Kansas City Royals (29-35) vs. Houston Astros (27-39)
MMPUS

SCHEDULE
Monday June 18 – 7:05 pm
Tuesday June 19 – 7:05 p.m.
Wednesday June 20 – 1:05 p.m.

(All games on Fox Sports Houston)

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I remember the day my father was put in the ground.  There’d been a funeral earlier in the afternoon, and it was a little odd in a way.  He had died several days before, in a VA hospital out in San Antonio, and had been cremated already, as was his desire.

My brother Colin had to drive out from Houston to pick up my father, or what was left of him. By then he was occupying in a small wooden receptacle, about the size of a cigar box.  Colin took possession of the old man at the funeral home, signed him out or whatever, and then tossed him in the back seat of the BMW and headed home, back through Houston, back to Beaumont beyond.

My brother said it was a little awkward at first, riding along IH-10 with the old man in a box in the back seat.  But pretty soon he got used to it, and before long he found they’d fallen into conversation. There was a lot to discuss, because my dad had essentially cut himself off from the rest of the family twenty years earlier.  Since then my youngest brother John had maintained some contact with him.  I only talked to him twice in that time, on the phone, and I doubt seriously he had any recollection of what we discussed, or even that we had talked at all.

Colin had not spoken to him even once in that time; and out of all of us, Colin had been closest to my dad when we were growing up.  They spent a lot of time together hunting and fishing.  John had always been more distant, I don’t think by choice.  John was the youngest, five years behind Colin.  And I think my dad had pretty much lost interest in any more kids by the time John came along.

I was basically the opposite.  As the oldest son, I’d been doted upon, even spoiled a little, maybe.  My dad had big plans for me.  The only problem was, I was nothing like him.  And while I loved him – he was my dad – I didn’t really like him, as a person.  I mostly thought of him as a sort of combination between some tragic figure out of Shakespeare, and a buffoon.  Not really a Falstaff, though he certainly had Falstaff-ian qualities.  Anyway, I loved him, but I did not like him very much; and I did not often take him seriously at all.  At times, as a kid, I used to wonder who my real dad was.  Not this guy, couldn’t be.  As my dad began to face the realization that his anointed firstborn didn’t idolize him, and really didn’t want much to do with him – around the time I’d hit my teens, I think – he began distancing himself from me, slowly but surely.  I could feel it.

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PITCHING MATCHUPS
Monday
Jonathan Sanchez (L) 1-2, 5.93 vs. J.A. Happ 4-7, 5.33

Tuesday
Luke Hochevar (R) 3-7, 6.27 vs. Wandy Rodriguez 6-4, 3.35

Wednesday
Vin Mazzaro (R) 3-1, 2.57 vs. Jordan Lyles 1-3, 5.50

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My dad had nearly died three years before.  He’d had a heart attack or something, and had fallen into a coma.  His doctor called each of my brothers and I, and broke the news.  “Get out here as quickly as you can,” he’d said.  So we did.  At the time John and I lived in Beaumont, so we’d set out, picked up Colin in Kingwood, and headed west to San Antonio for our first brotherly road trip in many years.

One would think this trip would have been far more somber and reserved than some of our storied excursions of the past – an alcohol- and drug-fueled crime spree to Jacksonville Beach, FL back around 1978 comes to mind; or any number of drunken forays into South Texas and Mexico, back when that sort of thing was still a relatively safe recreational activity.  One would have thought the prevailing mood for this one would have been more quiet, and reflective.  But, it wasn’t.  Oh, there wasn’t as much out-and-out substance abuse as in the old days; but as we moved west out of Houston – around Katy, I guess – we gradually eased into the dynamic that had always defined the interaction between my brothers and I … sarcastic and humorous, sometimes roughly so; general smart-assitude; and an all-purpose attitude of “fuck it” toward all life’s big and small questions, and pretty much everything else, as well.  We were headed out to San Antonio to watch the old man die, and we were laughing and having a great time, the whole way.

We went to the VA hospital as soon as we got into town, and there the mood became a bit more somber.  My dad was in a private room, lying still in a bed with railings all around him, hooked up to a gazillion tubes and wires and shit.

The old man was what you call your ‘Black Irish’, and he had maintained a full head of jet black hair into his sixties, at least.  But when I saw him in bed in a coma that day, he was 74 years old and half dead, and he’d gone entirely gray.  It was shocking to me.  It had been years since I’d seen him at all, and the mental picture of him I’d been carrying around with me was from his younger, better days.

An interesting sort of dance went on whenever my brothers and I were in that hospital room that week.  Usually a doctor or a nurse would hover on the periphery, probably studying the complex family dynamic playing out in front of them.  After looking at my dad the first time, I tended to stay on the opposite side of the room from the head of the bed.  I guess I’d seen all I wanted to.  John mostly stood at the foot of the bed, and looked down at the old man with a perplexed look.  Colin stood at the head of the bed for the most part, talking to my comatose father, dripping his tears down onto the old man’s bedsheets.  Colin had been closest to my father in our youth, and the most estranged from him in our adulthood.  Many years ago, my dad had drunkenly called his house several times and left some really nasty messages on the answering machine for Colin and his wife and children; and my brother finally just wrote him off.

