Transcript of PTFO - This Is Goth Tennis: A Halloween Memoir

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out I am Pablo Torre. And today we're going to find out what this sound is.

I wanted my opponents to be so demoralized by my playing style that they'd utterly unravel in front of me right after this ad. You're listening to DraftKings Network at an event at the beginning of something you do kind of like the bro clap.

Oh yeah.

And depending on the quality and the purity of the bro clap, that gives you an indication of how well things are gonna go.

Mm.

Wanna try?

You wanna dat me up before this specific episode?

I mean, I think it would be fun.

I'm going to have to lean over these pumpkins.

Okay. Come on, pumpkin. Dap here. That wasn't great.

All right, so that is the sound of my good friend and PTFO correspondent Mickey Douj, an award winning illustrator and animator and filmmaker and fellow dad. Basically a guy that I have known for years now. Or at least I thought I did until I read something that Mickey just published online today for Racket magazine. A story that I immediately wanted to adapt and expand pretty much as soon as I read it.

It's a story that I have never told publicly. It's something that I've carried with me for 27 years. So it's a real kind of coming out party for me in a lot of ways.

The last time Mickey was in studio with us, we had sent him out into the field to investigate NBA superstar Nikola Jokic's obsession with horses and harness racing, which was a truly delightful assignment. But this story, the one we are bringing you right now ahead of Halloween weekend, is different, as this excerpt may suggest.

To the ominous howl of wind gusting through chain link fences. The two teams lined up under a gray overcast sky and waited for their names to be called. The coaches announced the matchups two by two, prompting a quick handshake between opponents and the distribution of a fresh can of balls. My high school tennis matches were macabre performance art, where after extending a veiny skeletal arm for my opponent to shake, I'd slowly turn and drift to our assigned court, clad in chains while carrying no bag, no water bottle and no towel. I was a hardcore Jacob Marley and would milk the pained shuffle for maximal effect. Ambling to the net post, I'd begin a ceremony to remove my jewelry piece by piece, softly resting each ring and chain down on the ground. The performance would end with a white headband stretching over the crown of my skull, tightly binding a cascade of shoulder length hair dyed the color of a raven's wing. The match would begin and dark clouds would gather. As if possessed by an unseen force, I jerk around the court, flashing my long limbs to return. Balls hit to my side of the net in a twisted pageant of endurance.

Each point would be a battle lasting dozens of shots, virtually always ending with my opponent making a mistake. During changeovers, I'd stand motionless and stare with bloodshot eyes glaring from sunken sockets. Before they could even start to figure out what was wrong with me, my adversary would be back on court, struggling to survive a brand of tennis they had no interest in playing, with their hopes of winning slipping away, the opponent would then notice a group of darkly clad spectators gathering like crows on the bleachers. Little did they know that this group convened to witness a ceremonial kill. Hastened by the ever more impenetrable web I was weaving over the court. By the time the hearse pulled up, they were more than ready for their body bag. Vicky, What.

What are we gonna call today's episode, do you think?

There's really only one answer to that, Pablo. This was Goth 10.

Mickey. I want to set the scene for those who are maybe just listening to this Theater of the Mind performance that we're engaging here today. Because the studio is now decorated, it feels appropriately spooky.

I feel right at home.

Yeah, this has never been done. We've never celebrated Halloween in studio this way. What is your relationship with Halloween as a concept, as a holiday?

I love Halloween. At various points in my life, I felt like I maybe was celebrating Halloween every day of the year. This is me dressed as Dracula as a young man. I was a little bit of an odd kid. I don't want to say I was weird and super dark, but I was imaginative and maybe a little bit different.

And in that photo, completely unsmiling.

Well, come on, if you're going to go, go all the way. I don't know if Dracula was really.

I was a Care Bear. We have that photo.

Spookier in a different way.

Even more disturbing in retrospect, actually.

So I grew up in suburban Detroit in a northern suburb called Warren. And we're talking, you know, mid late 90s now, when I was in high school and as is kind of known now through films like 8 Mile or People knowing about the origin story of Insane Clown Posse and the Juggalos.

Oh, yeah.

Detroit could be a very cold and almost gothic place. And I mean gothic almost in the tradition of kind of Southern gothic novels, like, I'm thinking like Flannery O'Connor type of thing. I would say much Like Detroit is known for this overcast, just perpetual cloud layer that hangs over the city for half the year. That's really how my childhood felt as well.

