The Croquet Player

He was my first love. When we met, in a freshman psych class, I asked, have you ever hallucinated? He asked, would you like to join my croquet club? We both thought the other insane. We were both right. Within two short questions, we knew all we would ever need to know about each other, but it took 25 years to play out the whole scenerio.

I blame it on Space Invaders, a video game removed from our local bar in 1980. He wrote to our college newspaper, bemoaning the fate of the game. I thought he would make a great writer for me when I became an editor of said paper. He thought I wanted to go to bed with him. At the time I was so naive as to be emotional virginal. Two days later, I think he believed we had had a one night stand. If so, it was to be a very long night, a night lasting more than 20 years.

Yes, he is and will always be, The Croquet Player. It is his profession, his passion. I am not allowed near the croquet lawn, for fear I will grab a mallet, and the idea of him, me, and a wooden mallet in close range has always been, wisely, considered dangerous. Although we both may have grown out of that somewhere along the line. Somewhere between where he showed up on my doorstep on his first wedding anniversary, wife not included, and where, a couple of years ago, he may have met his match. His match was not me, for which, as an adult, I am grateful. Twenty years ago, I would have had his child. Fortunately for all, I did not.

TCP has been a long chapter in my life. This is part one.