Now he was obviously the most affected of the three of us at the old man’s condition.  When I thought about that, it made sense to me.  But it did not make it any less sad.  I think I will remember the image of my forty-something brother, leaning over the bed rail and talking animatedly to this nearly lifeless shell of our dad, crying and showing it pictures of his children during various stages of their childhoods … I think I will remember that for a long, long time.

We hung around out there for several days.  The VA doctor, a really nice guy, insisted there was no way my dad would emerge from the coma.  His heart and lungs were kaput, there just wasn’t enough left to sustain him.  But my dad just wouldn’t die; and eventually the real world of families and jobs beckoned us back to home.  So we left the old man on life support, with instructions to unhook him when it appeared to be truly pointless not to.  It was about a week later that Colin called and said they’d disconnected the old man from life support, and a few hours later he’d emerged from his coma and started barking orders at the VA staff.  Then he called Colin and asked him to come back out and pick him up and take him to his house in Medina.  Colin did, and my dad lived three more years, smoking and drinking and doing legal consulting.  He didn’t change his lifestyle at all.  I think he was on bonus time, grace of God time, and I think he knew it.  So why fucking clean up his act now?  I guess I could understand that sort of logic.

When he fell sick again and was put back in the hospital in San Antonio, it was a few days before we found out.  This time the VA staff there waited until he was dead for sure, before calling family out again.

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INJURIES
Kansas City

Houston

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There was a surprisingly large turnout for the funeral. At least, I thought so. My father had at one time been a well-known and well-thought-of attorney in town, specializing in maritime and railroad law.  But he’d eventually imploded – personally and professionally – and had been gone from Beaumont for thirty years. Still, a lot of his old colleagues turned out, and as most of them usually did when I bumped into them around town, they fell into telling stories about the old man in his glory days.  Groundbreaking legal ploys he’d come up with in service of his clients, pioneering defense strategies and shit.  His big clients back then were the Mobil Oil foreign fleet, and Kansas City Southern, among others.

There was one case I heard about more than once, where a seaman had been washed overboard off of a Mobil tanker, and his family had sued for millions, for wrongful death. My father used a defense strategy that included a rogue wave theory, and got a zero verdict. I don’t think it was even proved at the time that rogue waves actually existed – this was the mid-1970s – but the old man apparently convinced a jury they did.

In an interesting twist, it turns out during the trial, against their own attorney’s wishes, Mobil had offered a low-ball settlement to the plaintiff’s attorney, who turned it down. Following the trial, the plaintiff’s family found out and sued their attorney for malpractice.  He hired my father to defend him.  Which he did do, successfully.

Anyway, there was a nice turnout for the funeral, but by the time we got to the cemetery, it was mostly family.  My brother had handled most of the arrangements, and I suppose to save money, he arranged for a military funeral.  My father had served in the army during the Korean police action.  Anyway, there was a color guard, and a 21-gun salute, and “Taps”, and a local guy who played bagpipes, I guess in honor of my father’s Irish heritage.

It was nice and all; but the whole time I was feeling it was all vaguely bogus. The old man was very un-military.  He’d served all right – and for years, when we were kids, he let us think he’d been on the front line, dodging bullets.  But he wasn’t.  He never even left the U.S.  He was attached to an entertainment unit out of Fort Benning, I believe.  He produced radio and TV shows for the Armed Forces Network. The thing is, my dad wasn’t particularly upset when we found out the truth. He had a sardonic sense of humor about it all. And out of all the eventful things that happened in his eventful life, I doubt if his military service was even in the Top 50 on his list of most interesting or impactful occurrences.

But he’d got free medical treatment out of it, after he got sick, and now a full-blown funeral.  I suspected that somewhere, he was smiling about that.

The whole ceremony had been somber and respectful.  Then, between the second and third volley of the 21-gun salute, in the silence, we all heard the loudest and most profane expletive imaginable ring out clearly, from the military guard.  It turns out that one of the gunmen had a hot cartridge eject from his rifle and hit him in the eyeball.

“Jesus Christ!  Motherfucker!” the guy yelled out, clearly.  None of us knew what had happened, and I was startled at first. But it occurred to me right away it was kind of humorous, this profanity injecting itself into the quiet of the ceremony. I turned around to make sure the sheer shock of it hadn’t caused my Aunt Helen to go into cardiac arrest.  It hadn’t; but in the process of checking, I caught a glimpse of my brother John, who was looking down at the ground and sniffling. One might have thought, in the context, that he was suppressing tears; but I knew better.  He was trying not to laugh out loud, and I turned away quickly before our eyes met and we would both lose it.  Then I glanced over at Colin, and he was already looking at me. And that was it. I started laughing; so much so eventually, I really was in tears. At that, both of my brothers, and some of their kids, then a couple of my uncles, started laughing, too. Pretty soon, most of the funeral party was … and I knew, for damn sure, the old man was loving it, wherever he had ended up.

