A TENNIS MEMORY
The tennis racquet twirled lopsided through the air, struck the fence and dropped clumsily onto the hard court. Immediately a shriek of delight shot from my brother Erik, watching on the sidelines. My father, in a skin-tight, white Yale T-shirt, wrapped around his hairy, well-built torso, reached down to pick up his racquet.
"Dad! Jesus!" My eldest brother, Scott, reprimanded him.
"Oh Scotty shut up."
"Dad, you're ridiculous. Your backhand sucks and you'll never hit anything but a dink with it."
"Will you shut up and serve?" My father bellowed in a half laugh, his anger short-lived in the face of brutal insult.
With short white tennis shorts and tube socks pulled over skinny calves, Scotty reared back to serve. A nice toss and then a fluid, pitcher-like lunge and shoulder rotation sent the top of his ear muff blond hair flying wildly into the air, while the sweaty strands stuck to his forehead. My father took a careful step toward the ball and released a stiff, solid forehand return. Scotty, in his 11-year old pudge stage, scampered after the return and struck a nice two-handed back hand, a bastardized, though recognizable imitation of Bjorn Borg's patented stroke. He pulled it cross court with nice top spin to my father's back hand. Seeing it was impossible to run around it and hit a forehand, my father, in similar short tennis shorts and exposing thick, hairy muscular thighs, moved in position to hack a back hand. He hit it off the frame of his Wilson Jack Kramer and the ball barely crossed the net in a perfect, accidental drop shot.
"Oh my God." Scotty said in resigned disgust. "You are terrible."
"Oh, Scotty's upset." My father laughed obnoxiously. "Is Bear being a poor sport?" He mocked in a baby tone.
Our family in Mentone was like putting a McDonald's in the middle of a nature preserve. Above the brutal play, swear words and poor sportsmanship, a beautiful blue sky and warm sun shone on the golden meadow by the tennis court and over the little mountain that was Mentone, Alabama. Ocassionally someone would walk or ride by always smoothly and slowly. Perhaps a nice southern woman, riding up the road toward the court, would hear the distant "puck" of the ball and megaphonal shouts and laughter from the two athletes. Maybe upon passing by she might witness a large 6' 2" Jewish hairy man in a ridiculously tight tennis outfit, throwing his racquet by its neck as if it were some tiny twerp who angered a huge giant. Could she bear witness to the faithful racquet, loyal servant, doing its job, yet needlessly punished by the anger of its master, and worse still, the cacophony from the sidelines by a wild, wiry court jester in my older brother, who, even more than I, relished the humor of such temper outbreaks?
My father had not the skill of Scotty or any of us, for that matter, when it came to tennis. A good athlete though he was, and well-coordinated, the three of us boys perhaps received much of our hand-eye coordination from our mother, an excellent ping-pong player. Beyond physical tools, I do give my father credit for a superlative competitive instinct and irrepressible desire to win. Perhaps these qualities were a bit misplaced when playing an 11 year old son or our stepmother or even anyone in a friendly game but really, only an idiot wants to win by the good grace of an opponent.
"Will you hurry up and serve the goddamn ball!" Scotty stood, resting on one leg with his racquet dangling at his side in defiance, his tan terry cloth tennis shirt a tad tight around the middle.
My father ignored him and continued methodically toweling off his forehead, a large forehead which was gradually becoming larger as his curly hair slowly receded over the years.
"You know you can't play tennis with him when he's mopping off his stinkin brow every five minutes. It's ridiculous. Wear a fuckin head band! That's it, I'm not playing with you. You're like an overgrown infant."
"Oh, Scotty stop it. No kiddin, the sweat keeps getting on my my glasses."
"You know it's no use playing with you."
"Hee hee! Dad's resorting to psyching tactics!" Erik gleefully pointed out.
Louisa, our stepmother, returning to the sidelines in a laughter of painful recognition, looked onto the court and said, " Nelson, honesly!" She turned to us and continued laughing with eyes squinted in knowing pleasure, perhaps even thankful to be observing the Nelson Levy tactics instead of falling victim to them.
"So what y'all gonna do?"
"We're probably gonna go fishing after Dibbs and Scott finish." I answered.
"Oh, cool!"
We turned toward the court. The father and son had just entered a tie-breaker and had both settled into deep competition. My father rushed the net on a sliced back hand and then proceeded to win the tie-breaker on a volley off the wood of his racquet. Such a large man, swinging so hard yet producing such a dink of a shot, completely wrong-footed Scotty.
"Jesus Christ!" Scotty shook his head.
"Scotty, the strings cost a lot less than the racquet." My father answered with a chesty laugh with frequent intakes of breath. "Bear, I'm proud of you. You played well."
A small consolation for such a frustrating match.
--JL Stiles
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