Trophy Son(5)

“No water break. This is a match.”

“I drink water during matches.”

“You want to be ready for a match, you train for more than a match.”

“I need water.”

“Fifty more, then water.”

The pounding in my temples was no longer a beat but a constant hum and I felt a surge of energy as my anger grew. Boys at that age are ill-equipped to manage anger so it usually gets energetic and confused and crosses into rage.

I started hitting my hardest shots. I wasn’t thinking about form or footwork or keeping the ball in the court at all. I just wanted power and I directed the balls at the machine, and at Dad. Balls were reaching him on the fly like comets and he had to skip out of the way.

“Watch it, Anton.”

I started hitting my normal forehands again. The machine drummed away while he collected balls along the back fence with his back to me. With no calculation of consequence I cranked a forehand toward the back fence and Dad. With the experience of hundreds of thousands of hits, my mind could instinctively compute the flight path of a ball and I sensed danger. This screaming line drive made right for the back of his head like a sniper shot. I stood frozen in terrified amazement and listened for the hollow pop of tennis ball on hard skull. The impact knocked his head forward. He turned to me with a disbelieving face.

“Water break,” I said, ignoring the calamity. I walked to the net post where we kept the cooler. I’d had a few sips before he took his first steps toward me. I knew it would be bad so I drank what I could before he reached me.

He grabbed the water from my hand and threw it over the hedges in a motion that was spasmodic with anger. He kept his voice weirdly even as though if he could control his voice he could control me. “Get back on the baseline.”

“I need a break. I’m getting tired and playing sloppy. I don’t want to practice sloppy.”

“Get back on the baseline.” This time with an even voice but through gritted teeth.

“Two minutes break,” I said.

He turned from me ninety degrees for a moment and when he turned back his face had reddened and contorted into a berserk version of my father with fury and force, the kind of power that gives humans the desperate and inhuman strength to lift a car or break a wall. In a voice like a passing express train he yelled, “Get back on the baseline.”

So I did. In a typical practice a player might hit a thousand balls. In ninety-plus degrees, that’s a good practice. Before the yell, I’d hit five hundred. I hit five hundred more after the yell and the length of my baseline was a puddle of my own sweat. I lay down my racket and started to take off my shirt which had long ago absorbed the maximum of sweat.

“Put your shirt back on.”

“Dad, it weighs ten pounds.”

“Put it on. You’re match training. You don’t play topless tournaments.”

“I don’t play tournaments like this either. I’d change shirts. At least let me put on a dry shirt.”

Reasonable. But he’d already issued a command and that mattered more than reason. He wouldn’t change commands on my suggestion. “Keep that shirt on.” The ball machine pumped balls down my backhand side.

“Jesus,” I said under my breath and I stood, enjoying a few moments not shuffling my feet into position and ripping ground strokes. Four more balls passed. Twelve seconds.

“You’re wasting my time and yours,” he said. “You have three more balls to get that shirt back on and play.”

“Dad.” Futile protest.

“One,” he said. Three seconds later, “Two.”

“Dad.”

“Three,” and he started walking to my side of the court in the same deliberate and resolute way he’d done earlier.

I fanned the shirt out and started my arms through. It was hard to pull over me because it was so wet. I saw the facial tics as his inner berserker wrestled into control. I got my head through the collar right as he squared up in front of me. That just gave him something to grab on to.

At that age I weighed about ninety pounds, just more than a third of Dad. He took two fists full of shirt and jerked me off the ground above his head and walked me back against the court fence and leaned into me, making the fence bow out, keeping eye contact the whole way.

From my earliest years he wouldn’t tolerate slacking off, complaints, and certainly not talking back. No kid stuff whatsoever. My fits of youth were broken as he would break a racehorse. When I felt my own rage, he wouldn’t allow the expression of it.

“You keep that goddamn shirt on and play. I am sick and tired of you not listening. I swear to God, Anton, if you waste one more second of my time out here I will smack you.” All the while he pushed me deeper into the fence and I felt the diamond shapes of the wire digging into my skin.

“Okay,” I managed, terrified. For the first time scared of a real beating.

He put me down and we played on. Five hundred more balls which was of course too much, too long to be out there, but I realized later that he felt some guilt at having been so physical with me and wanted to put time between that moment and when he next spoke to me.

At the end of the five hundred balls he said, “Okay, come on up, let’s get some water.”

We met halfway at the net where I drank water fast, so my stomach hurt. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled my little body into his mass. “You’re one hell of a player,” he said. We were both sweaty messes. “One hell of a player.” He kissed the top of my head. Then he knelt down in front of me and held my face in both his hands. “You have a great attitude and you’re working hard and I’m going to be there with you the whole way. You’re going to be one of the truly great players and I love you very much.”