Evan Vandermeer
For Samuel Del Fiacco
I met your father our freshman year of college,
when the whole English department
gathered for general remarks
to kick off the fall semester. I took the open seat
next to him, and after some small talk
cut right to the chase, asking
if he ever played basketball,
my surest litmus test for friendship
at the time. He said that he did,
and I resolved, then, that he would be
my first college friend. Not long after, we made plans
to play at the campus rec center,
and when we did, I had the distinct privilege to witness
what can only be described as an absolute shitshow, your father
about as out of place on the freethrow line
as a jacked-up horse in a jewelry shop.
Confused by his unfamiliarity with the game
and basic lack of athleticism—so evident
in his movements on the court, in his
handling of the ball—I wondered aloud
why he told me he played. He explained
Well, he doesn’t play, but technically he has played.
In the years since, he has demonstrated
a distressingly profound clumsiness
countless times—breaking more glasses
than I now own, shattering light fixtures at restaurants
when lifting his arms in greeting, and even
spilling all the breast milk on the night
they brought you home, reducing your mother
to tears. Even tonight, at your first-ever Christmas party
with the whole gang, he brought his elbow down
on the back of my chair, yelled out in pain, and dropped some dice
on the hardwood floor, which carried them away
as he toppled a pile of cards with his bear-like hand, a hand
transformed, somehow, when later
it cupped your head on the living room rug
and he showed me, with patience, how to change you.