Saturday, February 12, 2005
I sent an early version of this story to Punk Planet for consideration for their fiction section. They told me that if I re-wrote it, they'd definitely consider for publication as they did like it. I haven't heard from them since January 1st. I don't get upset or bothered by big things, I can usually shake them off, but it's the trivial things that drive me to be miserable and cantankerous. I mean just email me already and tell me it's rejected.
Anyway here it is :
MY ACCENT DOESN'T SUIT ME
In the summer of 1989 I was hitting .293, Tim Raines finished that season with a .286 average. Statistically speaking It was something you couldn't argue with,
"He's going to strike out, again!"
"EASY OUT!"
"But...I'm hitting better than Tim Raines!"
Statistics don't lie.
However there's an obvious difference between hitting from a tee and hitting actual pitching. I prayed noone would bring that up.
At my aunt's wedding when I was ten, one of the many fellows who had been called boyfriend by my cousin over the years ask me to try out for the Little League team he coached. I didn't even have to compare myself to Tim Raines. He was trying to prove he was a 'friendly', he promised to call at the beginning of the summer.
I was thinking 'Who you fooling buddy? We both know these arms can't throw for shit.''
It was a long summer and he never called.
I eventually joined a Little League team, but by that time they had done away with tryouts. You showed up, you played. There wasn't much merit involved in it.
Fifteen years later I'm heading back there, my parent's home. I'm elated and exhausted. Still good at recounting baseball statistics, still not good at baseball, that much hasn't changed.
Noone's available to pick me up from the airport, so I'm taking the bus home adding another leg to my trip. I rode the Greyhound once across the Prairies. The problem with all Prairies cities is that you can see them hours before you're even there. They're out there in the open and what you see is what you get, usually. The ride to my parents' house is different. At times there's only a few inches separating the shoulder of the road from a sheer rockface. The road to my parent's house has no straight-aways. You can't prepare.
I'm able to avoid conversation with the woman next to me on the bus for the first six hours of the 7 hour trip home, but she manages to snare me in the last hour. She's loud and her skin has a yellow tint to it. It's the sort of tint you only acquire as a bonus for smoking for forty years. She has been talking to the driver about her son and daughter and comparing their relative merits. The son is lacking in ambition and the daughter is all booksmarts. She commends her son for being street smart and admonishes her daughter for not being practical enough and that's when she starts in on me. Her son takes after her she admits proudly after she regales all with a story about working as bootlegger with her father when she was 14. My uncle used to make a living off the cockfights he hosted in his basement, but it's not in me to bring it up.
We're not going to be buddies.
She begins asking me where I work, where I live, and what I'm doing. I tell her I'm work at a library in Alberta, but qualify that by saying my parents are from here. I'm no 'come from away', I have to make that implicit in my answers. She asks me who my parents are, she's not convinced that she knows them or even knows of them. She asks me what sort of education I have. I tell her that I have an English degree. She asks me if I'm booksmart the same way people around here ask you if you vote for the New Democratic Party.
"____". My mouth opens, closes, and I just shrug. If I respond in the affirmative I'm just a jackass who thinks he's too good for everyone else. I'm too good for Here. I'm no better than a 'come from away'. I just mumble. Regardless, it's the wrong answer.
"Yeah you're booksmart, I can tell." Which means I ain't got no goddamn sense.
It was hard to find any sort of comfort at the end of my prairie bus ride. 15 hours, 150 dollars, one sound I practice over and over. While I'm away I drop parts that don't fit, but one thing I'm still good at is keeping track of statistics.
"It's alright here, but most of the new friends I've made, make fun of the way I say my a-r's. What's wrong with the way I say my a-r's? How can I have an accent? I've never had an accent."
"So they make fun of you a lot?"
"Yeah. It seems like I've only had this accent since I moved here."
"Well you've always had it. You sort of say it like this, aarrnh, rather than awr"
"So you've noticed?"
"Oh yeah! That's why I always answer the phone Hey Maarrnhk when you call."
"I just always thought you did that to be cute and endearing."
"You've always had the accent. I've noticed it the first time you called when I lived in Edmonton."
"It's going to be really hard not saying ar when I work at a library. How can I avoid saying 'card'?"
"I guess you can't."
