sweet spot
by Jennifer Shields
I knew when I hit the sweet spot. The crack of stick against ball at just the right pitch, contact reverberating up like lightning, pulsing in my palms and throughout my whole being. Fluid and missile-like, the hardball soared, surpassing centerfield, and thwarting the opponent’s goal attempt.
I loved field hockey. I played defense on my high school team in the early ’80s. A time when big hair and sports defied the laws of gravity. All was right with the world with enough Aqua Net hairspray.
I shared the left halfback position with a girl our team called “Maggot.” Maggot and I were adversaries, always competing to stay off the bench. Side by side during suicide runs at practice or defending shots on goal from within the circle, we tried to outplay each other to win the starter position in games. When the ref’s piercing whistle stopped play to allow substitutions, I’d run-up to her on the field waving my thumb, “You’re outta here, Maggot, smell yah later.” She’d head for the sidelines with her strange, fleeting gait, like a spooked deer, taking her seat on the bench without complaint, without acknowledging my bullying. Her only crime was being a bit conservative with the showering. Unlike most teenage girls who scrubbed themselves shiny and raw every day, washing and curling their hair and setting it crispy with hairspray, she didn’t care or appeared not to. If she sat down next to me during a break in a scrimmage, I’d spring up making a big show, pinching my nose to ward off her imagined stench.
She never reciprocated. She kept to herself, intent on the game and listening for the coach’s directives. A “kiss-ass” I might have called her then. I screwed around, play-wrestled with my teammates, initiated water fights, or pulled my royal blue bloomers down around my ankles and teetered around the sidelines, feigning drunkenness. She had no friends on the field or in school. She was rumored to be from a low-income family, poor relative to most in the suburbs south of Boston—elsewhere, her family would be middle class.
Her mother came to all the games: nondescript and quiet, off to the side and alone, watching her daughter: the thin strap of a black pocketbook cleaving her breasts, small in stature with the same greasy, shoulder-length hair, cow-licked at the front, separating the face into two half-moons.
My mum was dead.
My father didn’t even know what sports I played in high school. Late at night, when his second wife was in bed after a long day working to pay the mortgage, he was deep into his vodka tonics, crying to me, as he slumped in his chair at the kitchen table. He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me into his despair; his head rested on my stomach, his tears blotted my flannel nightgown. He confided how much he missed Mum. The stench of his sour breath repulsed me and smothered any remnants of the adoring child I once was. I’d push free of his boozy hold and continue with my mission—to grab a bowl of cereal from the kitchen before bed. He rarely worked since we moved into my stepmother’s house. She trudged through each day as if hit by a Mack truck, the burden of us at the wheel. The threat of homelessness buzzed in our ears like the high-pitched hum of a broken light dimmer.
David Warren was my father’s name. Somewhere along the road to disrespect, my brother Steve and I referred to our father as “Fred.” I’m not sure where this name came from, but I remember the connotation of a bumbling idiot, one lost to all sense of reason and proper conduct: “Hey, you seen Fred? Is Fred in the bag yet? You’re gonna have to find your ride home; Fred’s wasted.” Passing each other in the upstairs hallway, we’d tip an imaginary glass at one another and yell, “Skoal Fred!” “G’day Fred!”
I bummed rides home after practice. I bummed clothes, snacks, socks, money for the vending machine, and anything else I needed to survive. I was poor, just like Maggot, maybe more so. Maybe she repulsed me because I was most like her. But was I? She took my harassment like a champ. Perhaps she felt sorry for me. Maybe she somehow understood I was from cruel stock. Maybe she was surrounded by love at home, and her only fault was not caring what other people thought.
Sophomore year I was barred from the team. The coach let me go for many reasons. I mooned the opposing team during a scrimmage. I schemed to steal the coach’s shoes and string them up the flagpole. I ran off during practice with Liza and got milkshakes from Friendly’s while everyone was continuing with their suicide runs. I wore my shirt backward to make fun of how flat-chested I was. I lied so often about having my mouth guard in when I didn’t, sticking my tongue up around my front teeth to feign its presence. But really, it was because I was a bully.
Steve pleaded with the coach to let me back on the team, pulling back a corner of the hidden truth that it was not good for me to go home after school every day. When we were alone, grief came to us, and the longing and ache for our mum caught in our throats. But Steve did not know the extent of my meanness. He did not know; the empathy reserves had run dry, with coaches and players alike.
I learned the power of shaming the year I was cut from the team, how it made you curl up into yourself and die a little bit with each passing day of isolation. I watched my teammates head to the locker room, field hockey sticks in hand with their bag of gear hung over their shoulders; they laughed and caroused in the hallway without me. I boarded the bus for home with my head downcast, ears on fire, and a stomach swirling with upset. I vowed to do better, be better.
I took stock during the long solitary afternoons, watching General Hospital and The Carol Burnett Show. I realized my need to belong was far greater than my need to hold a grudge. I fought the urge to stew in the why me pity-pot, and I’m not the only one who teased blame game. I did not want to align myself with my father’s way of coping, gripping onto despair with a white-knuckled tenacity. Believing the world owes you because you have suffered. The team’s ban broke me, cracked me open, and dispersed the meanness into the ether.
After my suspension, I played junior varsity as penance for the first half of the next season. I didn’t complain about playing with freshman and sophomores. I felt grateful to have a field hockey stick back in my hands. Grateful to be among my teammates. Grateful to leave the grief and despair at home. Maggot never said a word. And when I came up the second half of the season to play varsity again, she shared the position of left halfback without complaint.
We lost the house in the spring. My stepmother divorced my father. My father abandoned me. Steve went into the Navy, and I finished high school while living with my friend’s family. Her mom, Mrs. C, picked me up every day from field hockey practice, tennis practice, and late at night, she waited for me in the parking lot of Tinkers Dam restaurant to finish my shift busing tables. She sat in her teal polyester robe; the glow from the portable television, plugged into the cigarette lighter socket, highlighted her kind face as she chuckled at Johnny Carson. Mrs. C made dinner every night: veal cutlets, pasta fagioli, Sunday sauce, pepperoni, and cheese omelets...She always wanted to know where I was and what I was doing, did I need anything. For the first time in my life, I felt secure. But I also felt ashamed for how much I needed.
Fifteen years later, a friend called to gossip with me about the high school reunion. I didn’t attend because the past was too painful for me. “You should have been there; it was hilarious! They made a mock slide show called, “Where Are They Now?” and they said you owned a boutique consignment shop where you sold all the clothes you borrowed in high school!” She laughed hard, trying to catch her breath. I laughed right along with her, but deep down, the joke hit a sweet spot. The joke cracked open the vessel of shame I kept a tight lid on. My body pulsed with the heat of it as she laughed, and I was transported, missile-like, back to the cold, barren land of need.
Jennifer Shields is a licensed professional counselor and writer living in Red Bank, New Jersey. In her private practice, she co-creates stories of trauma and grief into stories of triumph and perseverance. When she is not working, she can be found hiking in the woods with her dogs, watching re-runs of Dark Shadows, and pestering her teens for their well-curated playlists. She is a writing instructor at Project Write Now and currently working on a full-length memoir.
Website: jeneshields76.medium.com Instagram: @jenshields8