Pit

August in Bellevue Idaho during the 1980s had the bluest skies I can remember. The sky was always a bit smaller than the places I live now, but on one particular day it was only directly above. The world around me that day was only soft dirt walls around me and there was a soupy cold mud soaking through my baseball uniform and congealing around my tightening skin.  

My skin has never fit me well. But that day was when it was confirmed that it didn’t belong to me. I was not the fat kid inside. I was not the weirdo who was supposed to be ridiculed and laughed at. If I was a freak, it wouldn’t have hurt so much. The mud pit was my first cave. It was the first little death that taught me how cold the world could really be, and how I should never ever trust the people I was trying to be.  

Baseball was a particularly strange element that made up the periodic table of my life’s beginnings. I was obsessed with baseball cards by the age of 8. I only know the year because of my collection. I still have it. Primarily it is made up of cards stolen from the local family-owned grocery store. My first addiction or maybe compulsion was stealing those cards. From the beginning, my real drug of choice has likely been shame. But that’s another story. I stole those cards every day, ran across the street to hide under a lilac bush and hurriedly open the little wax packs, stuff the brittle stick of gum in my mouth. Then the trick was to see which cards I got before the crippling guilt and shame of the act of stealing from Glen’s Grocery took over and ruined it. By the time I'd ride my bike home, all the joy of secrecy and getting over would be rinsed away by self disgust. My comfort zone. I vividly remember the solemn promises made to nobody (and never kept) to cease stealing. Feeling the security of that little rectangle lump of cardboard cards in my pocket. But playing baseball... That was a different kind of shame. The time spent focusing on clouds in the sky and honeybees doing their thing in right field while I was supposed to be doing mine. If you played like I did, you’ll remember the smell of the mink oil worked into the glove, the thrill of the cleats on your feet, and those garters or whatever they are called that I suppose served to keep your socks up. And maybe you remember the fear of losing the ball in the sunlight on the rare occasion it was ever hit your way. 

My one triumph from the diamond days was hitting a grand slam all the way across the street that backed up against the left middle field boundary. We didn’t have a wall. We had Cottonwood Street. That was the same street that began at Kipp’s sledding hill for those keeping track. But I couldn’t do much on the field. And I didn’t hit the ball too often. But once in a while I could connect all that frustration in my gut to that ball with that Louisville Slugger and really make it fly. That one day the bases were loaded, if I had hit it any shorter, I would have probably been out at second due to my chubby little legs, but that day I swaggered all the way home. My team cheered me on for the first (and only) time in my career. And I was called out by the referee for throwing the fucking bat out of the circle around home plate, after I concussed that ball into tomorrow. When I think about it now, I want to pick that bat back up and hit that fucking referee kid in the head with it. But that day all I could do was suck up the tears and shake it off. That day sucked and was a sort of betrayal... a micro-trauma my therapist would call it. But that isn’t the story I want to share today. No, today is a story that might not sound like much compared to an accident victim or a veteran of the war on drug addicts... but it was a true capital T trauma for me. It was the day the world lost a little of the color and magic I always saw in it before the mud pit.  

We were warming up before a game. Actually, before the practice, most of us showed up to the field just to hit the ball around and have some fun before all the parents showed up. It was Summer in Bellevue. Not quite Norman Rockwell, but maybe the tv movie version. The week before a backhoe had dug up a pretty impressive hole right past the third base line at the corner of the empty block adjacent to the elementary school that made up our baseball field. I’m pretty sure it was to hook up a fire hydrant, or at least to provide the ability to do that, but the hydrant wasn’t there yet. First a couple of kids went to look at it, and before you knew it, the rest of us were there circling the pit and making our estimations of how deep it was, and what would happen if someone jumped into it. Some bickering happened, and that’s when Zack Luff had made the proclamation that someone needed to jump into it and see. I knew I didn’t want to, but I also knew I would be the one who did. I’m not dumb, and I knew it was going to result in a very dirty uniform at the minimum. It probably took 20 seconds of cajoling before Zack had me talked into it. So, I played it safe. I jumped in at the edge to try and cash in on my attention fix while minimizing the risk of getting yelled at by the coach or worse yet my parents.  

As I climbed out, I noticed how wet the dirt was, and how badly the mud at the bottom was sticking to my uniform. I was getting a lot of disapproving sounds and glares from my peers even before I reached the top. I knew it was going end up with me jumping in the middle, but I was going to need the maximum amount of encouragement and assurances that I was going to get my popularity points because that was something I could (and can) never get enough of. Zack was a good salesman. He was quick to rally the girls to remind me when something important needed to be done, I was the one to do it. Which was true. I mean, who was the only one who would try eating the #2 pencil a couple of weeks before on the playground? Who was the one with the gall to call Mrs. Crego a bitch in math class? Who was the guy that socked Bradley McCormick when he was hassling the girls in the line for the twirly slide the previous winter? And who was always still the last guy picked for any game of dodgeball? Who was the fat kid from the trailer park that would take just about any amount of bullying unless it was being done to someone else? (More on that in upcoming posts.) It was Taylor “the trailer” Hunt. That’s who! 

I think Zack even offered me a few dollars from his allowance if I were to jump in... right into the middle of the black mud at the bottom of the pit. So, I did it. I sucked in my gut, pretended to set aside my pride, and I jumped into the middle of the hope that it would finally be enough. And guess what happened. I was instantly buried up to my armpits in this thick mud that just sucked me in the more I moved. And just as quickly as I realized I was not going anywhere anytime soon... I realized that I was most definitely not the hero of the afternoon.  

I tried to shuffle my feet and sort of walk my way out. I sank lower with every move I made. It was cold. I was gripped in fear. And mud. I mean, this was like clay... with just enough sharp rocks in it to also cut and scrape at my ill-fitting skin with every breath. When I could finally bring myself to look up at my “team,” I felt Zack’s spit hit my face as he sneered and laughed in my face........................ 

“You are so stupid!”  

“Look at Tub a Lard Tay stuck in the mud pit!” 

The words bullseyed their target like none of the rocks they started throwing could hope to. They were hollow pointed and found purchase right in the center of my chest. As I type, I can still feel them. I can still see the looks on their faces as they laughed and doubled over at my expense. I can still hear their voices. The pretty girls especially. They were all pretty to me. And although I was too young to know the touch of a woman, I still craved their comfort. I found none of that at that game. 

But as much as I wanted the rocks, and spitting, and those pointed words to stop... I didn’t want them to do what they did next. They all left. Just as quickly as the rooting me on had turned into the hurling of insults, rocks, spit, and barbed chuckles... they vanished. I’m not sure that this was the only game that both my parents showed up at, but it is the one I remember. And I don’t know how long I was down there. But I promise it was long enough.  

When I saw my dad at the rim of the shame crater, I saw the embarrassment in his face. He was good enough not to say anything to me then. But when he couldn’t pull me out even with a rope someone brought over, I saw the need for a drink wash over him. Or at least I thought I did. I realize now that memories can be pretty inaccurate. But what I know for sure, is that I wanted to change the way I felt pretty bad when the firetruck had to hook the rope that was looped around me under my armpits up to the back of the truck to pull me out of that little cold hell.  

I don’t remember much of what happened afterward except for the next thirty some-odd years of reminders of that afternoon. I swear to God it wasn’t three months ago I was at the gas station and the cashier said, “Aren’t you the guy who jumped into the mud pit?” 

No. I’m not the guy who jumped into the mud pit. I was the kid who did that. But I’m the guy who writes a blog. Thanks.