"So for the last four years you've been making fun of me?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
There's this understanding that when you're away from home you somehow have a bond with anyone who comes from, knows, or recognizes the name of your hometown. As if being in exile together makes you compatriots and confidantes. It may be a romantic notion, but makes me privy to dirty little secrets I don't need to know.
At the pub I try to drink as much as my roommates' friends. I don't want to be the odd one out.
It always has to come up. Everyone has an opinion on it. I'm not surprised. It's inevitable given the history of our town. They were moved to a swamp, unceremoniously, because the city needed a new thoroughfare, but noone wants to talk about that. A high school in their hometown still has a hockey team named 'the Redmen'.
I can't laugh because it's not funny. I can't even chuckle, giggle, or smile politely. Despite the loudness of everyone else's laughter, they still notice that I'm not laughing. I rub my hands against my jeans. I remember an article I read about job interviews, 'asymmetrical body positions suggest comfortability'. My arms are folded across my chest.
"You're not offended are you?"
"You're not part are you?"
Even in baseball when I was hitting as well as Tim Raines, I could never figure out how to just get along.
My grandfather started the first Little League in Canada. There's a field in our hometown named after him with a huge metal fence in right field called 'the Monster'. It's like some bizarro Little League version of Fenway. I only played there once. Being related to its namesake didn't do me any goddamned favours. The team I was on lost. It was a playoff game and it turned out to be the last Little League and baseball game I ever played. The guys on my team whined and sulked about it, but we deserved to lose.
I thought being related to him was enough and really it wasn't. At the age of ten I knew I wouldn't be impressing anyone by proclaiming my lineage so I kept it to myself. When you're ten years old you really don't give a damn about bloodlines. The ability to hit a ball over a massive chain link fence? Yes. Genetics? Not so much. My idea of blending in was keeping my mouth shut.
My Grandfather will always be viewed by those who knew him as a man who talked too much and did too little. Too many dreams, too little to show for it. An object of pity and disdain.
I can't believe that that's the truth.
He wanted to bring Little League to his hometown and thus became a footnote in baseball trivia. He sold the land near his house to developers. He wanted to bring a shopping mall to a swamp. One of those is a dream and the other vaguely resembles a dream. He achieved mixed results.
He thought their disapproving scowls were because they resented his dreams.
I think that just because it's your hometown doesn't mean you belong.
Anyway here it is :
MY ACCENT DOESN'T SUIT ME
In the summer of 1989 I was hitting .293, Tim Raines finished that season with a .286 average. Statistically speaking It was something you couldn't argue with,
"He's going to strike out, again!"
"EASY OUT!"
"But...I'm hitting better than Tim Raines!"
Statistics don't lie.
However there's an obvious difference between hitting from a tee and hitting actual pitching. I prayed noone would bring that up.
At my aunt's wedding when I was ten, one of the many fellows who had been called boyfriend by my cousin over the years ask me to try out for the Little League team he coached. I didn't even have to compare myself to Tim Raines. He was trying to prove he was a 'friendly', he promised to call at the beginning of the summer.
I was thinking 'Who you fooling buddy? We both know these arms can't throw for shit.''
It was a long summer and he never called.
I eventually joined a Little League team, but by that time they had done away with tryouts. You showed up, you played. There wasn't much merit involved in it.
Fifteen years later I'm heading back there, my parent's home. I'm elated and exhausted. Still good at recounting baseball statistics, still not good at baseball, that much hasn't changed.
Noone's available to pick me up from the airport, so I'm taking the bus home adding another leg to my trip. I rode the Greyhound once across the Prairies. The problem with all Prairies cities is that you can see them hours before you're even there. They're out there in the open and what you see is what you get, usually. The ride to my parents' house is different. At times there's only a few inches separating the shoulder of the road from a sheer rockface. The road to my parent's house has no straight-aways. You can't prepare.
I'm able to avoid conversation with the woman next to me on the bus for the first six hours of the 7 hour trip home, but she manages to snare me in the last hour. She's loud and her skin has a yellow tint to it. It's the sort of tint you only acquire as a bonus for smoking for forty years. She has been talking to the driver about her son and daughter and comparing their relative merits. The son is lacking in ambition and the daughter is all booksmarts. She commends her son for being street smart and admonishes her daughter for not being practical enough and that's when she starts in on me. Her son takes after her she admits proudly after she regales all with a story about working as bootlegger with her father when she was 14. My uncle used to make a living off the cockfights he hosted in his basement, but it's not in me to bring it up.
