by Brian Doyle
But he glared and roared and we escaped into the hedge
Riven with tunnels and lairs that only we knew, and it’s
That moment in the lurk of the hedge that I want to sing
Here for a moment. We huddled, panting, at the second
Turn, under the iglooish canopy of the forsythia bushes.
I had the rope, and my next brother had our kid brother,
Actually holding him by the hand, and we were smiling
And thrilled and frightened and sunlight rippled through
The tiny yellow flowers of the bushes and not far away
A robin inquired as to just what was all this hullabaloo?
You were there too, remember, in your childhood cave,
The moist soil, the laboring beetles, the unwritten poem
Of the lost leaves, the duff, the thin spidery bones of old
Twigs. Once in a while we all stopped sprinting and just
Stared at what was there all around us, the wealth of dirt,
The sudden green feather about to adorn its second wild
Animal, the tender next minute waiting for us to emerge.
.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama,* Manifestation of Chenrezig, Bodhisattva of Compassion,
Stops the Car Along the Road
to Watch Children Play Soccer
And remembers playing soccer himself long ago,
In Taktser, or Roaring Tiger, in northeast Tibet,
Or what used to be Tibet, he thinks darkly, but he is
Too tired to be exhausted, and too used to laughter
To sink into a sometimes-very-welcome-despond,
And too interested in the game to miss the moment
Unfolding as a lean lanky girl breaks from the pack
And bears down on the goalkeeper and fakes once
Twice and then lashes a howling shot to the upper
Right corner and the goalie leaps and flails and
The shot just misses and His Holiness clambers out
Of the car to applaud both the shot and the near-save.
The children turn to see who is clapping but he’s no
One they know and no one’s dad so they ignore him.
He leans against the warm flank of the car. The driver
Gets out too and lights a cigarette. The game resumes.
Neither man speaks for a moment. The sun is warm.
One day four men came to visit, says His Holiness.
I was asked to choose between two rosaries. I did so.
Then I was asked to choose between pairs of eyeglasses.
I was asked to choose a staff. I did these things. Then
They asked my parents if they might search my body
For the eight holy marks. When they were finished
Examining me they conferred among themselves.
Out behind our house my friends were playing soccer.
They were calling for me to come and play the game.
Lhamo! they called, Lhamo! The men were solemn.
They bowed to my father and my mother, and one man,
The oldest of them, said, We have found Avalokitesvara.
Lhamo! my friends kept calling. Bring your fast feet!
He is Tenzin Gyatso, the Ocean of Wisdom, said the man.
Also bring your ball because Sonam the idiot lost his ball!
He is Yeshe Norbu, the Wish-Fulfilling Gem, said the man.
Lhamo! If you do not come soon you have to be goalkeeper!
He is Jetsun Ngawang, the Holy Compassionate One,
Said the man, and he made a sign and everyone knelt,
Even my father and mother. For a moment no one spoke,
So I figured they were done with the matter at hand,
And I smiled to think of the game to come, because my
Ball loved the goal, but then the man said, He is Kundun,
The Presence, and everything was different ever after.
* In May of 2013, His Holiness the Dalai Lama visited the University of Portland. As a security team inspected an incoming crowd of five thousand, U.P.’s Brian Doyle was enjoying the quiet in an anteroom lined with cases full of athletic trophies. A Tibetan monk wandered in. Drawn to the trophies, he asked BD, “What have these men and women done to merit golden shrines?” BD explained that they were athletes, the monk and writer discovered a shared love of sports, and within seconds they began arguing over whether soccer or basketball is the superior game. Though BD was delighted by the monk’s resounding laugh, hoop is hoop and Brian is Brian: when the monk remained hoop-proof, BD tossed a word at him. Comparing four accounts of this moment, two of them Brian’s own, there was controversy over whether the word was “pal,” as in Hey listen, pal!, or “bub,” as in Hold on there, bub! But there is no controversy over the fact that, soon after he hurled the word, an entourage of monks and secret service filed in, the monks reverently encircled BD’s antagonist, and Brian realized he’d been hammering like a barroom sports junkie on the most revered spiritual figure of our time. The aftermath of the debate was positive for both men. Having been buried in honorific titles since early childhood, His Holiness seemed delighted to be a “pal” or “bub” long enough to be hammered on over sports. And Brian was so moved by the depth of the compassion hero’s love for soccer that he opened up his capacious imagination, and the following Tibetan folk tale was born.
Two on Two
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I rambled through thickets of brawny power forwards and quicksilver cocksure guards and rooted ancient centers, trying to slide smoothly to the hoop, trying to find space in the crowd to get off my shot, trying to maneuver at high speed with the ball around corners and hips and sudden angry elbows, the elbows of twenty years of men in grade school high school college the park the playground the men’s league the noon league the summer league, men as high as the seven-foot center I met violently during a summer-league game, men as able as the college and professional players I was hammered by in playgrounds, men as fierce as the fellow who once took off his sweats and laid his shotgun down by his cap before he trotted onto the court.
