My mother always claimed that my father could fix anything except a broken heart. She may have misjudged.
Born during the Great Depression with a deformed right arm he couldn’t raise past his ear, my father compensated for his inability to play games or fight wars by channeling his immense energy into building homes and repairing machines. As you can imagine, he wasn’t thrilled when I became obsessed with a variety of sports that involved running and balls. I often had to walk several miles to Little League Baseball practice. And in the dozens of football games I played during high school, my father attended just one.
The lone exception to my father’s aversion to sports was that, occasionally, I could convince him to shoot games of H-O-R-S-E. I was never much of a basketball player. But on our lopsided goal, which was 2 inches low and sloped slightly south, I was unstoppable, often sinking the most uncanny turnaround jumpers from 18 feet away. My father, with only one good arm, had just one decent shot in his arsenal: a long winding left hook that would either bank in with great authority or sail into my mother’s flower garden. I could defeat my father at will (and in just five shots) if I took five jump shots from the south side of the rim. But I loved playing with him so much that what I did was con my father into another game, and another, by allowing him to keep contests close. “You have to win by two letters,” I would claim the moment he edged ahead. “This game might never end,” he would groan as I knotted the score. “Maybe not,” I would laugh as I clanked an ill-advised runner off the north side of the rim, which led my father to accuse me of throwing the game. To which I would just shrug.
Sometimes I did lose on purpose. On those occasions, I would quickly shout “Rematch!” before my father returned to his work. Only by missing (and risking defeat) could I force my father to take breaks I was sure he could use. Sometimes I’d make wagers I knew he wouldn’t refuse: “I’ll clean the barn if you win,” “I’ll split a cord of firewood,” “I won’t ask you to play again for a year.” Only by offering such enticements could I fool my father into believing I was a man of honor and, somewhat dishonorably, lure him into my trap. And if my father lost? Well, he would simply have to play one more game with his son.
In these ways, our private series continued for weeks, months and years. Our battles were living things, ever-evolving, and they went on much longer than my father likely anticipated or claimed he wished to play. Though he’d never admit it, I know he enjoyed these interruptions from his toil and worry because my parents were under constant financial strain for most of my childhood, often on the brink of foreclosure. Their late-night conversations seeped through my bedroom wall, carrying stress and sadness and fear. But my father seemed to forget his troubles for a time while we shot hoops on a bent rim on our Appalachian farm — even after my mother called us a third time for dinner, even after it was too dark to see.
It’s now 30 years since my father’s death (and the sale of our farm). As Father’s Day approaches, it occurs to me that though my father has been gone for more years than we had together, our relationship continues to evolve, strengthen and grow as we remain out there on that farm in Marshall, on land I will forever own in my mind. In my living breathing imagination, we rattle the most beautiful baskets while I’m gifted not only with pained grimaces, but also a fair amount of sly grinning that accompanies the willingness of a one-armed man to be duped. And despite my late mother’s claim, it’s this memory that fixes me now.
Robert McGee grew up in Marshall and currently lives in Asheville. He’s written for The Los Angeles Times, The Sun magazine, Blue Ridge Outdoors and many other publications. A slightly different version of this piece previously appeared in the Christian Science Monitor.
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