hips and rash guards. I also technically hit a home run, but it was more of a line drive to left field. (The person playing in the general area wasn’t exactly athletically gifted.)

“How did that feel when you hit it?” Marty asked when we met for our session the Tuesday after. 

“It wasn’t a clean home run, ” I said.

“No, it wasn’t,” Marty agreed. “But sometimes good contact is enough.”