Something that made me feel like a bad friend is truly the depth to which I knew nothing about what you're here to tell us about. And I do want to introduce with some visual aids here, what you looked like in high school. How would you describe yourself?

I was very tall. I was emaciated, thin. I didn't really talk much. I had almost like a translucent skin.

Gaunt is a word that comes to mind as I see this photo of you and, I believe, your sister.

Yep, that's me and my older sister. People described me as looking like the main character in Dazed and Confused. If that character were starving to death.

Yes, Mitch. Mitch. Just really needing a meal.

The reason I existed in this almost cartoonishly skeletal, withdrawn way was because I was dealing with a lot of stuff inside my house as well. My dad was very wild and very abusive. And being the person that I was, I didn't look like other kids. Maybe I didn't act like other kids. I'm not sure exactly the type of person that my dad wanted me to be, but I wasn't that person. And so it seemed like every quality that I had was repulsive to him, and he took it out on me. And there was a lot of physical abuse. By the time I was 15, I felt like I really had to fend for myself. So everything that I was into was really. I know this is starting to sound a little like therapy esque, but it was trying to kind of escape this reality that I was having a very hard time coping with.

So you will be unsurprised to learn if you have ever seen Mickey's work in the present tense, which does include, by the way, the original illustrations that we're weaving into the TV version of this episode over on YouTube and the DraftKings network, that he was an incredibly skilled artist as a teenager. He was an illustrator of repute even back then. But one of the other things that I didn't realize at all about Mickey, beyond the horrors of his home life, is that he was also a varsity athlete. As a sophomore at Warren Mott High School, he was a varsity tennis player, a truly promising one, in fact, with documented real potential. Which meant that the other tension that he was stuck navigating was between the world of sports, on the one hand, and this considerably darker world that I needed more help understanding because I'm a city kid. Because I don't think I knew any goths.

Yep.

In high school. Not. Not true goths. Maybe some goth adjacent characters. If I were to swing the door open to your art room in high school, what would I see?

I got in with the goths because the toughest kids at my high school actually were the gay goths who I met in my high school art room. The leader of the gay goths was a guy named Dale. He was a senior. He had long black hair. He was the lead singer of a goth band.

What's the name of the band?

They were called Seraphine.

Perfect.

They were great.

I believe this is.

Yeah, that's their album.

An album cover.

Yeah. That's Dale right in the front with his long black hair.

Yes. Half in shadow is Dale's face Black and white pink text Seraphin New asterisk for some reason born. Copyright 1997.

The lyrics of his songs were so awesome. If you see me bleeding it's just my heart trying to cry Wearing the night just like skin I was the shadow's phantom so good.

So, I mean, pretty badass.

Yeah. Oh, my God. Dale is incredible. Yeah.

How are you updating yourself? As your initiation into this tribe becomes.

That much more complete, I decide to dye my hair black. My eyes were suddenly opened to a whole universe of goths that I hadn't noticed that were lurking through the school. Some of that is by design. The goth esthetic and ethos is not to really, you know, be front and center, but it is to kind of lurk through corners and shadows.

All of this is foreign to me.

Let's start with describing what Dale and their closest friends were. They regarded themselves as military goths. They're wearing combat boots. They wear a lot of shiny buckles, but a lot of plain shirts. Some mesh, but not a lot of mesh.

I was gonna ask.

Yeah. How much mesh is a little bit of mesh?

Okay.

So I would say the style icon for military goths is probably post misfits Glendanzic mother. Dale was really channeling that. The most visible of the goths were the Victorian goths. Much more sartorial in their dress.

Classy.

They're wearing the satin, the velvet, the corduroy, ruffles. We're talking some artistic flourishes. Like a top hat.

Yeah. Like people who maybe would like to be considered a count of some sort.

Absolutely. And I think the style icon that I would say for the Victorian goths. Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Yes.

You know, the cane, the shades.

A high class goth.

Oh, yeah. So then after the military Goths. And the Victorian goths was a little group near the jewelry making station called the Fairy Goths.

Huh.

The Fairy Goths were much more fantasy inclined.

Right.

You know, dark fairies, maybe into Lord of the Rings. A lot of them were wearing prosthetic ears.

Yeah, Elven. Elven Goths, absolutely.

Wearing fake wings.

