Josh and Kurt Bevacqua
May 22, 2013
Josh and Kurt Bevacqua are now friends. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua play racquetball together and afterward grab a beer. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua watch the game and commiserate about how things aren’t the way they used to be. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua both hate all the noise at ballparks now, the constant blaring music and advertisements and T-shirt-bazooka assaults. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua fear for the future. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua fill a void in one another’s lives that’s been present for some years and that they can’t quite name. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua agree that they are lucky beyond words for the blessings that have come their way, for family, for fatherhood, and yet Josh and Kurt Bevacqua admit to one another that for some reason there are still days when life seems too much to bear, every pitch unhittable, every stick of gum tasteless, every bubble punctured. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua decide to take a day off and go to an amusement park. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua eat cotton candy and ride the rides. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua scream while flying upside down on a roller-coaster based on a billion-dollar movie franchise. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua go home at dusk exhausted, the sky growing dim but still faintly illuminated. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua shake hands and say see you tomorrow, meaning for racquetball. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua, anxious to mask the warm feelings for one another’s companionship, mock one another’s lack of racquetball skills, then one another’s sexual shortcomings, then one another’s general standing in life. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua are just kidding at first, but their words gradually grow heated, for it has been a long day and moreover a long life that has, for all its blessings, not been without disappointments. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua come to blows. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua are separated by strangers. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua thrash at the arms of the peacemakers and scream I never liked you, I never liked you, you don’t know shit about anything, you couldn’t hit water if you fell out of a fucking boat. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua go home and tend to their cut lips and scuffed fists. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua eventually let go of their rage, then their grief. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua, months later, run into one another at the racquetball facility. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua get to talking, then laughing. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua let bygones be bygones. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua play racquetball together and afterward grab a beer. Josh and Kurt Bevacqua are now friends.
Cardboard Gods 
Thank you Josh. Thank you Kurt. Thank you brave, anonymous peacemakers.
Josh, Are we gonna get a new book from you anytime soon???
Thanks, Derek
LOVE. Remember the Bevacqua-wins-bubble-blowing-contest Topps card?
d21977: Thanks for asking. I’m working on a book right now, but I’ve got a fair amount of work left to do, and then the whole publishing machinery will kick in, and it’s kind of a lumbering beast, so it might be a while yet.
I saw this note before it became an essay.Too cool! Let me know if you guys want a third for racquetball some time,
I’m not friends with any bubble-blowing, WS home run hitting, cardboard Gods…but I am friends with Mateen Cleaves, The author of “Llama, Llama, Red Pajama”, and “Jodie” from the former children’s tv show “Today’s Special”. Random, eh?