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Porchtales is a podcast by HumanitiesDC, Washington's humanities council, and an independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Each season we work with a guest producer to focus on a historic or cultural topic and dig deeper to learn and celebrate the unique experiences that shape our fascinating city. Whether jogging by the capitol or driving along the California coast, Porchtales listeners get to experience DC through the eyes of those who make up the fabric of our nation's capital. Have an idea or a question, send us a note at programs@humanitiesdc.org
*Any views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of HumanitiesDC or the project’s funders.
Credits:
This is Porchtales, a HumanitiesDC podcast where we hear the stories of those who shaped the history and culture of our nation's capital.
Katie Davis:
This is Katie Davis. Welcome to Lanier: Stories from the Block that Raised Me.
Sometimes when I'm telling a story about my block, a person just walks into the story and takes over. And that's the situation with my old neighbor, Bobby. He keeps popping up in these stories, and you've heard little bits of him. So I thought it would be good to share his story, his whole story, today.
Bobby comes up my street one afternoon in March. I haven't seen him in a few months, and he's kind of gliding along, smoking a Marlboro. That's the way he's carried himself since sixth grade when I first met him, one of the bad boys from over on Calvert Street. Bobby tells me he's going to coach a Little League team with some neighborhood kids. "Great," I say from up on my porch. Inside I'm thinking, "Who's he kidding? He's rail thin. He's sweating. It looks like he's been using all winter.
Bobby flicks his burning cigarette into the street and watches me, waiting for more reaction. This is the same Bobby I loved and tried to save for a whole year. Bobby, who stole $60 from my house to buy heroin and swore to God, swore to his own dead daughter, that my dog Purdy ate the money. And this is his latest plan to get clean? Coaching a bunch of 10, 11, and 12-year-olds rounded up by the DC Department of Recreation? All I can say is, "That's great."
A week later, Bobby's back, this time on my machine.
Answering Machine:
You have two messages. Message one.
Bobby:
Hey, how you doing? Just calling to say hi. When I get off, I'll probably walk Bailey. Maybe we'll run up and see if we can say hi to you. Katie, you got to see this. These thugs I got are unbelievable. One of them tried to spit on me yesterday at practice. A couple of them I don't think even I can handle. It's like they're too much of a disruption, you know?
Katie Davis:
My machine cuts him off, but now I know Bobby's clean. Because if he were still using heroin, nothing could puncture his detached haze. He's sounding awake and rattled. Bobby, who spent two and a half years in Lorton Prison on assault and possession charges, rattled by a bunch of kids at their first baseball practice.
Benjamin:
First day, he was just crazy.
Bobby:
We went to Harrison Playground, between 13th and 14th on V Street, and that's a rough neighborhood. And as soon as we got on the field, my kids started to act up, right away. Right away, and I think they were afraid. I was a little afraid.
Benjamin:
Okay, he was picking who was going to be right field or whatever, but then everybody was just yelling at each other and “joning” on each other.
Bobby:
I tried to get them to chill, to relax and play ball, focus on the game. They started cursing me, a few of them, cursing me and cursing each other. One kid spit at me.
Benjamin:
And he got mad and said practice was over.
Bobby:
And I cursed them, and I told they didn't (BLEEP) impress me. Before they were born I was in penitentiary. So, if they're trying to act like they're bad, they're not impressing me. And right when I did that, I felt in my gut that I had just screwed up. I felt right then that, "You know what? You just laid all of your cards on the table. You don't have a whole card anymore. Now they know you." One kid says, "Well, while you were in prison, were you getting humped?" And then I knew I'd screwed up. I said, "No, that didn't happen to me." Now they're going to say, "Oh, because you were the humper, right?"
Katie Davis:
Three days later, they hold a second practice, this time at a field in our neighborhood. Bobby's back for more salvation through Little League.
Benjamin:
Shut the (BLEEP) up before I smack the shit out of you.
Boy:
Do it.
Katie Davis:
What's your strategy? Or maybe you're formulating it.
Bobby:
I'm formulating it, but my strategy, short term, is to remember I'm the adult.
Good stick. Go, go, go, go. Run it out. He might fall. He might break his ankle. All right. Good stick. Good hustle. Hey, every first baseman on the planet is good as him.
Katie Davis:
This second practice is going a lot better. The only tantrums being thrown are by the kids. Bobby stands by the backstop in our park pushing away a locust sapling that's grown up through the fence. There are no bases and only a warped piece of rubber for the pitcher's mound. That's how it goes around here. Anyone with any money drives their kids to the wealthier neighborhoods to play, leaving this misshapen field for Bobby's team.
