|  I'm bored.
This is just something I started tonight.
Was lonely.
No riveting discussion topics worth mentioning, so I did this. Sort of autobiographical except for the references to the relationship with the publisher.
Tell me what you think.
The Sportswriter: The Life and Times of Charlie Beckwith
One
“You’re fired.”
Pretty cut and dried actually without the usual fanfare of calling one into the publisher’s office and the long, drawn-out speech that nobody wants to hear dragging out the inevitable axe that is poised to strike which now hovers precariously above your neck, the razor sharp blade glistening silver in the light.
Nope.
Just the blunt force hammer-to-the-head trauma of “you’re fired.”
Two words.
Well, two words and a contraction, but two words because the publisher probably meant the y-o-u-r version of you’re rather than anything grammatically accurate.
I know.
I’m splitting hairs.
When you hear “now get the f*ck out of my office,” promptly following the “you’re fired,” correct grammatical syntax is the last thing on your mind right then.
I’ve sure as hell heard it enough, and this time I wasn’t all that surprised.
In fact, this time I knew it was coming.
My name is Charlie Beckwith.
Perhaps you’ve heard of me.
Or perhaps not.
It’s been awhile, but my name used to be bandied about in the same sentences as the really high-dollar sports writers of the past twenty years.
Lupica.
Albom.
Gammons.
Beckwith.
You sure you’ve never heard of me?
It rolls off your tongue like a penthouse law firm, doesn’t it?
I write sports for a living.
I’ve written for newspapers in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Marietta, Greenville, Summerville and last but not least Goose Neck.
You notice the city names and towns get smaller and smaller, and more and more remote.
I didn’t stutter.
I said Goose Neck.
And I’ve been fired from each one.
The running joke is that after this one I won’t be able to get a job writing graffiti.
Yes, I got fired from the Goose Neck Word.
Stellar publication.
Goose Neck, North Carolina’s The Word is a 15,000 circulation strong tri-weekly rag whose sports claim to fame is being the anchor newspaper of Bethune State College, home of the Fighting Muskrats.
Famous lately because of one Sh*thead Jones (pronounced Shi-thade), a six-foot point guard out of the Raleigh projects that Bethune State snatched out from under the noses of Coach K and Dean Smith’s Tar Heels.
You see, Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) is leading the whole United States of America in scoring, pouring in a Pistol Pete Marovich-like 54.5 points a game.
Bethune State was able to snatch Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) out from under the noses of Coaches K and Smith – well Roy Williams actually, but Dean Smith still calls the shots at North Carolina because Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) scored a whopping 545 on his SAT scores. (Hey, his average minus the dot, I’m sure this is not lost on Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade)).
That’s combined reading and mathematics.
You get 400 points for the correct spelling of your name and address, and rumor has it Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) needed a cheat sheet to master that scholarly feat.
How Sh*thead Jones (pronounced Shi-thade) is connected to my latest termination from the Goose Neck Word involves a post-game interview following Bethune State’s lopsided victory over the Southern Coastal State Tar Bellies.
Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) scored 78 of Bethune State’s 113 points.
Sh*thead was talking to reporters in front of his locker, which included the sportswriter from Southern Coastal State plus a community news guy from the local online paper and then myself.
Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) was speaking of himself in the third person.
“Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) was on fugo tonight (his attempt at the Spanish en fuego). Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) could not miss.”
This went on for about twenty minutes.
Honestly, I don’t know what possessed me to stand there and continue recording this gangsta ghetto drivel. I put away my notepad ten minutes ago.
But I stayed.
So did the others.
We cut each other looks that said Sh*thead (pronounced this time Sh*t Head) was getting mighty full of himself and that someone should ratchet him down a peg or two.
Of course, since I was the host newspaper, I decided to take it upon myself to take a turn or two.
That’s where I get into trouble.
I clicked off my recorder, which Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) noticed.
“Hey man, Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) is not finished talking.”
“Yeah you are Sh*t Head,” I replied.
“Hey man, it’s pronounced Sh*thead (Shi-thade).”
“No it isn’t. It says on your locker right there, Sh*t Head Jones.”
I puffed out my chest, feeling pretty full of myself.
You could call my look ultra-smug.
“You know Sh*t Head, I’ll give you this. One of these days when you grow up, you’re going to work somewhere with your name on your shirt.”
