Fake Family

To be honest with you, two things saved my life in childhood. As I told you already, music was one of the components. The other, sports. I excelled in softball and basketball and I would have given my right eye to play. Softball was my sport of choice and I am not too proud to say I was damn good. It was sometime in the mid eighties, and I had the highest batting average in the entire city, including all men's, boy's and women's leagues. I still have that trophy, name plaque all worn and tarnished, just as my memories of childhood. When I was on the court or the field, I mattered. I was part of something larger than myself and my crumbling existence. Every bead of sweat meant that I was contributing to my "team," my fake family. I call them fake because the only time these people were nice to me or wanted anything to do with me, was when we were in the heat of competition. I got all the high fives, back slaps, way to go's you could ever imagine during my games. Yet, when the final score displayed, I was nothing again. This is an area of human behavior I have never been able to wrap my mind around. How do you treat people like this? How do you pretend, if only for a moment? Truly, nobody cared. These kids' parent's loved me, yet they had no idea what little fuckers their kids were. By fuckers, I mean devious, satan worshipping little maggots. Remind me to tell you about the "the stick-up."