Chapter 6

by Steve Hufford

Reid knew his strong endorsement of Hank’s nascent plan for Finn was exaggerated and way over the top. But he had been listening to absurd rants for some time now – every time he briefly tuned in to the US presidential election. Tawdry, Ranting, Unqualified, Mean and Petty statements had seemed to become the norm. How could they not rub off, even if just a little bit? The whole spectacle was far from “a beautiful thing” as one of the candidates so frequently put it. Though not vindictive, Reid couldn’t help wishing for complete ‘brand failure’ for the candidate whose greed and hubris led him to equate the awesome demands of the American presidency with celebrity and financial profit.

At least, Reid used his exaggeration in a good cause. First, his rant might not have been wasted at all, since Henry wasn’t the brightest guy and the strength of his message might help it stick. Second, he had always liked it when fathers and sons exercised together. It seemed that Hank and Finn would both benefit. But what really made him overstate the case was what he could see on the horizon.

A step ahead, Reid no longer trusted Stacy. He wanted to make sure that Hank and Finn were as tight as possible before the ugly custody battle ensued.

As for Hank, he didn’t sleep so well that night. Tossing and turning, the evening coffee had done him in. Not one to count sheep, nor one to pray, he tried to imagine pleasant times ahead with Finn, and how he could help his son grow to manhood. But he couldn’t sustain the image or the hopeful thoughts. He was drawn relentlessly back to prior years, his first sight of Stacy, their early years of marriage, my God how she filled a bikini, the excitement of Flinn’s birth, their hard work to stay afloat during the financial crisis, and then the sorry distance that grew between them. Layer upon layer of things said, things unsaid, and acts small and large. As the night wore on, and his thoughts continued uninterrupted by sleep, it was her recent disavowal of love for him that played like a loop, again and again.

At just nine years of age, Finn had no such problems. By the time his day was over, he eased into the rest of a well-exercised child. His morning juniors practice had been loads of fun. Cav showed them some crazy games, they did a lot of running, and then tried to land hard-hit balls in a bucket in the back corner of the court. That was kind of impossible, but Finn succeeded, for the first time ever, in hitting thirty-two backhands in a row to himself along the left sidewall. A personal best!

He loved to hear the ball smack against the front wall and then watch it arc back towards him. One bounce, and Finn could move to just where he needed to be to hit it straight again. No worries, just hitting and listening and watching and moving. He didn’t have to think about his mom and dad. Maybe they were normal anyway, and all parents were like that. He was happy in the moment. And the duration of thirty-two backhands was a nicely extended moment, a long time to feel the flow.

When the boys were drilling on court, and actually got their patterns going, Cav also liked having a moment to think. That’s why he made them wear i-MASKs or lensed eyewear at all times on court. When working with kids, it was the only way he could feel secure enough to relax. The last thing he needed was a lawsuit from some disgruntled parent whose child now had a facial scar, or, much worse, only one eye that worked. Legally speaking, Cav much preferred offense to defense.

So while the kids managed themselves, Cav’s musings that day revolved around time travel. He was developing a theory that all our problems come from living in the wrong time. The newspapers were full of stories about Americans who clearly wanted to live in the past – at least as they imagined how great things had been fifty or maybe 200 years ago. And today, that strong yearning for times past manifested itself in an abundance of racism, demagoguery, isolationism, and animosity towards fellow citizens. People who lived side by side, but in different centuries, just couldn’t seem to get along.

Politics aside, Cav was almost certain of his premise that being in the wrong time was terrible in squash. Some competitive players just couldn’t forget the error they made two points ago, and dwelled on it. They got stuck in the recent past, and to no good effect. By contrast, Cav had long ago developed his own uncanny ability on court to live about four seconds into the future. His opponents almost always found him waiting right there in the perfect spot for the ball that they just hit. Call it foresight, call it practice, call it prescience. Cav called it ‘time travel’.

Sometimes players went too far into the future. Cav remembered one of his early matches as a rising junior in New Zealand. He was playing against a seemingly non-athletic slope-shouldered chump, and all was going well. Cav was reading the patterns, hunting the volleys, cutting balls off, and guessing (sometimes actually knowing) what his opponent would think and do. But it was so easy that, during the match, Cav began to ponder his post-match dinner and the stories he would tell his buddies about the trouncing he had delivered. Cav eventually lost to that chump in the fifth. The merciless ribbing from his pals ensured he never forgot his unwarranted time travel.

But sometimes going back in time was useful, as long as you didn’t get stuck there. Whenever Cav was in a particularly tough match and found the going hard, it helped him immensely to remember the days and weeks and months past when he had drilled, trained, run and sweated in preparation for the present competition. Some brief time travel back to his preparations gave him the confidence he needed for the present and the near future.

A far more thoughtful man than he appeared to be, and because of it a far more effective hustler, Cav enjoyed showing the boys how to know what was going to happen next. Where the ball would bounce; how the path of the ball and its speed and the location of the players almost determined where the next shot was bound to go. Coaching enthusiastic and inquisitive players suited him, as did Bel Air, the club, the climate, and the whole LA area. The squash moms, most of them with a dedication to personal fitness and the wherewithal to achieve it, were just frosting on the cake. All to the good, since no one respected women more than Cav, in his own particular way.

Stacy enjoyed Finn’s times on court, too. For starters, it felt good to check the maternal duty box - done. Sometimes it was because she was surreptitiously ogling Cav from the viewing area high above the back of the court. From that angle she couldn’t fully focus on his legs and other parts of his physique that she found especially attractive, but his shoulders and fluid movement around the court were well worth watching. And the accent was always endearing.

“Yis, boys. Remimba, hit high to hit deep?”

She loved the rising pitch at the close – sounding almost like an interrogative, though he was clearly making a declarative point of one of the immutable facts of squash. She still had a thing for Kiwis like him.

Lately, though, she liked Finn’s practice hours because she was able to put the time to even better use. In fact, that particular morning’s practice may have included a personal best for her, as well. One week ahead of all the other players in the competition (just about the time required for a property survey), she had texted her work colleagues:

Good news on drones - expect bid for 1000 units. Plan for expansion!

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.