Bobby:
Come on, man. I'm not going to tell you where it's going, but I want you to bring it home when it comes to you.
Wake up, wake up.
Benjamin:
I thought you were talking about-
Bobby:
That's what I'm saying, see?
Benjamin:
See?
Bobby:
The guy in the game, the batter's not going to tell you where the ball's going, guys.
Talent level? Bad News Bears. They're horrible. As far as talent. I think they're wonderful kids, and I'm not going to give up on them, but God, man, they can't throw a ball, they can't catch a ball, they can't hit a ball, and they've never learned. No one's ever taught them.
Bring it home. Ah, okay, you got good stop, good throw. That's the way to play, fellas. That's the way to play. Think it's coming your way?
Benjamin:
Yes.
Bobby:
Yes? Hands, hands up.
Katie Davis:
The third practice starts around 5:00 on a humid April afternoon. Kids are scattered around the field, squatting down, twirling their gloves. Joey is throwing rocks at his brother. Joey is always throwing rocks. Benjamin thinks he should be pitching. Bobby tells him to stay right where he is and keep catching.
Bobby:
That's what I'm talking about right there. Come on, Benjamin, get that.
Benjamin:
Come on now.
Bobby:
Get that ball.
Benjamin:
You know.
Bobby:
Get in front of that ball.
Benjamin:
Oh, you didn't know.
Bobby:
I do know. You need to learn. Get in front of that ball. Bring it home.
Katie Davis:
After a half hour, things start to spin out of control. Benjamin, the most volatile of the kids, throws a rock at Joey. Bobby tells him to run a lap. "You must be tripping," says Benjamin. "I might be tripping, but you need to be lapping," says Bobby.
Benjamin:
He going to make me run a lap. And I ain't even throw nothing.
Bobby:
Benjamin, he's my favorite because I just see me, more so than any other child on that team. I don't know what his home life is like, but from what I can see he's emotional and when he feels cheated or done wrong, he reacts exactly like I always reacted, violently, verbally with the violence. And he just goes off and "(BLEEP) you," and, "(BLEEP) the team." And well, that's me. That was me, and in ways it still is. When I get my feelings hurt I don't always say, "You really hurt my feelings." I say, "(BLEEP) you,” mother
(BLEEP) And you know what I do? What I've done for a lot of years is I would hurt myself because someone hurt me. Well, Benjamin does that at practice.
Benjamin:
Nah, man, he always getting on somebody nerves, get on everybody nerve.
Katie Davis:
Bobby finally asks Benjamin to go home and come back next practice. Instead, Benjamin stands over my microphone and starts calling the game as he sees it.
Benjamin:
He think he's right all the time.
Katie Davis:
Who you talking about?
Benjamin:
The coach. He always, he pressed, "Oh, I've been in the penitentiary. I know all this stuff." Man, bump all that man.
Katie Davis:
Bobby pauses as Benjamin mimics him, then throws the ball up and cracks it to the outfield.
Bobby:
Bring it home, fellas bring it home.
Katie Davis:
A few minutes later, Benjamin finally does a lap, but he walks it.
Bobby:
Watch the hop. You still got him. Good throw now, Monty. Thank you. Thank you.
Katie Davis:
When he was these kids' ages, Bobby ran wild at night, taking money, stealing bikes. Most kids were afraid of him, but he never messed with me and my brothers. I even remember Bobby and his sister eating with us a couple times because his mom never made dinner. When Bobby was 13, his mother caught him stealing change out of her purse and kicked him out of the house. The only place Bobby knew to go was right here to this field where he now coaches baseball.
Bobby:
You got one more shot at it.
Katie Davis:
It used to be an abandoned lot full of old cars and refrigerators. Here in the left out-field where Joey's pacing and muttering because Bobby told him to quit looking for a fight, right here, there used to be a white '69 Ford Falcon. That's where Bobby went when his mother threw him out.
Bobby:
I spray painted all the windows black so no one could see in. And I would shoplift food from the corner store, Matty’s delicatessen, words cut stuff like Vienna sausages and a bottle of wine to go to sleep with at night and sardines and that was dinner.
Katie Davis:
Bobby says that alcohol helped him feel less afraid late at night in that old Ford. Soon he found pot, then PCP. In his 20's he started shooting heroin.
Speaker 6:
He saw, your little bigheaded little kid. Like a whole bunch of little leprechauns running around.
Katie Davis:
Trash is talked at every practice, and Bobby is teased relentlessly for wearing Payless shoes, which the kids would never be caught dead in. Brandon, the eight-year-old calls Bobby "Powdered Donut" because he's white and he likes to lean into Bobby and whisper, "Punk." Mostly Bobby laughs. Other times though, especially when the kids start in on each other, it can get to him.
