When I was a kid, I was a dreamer. I'd rather dream about doing something than actually do it. I'd fantasize about being a great baseball player, but wouldn't bother practicing to actually become one. Ethan would hound me to play catch or take batting practice, or anything that would in some way improve my play, and l'd decline.
Then I'd slip outside without anyone noticing and it'd be the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 of the World Series with two outs, bases loaded, my team down by three runs, and me at the plate.
An excerpt from I knew I had to play it cool or I'd look like an idiot, so I acted like I was just moseying around the yard, taking it all in - stopping to smell the roses, as any ten year-old boy is want to do. I could see a diamond laid out in my mind, and heard thousands of fans in the stands chanting my name. I'd grab whatever stick was lying around and approach home plate, swinging my bat as if I didn't have a care in the world while casually looking to make sure nobody else was watching. Once I determined nobody was on to me, I’d focus on the upcoming pitch.
The same thing happened every single time once the pitch was delivered, as it never occurred to me to create some dramatic storyline - I never struck out to lose the game and then spent the entire off-season in agony, haunted by the defeat only to come back the next year for redemption, thus making the home run that much more dramatic. Hell, I never even fouled a few balls off; I was much too eager to be the hero, and besides, I had to orchestrate the entire production without anyone catching on, so time was of the essence.
But it was the home run trot that was my magnum opus, not the home run itself - swinging a stick in the air was easy; disguising an outlandishly drawn-out trot that anything more than a glance could easily tell was some jackass running around bases meant I'd have to be incredibly clever. I'd start easing my way towards first base, jogging slowly while pretending to be looking for something in the yard. Meanwhile, the crowd was going crazy - cool guys wanted to hang out with me, and every girl in the stands or watching on television throughout the country was swooning. I'd make it to first base and stop, pretending I'd seen something on the ground, swatting at the grass while looking all around. Seeing the coast was clear again, I'd start moving towards second base, maybe this time loudly muttering "what the..?" as if I'd spotted something out of sorts, as opposed to just being some idiot kid in the middle of the world's most ridiculous home run trot. This went on until I had triumphantly crossed home plate, which was about twenty minutes after I'd swung the bat.
Instead of play-acting like I was at a goddam tea party I should've just torn off around the bases, since some kid running around wouldn't have been noteworthy at all, and certainly wasn't as creepy as one casually milling about the backyard. The whole drama would've been all over with in about ten seconds, and hell, it turned out my family knew what I was doing the entire time anyway. My brother always caught on to what I was doing, and after pointing it out to my parents, they'd all have a good time laughing at how stupid I looked, struggling so hard to play it cool during my grand per-formance. I don't blame them, and to exactly nobody's surprise my brother went on to be a much better baseball player than me, having actually been playing baseball instead of prancing about the yard like a goddam idiot.
And a cover of The New Yorker from 1949:
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