Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern Read Free Book Online

in front of an apartment where Roger was waiting. And for the next couple weeks, Roger came and practiced with us. Afterward my dad would buy us both ice cream. I told no one, because I already wasn’t the most popular kid on the team, and the last thing I needed was to be associated with Roger.
    At our second-to-last game of the season, my team played one of our better opponents. I had pitched the first three innings and kept the game close. Then Roger came in and pitched the fourth and fifth and shut them down, as we took the lead in the bottom of the fifth. In the sixth, as Roger walked out to the mound, one of the parents from the other team got up from his seat in the bleachers and stood behind the fence that was ten feet behind home plate. His name was Steve, and he was a burly guy with a large beer belly. He looked like someone Popeye would fight while on shore leave.
    Every time Roger started to throw, Steve would try to rattle him. “He can’t throw strikes, just take the pitches! He’s going to walk all of you,” Steve yelled to his son and his teammates.
    Steve shouted undercutting comments like that every single pitch to psych Roger out. And Roger kept throwing balls, each one worse than the last. Eventually, he was crying on the mound, throwing balls that were six or more feet out of the strike zone. Randy walked out to the mound and took Roger out, and when Roger sat down on the bench next to me in the dugout, he was sobbing. Randy put his kid in, and Randy’s son, also named Randy, threw just like his dad and gave up about six runs. We lost handily.
    After the game, my dad approached me and said, “Wait here with Roger. We’re giving him a ride home. But I need to take care of something first.”
    He walked over to the parking lot, where Steve was helping his son pack up his stuff. I waited about thirty seconds, then followed, even though he told me to stay, mostly because I didn’t want to hang out with Randy and Randy. They both always hugged everyone good-bye, instead of waving or giving high fives, and it crept me out.
    As I approached them, I saw my dad and Steve talking heatedly. “It’s part of the game, Sam,” Steve said.
    “Bullshit,” my dad replied.
    “Watch yourself, Sam.”
    “The kid’s dad’s a drunk. His family’s a goddamned mess, and you know that. And you’re sitting out there screaming at him, trying to rattle him like this is the goddamned Major League so your kid can win a Little League game? You’re a grown man, goddamn it. What in the hell is wrong with you?”
    At that point, Steve mumbled a few more things, then got into his truck with his son, Kevin, and drove off.
    My dad took me and Roger for ice cream before dropping Roger off. We didn’t say much on the ride home. I wasn’t exactly sure what had gone on, but I knew that my dad was angry at Steve, and I figured maybe I could make him feel better somehow.
    “I don’t like Steve either, Dad. He’s fat, and so is Kevin, and they think they’re good at stuff, but they’re only good cause they’re fat and bigger than everyone else,” I huffed.
    My dad was silent as he parked the car in our driveway. Then he turned to me. “Son, I didn’t understand one goddamned thing you just said. Take your cleats off before you get inside the house, I think you stepped in dog shit.”

On My Eighth-Grade Graduation Ceremony
    “They’re celebrating you graduating from eighth grade? We just went to your sixth-grade graduation two goddamned years ago! Jesus Christ, why don’t they just throw a fucking party every time you properly wipe your ass?”
    On Puberty
    “How’s puberty treating you?…How do I know you’re going through it? Oh I don’t know, maybe it’s the three hundred dick hairs you suddenly leave all over the toilet seat that clued me in.”
    On Asking to Have the Candy Passed to Me During Schindler’s List
    “What do you want—the candy? They’re throwing people in the fucking gas chamber, and you