Gossamer goth wings, totally.

But some kind of wings in prestige.

Yeah.

A slightly more whimsical goth definitely could still be really effed up and dark, but a little bit more whimsical.

How were your folks feeling as they're observing Young Mickey, under £100 now, covered in various bits of arcane jewelry, hair, jet black. What did they think of this?

They weren't excited about any of the changes that they saw, whether it was me dyeing my hair, me only dressing in black. And they were especially not excited that I turned my bedroom into like a dungeon of darkness where I got rid of anything that was light colored. There were a lot of those drip candles that I positioned next to, you know, some plastic skulls that I got. Check my mom. I remember her looking at what was formerly a fish tank stand that I turned into my kind of candle altar, and she called it my satanic altar, which she was not. Not really thrilled about.

I mean, at this point, hard to blame her for presuming that maybe you were worshiping the devil.

Yeah, but there was.

Were you worshiping the devil?

I was not. And I think that I just want to say that this is a big misconception about goths. If I could be so bold and speak on behalf of the goth community.

Are you going to cancel me for assuming that you were worshiping Satan?

No. So in my experience, all of the goths, this wide taxonomy that I described to you, we were all really sensitive people, artistic people who loved paintings and poetry and sharing things with one another. Most goths had an incredible sense of humor, which is. Humor is not exactly associated with the gothic way, but it's true. And it was a real loving subculture of people that looked out for one another. But no, we weren't doing any other satanic rituals.

Yes, yes, yes. Hashtag, not all goths. The juxtaposition of that is such a part of your life. And also, come springtime, Mickey, it's time for you to take the court. Like tennis. I'm presuming now that your dad was not super involved in your athletic career.

No. Save to assume. Yeah.

So who was?

I should say that the tennis courts, much like the art room, was this haven for lost souls. And the tennis court at my school, which was Warren Mott, a giant suburban high school. The tennis coach. His name was Larry Hart, probably the most bizarre character that I've ever met. Larry was about 6 foot, 2 inches, rail thin. Back in the day, there were these kind of sport glasses that were called rex specs, which were very, very thick and durable. He was wearing something adjacent to those that were somehow even bigger and uglier than rex specs. Somewhere along the way, way before we met him, he had busted out his two front teeth. And so he had cheaply gotten fake teeth, but they were like the size of chiclets, like, over overly huge for his head.

You'd gotten the respect. Specks of teeth.

That's right. He had long, curly hair that was always kind of unwashed, unkempt. His head was perpetually topped with a foam trucker hat, which if he ever took it off, like when we were saying the pledge of allegiance or anything, it would reveal a completely bald head that was super pale, which stood in contrast to the rest of his skin, which was super tan because all he did was play tennis.

Yes. We're seeing on this photograph that you can see on YouTube or the draft news Network the aforementioned Larry, cap upon head, Rex specs on teeth, glistening skin tan, windbreaker donned.

This guy had not a lot of clothes, but what he had were about, you know, 10 different tracksuits that he would kind of cycle through. And they all also seemed kind of unwashed and reeking of sweat.

To what extent did he connect with the art room kids? To what extent did he connect with goths in that way?

Larry had this great quality to him where he was very much like a camp counselor in that he accepted anyone who wanted to come and play tennis. People who were kind of just like, exploring different parts of their identities, sexualities. A lot of nerdy kids, a lot of really religious kids, other kids that were dealing with a lot of stuff at home. It was kind of a motley crew of people that would hang around the tennis courts. And I like that. So I fit right in.

Did you ever get a sense in your conversations with Larry, did you ever get a sense of what his previous life had been before he was this character that was known around town and around your school?

One of the things that makes Larry so compelling as a character, but also as a human being is that he's very mysterious. He would never really talk about his personal life or his private life.

And this is where I should make clear that what made Larry Hart such an emergent father figure to Mickey wasn't simply the way that he treated people, which did stand in extremely stark contrast to Mickey's actual father and the abuse that he was suffering at home. It was also the fact that Larry had become genuinely invested in developing Mickey, a skeletal teenager who was obviously searching for community and specifically developing Mickey into a better tennis player. Because Larry, for all of his mysterious quirks, took his current life, his calling, extremely seriously. He had high standards, he had rules, he had a philosophy. And he was widely respected, it turns out, throughout not just Detroit, but the entire state of Michigan as a coach.

