I can’t tell you exactly when or how I began playing soccer, furthermore, I don’t believe that a single one of the young boys in the entire AYSO could have explained in any satisfying way how they managed to become a part of this charming and artless athletic slapstick. I must assume that we were all impelled by the same inscrutable pair of forces that would have dominated, directed, and guarded jealously all other aspects of our lives. One says to the other: ‘The boy needs to get out, he can’t just sit at home all day.’ ‘Yes, but what if he were to get injured?’ ‘Nonsense, he’ll have pads and a helmet.’ ‘Oh, but he’s so delicate and it’s just so violent.’ The former begins to roar, ‘Now you’ve already spoiled him soft, why in my day we would use surplus flak jackets as shoulder pads and our ball was an unexploded claymore and we were glad for it I’ll tell you what. He is going to do this!’ ‘I will not have you turn our son into a vegetable so that you might relive your glory days!’ So my father, a touch grayer and a bit more palsied, would usher me to the soccer cleats and shin guards, but not before leading me slowly through the football aisle and giving me a strange, wet look, to which I’d respond with a guileless grin of animal stupidity as my head lolled back and forth, trying to appease my father with my best impression of idiot beatitude, not having the words but wanting to say, ‘Father forgive me, one day I will bring great honor to your name, but today, I am just a babe. Can’t you see that I have not yet been endowed with the agency you expect of me? That today I am as hapless as a man o’ war being buoyed upon the tides? I will go wherever you lead, but no further.’

Soccer, like eating, sleeping, attending school, brushing my teeth and every other custom and courtesy of my youth soon became something that happened to me automatically. The gestures of my day were never decided, being entirely governed by muscle memory. Like an ant, I would follow the scent trail of my relentless routine and if ever I strayed off course, a large hand attached to the dopey, concerned face of some adult would grasp my shoulder and set me back on track. Every other Saturday, however, the monotony of my life was punctuated by the orgiastic pursuit of triumph over a rivaling soccer team. Actually triumphing was of middling importance so long as I was released from the tedious drilling and physical conditioning of soccer practice and given the 90 minutes in which my teammates and I joined in ecstatic cahoots against our challengers. They were all despicable: the vile Hornets from Diamond Head, the loathsome Hurricanes from Aiea, the Hunnish Warriors from Kailua, the Wolves from Hickam Airforce base were particularly abominable as all the players were either defrauding the AYSO as to their age or else they were the products of some nefarious military super-soldier experimentation. But, it didn’t matter at all who we faced, if we won, if we lost, so long as we could run and dive and exult in the strength of our limbs. Liberté, égalité, fraternité!

On this particular day, everything seemed to be as it always has been and always will be in Honolulu. The sun came up and it was glorious. The warm, effervescent trade winds rolled the few white clouds over the gold-green morning and I watched from the backseat window of my father’s car as we passed by tanned locals milling about outdoor bazaars filled with peculiar fruits and exotic baubles from the mysterious orient, by golf courses manicured into unwholesome perfection, by fine-sandy beaches where families had gathered to barbeque and daub the sky with kites, and to the field, patched by sleeping grass and painted with chalk, where we would play our game. I met up with the other children wearing homely, canary yellow uniforms and we began our warm ups. While doing our warm ups, I noticed that we were playing a team we had not encountered before. I do not remember their name, but if I was forced to come up with one based on their most obvious attributes I would dub them something like: the Potato Bugs from Palolo or perhaps the Convalescents from Koko Marina. Looking back on it now, I believe that the AYSO may have made some bureaucratic blunder and erroneously scheduled us to play against a team from their pee-wee league, but here we were, and we would not be denied our just desserts.

The game started and we massacred the poor invalids. It must have been 6 and 0 before the first quarter ended. I remember running by their coach and hearing her shout out, ‘Just take a shot! I’ll give a dollar to anybody who just takes a shot!’ At the quarter break our coach told us ‘No more scoring, just pass in front of the goal.’ The only effect this had was to further humiliate our opponents as now we were simply doing passing drills to each other in front of their goal as their entire team tried to get the ball from two or three of our players. At half time our coach tried to fix this, ‘Shoot for the corner posts.’ This made for a marginally better game as whenever one of our players would kick the ball clearly out of bounds the ball would be given to the invertebrate team, who could usually get it at least out of their goal zone before one of us would steal it back and kick it at the corner posts again. This was all progressing about as sportingly as any other collapse of the social contract would, when I got the ball, aimed at the corner post, and kicked. Hoorah, I hit the corner flag right on the tippy-top and this had become the only measure of success in this game, I felt victorious. I felt a burble of joy caught in my throat like a grape and I just had to let out a shrill ‘whoop!’ and throw my hands up to the sky. Not three seconds after that, as I was still beaming, the referee swept down upon me and handed me a card, ‘That’s bad sportsmanship.’ Immediately, I was crushed. My guts turned cold and I felt the gray weight of shame hit my stomach like a fist. I walked off the field and wished that the earth would yawn open underneath me and that some daemon would drag me to whatever level of hell I was inevitably destined for. In one instant, all the shining had left from the day; the great, golden motes of morning had been replaced by some poisonous choking gas. I wished for nothing more than to turn back time and undo what had been done and I could think of no other solution to this calamity, but I had only an intermediate understanding of quantum physics at that tender age. And so I sat and stewed in my own shame, contemplating how quickly gold turns to lead, triumph into bitterness, all life into ash. I have never experienced happiness since that day.