Doc: A Memoir Read Online Free PDF Page B

they’d find.
    “Show yourself,” I heard one cop shout. “Put down your weapon and come out.” No one answered, and soon the cops were busting open the bathroom door.
    “Holy Christ!” one officer said when he saw Derrick and me on the floor. “You guys okay? Did you see anything?”
    I was too scared to answer. One of the cops, a heavyset, middle-age guy with a red, round face, crouched gently down beside us. He kept himself at a safe distance. He removed his hat as if to say, “I’m one of the good guys here.”
    He just stayed quiet for a minute.
    “I want my mommy,” I whimpered, clutching Derrick tighter. That was the best I could do. “I want my mommy. I wanna see my mommy.”
    I’m not sure if the cop realized that the woman bleeding on the kitchen floor was Derrick’s mom, not mine. “Okay, kid,” he said. “Okay. Let me see what I can do.”
    I didn’t want to leave the bathroom. It was too scary out there.
    By then, the neighbors must have been gathering on the front lawn, sorting out for the cops exactly who was who in our family. A few minutes later, my mom rushed past everyone and into the house. She saw all the blood and could only watch as her daughter was wheeled away on a gurney. “G. W.,” she said, almost spitting the letters out. She pulled Derrick and me out of there and walked us home.
    No one had to explain anything to Mom or tell her how she should respond. She just acted. She grabbed her pistol and got in her car. She drove around Tampa, looking for her evil son-in-law. She didn’t find him, which I guess is good. But I have no doubt at all in my mind: If she had, she wouldn’t have suggested an anger-management course. G. W. would have been lying in the next pool of blood.
    He was arrested a few days later and taken off to prison for a long, long time. Miraculously, Merc didn’t die from her wounds, although she would never be the same again. She still suffers from seizures and carries a bullet in her head.
    How could these things happen in the same family that was so supportive and made me feel so secure? That’s not an easy question. For along time, I buried most of these dark family memories. I took comfort from all the love I got at home, which truly was the vast majority of my experience, and I shrugged off the rest. I never wanted to dwell on the bad parts. But they must have affected me somehow. Did they plant silent seeds that grew into adult demons? Did I absorb unhealthy patterns that played out later on? Being related to all these people, did I have some genetic tendency to take reckless risks in my own life? Or is the majority of the responsibility my own? I’ve spent a lot of years trying to untangle all that. And the answer to all those questions, I am convinced, is yes. Yes, my upbringing had a huge affect on me. Yes, my family helped to shape the person I became. And yes, the choices I made—the good and the bad ones—had a giant affect as well.
    Certainly, my family, like a lot of families, was a whole lot more complicated than I realized when I was growing up. But here’s the strange part that gives me hope today: Whatever else was happening inside my family, I always felt loved, supported, and appreciated. I loved them, and they loved me. My family background might have set some traps for me. But it also laid a foundation for all I have been able to achieve in my life. I’m convinced that kids have a much higher tolerance than we give them credit for, as long as they feel that love.
    I sure hope so, given some of my own failings as a dad.

3
    Young Phenom
    M Y DAD TAUGHT ME how to throw a curveball when I was seven years old. I wouldn’t recommend it. Before the age of twelve or thirteen, the weird, twisting motion can do real damage to a child’s undeveloped arm. There’s also the tendency for the kid—or the parent or the coach—to see the curve working and get all excited. Suddenly, the precocious young pitcher is throwing curveballs all day