I can tell you there was a moment, though, I got a glimpse into some potential former life of his, which was after practice one day, Larry came up to me and he. We were just. We were just chatting, and he asked how my winter went. You know, told him a little bit about the art room. You know, he could see that I had a new look going on. You could see that I'm wearing, you know, all types of rings and chains and bracelets and everything. And I don't know what compelled me to tell him this, but I was telling him about some of the new music that I was being introduced to. And my favorite in that moment was this new band that I had discovered through my friends called the Sisters of Mercy, one of the great 70s Goth bands from England. I listened to this album first and last and always. Black Planet, Amphetamine Logic. Like, really dark, twisted, great stuff. And I just. I don't know why, but I just said, oh, yeah, I've been listening to Sisters of Mercy. And Larry's eyes lit up, and he looked over at me and he said, oh, yeah, man, they're great.

I love the Sisters of Mercy. And he rattled off a name of a couple albums, and he said, you know, I actually used to follow them when they were out on the road. I used to go to a lot of their shows. He was such a mystery, but this was really out of left field. There was a look on his face that he almost realized that he disclosed something that he didn't actually want to say. I never forgot that moment. It was really odd.

And so you, as his. As his athlete, as his student, give me the scouting report. What's Mickey like?

I'm pretty athletic, so got good reach, good reach, wingspan, lanky. Pretty quick and good coordination, but still pretty raw. High upside prospect. But by my second year, I feel like I had put a couple more things together. I have to say that after this strange episode with Larry with the Sisters of Mercy connection, One night I was looking through, and Larry was big on giving, like, handouts of xeroxed articles, strategy articles. And one night when I was home, I'd been, like, smoking some weed. I was looking at these articles, and I had this moment that was almost out of body where I saw the strategy of these articles almost kind of come together, where I saw this conjured dark power coming from this new strategy. And I went to Larry the next day at practice, and I said, I want to rebuild my entire game. He was like, if you put in the work, like, let's do this. And so that began my transformation. Through the Midwestern springs, wind and rain, Larry taught me how to keep points alive. Step one, develop an ability to hit 100 balls in a single rally. Step two, evaluate the risks associated with each of my shots, favoring ones I hit at the highest percentages.

Learn to neutralize my opponent's biggest weapons against me. We started with the technique to diagnose an opponent's strengths and weaknesses during warmups, after which I'd relentlessly hit balls at their weaknesses in the event they didn't have a conspicuous weakness. I was taught to keep the ball deep in the middle of the court to make it more difficult for opponents to hit severe angles against me. In moments when opponents would move into the net, I was taught to either hit a heavy topspin shot to their feet or to softly lob a ball over their heads, forcing them to retreat and restart the rally. My lung capacity increased week to week, and despite the fact I was still skeletal, my rallies with Larry could now extend to 200 shots. As my legs turned and lungs ached, a long, repressed rage burned through my insides, drowning all my emotional pain, my parents, the disgusting body I saw in the mirror, leaving me only with the capacity to focus on the neon ball in front of me. The longer the points lasted, the deeper the burn penetrated. And in moments when I'd noticed Larry weakening, a predatory extra gear would kick in to extend the rally.

In our shared misery, we'd continue these sessions well after sundown, reacting mostly to the sound of the ball off one another's strings. And while spinning the ball back again and again, I'd catch myself smiling in the dark. Tolerating pain had become my superpower. By the time the season started in April, I was ready to f some kids up. I didn't just want to win. The perverse scoreline I dreamt of was to lose zero games, commit zero errors, and hit zero winners. I wanted my opponents to be so demoralized by my playing style that they'd utterly unravel in front of me. I wanted them to know and be haunted by the knowledge that they'd actually played and lost a match against themselves.

That is jumping in here to observe that it sounds unbelievably awful to play tennis against you.

I should say that the Persona that I would take on court was that I was really like an angel of death.

I get that vibe.

And that we could do this the easy way or we could do this the hard way, but I'm walking out of here with. With the dub.

I think I had underestimated how self loathing was an ingredient underneath all of this. The idea that you didn't like yourself, your skin, even as much as you are now embracing your new appearance. It was compensating or seeking to remedy a pain that then became instrumental to your strategy of how to actually beat kids at tennis.

