Scottie Pippen
April 14, 2015
You Are the Eyes of the World
Two
Sitting on a bench is usually an indication that the world has said No to you, not that you have said No to the world. For a long time I believed my life story was an example of the former, not the latter. My life was out of my hands. I wanted to play, wanted to be a part of things, but it wasn’t happening. This is what I told myself. It’s probably partly true. The other part is that at some point I started saying No to the world.
You can’t say No to the world when you’re a father. Well, you can, but it will cause pain. For example, yesterday I said “fucker” to my son. Perhaps a case could be made that I said it to the room within earshot of my son, that I was just swearing at the world, not at him. However, a case could not be made that, later, I muttered “shut up” to anyone but my son. He is not yet four years old.
What does any of this have to do with Scottie Pippen? Scottie Pippen was good at what he did. He had one particularly bad moment in his career, but it doesn’t deserve to define him. I’m merely poaching that moment to talk about one of the ways in which I tend toward the bench. There are a lot of ways to the bench. Trust me, I know. I’m a benchwarmer. Scottie Pippen took one of the ways in the spring of 1994. He was for that one year, in the absence of the player Larry Bird once referred to as God, the leader of the Bulls. When a big shot needed to be taken in a playoff game against the New York Knicks, Pippen’s coach called for another player to take the shot. There were 1.8 seconds left in the game. Pippen took those 1.8 seconds off. He said No to the godless world. He quit.
What caused me yesterday to say No to the world? I guess I’d have to tell you my whole life story with more honesty than I’ve previously mustered to answer that, but the immediate situation was that my son was having trouble getting to sleep. We have this elaborate, often ineffective, ritual to try to get him to sleep, and while sometimes it works OK, lately it has gone to shit again, and everyone in the house is miserable. I coauthored the whole mess, and yet I’m brimming with resentment about it. My fuse is shorter than ever. I said “fucker” when I was lying down next to my son and he flailed his body and kicked me in the head. Later I muttered “shut up” when he started to ask me a question when I was holding him and singing and dancing. This is part of the elaborate ritual—me holding him and singing and dancing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I know that however we’ve gotten to this point, to me dancing around a fairly large young boy as if he were an infant, I won’t help anything by blowing up in anger on him. But my fuse is short. In those moments I want to quit and sit down and not be a part of this anymore.
I know what it feels like to not have the play called for you. That’s how things felt for a long time in my life, and I know that my general reaction to this was to quit. To not even be a part of the action anymore. It became habitual, but it’s a habit I can’t surrender to anymore. I can’t quit now. Life no longer allows it. I’m in the game no matter what. But inside my body, my flesh, there’s that pull toward the bench. I want to sit down. I want to pout and be null and void of my own volition, so say No and watch the world from a withering remove.
To be continued.
Cardboard Gods 
My daughter is almost exactly the same age (turns four next month) and a lot of the same stuff goes on with her. She kicked me in the chest pretty hard at bedtime a few days ago lol. Sometimes you feel like you’re a bad parent but a tough toddler is a tough toddler and you just have to ride it out.