Bobby:
Fellas, fellas, I can't talk if you're talking.
Benjamin:
Coach, I need some more gloves, man.
Bobby:
I'm about ready to put the gloves in the bag and go home. Give me this stuff. Let me roll.
Benjamin:
No, man. No man.
Bobby:
I'm serious. Well, shut up. Everybody, shut up, please.
Katie Davis:
Bobby picks up the bat bag and slams it against the brick wall.
Bobby:
Chill. Okay? Chill. I can't talk if y'all talking. Okay, look here.
Fade out on scene.
What's up fellas? What's happening?
Katie Davis:
Somewhere around the third or fourth practice, without announcing it in any way, the boys start calling Bobby, "Coach." "Coach, can you fix this glove? Coach, which bat should I use?"
What's it like when the kids call you coach?
Bobby:
It didn't really hit me at first. I took them to a picnic a couple of weeks ago, weekends ago, that some recovering alcoholic and addict friends of mine threw. And to hear people there, "Hey Bobby, hey Bobby." And then to hear this group of kids that I came with, "Hey Coach. Hey Coach." That's when it sort of hit me that, "Hey, man, that this is who you are." And these people now see me as Coach. Not just Bobby, the recovering drug and dope fiend. "Hey, he's a coach." So that makes me feel good to have these kids call me Coach. So, I don't know. Now I have this little small part in shaping what their day's going to be like.
Benjamin:
When he told me that he had come from prison, he got shot in his neck, I thought he was just another one of them people who like to talk about their life and didn't get over it. But I learned to understand him.
Katie Davis:
How do you understand him?
Benjamin:
He don't want no trouble. He just want us to listen to him. But I guess as you grow into people, you start to have more patience.
Katie Davis:
As you roll into people?
Benjamin:
Grow. You start to have more patience. And I think that's what's happening.
Katie Davis:
The Department of Recreation gives Bobby an ID badge, which he wears around his neck when he comes down to the neighborhood, like a sign, "I am no longer a dope fiend. I'm doing something good." Most people might keep it in their pocket. Bobby wears it right on his chest.
Bobby:
I just walk around with my head high and feeling proud for the most part, very proud, of what I'm doing.
Katie Davis:
The skeptics are everywhere though. Neighbors who gave him advances for paint jobs he never did. People he stole bank cards from. People he actually spit on.
Katie Davis: What is that like for you to walk around in the neighborhood and you might even walk by somebody that you owe money to or conned money out of?
Bobby:
It's hard to explain really. It's a rollercoaster of emotions. There's times, and right when I'm feeling like the world is wonderful, when everything is going my way, I'll see someone that I had conned out of a few hundred bucks, and the voice in my head will immediately say, "See there? You're still a scumbag. Remember what? Look, that's who you really are."
Katie Davis:
So what do you do when you see that person?
Bobby:
It depends. It depends on how I feel. And there's times when I might be feeling real insecure and I'll put that macho thing up and I'll put the cocky thing up and hope they say something wrong to me so that I can go south on them.
Katie Davis:
Do you do that?
Bobby:
No, but I want to. I want to. I mean there's a part of me that still wants to be a thug. There's a part of me still very capable of being a thug. I just wouldn't be able to be a real good thug with my hands because I'm older. I'd have to get a weapon now.
Benjamin:
I ain't wearing no girly joints.
Katie Davis:
It's early May, and after 10 practices, the kids are finally stepping into their uniforms at the local recreation center. This is the first new thing they've seen all season. Their bats and gloves are splintered and old, but the uniforms are bright blue and gray Texas Ranger uniforms with red caps. Bobby is tanned and relaxed, dancing around, faking jabs, counting the kids to see if he can field a team. Never a sure thing. Today there exactly nine boys the day of their first game against another team.
The recreation bus is an hour late to take the team to their game. So some of us go in a taxi. Six kids and I all squish together. Bobby and the others are hailing a cab when the bus finally shows up. We all pile out at what is supposedly the best Little League field in the city. The grass is shin high, there's a pile of dirt in the outfield. No fans, no parents, just Bobby and the team.
Benjamin:
They don't even have a field I can slide on.
Hey, what time is it?
Katie Davis:
6:00. About five of 6:00.
Joey:
Dang, man.
Justin:
There's no other kids here.
Oh, the other team forfeited.
Katie Davis:
The other team never shows so Bobby's team wins by default. Some other kids are in the same boat, so there's an impromptu scrimmage. And official or not, this is the first baseball game that most of these kids have ever played.