I think that I can connect to other people who felt or feel, even listeners of this show who might feel this, like, disaffected angry and that society had kind of rejected them. That burns inside. And I think what I've come to understand for me personally is that for a lot of years, the anger that I was feeling on the surface was really masking a really low self esteem and a low self worth. You know, it feels like cartoonish to say today, but when I was a kid and getting, you know, beaten up by my dad, he would say to me, like, you're not a real man. Like, he would say that to me as he was beating me up. And that's like. Of course, I'm like a kid.

You know, I'm a literal child.

Yeah. But I think the effect of that over time was that I actually didn't love myself. I thought I was unworthy of love. And that can be really insidious. So in this new tennis strategy, I found this kind of nuclear reactor inside of me that was fueled both by this anger and this self loathing. And the fact that I could now use this as some sort of twisted weapon to take my revenge on the world. I found that twisted and delightful.

Yeah. To be clear, you were beating kids and then drawing, like, tombstones in your notebook.

Absolutely. Part of my passive aggressiveness, I'm not. I'm not proud of all this, but part of my passive aggressiveness in that time was that I wanted from like, the very lineup of our teams for the opponent to think that I was a total joke, that I didn't look like a tennis player at all.

Right.

That I was Gaunt, thin. I didn't even have a water bottle or a towel. And I. I mean, aside from being fueled by all this other stuff, I was fueled by the sideways looks and the snickering that they would do when they would underestimate me.

So when. When your opponent snaps.

Yeah.

What is that? What does that sound like?

So there was one time where a guy was so angry playing against me. I remember for four and a half games, he didn't even score a point on me. He was like, losing his goddamn mind that he went to the back fence to pick up the ball and he punched the fence and gouged his hand open on, like, a burr that was sticking out of the fence. So blood is gushing down his arm. And I remember just standing there at the net and saying, you know, do you want to. Do you want to stop? And the guy was so furious that he said, f you. Let's keep going.

This does sound like a lyric in a seraphant song.

Yeah. And I remember that day we kept playing. He keeps bleeding. His blood actually got all over the balls that we were using. And I remember thinking that was really cool.

I also have to imagine that your hair is dyed. Right. Again, as you say, there is a ceremony of. Of de Ringing yourself. All of this.

Yeah.

When you are exerting yourself. Because also, this is sports, and it is hard, and you are trying really hard. What does that look like?

Well, to. To the ceremonial side of things, I'll just say that if. If I could have actually emerged from a coffin next to the court, I would have done that. So much of this, you know, get the dry ice, get the whole thing going. So I was really, you know, milking the performance for all it was worth. I will say that taking all the metal off before playing was pretty smart. Just because, you know, sweaty metal, that's. That gets a little tiring to endure.

Sounds like it get hot.

Yeah. But I also noticed, you know, periodically that as I was, like, really sweating because I was having to, like, re. Dye my hair, so occasionally there would be fresh dye, and when you're out, you know, sweating in the afternoon sun, you know, the dye could, like, drip off, you know, almost like a. Like a Giuliani.

I was gonna say like Rudy Giuliani. Yeah, like noted vampire Rudy Giuliani.

Yeah. I was the original Giuliani. Which, you know, I think that it only. It only added to the disturbing pageantry of my performances.

So you go all the way to the regional tournament is my understanding here. And what is that moment like Right. So I imagine in any good sports movie, States is on the line.

Yeah.

And so at regionals, with that hanging in the balance, how does it go?

We'd had a really good season, but Warren Mott had never made it to States because every regional was won by the perennial powerhouse of Grosse Pointe north, which is the fanciest, richest, whitest suburb outside Detroit. So they were in our regional, and we thought despite having a good season, that it was all going to end that day. So the tournament starts. It's a three round tournament. The first round I beat a guy that I had already beaten during the season pretty easily. And then the second round, I got through pretty easily as well, setting up this, like, epic finale between none other than Grosse Pointe North.

Right. Grosse Pointe north, depicted in that movie, Grosse Pointe Blank. John Cusack, that 90s movie. So I get the sense of, like, goth versus prep.

I took a narrow 54 lead, but Nosferatu was fading in the sun. I knew I didn't have anything left for a third set. So using the last of my energy, I forced myself into the net again and again. Desperate to finish at 40, 30, I hit a hard approach shot and watched him throw a high lob up into the sun. As I craned my neck to find it, pupils shrinking and vision flooding white, I jumped back, stretched my limbs as long as my tendons could bear, and swung on instinct. I felt the ball catch just inside the frame and watched it land cleanly into the open court. It was all over and I was a wreck.

