Winners And Losers

I’ve never been competitive. When I was a child, blowing gigantic bubble-gum bubbles was my idea of athleticism. Just the thought of team sports could reduce me to a quivering mass of anxieties: What if I got picked last? What if I couldn’t kick the ball straight? What if everyone made fun of me? By the time gym period rolled around, I would stumble onto the playground already defeated.

In high school I was caught cutting an entire semester of gym class. I told the principal that Aristotle believed gymnastics should be a matter of individual achievement, not team competition. The principal yawned and called my parents.

Now I’m forced to attend off-site corporate-bonding retreats where we learn to be “team players.” I always feel queasy beforehand, and crabby after I get there. I once asked a motivational speaker at one of these events what his own advice had wrought. He spread his arms wide and looked around the audience beaming, as though preaching to a room full of insurance salespeople were proof of his success.

Mechele Shoneman
Morganville, New Jersey

The summer I was twelve, I fought my first and only fight. Word had gotten to me that Shirley, who lived down the street, said I had been talking about her behind her back — a classic pretext for a fight. One day I was riding my bike when I saw her walking toward my house with my supposed friend Wanda. The deliberate manner in which they made their way down the block told me something was up.

I sped home and ran inside to tell my mother that Wanda and Shirley were coming to beat me up. I wanted to hide, but my mom sent me outside and locked the screen door behind me. She knew the rules of the street: you have to stand up for yourself.

I had no choice but to sit in the yard and try to look cool. I watched them approach out of the corner of my eye. As they stood over me, I pretended to be fascinated by the grass. Shirley started throwing leaves and twigs in my hair, and I threw them back onto her feet. She said she’d heard I’d been talking about her, but before I could respond, she jumped on me and started punching. In the distance I heard my mom cheering me on from the front door: “Get her, Theresa. Get her!”

I fought hard, but I didn’t stand a chance. Mom finally stopped the fight, sending Shirley and Wanda on their way. Then she welcomed me into her open arms, as if I’d just won a title bout.

Theresa Baultrippe
St. Paul, Minnesota

As a college freshman, I wanted to join a certain fraternity. Two guys I’d looked up to in high school were members, and I wanted to be part of their community of supportive, articulate, ambitious black men. I studied hard, became active in student groups, and attended as many of the fraternity’s functions as possible.

In spring of my sophomore year, fraternity “rush” was about to begin. Friends of mine were also planning to pledge the fraternity, and we talked about how we could support each other during the six weeks of hazing we’d have to endure. We all assumed we’d be invited to pledge.

On induction night, when the fraternity brothers came in person to invite applicants to pledge, the chapter president knocked on my door. “Sorry,” he said, “we just don’t feel like we know you well enough to invite you to join the brotherhood.” I was devastated and wondered how I’d face my friends, all of whom had called to tell me they’d been invited to pledge.

I later found out that I’d been turned down because some frat brothers didn’t want any “potential homos” in the chapter.

That rejection helped me come out of the closet and into self-acceptance. The following year, I received a chancellor’s award for being the most outstanding man in the junior class. I felt honored — and vindicated. A few years later, the fraternity’s president-elect announced in a chapter meeting that he was gay.

C. Brown
San Francisco, California

When I was a twelve-year-old girl in East Germany, an older friend taught me chess. He had learned the game while a prisoner of war, captured by the Russians during World War II. I was the only child of a single mother, friendless and stuck in a remote settlement. The attention he gave me seemed priceless, but it turned out there was a price: he had to win.

His winning didn’t bother me at first; after all, I was just learning. After a few months had gone by, however, I began to wonder why he didn’t let me win occasionally, just for encouragement. Why did he need such cheap victories?

I eventually grew angry and resolved to beat him. I memorized his moves and learned to recognize some simple tricks. I put him in positions I had been unable to resolve and watched how he extricated himself. Finally the day came when I won. He shook his head, speechless. I felt a deep satisfaction.

I’d been raised by a mother preoccupied with survival, amid social turmoil and poverty. I grew up feeling rejected by her family, who shunned us because Mom had left my father. Around the age of ten, I’d become fiercely competitive in an effort to prove my worth. Winning made me feel secure in that atmosphere of great insecurity, but it also concealed a deep sense of worthlessness.

Did my chess teacher, dehumanized by Hitler’s army and Stalin’s prison camps, have similar reasons for wanting to win, even over an adolescent girl?

Now I feel only empathy for both of us.

Sigrid McLaughlin
Santa Cruz, California

Every summer since we moved to Texas, my husband, Levi, and I have driven thirty hours to upstate New York to visit his parents. Although they have a fine house, we sleep outside, in a tent my inlaws bought for us, because Levi is allergic to Patches, their beloved dog. They came up with this solution after two trips to the emergency room to treat Levi’s severe allergic reactions.

Our visits have grown shorter each year. At night we quickly get into the tent and try to zip it up without letting the bugs in. Then we lie on top of our sleeping bags and sweat in the eighty-five-degree heat.

One night we heard the sliding glass door open and Patches scurry down the steps. He sniffed around the tent, then chose a spot near our heads to relieve himself. After he’d darted back into the air-conditioned house, he sat at the glass door, looking down upon us. I swear he was smirking.

Tammy R.
Houston, Texas

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