Benjamin:
They too dang get small, man. We would tear them up.
Benjamin:
What's up? Shut up. Uh-huh.
Katie Davis:
The other team is small but very fast. And they have three coaches who tell them when to steal bases. So, a line drive becomes a run, then another run, and another run. And it's five-zero
Bobby:
He stole home on y'all.
Opposing team Coach:
Good play. Good play, Carlos.
Bobby:
We'll see what we need to work on today.
Instead of looking good in our uniforms. Come on, let's get an out. We got a force at second. Get the force at second.
Katie Davis:
The season lurches forward with DC Recreation canceling games for no reason, never rescheduling rainouts. The uniforms are not washed for three weeks. And one day no one shows up to let the boys in to suit up for a game, so they have to forfeit. By June Bobby's team has only played one real game, one game in four months. In this inconsistent world, Bobby is someone the kids can count on. He never misses practice, coming in his painter's pants most days to hit the ball to them. And while it might seem like Bobby's keeping the kids in line, he'll tell you that's what they're doing for him.
Bobby:
I don't want to have to avoid my neighborhood. I don't want to have to avoid my community playground because I let these kids down because I'm a drunken dope fiend (BLEEP) bum, which is what I become if I go have a beer right now or some dope right now. Tomorrow I'm a bum because all the good feelings are gone. I don't want to feel the shame which I felt from relapses. And it's big time shame. It's shame. I won't be able to look these kids in their eyes and their faces. I'll duck them. God, I'm 42 years old and I would have to come in my own neighborhood and duck children because I'm ashamed? I don't want that.
Bobby coaching pitcher in a game: Throw that smoke. Throw that smoke. Throw that smoke. You the man out there. You're the man.
Katie Davis:
By June, Bobby's team gets its first win, with some great pitching from Donald and a catch by Ricardo in the third inning that looks more like a football interception.
Bobby:
Oh man, yeah. Oh man. Boy, that was a Major League catch, man.
I don't make catches like that. Woohoo.
Katie Davis:
And while they wait for their bus to take them back home, the boys start tussling with each other rolling around on a grassy hill.
Bobby:
Hey, they're enjoying. They're celebrating their win.
Donald, pitcher:
They are celebrating their win by wrestling. I'm about to myself.
Katie Davis:
This is easily the sweetest moment of the season, not only because of the win, but because it's amazing to see the boys so happy. And this is what Bobby will remember when Justin and Ricardo get in a real fight an hour later, when he has to suspend Benjamin, not once, but twice, and when Joey threatens to beat up a kid from another team. Always that delicate balance, fragile, like sobriety.
Boy:
Time out. Time out. For me because I got to tie my shoe.
Bobby:
I always thought I was going to be a loser forever. Man. First of all, being clean makes me feel like, "Okay, I got a chance to be a winner." But the kids especially. And something about kids. This is something I never thought, man, that I'd be able to do. It's like, man, I was walking after a practice like a week or two ago? I swear to God, I walked across Duke Ellington Bridge to the subway and I started crying. I started crying because I was so (BLEEPING) happy. So happy. That, damn, this is probably going to work out. I'm probably going to be able to pull this off.
Katie Davis:
By the end of the season, the kids have a record of two wins and no losses. Playoffs never get scheduled, so there's no reason to practice anymore. No one knows where Benjamin is these days and just this week I saw Joey stealing a soda from the corner store and I made him take it back. Bobby still comes around though and hangs out in the park, talks with the boys, and he sometimes shoots one-on-one with them. And he says, "Stick with me. I'm going to have tryouts for a 12 and under basketball team. I'm going to still be coming around here."
Boys wrestling:
Oh, you going to get in now.
Katie Davis:
I never saw Benjamin again, ever. And the rock throwing brothers, Joey and Justin, well, they ended up joining the DC police force. And Bobby I saw less and less, until one day his stepfather called me and told me Bobby had died in his sleep. He was living in a group house. Then he asked if I had a men's suit that would fit Bobby, but I didn't.
And about a month later, and this is unusual, a social worker called me to say that Bobby had talked a lot about the baseball team and the season he coached. And she also wanted to tell me that he kept a copy of this radio story with him.
Music
The story originally aired on This American Life. We call it Bring It Home and it was mixed by Flawn Williams. Opening music comes from Herman Burney and other pieces are from David Schulman.
Stay with Porchtales. Next, we go to the park. I'm Katie Davis.
Credits
Porchtales is produced by HumanitiesDC. If you want to share your DC story, check out the link in the show notes and be sure to rate and review us wherever our podcast lives on your favorite podcast player. This season is made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.