Sport

“True love is the only heart disease that is best left to ‘run on’–the only affection of the heart for which there is no help, and none desired. [...] The course of free love never runs smooth.  I supposed we have all tried it.”
- Mark Twain’s Notebook

The year was 2009.  It was winter and as cold as one would expect the Alps to be.  I sat at a payphone in the lobby of my dormitory and had a steady stream of water works drip-dropping out of my eye-holes.  And dammit, they wouldn’t stop.

Earlier, I headed down to Salzburg’s Hauptbahnhof to get change.  I had a twenty Schein and was willing to trade it in for coins.  It wasn’t a long walk, I lived right next door, but the weather didn’t make it any shorter.  The rain drops had no idea either whether they were supposed to be rain or ice or snow.  Whatever they were, they made halos around all the lights as if by some cosmic joke the world was blessed.  And dammit, it was.

The trains made a sound like a sax playing a scale when starting to roll down the tracks.  The walk over the bridge was made pleasant by this odd occurrence.  It fooled me the first couple of times I walked over that bridge.  I stared at the windows of neighboring apartments and down at the streets and sidewalks searching for this lone saxophone player.  And dammit, he wasn’t there.

The man at the kiosk wouldn’t give me change unless I bought something.  I bought a tiny bag of Milka and told him I wanted coins and lots of them.  So he did.  Not exactly 20 € worth but near it.  My pants drooped under the weight.  I jingled-jangled back up the bridge and clink-clunked the way down.  This time no saxophone.  Only brakes.

Now I found myself at the beginning of the story.  Dropping coins in the slot.  Calling the USA.  Explaining I had been try to call earlier and that I was Steven’s son.  Yeah, the youngest one.  I explained this to my great-uncle’s wife.  She warned me that he might not remember me.  I assured her that was O.K..  I wanted to talk to him anyway.

My Great-Uncle Harry was just that, great and my uncle.  He was a genuine, kind, caring man.  And he wasn’t ever bitter about life or how it turned out.  He and my grandfather were dumped in an orphanage as children and they both served in World War II.  He came back blind in one eye from the cabin pressure.  He came back and worked honest, decent jobs.  He was a father, grandfather in the years that followed, and an uncle.  He did things his brother never would have supported.  He supported the ACLU.  My grandfather was of the mind to believed children were like dogs and pedigrees got breed with pedigrees.  My brother and I were mutts in his eyes.

My Uncle didn’t care one iota if I was a mutt or Great Dane.

He treated me, like I imagine he treated anyone else, with respect.  He smiled a lot.

He bought me a “golfer’s” hat, because I wanted one (because he wore one).  I still wear those damn things.

The nice thing about that call, given all the tears and my heart breaking, was that he remembered me.  He called me by name, asked me if I remember us getting french food when I was a kid.  And dammit, I did.  He always called me “Sport”.  Maybe he called everyone that.  I don’t know.

I was running out of change and told him so.  I told him I’d call back in a day or so.  He said, he’d enjoy that.  Uncle Harry told me he enjoyed the letter I sent him a few months earlier.  I told him I’d send him another one.  He said, he’d enjoy that very much.  “Dammit, Uncle Harry, I sure do love you,” I said.  “Well, Sport, I sure do love you, too,” Uncle Harry said.  “I won’t forget it, and neither will you.”

Damn, damn, damn, I cried.

I still do.

I wrote him a letter.  I know he got it.  His wife told me that much.

I found out a few days later that he had died.  He wrote me a letter, too.  I never got it.  I never asked to see if he ever sent it or if anyone knew where it was.

When I found out, I had just stepped in from having drinks with some friends.  I was a bit drunk.  I read the email from Grandmother.  I called my mom instead of my dad, Harry’s nephew.  I told her I loved him and that it really hurt.  And dammit, it did.

It still does.  Numbed a bit down but still painful.

I turned off the lights and sat between my bed and desk.  I cried.  I made noises like a seal barking.

It’s the saints in our lives, a kind word, a kind gesture, love instead of ugliness or hate, charity of friendship when you have nothing left to give that really makes life worth living.

Love as always,

Sport

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