Jesus Has Aged Out of Little League

Please, God, let Timmy get a single. Not a double. Not a triple. Just one measly grounder over second base, I beg You.

Not that it’s gonna be easy. No, I wish I could say we’re dealing with a not-to-be-denied, future-Pete-Rose hustling hunk of raw boyhood, consisting of nothing but skinned knees, scabbed elbows, black eyes, and grit. A boy like that You could grace with a home run in a heartbeat, and no one the wiser about Your intervention.

My Timmy? He’s a bigger ask: all knock-knees, stick arms, Coke-bottle glasses, Dumbo ears, two left feet, shirt stuffed into waistband, pant cuffs tucked into socks, and colored laces in his cleats. Easily embarrassed, Timmy burns to ashes if you so much as allude to his physical existence. A proper little neat freak, he’d do anything—anything in the whole wide world—to keep from farting.

But Timmy’s heart? I don’t have to tell You, since You’re all-knowing. It’s pure gold. The kind of kid who holds up a ball game to allow a centipede to cross home plate unmolested. The kind of kid who blurts out, “You know Mommy loves you, right?” at the precise moment when I’m thinking Mommy’s likely preparing divorce papers.

Just watch Timmy drag himself up to the plate and give me one last I’m-doing-this-all-for-you-Dad look. See the helmet that’s too big for his tiny head slide down over his eyes. Witness him settling his bat on his shoulder. He’s done everything we—You and me, God—have ever asked him to do.

So now it’s Your turn. I have faith that if You can rouse Lazarus from the dead, You can temporarily transform Timmy into a genuine ballplayer, if only for an instant. Like water into wine, right?

The first pitch sails past Timmy right into the catcher’s mitt.

Strike One!

OK. Fine. I’m not troubled, O Lord. Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the dugout along the first base line, I shall fear no evil. You’re by my side. Being all-seeing, You recognize that the Terriers’ present predicament (down two runs in the bottom of the eighth, runners on first and second) is dire, and we need every six-year-old on this team, including Timmy, to do his or her part, pull his or her laboring oar. Being all-hearing, You hear the opposing team’s razzing rising like cicadas on a blazing hot summer afternoon and the half-filled aluminum stands creak and groan as parents stuff their faces with boiled dogs from the concession and nervously assure one another that if they were the coach instead of me, they’d surely have put in a pinch hitter by now. (I won’t ask You to strike these parents down—turn the other cheek and all that—but if You were by chance inclined to ensure they got their just punishment for their sins, I wouldn’t shed a tear to slake their thirst and torment in the fires of Hell.)

Strike Two!

Whoa. OK. So, You’re obviously in no rush to heed me. I don’t blame You. I’m a little rusty on this whole beseeching thing. And maybe I haven’t spent as much time in Your house on Sundays as You’d like. Coveting. A little gluttony. Occasional lust. Timmy’s mother can supply You with the complete list. But don’t visit the sins of the father on the son. If You’re going to smite anyone, smite me. Timmy’s not to blame.

I recognize You’re a busy guy. You must get these petitions all the time, and there’s a universe out there to oversee. A thousand million people tugging at Your proverbial coat sleeve. Babbling in a hundred different languages, calling You different names. Likely more than a few more faithful than I.

But humility still counts for something, right? I can grovel, if that would be pleasing to the Lord. And if it’s a little name recognition You’re after, I’ll sing Your praises. I’ll be like one of those saintly shepherd girls who saw the Virgin Mary and brought the world to Guadalupe and Fatima. I’ll hammer up a shrine behind home plate and tell everyone how I asked and received.

Play ball with me, God. Let’s make a deal. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll give up the superstition and witchcraft, the baseball voodoo and black magic and reliance on lucky underwear. I’ll stand on my head. I’ll do a silly base-hit dance.

I’ll give You a minute to think it over. Win-win, am I right?

Ball One!

OK, God! Now we’re talking! Sure beats a strike.

Ball Two!

Should I get my hopes up, O Lord? I don’t want to make hasty assumptions. I fully understand that there are things in this world far more important than what happens today on this particular field of dreams. But it’s precisely because my petition is so inconsequential that I dare to ask, God. Bases loaded for Jesus, am I right?

Ball Three!

Oh, You are beautiful and just, O Lord. You are righteous in my eyes. I am down with base-hit alternatives. Walks, hit batters, whatever You got. And it’s not like I’m seeking a special favor, right? Other kids with equally unprepossessing athletic bona fides get on base all the time. Take Chandler, the team bully, who uses his outfield downtime primarily for nose picking. After every game, Chandler and Sally and the other kids high-five and chatter about their on-base percentage in the back of my SUV.

Timmy, bless his hitless heart, stays mute. What goes on in that kid’s big brain, I don’t know. But like every other boy, Timmy could benefit from being the hero just once. Or maybe I could. Doesn’t have to be the game winner. Don’t need for Chandler and Sally to hoist Timmy up on their scrawny shoulders, or Timmy to be immortalized in a clip in the hometown paper that I can keep folded in my wallet until the end of time. Though that would certainly be a nice bonus.

