The Sportin' Life

by Nancy Frederick

  He was a man in his fifties, tall, not stooped, gray in the right places, weathered but not wrinkled, still brisk, eminent, yet not overly serious. He smiled, his brown eyes deep and radiant, and took Addie’s hand in his. “So this is the wunderkind,” he said.

  “I’m sure she’s going to do great things in our field,” said Esther, putting a friendly arm around her prize student, while Addie beamed at the praise. Esther made her feel there was nothing she couldn’t do. She would do great things and it was Esther’s faith that helped her believe it was possible.

  Later the three sat in the living room, Esther in her favorite wing chair, and Ted beside Addie on the couch. It was a large, elegant room, in a tasteful, beautifully furnished house, and Addie envied the Schlumbergers. This was the right way to live. More than anything, Addie wanted to seem interesting, but it was impossible to impress them with mere knowledge; they were smarter than she could ever hope to be.

  Addie had already revealed to Esther some of the details of her past, so, in response to some rather innocuous questions, she allowed herself to be drawn out, revealing more and more intimate information, then ultimately sharing the most incendiary details from her childhood.

  “So your father was abusive?” asked Ted kindly.

  “He got his,” said Addie. “I was nine, and my mother fell in love with a black delivery guy. Apparently he had a package she couldn’t resist,” she said, with almost more sang-froid than she could pull off. “And my father, a loser at best, well you know my name is Penny, right, I always thought he had that last name to remind him what he was worth.”

  “Ouch,” said Ted, yet he smiled at her and in his eyes was acceptance, nothing judgmental at all.

  “My father went crazy. I don’t know, maybe he confused me with my mother. Maybe he just wanted to substitute me for her so he could pretend she hadn’t disappeared from our lives. He kept pulling me into his lap, and I could feel him gyrating beneath me, and it was torture. I was terrified. I mean at nine I barely knew what sex was, but I did know what was happening between us was something unholy. I always tried to squirm down from his lap, but there he was twitching, holding me tight. It didn’t take long for me to learn not to walk too closely by his chair.”

  “How frightening for you,” said Esther, sympathetically.

  “He was a drunk,” said Addie. “Totally out of control. Don’t you just hate that!”

  The Schlumbergers exchanged a wise glance that Addie could clearly see was two therapists acknowledging their sympathy for the terrible life she’d led.

  “So one night, he’d had too many beers—two, maybe three or even more, and he’d been cooking some canned soup—pretending it was a home cooked meal for his sweet little girl—that’s what he always called me—and the soup was on a low flame. But we had this gas stove that was always blowing out.

  “And so I’d walked by his chair and he snaggled me and pulled me into his lap and I felt him quivering under me and I gave him a shove and pushed my way up and out of the chair.” Addie stopped to look at her audience. They were captivated, so she continued, “And so I ran out the kitchen door to the next door neighbors, my friend Joanie’s, where I always went. I really wanted them to adopt me. They had the best family.

  “Anyway—the door slammed, and I guess the pilot light blew out. And he was too drunk to know it. And they said he must have walked into the kitchen and lit a cigarette, which was odd since he didn’t smoke, but maybe a spark from his shoe, I don’t know, but the whole place went up and he went with it.”

  “You poor thing,” they said in unison.

  “It wasn’t so bad,” said Addie, trying not to sound callous, “After that I did go live with Joanie, her family took me in, and the money from the house and the explosion and all paid for my college.”

  Once again the Schlumbergers exchanged a glace and Addie smiled at them, happy to be the center of such caring attention. At the end of the evening, Ted hugged Addie warmly, then gave her his card. “Drop by my office any time,” he said, “If you’d like to talk more about this.”

  “Ted seemed like such a wonderful man at the time,” Addie said to her guides, “Like a good dad in a way, only better, warmer somehow, wiser, and of course so handsome. He always seemed like someone who could really love, who could take care…” she said, her voice trailing off.

  “What about Esther?” asked Cerise?

  “She was brilliant, of course, but she was long out of love with him. She pushed us together.”

