Phillips Coaching Dad

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4835-4207-2
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 397 Seiten

In 'Coaching Dad,' readers get to reconsider the contention: 'You can never go home again.' If you were given the chance to do it, even at the risk of screwing up the space-time continuum, would you go? And if you did go, or went without knowing why, would you embrace the opportunity even if it meant eventually meeting and then coaching your father on the basketball court when he was a teenager?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Phillips, Fred

Leseproben

CHAPTER ONE Believe it or not, I get paid to take the pills. Every two weeks some research company right here in San Diego cuts me a check for fifty dollars to see if I'm reduced to the calm of a sleeping kitten or if I am knocking down walls with my bare hands. The stipend is not nearly close to covering what I pony up to the shrink and the plundering far exceeds the replenishing, but every little bit helps me stay solvent. I have to see a stuffy psychiatrist to get the pills, but anything in the name of science and sanity. The initial dream started the very first night I swallowed the tiny, gray, oval pills provided by the shrink, er, good doctor. That first dream after taking the medicine sent me straight to the desktop computer and the world wide wonderful web. Never trust the Internet. That's what my ex-wife told me after I lost a few thousand dollars on some money-making scam I found online, that in hindsight looked financially ludicrous. Losing money proved her point, but I still have this secret hope that there is something worthwhile somewhere on the Internet. Besides porn. So, at four in the morning, long before the California sun poked its fiery head over the horizon, I found myself on one of those websites that analyzes your dreams. On yourdreamsareveryreal.com I read, “If you continuously dream of going backwards in time, it means your subconscious is seeking romantic wish-fulfillment.” Huh? I think that means I am aching to return to the good old days when life was like shooting ducks in a barrel; full of sunshine and rainbows instead of divorce proceedings, bills, snotty and impertinent teenagers, deadlines, meetings and medications. Maybe the Internet isn’t that God-awful after all. The first dream on this medicine was unlike any dream I had ever experienced. It took me back to a place twenty-five years prior. One minute I was reading a novel, struggling to keep my eyes open, the next minute I was lost in another time and place. It was filled with grainy black and white images with myriad shades of gray - like an old classic black and white movie packed full of people long since dead, places long since destroyed, and memories long since faded. But, what made this dream so unique was that it was like a trip down memory lane – it wasn’t surreal or pretend. It was like an 8mm film of a specific point in my life. Here I was; before marriage, separation and divorce, before unsightly love handles, before the receding hairline, before streaks of dull gray, before that treacherous slippery slope of decay. I saw myself at twenty-five, in a brightly lit gymnasium I can faintly remember from an earlier time, playing a game of pick-up basketball, running gracefully, powerfully and athletically up and down the court. I was dribbling, shooting, jumping, faking out defenders and scoring; sweat was dripping profusely from every pore. Long before knee surgeries and back pain and the wicked downward spiral of age had robbed me of even a sliver of my youth, I could actually play a decent game of basketball. I was a scrapper, a hacker, a battler with grit, but one with at least a little smidgeon of talent. Was the NBA in my future? Hardly, but I could hold my own on those other macho proving grounds, the playgrounds and gymnasiums. In my dream, the past me is playing basketball while the present me watches. I stand on the sidelines watching, spying on myself, but no one sees the older me. Fifty people in the small gymnasium and no one can perceive my presence. I remain completely undetected and invisible. Like a phantom in a photograph. Just watching. Since starting this new medicine, how many times had I revisited this dream? Five, ten, fifteen or more. At least one per night. Each time I lingered in the dream a little longer. I stayed invisible in the gymnasium and observed more of the game, almost in tears from watching my youthful exuberance and athleticism. I saw myself as a player; producing moves on the court I couldn’t even think about making now without pulling a muscle or blowing out a knee. At first the dreams frightened me; they seemed so terrifyingly real. Palpable and tangible, they were not really dreams at all. I would awake in a pool of sweat, sometimes shivering, sometimes trembling, usually disoriented for a few moments. Was I truly there reliving my youth? I could smell the gym's musty odor, hear the screeching of sneakers against a newly polished gym floor, and hear the satisfying swish when the basketball went cleanly through the net. But after a few nights, I grew