Let me call time. Give Timmy a little encouragement, father to son. Give You a moment to stretch those spiritual muscles. I feel your divinely inspired base hit (or walk) must now be on the proverbial on-deck circle. No doubt You’ve already set events in motion. I must open my eyes to seeing Your heavenly hand operating in new and unexpected ways.

And I get it, God, I do. A goose-egg batting average is the definition of a First World problem. Lots of kids never get base hits. Kids in Afghanistan, for example. No base hits in Kabul. And I’m sure Afghani kids grow up just fine. Well, not fine, of course. But I bet they come to terms with the lack of base hits in their lives, even if the rest of their childhood is a God-awful mess.

But I can’t wait another second, God. I can’t. I’m a weak man. A weak father. Other dads roll their eyes when, as father-coach, I pontificate about how liberating it is to paint fingernails in Day-Glo colors side by side with my son. And how watching the math team compete is like the Super Bowl, the Masters, and the World Series all wrapped up in one. The other dads just don’t know what it’s like to have a sissy son. Hell, You don’t know what it’s like to have a sissy son, either! I mean, Jesus was tough as nails (so to speak).

Wait! Rewind. I take that back. Timmy’s mother would kill me.

Not sissy. We don’t use that word anymore.

I mean a son who’s different. Sensitive. Maybe even a little special. And don’t mistake me: I’m not disrespecting the flesh of my flesh. As You’re my witness, Timmy’s perfect just the way You made him. Goofy. Self-conscious. Full of unrestrained affection and off-the-wall notions. He may not have that can-do, blood-sweat-and-tears, leave-it-all-on-the-field attitude when it comes to the Terriers’ present do-or-die predicament, but Timmy dutifully puts on his uniform both legs in one pant hole just like the next awkward kid who’s still learning to dress himself.

Be my witness, God, as Timmy and I confer next to home plate:

I say, “You da Tim-ster.”

He says, “Don’t call me that.”

“What? Timster? It’s cool. No one’s got as cool a nickname as you.”

“My name is Timmy.”

I squat down so we’re eye to eye. I reach out to mop up the excess black greasepaint smeared like Nike swooshes beneath his lower lids.

Timmy shrieks, “Don’t mess up my war paint!”

War paint. I like that.

“Eyes on the ball,” I say.

“Eyes on the ball,” he repeats.

“Lively bat.”

“Lively bat.”

“All in the wrists.”

Timmy looks at his wrists, doubtfully, and with good reason, God. They’re a little flimsy. I wrap my palms around them like cuffs to strengthen them. I want to remind him of the direness of our situation. To point at the baserunners. The scoreboard. The murmuring, glowering parents of Chandler and Sally and his other teammates.

“Gimme a nod, here, kid. Lemme know you’re hearing me.” (And while we’re at it, God, I kinda wish You’d do the same.)

“Dad, what do you want?”

“Let go and let God,” I say. “He’s watching.”

Alarmed, Timmy looks around to see who might be peering at him from the stands. I point up. Timmy looks up. His helmet falls backward off his head. We both bend to retrieve it and smack foreheads.

“Shake it off, big guy,” I say, rubbing my head where we made contact. I point at him. “Whaddya got inside there, concrete?”

He rewards me with a little smile.

“Listen, don’t you worry about me and your mom,” I say. “We’re on the same team. Except when it comes to baseball, maybe. She thinks you might enjoy something more . . . well, cerebral. Lightweight. You and I know she’s barking up the wrong tree, right? But don’t tell Mom I said she was wrong. Just between us boys, ok?”

Taking advantage of the time-out, the opposing pitcher confers with his catcher and coach, and the three of them look over at us without fear. I’m indignant. Outraged. I want to bring their blatant disrespect to my son’s attention in hopes of getting a competitive rise out of him, but the home plate centipede has more competitive instinct than Timmy.

I give his little shoulders a rude shake.

“Relax,” I say. I want somehow to signal to the boy that it’s in Your hands, without admitting that I’ve been petitioning You on his behalf.

“We’re gonna have to go to church more often,” I say.

Timmy cocks his head in confusion.

“Never mind,” I say. “I’ll explain later.”

The ump signals we’ve got to get on with the game. Timmy and I do our ritual: High five. Low five. Fist bump that explodes above Timmy’s head, a shower of confetti that’s my fluttering fingers. Tickertape. Hero-time. I swat Timmy on the tuchus, which makes him shriek.

It’s then, when I turn my back to return to the dugout, that You mess with me, God. I hear the sharp crack of a bat!

My heart stops.

But no. It’s just a foul tip on the next diamond over.

Very funny, God. Very funny.

For sure, go ahead, get your divine jollies from a loving father’s eternal torment. It only proves what they say: that You’re cruel and indifferent to human suffering.

But then, how could You possibly understand? There’s no baseball in Heaven. Nothing can make You feel small and miserable, the butt of the other kids’ teasing, the subject of Your father’s bewilderment. You don’t even have a father, God, as far as I know.

No, You have it easy. Your Son has aged out of Little League. Jesus has come out on the other side of suffering, albeit with a stab wound in his side, a few lashes, and a crown of thorns.