  Addie was drawn into a scene in school, in Esther’s office. They had been talking casually about work, when Esther said, “So you’ve been working with Ted, haven’t you? He says it’s going well.”

  Addie was about to reply when one of the older grad students strode in the door without knocking, and Esther began talking to him. They forgot she was there for a moment, so Addie could analyze the body language. Esther smiled at the young man, her eyes twinkling and she leaned toward him. He wasn’t even slightly afraid of her. He smiled back. And when he was ready to leave, he touched Esther’s shoulder, for what seemed like a moment too long.

  Then Esther turned to Addie and said, blushing, “Brad’s my cousin’s son. A nice kid.”

  “You see—did you see that?” she was excited and Cerise’s eyes seemed rather piercing as Addie continued, “They had something going on. So she lied to me, pretended he was a relative to make it all seem innocent. That’s why Esther wanted me for Ted—as a distraction. But she underestimated our chemistry.”

  How many times had Ted asked her about her father? Again and again he returned to that as a topic, and although the story she told always was the same, the questions continued. How much did Dad actually drink? Had he actually touched her inappropriately? What specifically had he done? Addie lay on the cliché, as she always called it, the tufted leather chaise that every patient expected to find in a psychiatrist’s office. She had been coming weekly for several months, and her skirts were distractingly mini, her blouses tauntingly sheer, yet it seemed this man had one thing on his mind—her father.

  “Say, Ted,” she said, refusing to call him doctor because she absolutely would not designate their sessions as therapy; there was nothing wrong with her and she did not need to be under a doctor’s care. In Addie’s mind they were engaged in a protracted game of foreplay, and the handsome older doctor inspired in her little squishy feelings she could not name. “How come you’re so obsessed with my father? Aren’t all you docs supposed to be fixated on the mother?”

  Uno smiled, flashing perfect teeth, and he said, “What about your mother?”

  Addie sighed. She hadn’t really been angling to dissect her past. Moving slightly, her tiny skirt rose just a bit, offering a broader glimpse of thigh and beyond. Pointedly Addie looked at the flesh being uncovered, then deeply into the eyes of this beguiling older man. But he seemed utterly unaware of her gesture, so she was forced to start speaking.

  “I always thought she loved me so much. We played all the time. She was a legendary shopaholic, but as I was the beneficiary of all those parcels arriving in the delivery truck, it was easy not to protest. My dad, of course, was too much a milquetoast to say a word. Too bad.”

  Addie stood next to her guides, watching her young, inept self as she tried to seduce this older man. As the words tumbled out of her mouth, Addie was immersed once again in the situation, feeling young and vulnerable and needy. And, as she spoke to Uno, off in the distance beyond the Addie who lay on the couch, played the childhood scene she was describing. Addie supposed that if in the scene she recalled, she had been talking about another memory, yet another stage would have opened up, like a mirror within a mirror within a mirror.

  “Another present for the little princess,” said Zeke, the congenial black delivery man. He smiled at Dora Penny, and their shoulders brushed as he stepped into the house. Addie raced forward to open the box that had arrived from a big Atlanta store, and while she was pulling out the gossamer d
ress up clothes her mother had bought, behind her Dora sank into Zeke’s arms. Their bodies molded together urgently, then quickly pulled apart as Addie turned to hold up a particular garment.

  Addie felt something that seemed like the wind, and she knew it was time fast forwarding. Dora now stood with a suitcase, her eyes damp, her mouth tightened resolutely. Addie clung to her and wept. “No, Mom, you can’t do this. Don’t go, just see Zeke when Daddy’s not home. I won’t tell, I promise.”

  Dora shook her head, and it was clear there was no entreaty that would prevail. “You’re a big girl now, you’ve always been a big girl. And I’m counting on you. This will be hard. You have to take care of your dad.”

  “No,” wept Addie, “I’m not big, look at me, I’m still small. Take care of Daddy? Who will take care of me?”

  “Daddy will, of course,” smiled Dora.

  “Why? No, mom, no, I’m coming with you.”

