The New Sport: Beaver Shooting

Beneath the bleachers, said Tim, beavers hover like hairy space craft’s. No, scratch that, he squabbled, like coin purses.

I have never understood the oddity of a man’s mind who survived the onslaught of LSD, sixties rock n’ roll and free love — a man who “interacted” with Jesus butt-naked and stoned on a powder blue plush couch. He wore a pony tail, strummed laissez-faire harmonies on a cherry wood guitar and delighted in his son’s flailing innocence, which intrigued me.

The boy, he clapped outrageously, lives once. I’ve lived twice. 

It matters to tell you this man was right. Tim was certainly a man with two shadows, two faces, like a world torn casually by a shifting fault line. His son was suiting up for a term in Iraq, and Tim, an unashamed hippy, resented that. Once! And he stamped his feet, flipping the television to Spring Training.

I could buy a nose bleed in the seventies and slowly make my way down the corridors until finally, I was at third base, yelling ‘ ey bada bada bada ‘ to god damn Willie Stargell. Peanuts, hot dogs, beer, Tim sniffled, embodied the simple – way, the good – way. Dodger Stadium was my second home, Steve Garvey and Don Sutton my family.

Tim was a usual father. Minus the description above, he feared his boy’s future and wanted the young man to experience things as if they were the last. Mind you, during our exchange in 2008, Tim had grown disenchanted with the ‘American way’, which according to him was becoming one big colonial repeat. He’d tried for months to sway his son away from the inevitable danger of partaking in a violently fractured war zone.

A trip lay on the ledge of his boy’s fingertips for months. Rudy had cordially turned his dad down for the sake of setting a precedent. The young man, a rifle thin and chest stacked twenty – something genius, had floundered in college, rusting away bagging groceries. His usual resonate smile had down turned into a wilted frown. And while his dad pushed the boy with continual banter about baseball, and the reasons why his generation makes this pop gen look candy cane, Rudy waved away his dad’s invitation to hit every major ball park in America, with a firm stoicism.

And now, the old man strummed an old guitar singing the likes of Bob Dylan: his broken heart staggering at the round of his cotton-dry adom’s apple. Kid doesn’t know he’s missing the new sport: Beaver shooting. Shoot, I was John Wayne beneath the bleachers shooting the eye out of every one. The only difference between him and me is I shoot things tenderly; he is aiming to cock and blow a man apart. What good are we? A bunch of pricks teaching our kids violence makes things right? Then why the hell did I tell him not to knock Billy Boner a good one in the fifth grade? Should of. God damn kid gave him wedgies and wet willies every day for a month.  

How can I have the heart to inquire further about the new sport?

I, have also grown out of love with my generation. I see LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Alex Rodriguez, and drown with barf. Tim and I are one in the same, other than our thirty – plus year difference. I believed in another life that I, too, would get my chance at flying with Lucy in the Sky, above a dome full of eager eyed rock n’ rollers – the Stones on the bandstand, backing Allen Ginsberg metrical jazz – bop poems, smoke, Peet’s Dragon, breasts, and revolution. 

Life is now a collection of light bulb glowing “saviors” walking red carpets. If you scream Barry Bonds name you get yourself hog-tied by black suited secret service, questioned, abused and interrogated. You wish you cut the beard that month, but it was Movember and you couldn’t afford a razor. Despite your milk – white skin tone, Old Spice aroma and rainbow sandals, the fear is you’re either 1) the Uni – Bomber or 2) a wayward Animal Rights Activist. The reason you stuffed the half of a hot dog down your pants was because the twenty – bucks it cost you drowned your savings.

Shit was free.

Not understanding I asked Tim to demonstrate the sport known as Beaver Shooting. He begrudgingly set the guitar down and crouched beneath his rickety desk. Slowly he made his way comfortably, sat cross legged and began a make – believe re-enactment, pointing to ever hairy space craft above him. The trick is in the squint and knowing when to cock your head or not. You gotta’ be quiet too, the space ships can be crossed out quickly with a leg curl, flip over, re – adjustment and clench. The beavers are like a bunch of Chrisopher Pauls’ – sneaky SOB’s.  I quickly cut him off to let him know his name was Chris Paul, but mind you, said Tim; his full name is the name is the one his parents gave him. Christopher! Not C-Pizzle, etc. 

All of us at some point or another have sat next to a child firing bombs at a convent of crestfallen stars. Tim was like that small beady eyed kid, imagining his finger a rifle, steadying and studying his kill. I had never felt more distant, more complacent and dull at that moment.

Beaver shooting, I imagine, is the John Smith trekking over hillscapes and snow to collect fury hides. Beaver shooting is the ticker in a man’s adventurous heart, the inner – conquerer showing dominance through the skill of his hands. But what did this sport have to do with baseball and bleachers?

Believe it or not, beaver shooting I came to find is even simpler than the above. Its infatuate plunder, the humorist reconciling the cynic with a childish reminder to look up in awe at the wonder of God’s creation.

And now, said Tim, we buy floral print rugs made of zebra toe nails at Bed Bath and Beyond, buy butt implants, worship players who can’t shoot free throws, throw home from third or catch a ten – yard slant pass, without asking for more god damn money.

This is war, just another kind, Tim finished, sipping a fizzing diet coke as if it were his last, the sunlight dancing across the landmark of his pleasured lips – his parrot Peety (named after Pete’s Dragon) pissing on one leg in a swaying rusty cage.

Tim is counts the sways one after another, tapping his foot with a musician’s rhythm. A rhythm that ceased the day Beaver Shooting was replaced with a marriage certificate, IBS, anxiety disorder and his love for a son, soon headed into a wasteland of the devil’s machinery.

Son you’ll never quite know, he says with a jubilant uncontrollable laugh.

Materials needed for Beaver Shooting

– Two eyes

– An imagination

– Skirts

– Bleachers

– Horace Grant goggles

Trackbacks

1. Phantom: Jeremy Lin vs Kobe Bryant! | TrendSurfer says:

   03/22/2012 at 10:17 am

   […] Slammin’: NBA RECAP – Video Highlights & Scores from Around the LeagueSlammin’: NBA RECAP – Video Highlights & Scores from Around the LeagueFRA – All Steed can do is winRecord MocambiqueLakers vs. Mavericks Pre-Game Report: Finishing the Texas Two-StepWin a $100 Gift Voucher for Asos!International Pyrex DayThe First 7 Days Of YouDMV: Duke Ruins Gary’s Big NightThe New Sport: Beaver Shooting […]