42 / matters magazine / spring 2018 finalmatters I just moved here and the entire town thinks I am trying to dehydrate my 3-year-old son. This all started rather innocently on the very first day of his weekly soccer class. Let me assure you I would have brought a sippy cup to practice if I had known it was de rigueur for the young sporting enthusiasts. Instead, as all the other kids ran across the sun-dappled grass to quench their thirst during their water break, my child would remain parched. “Next week,” I promised him. Next week, I will not dehydrate my son. I find it odd that classes exist for kids this young. My foray into sports began when I was a comparatively ancient 7-year-old, playing baseball in the Spuyten Duyvil Little League in the Bronx. Loosely translated from Dutch as “Devil’s Spit,” the moniker also served as a suitable description for my horrid pitching. And while we’re on the subject, I’d like to apol- ogize to the scores of young batters I drubbed with my 18-mile-per-hour curve ball. One week day, I proudly arrived with my son’s sippy cup. However, I was still a novice, compared to some of these parents. One mom elegantly balanced her phone on her left knee and her caffeinated beverage on her right while ob- serving her child from the comfort of a tricked-out portable lounge chair. As for me, I recall dribbling coffee onto my Sonic Youth T-shirt at least three times during that prac- tice. That averages out to one dribble per every 15 minutes of practice. I still had a lot to learn. I eventually started to get into the rhythm of things. I enjoyed standing on the sidelines next to a couple who moved here from Queens not too long ago. We were three dads gently wrestling with the trappings of suburban rituals. We bonded over the tacit understanding that this soccer practice was a liminal space for us. Practice always ended with an extremely satisfying moment. Each kid would construct a precariously assembled sculpture of traffic cones and multi-colored plastic shapes. Coach Nathan would place a soccer ball behind each sculpture and then instruct the kids to kick the ball. And when my son hit the sweet spot, those shapes exploded into the sky. Each prac- tice, I secretly pined for my own opportunity to experience that exhilaration. A few nights after the last class, I spied my son’s soccer ball in a shadowy corner of the garage. I could have sworn it was calling out to me. I took the bait. I grabbed a few of his beach toys and assembled my own version of a precariously assembled sculpture. I set up the soccer ball, stepped five paces back and sent the beach shovel, buckets, and plastic truck high into the air. While celebrating, I lost my bal- ance and tripped on the heap of toys. Luckily, no one was present to witness my klutzy move. Clearly, I needed more practice. Time to sign up my son for more soccer les- sons. Donny Levit is a journalist, writer, and author of Rock n' Roll Lies, 10 Stories. He is the editor of newpulpcity.com, an arts and culture website. Fol- low him on @donnyreports. True Confessions of a Clueless Soccer Dad BY DONNY LEVIT