We're not going to be buddies.
She begins asking me where I work, where I live, and what I'm doing. I tell her I'm work at a library in Alberta, but qualify that by saying my parents are from here. I'm no 'come from away', I have to make that implicit in my answers. She asks me who my parents are, she's not convinced that she knows them or even knows of them. She asks me what sort of education I have. I tell her that I have an English degree. She asks me if I'm booksmart the same way people around here ask you if you vote for the New Democratic Party.
"____". My mouth opens, closes, and I just shrug. If I respond in the affirmative I'm just a jackass who thinks he's too good for everyone else. I'm too good for Here. I'm no better than a 'come from away'. I just mumble. Regardless, it's the wrong answer.
"Yeah you're booksmart, I can tell." Which means I ain't got no goddamn sense.
It was hard to find any sort of comfort at the end of my prairie bus ride. 15 hours, 150 dollars, one sound I practice over and over. While I'm away I drop parts that don't fit, but one thing I'm still good at is keeping track of statistics.
"It's alright here, but most of the new friends I've made, make fun of the way I say my a-r's. What's wrong with the way I say my a-r's? How can I have an accent? I've never had an accent."
"So they make fun of you a lot?"
"Yeah. It seems like I've only had this accent since I moved here."
"Well you've always had it. You sort of say it like this, aarrnh, rather than awr"
"So you've noticed?"
"Oh yeah! That's why I always answer the phone Hey Maarrnhk when you call."
"I just always thought you did that to be cute and endearing."
"You've always had the accent. I've noticed it the first time you called when I lived in Edmonton."
"It's going to be really hard not saying ar when I work at a library. How can I avoid saying 'card'?"
"I guess you can't."
"So for the last four years you've been making fun of me?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
There's this understanding that when you're away from home you somehow have a bond with anyone who comes from, knows, or recognizes the name of your hometown. As if being in exile together makes you compatriots and confidantes. It may be a romantic notion, but makes me privy to dirty little secrets I don't need to know.
At the pub I try to drink as much as my roommates' friends. I don't want to be the odd one out.
It always has to come up. Everyone has an opinion on it. I'm not surprised. It's inevitable given the history of our town. They were moved to a swamp, unceremoniously, because the city needed a new thoroughfare, but noone wants to talk about that. A high school in their hometown still has a hockey team named 'the Redmen'.
I can't laugh because it's not funny. I can't even chuckle, giggle, or smile politely. Despite the loudness of everyone else's laughter, they still notice that I'm not laughing. I rub my hands against my jeans. I remember an article I read about job interviews, 'asymmetrical body positions suggest comfortability'. My arms are folded across my chest.
"You're not offended are you?"
"You're not part are you?"
Even in baseball when I was hitting as well as Tim Raines, I could never figure out how to just get along.
My grandfather started the first Little League in Canada. There's a field in our hometown named after him with a huge metal fence in right field called 'the Monster'. It's like some bizarro Little League version of Fenway. I only played there once. Being related to its namesake didn't do me any goddamned favours. The team I was on lost. It was a playoff game and it turned out to be the last Little League and baseball game I ever played. The guys on my team whined and sulked about it, but we deserved to lose.
I thought being related to him was enough and really it wasn't. At the age of ten I knew I wouldn't be impressing anyone by proclaiming my lineage so I kept it to myself. When you're ten years old you really don't give a damn about bloodlines. The ability to hit a ball over a massive chain link fence? Yes. Genetics? Not so much. My idea of blending in was keeping my mouth shut.
My Grandfather will always be viewed by those who knew him as a man who talked too much and did too little. Too many dreams, too little to show for it. An object of pity and disdain.
I can't believe that that's the truth.
He wanted to bring Little League to his hometown and thus became a footnote in baseball trivia. He sold the land near his house to developers. He wanted to bring a shopping mall to a swamp. One of those is a dream and the other vaguely resembles a dream. He achieved mixed results.
He thought their disapproving scowls were because they resented his dreams.
I think that just because it's your hometown doesn't mean you belong.
# posted by Die Brucke @ 2:54 PM 
