It’s no exaggeration to say that in some very important ways, my best days are behind me.

And not for the reasons you might think.

As a scrappy fat kid growing up on the west side of Modesto, where more dust fell from the sky in a year than it would rain in ten, baseball reigned as the center of our little universe.

And I had game. Chubby or not, I was adept at maneuvering the fat of the bat, and could clobber a fair percentage of my hits toward the abbreviated plastic fences we used in Pee Wee little league. I wasn’t the best, but I was good — and for once the source of most of my adolescent discomfort, all that jiggling chub, hadn’t held me back.

I was slow around the bag, sure. But because I had a few extra pounds, I also had a bit more bite when I unleashed my swing, and I made a good target at catcher and at first base, where my glove was crazy glue.

Baseball, then, gave me my first chance to be good at something, and to succeed in an activity where not everyone was proficient. I lived and breathed the sport for the few months of the spring and summer seasons: Dreamed of Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, attended Modesto A’s games, and cherished every inning as the culmination of my short life’s work.

The second year, my team was good enough to reach the championship tournament and face off against our loathed rival, Prescott Elementary School. In that fateful game, I batted three for four, had two RBIs on two singles and a double while playing a near perfect game at catcher.

It was close. It came down to the final seconds, but in the end the coach’s son — who had trouble all year with his swing and was our least productive batter — knocked in two runs to secure the victory.

Even now, the moments following the game are a blur, but that exquisite sense of joy and accomplishment stands vivid after 30 years. Across the field at a full gallop, my good friend TJ launched himself through the air and landed in my arms, squealing with unrestrained delight, pounding a fierce congratulations on my back as we spun around and around laughing.

One of the happiest single moments of this 40-year life.

Across town at exactly the same instant, another 40-year-old man — who shall remain anonymous — had managed to cobble enough free time out of his busy life to attend to one of his major passions.

Divorced and childless, the Great Pyrenees was his main squeeze. Tall and strong, the dog had fabulous white hair and a permanent, infectious grin. It loped through its life with that lovely innocent enthusiasm all dog owners recognize, and its favorite treat was the walk to Laird Park, on the banks of the toxic Tuolumne River, to unravel our smelly world with its beloved master.

Its owner had apparently come to depend on the dog, and the daily walk and play hour, to relax and release the stress that had recently ruined his marriage. He still had hope for that relationship, but he’d have to figure out how to be a bit more Zen if his ex-wife was ever going to reconsider her vows.

The half-mile walk from his house to the park was like wrestling with a whirlwind. The dog knew where it was going, and what happened when it got there. The meantime was all inconvenience, joy canned in the offing.

Two people, two entirely different universes on trajectories years in the making. Momentum would have its way. At a little bit after four in the afternoon, as we made our way home from John Thurman Field and he finally reached the park, they merged in a bone-crushing second.

The dog owner’s habit was to let his critter off the leash when they reached the edge of the park, so that it could run hard and fast across the wide expanse of grass that separated the street from the nearby tennis courts.

It was an old tradition by dog years, and the dog knew the routine. For reasons known only to the Great Pyrenees, that day something drew it fatefully off course. Rather than sprint ahead and look back, jowls bouncing, to gauge his owner’s slow progress across the open field, the dog bolted toward the sidewalk then turned and leaped, paws outstretched, into traffic.

Our car was a behemoth 1978 Ford LTD with automatic windows and disc brakes, painted puke green with peeling upholstery and a crack running straight up the middle of the windshield.

My dad was in the front seat, and mom — as usual — was driving. I was in the back seat slurping mindlessly on my well-earned can of Pepsi, baseball cap on backwards, dirt stains on my ass, and a squat gold-colored trophy clutched between my chest and the fat of my arm.

My mother was in the midst of a congratulatory speech on the value of hard work and exercise when the white blur streaked across the road. She screamed, and we all lurched forward with the sudden stop.

It was too late. My mom, crying already, burst out of the car and ran around to the front passenger side just as our divorcé arrived. Falling to his knees, he clutched at the now bloodied mass of fur. I remember the torn bellow that fell from him as he lurched to his feet. He buried his face in the dog’s white coat and rocked its body — almost as large as I was — for several long moments on the side of that busy street.

My mom stammered apologies, offered a ride, shed gallons of tears and shook with remorse, but to no avail.

The man just shook his head, and slowly walked back toward his house, weaving slightly with emotion as he carried his dead friend home.

The whole scene took less than two minutes to unfold, from horrific beginning to sad denouement, yet already traffic along this arterial route was snagged, and horns were honking, men behind us swore revenge, while a small crowd had gathered on the opposite sidewalk to rubberneck the dismal occasion.

The image I most clearly recall is of my usually undemonstrative father clutching my mother on the wide bench seat of our now death-dealing LTD as she cried harder than I’ve ever seen, before or since, while all the assholes sounded their horns in bleak harmony.

The championship game that had so dominated my little universe would never again come up in family conversation, and that was just fine with me. Later, my mom would tell us over dinner that she’d recognized the man, and had just realized where from: He was a co-worker, a physician’s assistant at the hospital, and she’d likely see him off and on as long as she worked there.

Though she made sure I ate everything green on my plate, she left her dinner alone that night, and went to bed early. Later, she learned the man’s story from some of the gossipy hens in the hospital’s front office, then over time shared some of it with me. They never spoke.

Sometime later, maybe the following day, I remember kneeling down and running my hand over the dent in the LTD’s front bumper and catching a wicked chill. One moment is perfection, while the next hangs undecided but capable of heading straight to Hell in a hurry.

Life so far has only served to hammer that lesson home.

###

James Faulk is a writer living in Eureka, He can be reached at faulk.james@yahoo.com.