  Addie pulled away from her nine year old self and was back on the couch, talking to Uno. “I never knew why she refused to take me along. Never knew where she went.” She stared into the eyes of this man she so admired and allowed all the emotion she had recalled to play across her face. No longer a sex kitten, she was the picture of betrayed vulnerability, destroyed youth, a child seeking a loving parent.

  At the same moment, they both rose, and she was in his arms for what was first an innocent, comforting hug, but quickly developed into a deep and ultimately passionate kiss. Addie sank into Uno’s arms like he was her salvation, the one person on earth who could set her life to order, the solace she had been seeking, and the destiny that by rights would become her own. His arms tightened around her and his lips became more pressing, more adult. That was their beginning.

  “I guess you’re thinking that psychiatrists aren’t supposed to fall for their patients,” said Addie to Cerise, “But I wasn’t really a patient. After all he treated children. I just enjoyed his attention. Not like I had any breakthroughs there. He just brought out the Lolita in me. And Esther had grown so frumpy.”

  “Friday nights with Ted,” said Addie distractedly, more to herself than to the guides, then blushing when she saw herself lying naked on the cliché, Uno beside her, pressed tightly against her. They had made love for a couple hours and were both in a fuzzy haze, talking, being silent, at peace.

  “I did want kids,” said Ted, “She couldn’t have them. We accepted it.”

  Addie gazed into his eyes and at that moment, something in her opened up.

  “It wasn’t conscious on my part,” said Addie to Cerise. “I didn’t deliberately cause the pregnancy any more than I caused the miscarriage after he married me. At least I did eventually give him a child, not that it mattered ultimately.”

  Dancer smiled at Addie, and began one of her languorous twirls, her body enrobed in a twinkling gown of gem-encrusted netting. It was relaxing to watch the dance movements, and Addie allowed herself to be distracted by the performance, which lasted only a few seconds.

  A scene began to play before her, and Addie felt the terror rising in her throat. A woman swam frantically in deadly rapids, the torturous current swirling violently, quickly sapping the remainder of her strength. She used only one arm to bisect the bubbling waters, attempting to pull herself to shore. Beneath the other arm was a tiny child of perhaps two or three, clinging desperately to the mother whose only will it was to save her.

  Addie felt herself drawn into the treacherous stream, but not into the body of the mother. She was the small child, and she clung to her mother, faith in her parent absolute, but knowing that nature might at any moment dash them both against the rocks, or worse, pull them below the water. She reached her arms to the shore, willing them both to be on safe, dry land, opening her mouth once, hoping to encourage her mother to push a little harder, but swallowing a giant gulp of freezing water.

  The mother gave a mighty kick, her legs going deep below the water and with a heave, shoved the child onto the bank. Addie waited, time for only one terrified breath, expecting to see her mother propelled up, out of the icy stream and onto the bank beside her, but a veil of desperation crossed her mother’s face as she flailed with one last thrust against tangled underbrush below the water. Her leg was caught! It took an instant for the sorrow in her eyes to disappear, and then the light was gone altogether as she slipped below the water.

  Addie sat inside the body of the tiny child she had once been, in who knew what lifetime, and wept. She could not pull herself free of the child’s body and so there she remained, freezing, wet, terrified, immobilized.

  “Who was that woman?” she asked finally, gasping, but another scene began to play.

  Addie was a girl of twelve or so, dressed in ratty clothes from the 1800’s. She cowered in a corner of an unkempt shack, while her mother sat at a rough table, drinking corrosive homemade liquor with a grotesque man whose face was scarred.

  She had but a second to think and recognized Dora Penny, her mother, as the woman at the table.

  “I’ll do anything you want,” Dora said plaintively, letting her grimy hand crawl along the grizzly arm. “Six kids, no husband, no crop. Anything you want. We got nowhere else to go.” She leaned back and lifted her skirts a few inches, opening her legs quite wide, and she stared pointedly into the man’s ugly face.

  He reached a hand toward her, but instead of accepting her offer, he toppled her chair and she fell to the floor, lying splayed on her back. “Not interested,” he said. “But I will make you a deal. Give you a stake, so you can get out of here.”