Thankfully, the color guard guy wasn’t seriously hurt. Afterward, he handed me the flag from my dad’s ceremony tri-folded, and he’d stuck some of the cartridges from the salute into the folds of it. I apologized for the laughing at his expense, and explained in short-hand how fitting his profane outburst had been, and I thanked him for it. I think he was relieved at our reaction, and said if he’d known my dad, he would probably have liked him. I told him that, yes, he probably would have.

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PROMOTIONS

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My sons took me out to eat for Father’s Day.  They said we could go wherever I wanted, and I opted for a sandwich and salad from a local deli. It was cheaper than some fancy place, and I was fine with it. I was trying to take it easy on them, for one thing. Their mom had just had a birthday, and made them take her to Carraba’s for steak Marsala, or something like that.

The Father’s Day meal was fine but, really, I could not even tell you what I ate. The best part of it for me was just watching my two sons. I get an inordinate amount of joy, just from seeing how they move through the world with such ease and style.  They are different – the 19-year-old is outgoing and social, and always has a million things on his agenda. The 15-year-old is more reserved, and introspective. But that is deceptive, in a way – he shares his brother’s ease and comfort in social situations, and he has many friends.  I like to think they both do so well because they are secure, and comfortable with themselves. Both have complex senses of humor, and a fine eye for the absurd, and are quick to laugh in most situations.

I look at them with enormous pride.  Neither is perfect, but I wouldn’t change anything.  And I can hardly take all the credit for the way they’ve turned out, but it is Father’s Day, and you know what?  I am taking some credit.  They are easily the best thing I have ever done, or ever will do. My friends and family say that whenever they come up in conversation, my mood brightens noticeably. I don’t doubt it at all.

I recently took a picture of the two with my phone, when we were out eating somewhere. I sent it around to friends and family, and by far the predominant response I got was that my boys together very much reminded everyone of my brother Colin and I, when we were the same age.  It was uncanny, they said. My best friend, who has known me forever, said it startled him when he first saw it. “It’s you and CJ (Colin), all over again,” he said.

I started wondering if my father ever looked at my brothers and I with anything approaching the amount of pride and joy I have when looking at my sons. My brothers and I had and have a similar sort of interaction with each other as my boys do – sarcastic and sometimes rough humor, a lot of laughter, a sense of the absurd. I wonder if my dad ever looked at us and thought, Damn, I did good. I love the way they are. And I’m taking credit, dammit, whether I deserve to or not.

I wonder if he ever thought that about us. We judged him harshly at times, when he was alive. I can’t speak for my brothers, but sometimes I feel like it is only now that I am beginning to give him a break, the benefit of the doubt. I wonder now if he loved us more than we thought he did. More than we knew, or were able to know.

Several weeks after his funeral, John sent me a .jpg of the plaque that had been placed on my father’s grave. Just a small brass plate, flat to the ground, with his name, dates, and a brief record of his military service.  That’s it.  All the craziness and achievement and sadness and pain in his life, all the eventfulness, all of it … reduced to a 6 x 8 plaque lying flat on the ground, in a cemetery full of eloquent stones. If someone happens upon that plaque and reads it, they will have absolutely no sense of who or what my father was, what he achieved, how spectacularly he failed. They will have no idea.

I remember being a little sad when I received that picture from my brother, realizing just how quickly my father had been reduced to almost nothing, in death. For some reason, as I sat watching my own two sons at lunch, after awhile I thought a little bit about the ashes of my dad, lying almost unknown under their little plaque, out there in the graveyard somewhere. The thought that no one would know what he had once been made me a little sad. But today it hit me what the greatest sadness was. My old man has been gone five years now, and already I can hardly remember him. He is receding from me, quickly, and at some point I’ll only be able to grasp a memory I have built in my mind, second-hand. I won’t be able to really remember him at all.  My own father.

These two boys of mine don’t know anything about that. They are full of the joy and excitement that comes from being young, and having everything in front of them. Including, right in front of them, a dad who loves them immensely and takes tremendous, ridiculous pride, just in the kind of people they are turning out to be.

I don’t know what my greatest fear has been up to this point, in the lonely hours when I am alone with myself, and have to face my fears. Perhaps it has been a fear of failure, or the fear of inadvertently and irreparably wounding someone I love dearly. I don’t know … I do know what my greatest fear will be, from now on. I will fear that one day my boys won’t be able to remember me. That somehow, when I am gone, they will lose a sense of me, and of who I was, and of how much I loved them. I’ll fear that one day, they will set off to find me, maybe on a Father’s Day in the distant future.  They will search for me, and search for me, and then eventually give up; realizing finally that I am forever gone, lost and adrift on a tiny brass plaque, out in a vast sea of stones.

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Astros win the series, 2-1.

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