So you won?

I won.

But you were a wreck.

I'll tell you why I felt that way. It was because this season, just like the previous season, was going to end with us, you know, losing to some dicks who are gonna, like, rub our nose in it. What I found in that match is that the player that I beat, his name is Andrew, this guy, like, showed the greatest sportsmanship of really anyone that I had played against that season. He did not sneer at me. He did not, you know, take the bait of any of my microaggressions. And the shame that I felt and the wreck that I felt at the end of that match really came from how I realized that so much of this twisted strategy that I was using was about how I was provoking other people to judge me. While at the time, all I was really doing was judging and projecting onto the type of person that he was, which in reality was not true at all.

Right. He wasn't playing up to central casting.

That's Right. In this case, even though I won this tournament, and I have to say, our team also collectively won the tournament, and we all got to States in that moment of what should have been such celebration. I just. I felt really ashamed of the way I was operating.

Larry, as the coach here, as, again, this leader of this band of underdogs that had made it to States. How does your dynamic at States unfold given that? Well, now you, you know, it's time to actually win this thing.

So Larry was so excited because he had never taken a team to States before. We really, like, leaned into the fact. I mean, our team was called the Marauders. We leaned into the fact that we were these kind of underdog pirates taking this state tournament by storm. But I should say that it was clear to all of us, including to Larry, about 10 or 15 minutes after we got to the tournament, we started to see the quality of play that though we may have come out on top in the regional tournament states, it was a whole other beast. And we were pretty solidly outclassed. So I took it upon myself to try to foster closer connections with my teammates and in the ways that I had kind of maybe perfected or kind of exercised in my winter with the Goths, I thought nothing would be better than after we all got, you know, ceremonially slaughtered at States to throw a great hotel party.

So a hotel party thrown by Mickey in this phase of your life, how stoned did you guys get?

Brought the weed. Brought some, like, I think either Swisher sweets or black and Milds or something. You know, there might have been a clove cigarette in there. I remember Larry, he went off to a local sports bar to watch the Red Wings. They were in the playoffs that year. And so we, you know, did the usual kind of washcloth over the smoke detector, towel under the door, and we. We lit up. It was going great until Larry came back early and busted all of us.

Yeah, disappointing your coach, slash father figure who had just invested this trust in you guys had helped you become the best version of yourself as a tennis player. That. That sounds like a different wrinkle in your emotional memory here.

It felt like a real betrayal of his trust in us. And Larry is someone who always preached living by a code. And the code was sportsmanship, but the code was also how you conduct yourself. And the word came down to all of our hotel rooms about an hour after he came back from the bar that because we had betrayed him and the code, that we were all kicked off the team and that none of Us were going to be able to take the team bus, like, the hour and a half drive back to where we lived. So we all needed to, like, call our parents to pick us up. And I just. I remember just sitting on my. On the bed in my hotel room feeling like I ruined everything.

It is one thing to up and it is another thing to genuinely disappoint someone that you wanted to be proud of you.

Yeah. And that was a new feeling for me because I had felt prior to that, I had felt so on my own and unwilling or afraid to trust in a father figure. Man. It's hard to even talk about it now because I felt like I'd been burned so many times, and now here was someone who had really invested in me and seen the best in me, and I was the one that it up. So that was the end of the season. We lose at States, we all get kicked off the team, and it's the end of the school year. So we got back to Warren and didn't see Larry for a bit. We were finishing our school years. I remember, I mean, spending a lot of time in the art room. Everyone's kind of cleaning up and taking their art projects home. You know, Dale is going off to pursue stardom. He's graduating. And, you know, as much as I had let my new friends in on what was happening with me in tennis, how things ended with Larry was something that I feel like I couldn't communicate with them or that there was no charm in sharing that with them.

And I remember seeing my teammates in the hallways, my tennis teammates, and a lot of them were saying, like, you know, screw Larry. You know, like, who needs to be on the tennis team? Like, he overreacted. And that didn't feel better for me either. So one day after school, I remember kind of looking out the back of the school and there was a big parking lot, and behind it was where the tennis courts were, and he was packing up the team stuff for the season. It was summertime. So I walked over and what I said to him was that I'm not here to be reinstated to the team, but I wanted to tell you that you deserved better than what we all did. And what I specifically did at States, what you and what your code brought to my life, was something that I really did not want to betray.