I got hurt, as most everyone does eventually; I got hurt enough to quit; back pains then back surgery then more surgeries; it was quit or walk, now I walk.
The game receded, fell away, a part of me sliding into the dark like a rocket stage no longer part of the mission. Now I am married and here come my children: my lovely dark-haired thoughtful daughter and three years later my squirming twin electric sons, and now my daughter is four and my sons are one each, and yesterday my daughter and I played two on two against my sons on the lovely burnished oak floor of our dining room, the boys who just learned to walk staggering like drunken sailors and falling at the slightest touch, my daughter loud lanky in her orange socks sliding from place to place without benefit of a dribble but there is no referee, only me on my knees, dribbling behind my back and trick-dribbling through the plump legs of the boys, their diapers sagging, daughter shrieking with glee, boys confused and excited, and I am weeping weeping weeping in love with my perfect magic children, with the feel of the bright-red plastic tiny ball spinning in my hands, my arms at home in the old motions, my head and shoulders snapping fakes on the boys, who laugh; I lean long for a loose ball near the dining room table and shuffle so slowly so slowly on my knees toward the toy basket a mile, a hundred miles, eight feet away, my children brushing against my thighs and shoulders like dreams like birds; Joe staggers toward me, reaches for the ball, I wrap it around my back to my left hand, which picks up rapid dribble, Joe loses balance and grabs my hair, Lily slides by suddenly and cuts Joe cleanly away, taking a couple of hairs with him as he and Lily disappear in a tangle of limbs and laughs, a terrific moving pick, I would stop to admire it but here comes big Liam, lumbering along toward the ball as alluring and bright as the sun; crossover dribble back to my right hand, Liam drops like a stone, spins on his bottom to stay with the play, I palm the ball, show-fake and lean in
to a short fallaway from four feet away, ball hits rim of basket, bounces straight up in the air, Lily slides back into picture and grabs my right hand but I lean east and with the left hand catch and slam the ball into the basket all in one motion; and it bounces off a purple plastic duck and rolls away again under the table, and I lie there on the floor as Joe yanks at my left sock, and Lily sits on my chest, and Liam ever so gently so meticulously so daintily takes off my glasses, and I am happier than I have ever been.
What Were Once Pebbles
Are Now Cliffs
I am standing in the middle pew, far left side, at Mass. We choose this pew when possible for the light pouring and puddling through the stained-glass windows. The late-morning Mass is best because the sun finally made it over the castlements of the vast hospital up the hill and the sun has a direct irresistible shot at the windows and as my twin sons used to say the sun loooves jumping through the windows and does so with the headlong pleasure of a child.
They used to be small enough to choose different sun-shot colors on the floor and jump from one color to another, my sons. They would do this before Mass and after Mass and occasionally during Mass on the way back from being blessed by Father John in the years before their own First Communions. Sometimes they would rustle and fidget impatiently in the pews, and fiddle with missals, and fold the parish newsletter into ships and trumpets, and bang the kneeler up and down, until they were arrested by the wither of the maternal glare, but then came Communion, which meant Father John bending down from his great height like a tree in a storm and blessing them with his hand as big as a hat on their heads. They loved that, and loved whispering loudly Hi Johnny! to him, which would make him grin, which they counted as a win, to make the sturdy dignified celebrant grin like a kid right in the middle of Communion!
When they were three and four years old they used to stand on the pew next to me and lean on me as if I was a tree and they were birds. Sometimes one would fall asleep and I would sense this through my arm and shoulder so that when I sat down I would be sure to haul the sleeper down safely. Sometimes they would lean hard against me to try to make me grin like Father John grinned during Communion. Once I discovered that they had conspired before Mass to lean on Dad so hard that they would squish Dad! and he would get six inches taller right there in the church!, wouldn’t that be funny? Sometimes they would lean against me just from a sheer simple mammalian affection, the wordless pleasure of leaning against someone you love and trust. But always I was bigger and they were smaller, then.
Then came years during which there was no leaning because generally they were leaning away from their parents and from the church and from authority in all its figments and forms and constitutions, and generally they sat silent and surly and solitary, even during the Sign of Peace, which distressed their parents, which was the point.
But now they are twenty and one is much taller than me and the other is much more muscular. One is lanky and one is sinewy. One is willowy and the other is burly. And the other day in Mass I leaned against one and then the other and I was moved, touched, pierced down to the fundaments of my soul. What were once pebbles are now cliffs. They are tall and strong and stalwart and charming and at the Sign of Peace people in all directions reach for them smiling. When I lean against them they do not budge and now I am the one leaning against men whom I love and trust and admire. Sometimes I lean too hard against them on purpose just to make them grin. Sometimes by chance I am the first one back from Communion and I watch as they approach, wading gracefully through the shivered colors of the sun streaming through the windows. Time stutters and reverses and it is always yesterday and today. Maybe the greatest miracle is memory. Think about that this morning, quietly, as you watch the world flitter and tremble and beam.
Last Prayer
Dear Coherent Mercy: Thanks. Best life ever.