  Dora leapt to her feet, trembling, her voice shaking with disbelief. “Really?” she asked, “How much?”

  The man reached into his filthy jacket, pulled out a blood-stained pouch, and from it he tossed several gold coins onto the table. Dora reached for the money, and his gnarled hand grasped her arm, twisting it cruelly. “For that ‘un,” he said, pointing to Addie.

  Dora glanced toward her daughter, and back to the table where the coins lay. Her gaze narrowed, and in her eyes was more shrewdness than guilt. “She’s my best one—she’s worth double that. Or more. Cooks, cleans, don’t hardly say nothin’.”

  The man tossed a few more coins on the tableand this time allowed Dora to snatch them up. “What stuff she got?” he asked.

  “You din’t never said nothin’ ‘bout her taking stuff,” said Dora petulantly, immediately realizing she’d sold out too cheaply.

  “Git yer clothes, gal,” said the man, tossing one more coin at Dora.

  Addie felt the winds blow, time morphed and she lay terrified on a rough pallet in a dark shack, the man pressing against her. His hand pulled up her skirts, and he looked into her eyes. “You bleed yet?” he asked as Addie cringed with fear. “Down there,” he said, “You bleed yet?” Addie could not reply, but he saw the answer in her eyes and hoisted himself onto and inside her, saying only, “You give me a son.”

  Time morphed again and Addie struggled against the pain, the blood pouring out of her, the child being born into his father’s hand, herself washing out in the river of blood, her life floating away.

  “That man,” said Addie, standing back beside her guides, “There was something familiar about him.”

  “Look into his eyes,” said Cerise.

  “No, I can’t quite tell. So familiar, though.”

  “There are threads,” said Dancer, “Threads that tie you to each other again and again.”

  “More like a noose,” said Addie shaking her head. “My mother, what a bitch. No wonder I ended up hating her.”

  She heard the cough before she saw the scene. It was like something out of an opera, the sort of cough that indicates an infection so serious that every movement causes pain. Now aged, Dora Penny sat in a tattered chair in a one-room apartment, her breath whistling in between the racking coughs. A cigarette burned at her side. A glass of scotch sat partially drunk next to the overfilled ashtray. Catalogs from all the best stores littered a coffee table, and Dora fl
ipped though one, occasionally dog earring a page. On a far wall stood a rickety cabinet which held some of the cheap treasures Dora had collected. On top of the cabinet were two framed photos, one of Addie as a child and the other of Zeke, older than Addie remembered him.

  As though she had some sort of bizarre ex-ray vision, Addie could see gray shadows here and there in her mother’s body, the vibration of the diseases she carried. “Cancer,” said Addie, “Emphysema, Cirrhosis.”

  “Scene look familiar?” asked Dancer.

  “Isn’t this happening right now?” asked Addie.

  “Yes, but she will soon be here,” said Cerise.

  “I’m asking doesn’t this scene look familiar to you,” insisted Dancer.

  “How so?” asked Addie. “I haven’t seen this woman since I was a child.”

  Dancer held out her hand and in her palm replayed the scene in which Addie had been an old drunk, getting a handout from her resentful son.

  “Oh my God,” said Addie, “Yes I see what you mean. But that never actually happened in my life, well okay maybe because I died before it could. I see what you’re getting at—no wonder I had that fear—no wonder I felt it could happen to me. Some sort of recessive gene, some knowledge of the tackiness that was inside me. Like a shadowing of destiny.” Addie shook her head.

  Dora, a cigarette in one hand, the scotch in the other, went to take a drink, but a wracking cough shook her body, spilling the liquor over the front of her already stained housecoat. Her body shook as the coughing hammered her again and again, but eventually she gasped a breath and sputtered out a curse. The empty glass dropped into her lap and she clutched the sodden housecoat, sucking the liquor into her mouth.

  Addie cringed watching the scene, and turned away. “Disgusting,” she said.

  “You could send her some love,” said Cerise.

  Addie looked sardonically at her guide. “Yeah, sure, I’ll do that. Better to smash her head in with a baseball bat and put her out of her misery once and for all. No, let her live—let her suffer.”