to enjoy the vivid dreams, to look forward to them. I relished and anticipated the genuine and compelling look back at my now distant past; the dreams had given me a reason to turn off the television or the computer, get to bed early and quickly retreat into a deep slumber. After a few months, my dreams changed. They were still astonishingly real, vivid, dramatic, and graphic. However, the time period had changed. I had regressed chronologically several years. I was eighteen, drinking at an ear-shattering loud frat house in college. I was standing in the midst of a raucous group, drinking, dancing, and partying. Were the girls really that young? Did those young girls with their tan and sinewy legs, taut stomachs, and perky breasts actually speak with me and bestow upon me a few moments of their precious time? No one that attractive and young would even glance in my direction now. But, here I was laughing, flirting and drinking with these hot coeds. I’m sure the conversation was purely vacuous drivel, but who cares? Geez, what I wouldn’t give now to have a vacuous conversation with a nubile young angel in short shorts, a halter top, and a belly button ring! I wandered around the party, people staring in my direction as I passed, but no one sees me. It’s as if they felt a gust of wind as I went by. Every night for a few weeks I was lost in this dream; I would arrive at the party at a time that appeared to be just a few minutes later than the previous dream. The people were drunker, the music was louder, and the girls were sexier. I would merely wander around in awe and utter confusion, but still no one would see me. Or hear me. I was just an apparition wondering aimlessly through the mayhem, staring curiously at faces buried deep in my past. Just watching. One night, the dream moved back further in time. I was sitting on the steps of my back porch at my family’s Cape Cod-style home. The old, gray shingle house with the white trim appeared newer than I remembered it, glimmering in the sun with a fresh coat of paint. The lawn was freshly mowed, the trees newly trimmed, the giant lavender bush in our backyard abloom. A shiny blue Cadillac Seville sedan, with white wall tires and that ugly white vinyl roof sat in the driveway. This is the house where I grew from a petulant toddler to a hormonally-raged teenager, before growing up into a somewhat off-his-rocker old man paying a psychiatrist to peek around inside his head. I could see my mom, young and vibrant with dark wavy hair, slender and lithe, possessing an effervescent smile, busy with motherly chores in the kitchen. Sprawled across the couch on her stomach, with her white Keds in the air, was my older sister, four years my senior, with curves and crevices that turned her into a woman right before my eyes. My younger sister, two years my junior, straight, spindly, angular; hair cropped short for the summer, and all tomboy, was watching the TV. I could see my Dad relaxing supine in the lounge chair. He was graying, balding, getting a slight paunch, gaining wrinkles across his brow. But he still had his look of dignity and confidence, fatherly as he moved steadily through that seemingly ephemeral middle age toward a senior citizenship he will never achieve.. He was reading the newspaper, his glasses sitting low on the bridge of his nose; the Sunday morning Dad, not the workweek Dad. He was taking his time, sipping his coffee, relaxing, reading the Sunday New York Times, enjoying the idyllic Sunday morning in 1970's suburbia. You‘re as young as you feel. That’s what those smiling senior citizens at my fitness center say. You’re old if you think you’re old. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, I tried that psychological crap, and I still get older each day. I feel old, I think I am old, therefore I am old. Fifty years of age, balding, graying, getting fat, getting wrinkled, slowly decaying like a rotten peach left uneaten for too long. I look at the young me and I want to shout out, “Hey, look at me! Do you know who I am? Or who I became? Or who I will be? Or who I was? Or why I am here wandering around in the past like a disoriented ghost?” Dad looked over the top of the Sunday paper saying ‘Hey son, did you see the score of the Yankees game last night?” I tried to reply and words come out of my mouth, but I don’t know if it’s the 12-year old me or the 50-year old me who was speaking. Did I say something about the early 1970's Yankees or the brand new billion dollar Yankee stadium Yankees? I could see that Dad is puzzled at my response. I think he saw a ghost. I think he felt an aberrant gust of wind brush his skin. He was about to say something. And then he was gone. One brief blink of an eye and my entire family was gone. They had evaporated into the still and shadowy night air. I was awake in the enveloping darkness and lost in the enormity of my lumpy king-sized bed straight from the Salvation Army store. The room was silent and black with only the illumination from the alarm clock cutting through the dimness. I was still 50 years old, graying, balding, getting fat, and getting wrinkled, breaking down into some comical remnant of my...