But my little guy? Timmy’s just starting out. What’s nothing to You or Your two-thousand-year-old Son is critical to my boy.

I don’t have to pray for Chandler. He’s already standing on third base.

I don’t have to pray for Sally. She’s got 27 RBIs this season.

Just Timmy. So, I beg You: please-please-please, don’t let him strike out. I swear I’ll never ask for anything ever again.

Or should I just shut up and put the base hit out of my mind? Stop white-knuckling the backstop mesh? Act like it’s no big deal? After all, sometimes thinking about a thing too much makes it not happen. Like a watched teakettle. And speaking of teakettles, Timmy has stepped out of the box again with his little fist on his left hip. He’s looking at something far in the distance.

Butterfly? Squirrel?

Then he turns to the plate. He mumbles something to the umpire, who bends over and dusts it off. Timmy inspects the results, finds fault, and makes the umpire do it again to his grim and particular specifications.

Lord, grant me patience to accept the things I cannot change. But above all, grant me a base hit. Or the OBP-enhancing equivalent. Mea culpa. I know it’s not PC and age-inappropriate, too much to ask of a team of six-year-olds. But I’m into winning, God. I am. I can’t help it. Winning-winning-winning.

So let’s do this. I’ll close my eyes and count to three. When I open them, You, by Your divine Grace, cause Timmy to be standing proudly atop first base, sporting a mile-wide grin and eyes shooting sparks, and pounding his puny chest twice and shouting out BOO-YAH.

Which isn’t Timmy, of course. That’s some imaginary son I don’t have. Timmy’s more likely to send the pitcher a polite engraved thank you note than celebrate his opponents’ adversity.

Which is fine. Timmy does Timmy. Truth is, I’ll be the one who won’t shut his yap singing Timmy’s praises until he wishes he could put wood upside my head to silence me and end his infernal torment.

The essential thing to understand here is symmetry, God. You’re proud of Your son. You boast as much as the rest of the dads combined. All that, Behold-my-beloved-son stuff. And yet You won’t let me have the same benefit?

Well, Timmy is my beloved son. In Timmy I am well pleased. Not that I couldn’t be incrementally more pleased, and a base hit would certainly go a long way in that regard. And to be perfectly clear, I don’t care whether Timmy’s a six-year-old budding homosexual. I just want him to be a successful and confident homosexual. And, ideally, a homosexual with an OBP north of zero.

Anything, God? Some sort of sign? No?

Can You hear a word I’m saying?  Do You even exist?

If the next pitch sails through the heart of the strike zone, I’ll have to conclude, O Lord, that Thou hast forsaken me, and thanks for nothing, You Bastard. You’ll make an atheist of me yet.

Deep breath. Sorry. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

Look, I won’t lie. I want this goddamn—pardon my French—hit as much for myself as for Timmy. Maybe more. And I know You alone can put a stop to this nonsense. You alone can relieve my suffering.

Wait! Alone? That’s it! That’s the key! Now at last I understand what You’ve been trying to get through my thick skull. It’s not You alone. It’s me! It’s You and me. You want me to be the instrument of Your grace!

“Timmy! Tim-ster!” I cry. “Here’s your chance to bring your long-suffering father a smidgen of happiness. Bunt, you little knock-kneed, stick-armed dweeb. For His sake, bunt!”

Timmy pushes back the Coke-bottle glasses with an index finger and considers my frantic signaling along the first base line as if he were studying some repulsive Amazonian insect, which, if he was a different sort of kid, would trigger both curiosity and an innate desire to crush the life from it. He shrugs me off like an unwanted curveball signal. His expression says I got this, Dad. I don’t need your help.

Which breaks my heart. Not only because Timmy’s so goddamn brave, but because Timmy doesn’t yet know how untrue what he’s thinking is. He doesn’t know how even the best, not-to-be-denied, future-Pete-Rose hustling hunk of raw boyhood has moments when he needs to crush up against his dad—moments of weakness, moments of longing, moments of loneliness. Kind of like the times I appeal to You, God—rare but absolutely necessary.

But for Timmy, today isn’t one of those needy occasions. This at-bat is already a triumph. For him. For me. For You, O Lord. Timmy and I need no more from You than what we’ve got. Whatever happens, I’m gonna show this goofy, strike-accumulating, bat-flailing, home-plate-tending, mother-whispering, zero-OBP flesh of my flesh that his father is already and always infinitely and perennially well-pleased with him. I’m gonna squeeze my little hero tight until he burns with shame. I’m gonna thank my lucky stars (and You, of course—Thy will be done) that, sinner that I am, I didn’t have to pass some sort of test to be Timmy’s father. I didn’t have to personally merit this miracle. What man could ever hope to actually deserve such a blessing as Tim?

I hereby give up my dreams and surrender, O Lord. You broke me. You struck me out.  

SCOTT POMFRET

Scott Pomfret is the author of Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir and more than fifty stories published in magazines including Ecotone, Smokelong Quarterly, and the New Orleans Review. An Emerson College MFA candidate, Scott is currently working on a comic queer alternative history novel set in antebellum New Orleans. www.scottpomfret.com.