“The NBA?” Sh*thead (pronounced Shi-thade) actually looked up at me with hope in his eyes.
“No, Wal-Mart.”
Well, this eventually got back to Bethune State’s Sports Information Director, who passed it along to the school president, who considered the remark somewhat racist.
Just somewhat?
And of course he crawled the a$$ of my publisher who said, “You’re fired,” and “now get the f*ck out of my office.”
I had already updated my resume and made a couple phone calls before the spittle left her pouty lower lip.
Two.
I keep thinking.
With all the times I’ve had to move I should go ahead and buy me one of those pup trailers. It’d save me the cost of a rental every eighteen months to two years.
This time I lasted all of fifteen months.
I’d done well too.
Got a couple raises, I wrote a weekly column, and the pay wasn’t abysmal either. I wasn’t getting rich by any means but I never had to eat cat food and rice for dinner either.
I was comfortable.
Things were actually going smoothly.
And then something comes along… something where I know it’s going to lead to trouble.
Even the little voice inside my head – that voice that doesn’t know sh*t from shinola – even that voice is telling me, “Back off this one Charlie, it’s trouble. It’ll get you fired for sure.”
Sh*t Head Jones.
What moron names her child Sh*t Head?
Come on for chrissakes, how can I not leave that one alone?
Sh*thead (pronounced shi-thayde) my a$$.
You’re fired.
Yep, it was short and sweet.
I didn’t even have to sit down.
There is a silver lining to all this, you know.
As adept as I seem to be at getting my a$$ fired, I do present myself well in a job interview.
My resume is solid.
My cover letters are always crisp, well spoken and present a solid candidate for employment with an exemplary resume to back it up. I’ve been everywhere and I’ve done everything in regard to the newspaper business.
I can always find a new job.
I always seem to land on my feet.
The only hang up is I’m having to move farther and farther away from center stage, far enough away that when people here the name Charlie Beckwith, they don’t grimace like they just belched up a hot dog they ate three days ago and hang up the phone.
I cut a look at myself in my rearview mirror, noticing the deep fissures gouged out around the corners of my eyes, the gray hair, the soft jaw, the fact that there’s nobody sitting here with me in the passenger seat.
I haven't been on a date in years.
“Charlie, you’ve got a big mouth and you still haven’t learned how to use it.”
I’m fifty.
I’m divorced.
Just once because the only one stupid enough to say “I do” to Charlie Beckwith was my ex-wife.
I used to play sports, now I write about them.
There are a few givens, despite my abrasive and half-a-lick-of-common-sense personality, when it comes to sports, and knowing sports and writing about sports.
There are few who might do it as well as I, but nobody does it better.
That’s what keeps me in the game, albeit more and more peripherally lately.
Growing up, I was the athlete everyone wrote about.
I was the baseball player the scouts came to see.
I was recruited by damn near everybody, signed a full-ride scholarship to the biggest-assed Midwestern university and then chucked it all for a nice bonus check two weeks later when I was taken by the Chicago Cubs in the fourth round of the June amateur draft.
Only back then I was Chuck.
Chuck Beckwith.
That had a pitcher’s ring to it.
I’m not sure when or where it became Charlie, but it happened after I stopped playing, put on a hundred-or-so pounds and plied my magic with a keyboard rather than a 95-mph fastball.
These days I’m lucky if I can throw a ball ninety feet much less 90 miles per hour.
But then I’m fifty.
I’m not supposed to do that anymore.
I’m fifty and I cart my life around with me in a U-Haul pull trailer, tagging behind a 1978 Winnebago, my life on wheels, heading on to the next town on the road map of life like a snake oil salesman who narrowly escaped being run out of the last town on a rail for sleeping with the farmer’s daughter.
I am a throwback writer.
Hell, I don’t even like to call myself one of those.
It’s a bit pompous.
I’m a storyteller.
And I tell sports stories.
When you turn to your friendly neighborhood sports section and see a sports story with a Charlie Beckwith byline, you know you’re going to get a lot of Charlie Beckwith mixed in with your story.
It’s not merely straight reporting, it’s Charlie Beckwith taking the reader on a short journey through this little corner of the world of sports.
(To be Continued)
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