by j. parker The city where I grew up enforces a very strict ordinance that forbids bringing alcohol into public parks.

My parents didn't pay much attention to that ordinance, especially when it came time to watch our Little League games. If it had been their decision, Stroh's (their favorite shitty, disgusting brand of dirt-cheap swill...in cans...always in cans) would have had signage hanging on the outfield fences, and the vendor's call of "colllld beer" would have easily drowned out the "eeeey-batta-batta-batta" chatter of kids trying to enjoy the innocent childhood experience of Little League baseball.

One humid, overcast day during the summer of 1986, my brother Aaron, had a late afternoon game. By noon my mother had begun her pre-game ritual: drinking. Then, an hour before game time, she loaded a 12 pack cooler full of tasty, cold, mouth-watering Stroh's beer. Finally, cooler in hand, she staggered the mile and a half to the ball park. I didn't play or practice that afternoon, so I tagged along.

The Little League we played for paid some of the older players in hotdogs, chips, soda and candy to umpire the younger kids' games. It was a good deal for everyone involved, but as one might imagine, the quality of the product suffered as a result.

For this particular game, the umpire was a kid named Bo. Bo was a scrawny kid, with long hair and a bad reputation. (Years later as an adult, Bo would break into an old lady's house with a knife and sell out one of my best friends to the cops as his accomplice.) The only reason the league allowed him to umpire games was that he was the son of the League co-presidents, who themselves would later be accused of embezzling money and forced to resign, narrowly avoiding prosecution. Clearly, the apple didn't fall very far from the tree. Good people. Upstanding citizens.

Predictably, Bo wasn't a very good umpire, but most of the parents understood that he was only a 14 year-old kid paid in junk food and accepted what they got out of the deal. My mother, on the other hand, didn't. As she got drunker and drunker, she got more vocal about her displeasure with his performance. It didn't help that she hated his parents, mainly out of jealousy for their position of "power."

"You little sonofoabitch, why can't you make the right call! Are you fucking blind?"

Aaron was behind the plate at catcher, his team protected a two run lead with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the final inning. Meanwhile, having finished most of her 12 pack, my mother, almost literally, foamed at the mouth. Saliva flew as she screamed at the umpire and at the game in general and little spit bubbles formed in the corners of her booze hole. She drank so much that she had to use the fence to steady herself.

I'd distanced myself long before this point, but not out of any conscious embarrassment. I'd already abandoned any notion of trying to maintain my dignity when it came to her. All of the parents and league officials knew that my parents, particularly my mother, had "problems." I'd just wandered off on my own to watch the game. Who wants to watch baseball, the thinking man's game, while trying to tune out the ranting of an angry drunk? And, as long as I wasn't getting into trouble, she didn't care what I was doing. So, I stood on the opposite baseline, just past first base.

The pitcher threw a 9-year-old's sorry attempt at a curveball that hung out over the plate and the batter drove the ball into shallow center field. The first runner scored. The next runner rounded third and headed for home. The center fielder picked up the ball and winged it to my brother who stood with his mask off, blocking the baseline.

The ball and the runner arrived at the same time and the runner plowed into Aaron at full speed, knocking him ass over teakettle, leaving him sprawled out on the ground. Two more runs scored as the ball rolled to the backstop. The game was over, Aaron's team had lost and he lay on the ground, clearly injured.

My mother stumble-ran onto the field like a wild woman; her rheumy, bloodshot eyes wide with rage. You would think that she did this to check on her injured nine-year-old son. But, no. Apoplectic with rage, she tried to attack the 14 year-old umpire. She was angry that he'd not stopped the game when my brother had been hurt, and even angrier that they'd lost as a result of his inaction.

It took a second for me to fully grasp the situation, but when I did, I jumped the fence and ran through the crowd of kids and parents staring in gape-jawed awe at the scene that was unfolding. While I probably should have anticipated this, it didn't make it any less shocking. I was, at the same time, humiliated, scared, and angry. My mother was drunk (again), making a scene (again), and creating an embarrassing, stressful, potentially dangerous situation for me (again).

Did other kids have to put up with this? Did other kids alternately have to play the role of adult and child, depending upon the drunken whims of their parents? To me, this was simply how I knew things. This was "normal," and had been for as long as I could recall. It was "normal" to be ashamed of my family and myself. It was "normal" to dread my parents' next drunken escapade.

I grabbed her and she struggled to escape from me. By the time I was 13, my mom and I we were about the same size but she was drunk and running on pure adrenaline. She broke free and I grabbed her again and wrestled her into a half nelson. I screamed at Bo, "get out of here! Now! If you know what's good for you, just get out of here!" as she tried to fling me off of her. For once in his life, he did the smart thing and ran away.

I swelled with pride as I stood on the pitcher's mound, restraining my mother; once again keeping one of my parents from committing what, even with my limited knowledge of the law, I knew was a felony. (At very least, it would have resulted in an embarrassing conversation with the police.) In exchange, I got to publicly humiliate myself, which was an activity with which I'd already long been familiar.

The crowd stood and mulled about in an unnatural silence, some quiet out of pity, some out of shock and some out of disgust, until my brother's coaches and the team mom intervened in an attempt to salvage the situation. Most people, had they behaved as my mother had, would have wanted to hide, to bury their head in shame. But, not her. I let her go, and the team mom walked with her back to the bleachers where they both cracked open a beer and my mother continued to rant as though she was one who was wronged.

Many people were wronged that day. She wasn't one of them.

An hour or so later, when my dad arrived to pick us up on his way home from work, he found my brother and me sitting in the bleachers with my mom passed out in a lawn chair.

"How was the game, boys?"

Epilogue
Although my mother was in the wrong and Bo had made the correct call, I don't feel sorry for him. The following summer at Boy Scout camp, we found in his pack our pocket knives, compasses, and other camping equipment that he'd stolen ... a crime for which I repetitively bounced his head off of a tree. At least that's what I told the "court of inquiry" that the "leadership council" convened before they asked me to leave the Boy Scouts of America. My reaction didn't have anything to do with theft.

When I confronted Bo with the stolen property, he looked me in the eye and said, "I'm no thief, and it's not like anyone will believe you, 'cause your mother is a fucking drunk!"

My mother may have been a drunk, but she's still is and will always be my mother. He could have stolen the Hope diamond from my backpack, and I would have maintained my cool, but with that one sentence, he invoked all of the anger that had been building up inside of me for 13 years.

In the movies, moments like this are cathartic, even soul-cleansing. The messed up kid finally gets it all out of his system, the clouds part, the sun shines, and we all skip down the path whistling a happy tune. But it only made me more ashamed.

Posted by J. Parker at 12:00 AM

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