Personally I never thought a cool woman would come close to understanding me, let alone understanding me but liking me anyway, but that happened!
And You and I both remember that doctor in Boston saying polite but businesslike that we would not have children but then came three children fast and furious!
And no man ever had better friends, and no man ever had a happier childhood and wilder brothers and a sweeter sister, and I was that rare guy who not only loved but liked his parents and loved sitting and drinking tea and listening to them!
And You let me write some books that weren’t half bad, and I got to have a career that actually no kidding helped some kids wake up to their best selves, and no one ever laughed more at the ocean of hilarious things in this world, or gaped more in astonishment at the wealth of miracles everywhere every moment.
I could complain a little here about the long years of back pain and the occasional awful heartbreak, but Lord, those things were infinitesimal against the slather of gifts You gave mere me, a muddle of a man, so often selfish and small. But no man was ever more grateful for Your profligate generosity, and here at the very end, here in my last lines, I close my eyes and weep with joy that I was alive, and blessed beyond measure, and might well be headed back home to the incomprehensible Love from which I came, mewling, many years ago.
But hey, listen, can I ask one last favor? If I am sent back for another life, can I meet my lovely bride again? In whatever form? Could we be hawks, or otters maybe? And can we have the same kids again if possible? And if I get one friend again, can I have my buddy Pete? He was a huge guy in this life—make him the biggest otter ever and I’ll know him right away, okay?
Thanks, Boss. Thanks from the bottom of my heart. See You soon.
Remember—otters. Otters rule. And so: amen.
Also by Brian Doyle
Fiction
The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World
The Mighty Currawongs and Other Stories
Chicago
Martin Marten
The Plover
Bin Laden’s Bald Spot and Other Stories
Mink River
Cat’s Foot
Poetry
The Kind of Brave You Wanted to Be
How the Light Gets In
A Book of Uncommon Prayer
A Shimmer of Something
Thirsty for the Joy
Epiphanies and Elegies
Nonfiction
Hoop
Eight Whopping Lies and Other Stories of Bruised Grace
Reading in Bed
So Very Much the Best of Us
Children and Other Wild Animals
The Thorny Grace of It
Grace Notes
Saints Passionate and Peculiar
The Grail
The Wet Engine
Spirited Men
Leaping
Credo
Two Voices (with Jim Doyle)
As Editor
The Best Catholic Writing
A Sense of Wonder
God Is Love
Ho‘olaule‘a (with Mahealani Perez-Wendt)
Acknowledgments
To you, dear readers,
This extraordinary book your hands hold was made of more than paper and ink. It was made of admiration, altruism, awe, diligence, extension, generosity. It is a promise and a prayer. It is living proof that we are wise to hold compassion as our Lodestar and to believe that energy never ever is lost and that Brian James Patrick Doyle stirred up so much love in this world that his companions gave of themselves to gather his far-flung brilliant essays from the corners of the world and tuck them in between these covers so you might now know him more as we do, with his capacious humble heart, his soaring spirited stupendous mind, his tender copious humor, his feisty unfailing faith. Of course he had his foibles, was impossible to argue with, hummed through operas and meetings, was fond of repetition and being earlier than early at airports, but it was because of his relationship with time. He was attentive to and creative with it. He didn’t hurry or worry it either. He charmed it. His greatest joy was using his to delight you
. I believe Brian had already been to heaven and back and found it irresistible not to return and restore astonishment, which is a sacrament, which is what you have just received.
To you, Brian James Patrick, for asking me to make us.
To Lily Marie, Joseph James, and Liam Robert for being muses and music for your father’s tall tales made with cinnamon and love. Each of you know how you have risen and grown and given. You are fortitude filled with life force.
To Ringo for teaching Brian what it means to love a house wolf.
To Kathleen Joan Yale for searching, typing, reading, typing, spreadsheeting, typing, permissioning, typing, all while winning the Gold Nautilus Award for Howl Like a Wolf! with Atticus on your lap and Rosario on your back, and to Vin, coming in from fieldwork so the two of you could juggle one more layer of literary largesse squeezed somewhere between dinner, bedtime stories, and elusive slumber.
To H. Emerson Blake, Mr. Chip, for enlarging the Orion offices to hold all of Brian’s essays till you can publish daily and for mastering dexterity in negotiating the negotiations of publishers, agents, editors, and innocents, for patient panache connecting all the professional threads while keeping the stunning magazine afloat, along with your bright boy Jay.
To David James Duncan for the dear, deep, witty foreword catching the hymn of him and for hearing the rhythm of Brian’s music and choreographing the harmony all while not working on your own mammoth novel and not wandering your own mountains and rivers, and to Adrian, Celia, Ellie, and your two horses, two goats, two dogs, and covey of half-pint chickens.
To Paul Lucas for agenting and fetching Little, Brown and for guiding the humble through the publishing wheel.
To Ben George for editing by not editing Brian and for securing our perfect title. To Michael Steger, for courteous contracting tenacity.