What did. What did Larry say?

Not the greatest eye contact guy. He was just kind of, like, looking at all of the gear, and he was probably thinking about the year as well. But I saw softness then come over his face. He Kind of cracked a smile. And he just looked over at me and he said, so, like, are we gonna hit some balls or what?

I want to do the thing that happens near the end of any good movie about high school. Okay. And I do want to. I want to sort of page through your yearbook, knowing how bleak that it otherwise might be, and just follow up on some of the key characters here.

Where are they now?

Where is Dale?

Dale.

When's the last time you saw Dale?

Dale kind of fell off the radar, and just quickly. The last time I saw him was in a very strange place, which was at a shopping mall, of all places, a couple years after he graduated. And, you know, he was still doing the music thing, I think, on the side. But his day job was working at one of these bulk candy stores. And when I saw him, I had to go. So it was a very brief interaction.

Were you going for some bulk candy yourself? You want to just put a. I may have.

I can't remember.

A scoop of Sour Patch Kids into a plastic bag.

Maybe jelly beans, Black jelly beans. But he said, oh, before you go, I want to show you something. And he, like, pulled up his shirt to show his back, and his entire back is covered in a tattoo of a drawing that I did for him in high school. It's not my greatest drawing.

What did you draw?

It's all these, like, lizards on, like, a twisted branch. I was, like, into that, I guess, in the 90s, but he got it. It was, like, up on his neck, too, and all the way back, and I was like, oh, my God. And I've. I tried to find him as part of this story.

Right.

I know that he's changed his name and he lives in the LA area, but I'm still looking for him. Dale hit me up.

Yeah, Dale, if you're out there. If any of the members of Seraphine, honestly are out there, we are interested in reuniting the band.

Let's. Let's. Let's have a show.

And as for Larry, when was the last time you saw him? When was the last time you guys got to connect?

I would see Larry whenever I would come into town. I lived in New York for, you know, 24 years, so I would only see him when I would come into Detroit to visit my parents for holidays. Really the last time that I saw him, though, was at an engagement party when my wife and I were gonna get married. Now, it's quite a number of years ago or 15 years ago.

I didn't know. So this photo is the last time you Saw him.

This was the last time we got together. Yeah. And.

And just for people who are tracking your evolution, you are not a goth in this photo, Mickey.

No, I should say that right after that season, kind of after I put that chapter behind me, I cut my hair, retired my jewelry, and continued my high school career. I'm happy to say I was reinstated to the team. I played for Larry for two more years and had great seasons. We went to states another time.

Wait, are you. Where are you in the record books? What's the part of your high school lore that you are most proud of?

Well, I should say that Larry was known to keep meticulous records. So I do know exactly where I place in the record books. You know, I would say, you know, I'm not not at the top for total wins. I would say maybe top 20 for total wins. But there's one record that Larry said it and I believe it, that will never, ever be broken, which is that I hold the single season double bagel record, and that is for the 199798 Goth tennis season where I won 11 matches. 6, 060.

Man. Like watching you actively become this person in this photograph. Given where we started, this story is now a palpably remarkable thing to me, your friend who knew none of this.

I want to read something to you that Larry gave me when I graduated. It has the header reflection of success. A coach can never make a great player of a youngster who isn't potentially great. But a coach can make a great competitor out of any child. And miraculously, coaches can make adults out of children. For a coach, the final score doesn't read so many points for my team, so many for theirs. Instead, it reads so many men and women out of so many boys and girls. And this is the score that is never published. And this is the score that coaches read to themselves and in which they find their real joy when the last game is over.

Where is Larry now, Mickey?

Larry passed away a couple years ago. Being the private person that he was, he didn't tell anyone that he was battling cancer. And he suffered without the support of the community and players that he had invested so much in. I never got a chance to say goodbye. When he was alive, many of us convened at his funeral and spoke about our experiences with him. And he was buried in a Warren Mott tennis sweatshirt with his tennis racket. You know, these days, I am a dad of two little boys who are 12 and 9 years old. Those boys are as odd and precocious and as lanky. Definitely as lanky as their dad was. I like to think that as a dad, I allow them to be the people that they are, rather than trying to mold them or scold them into something that they are. And so much of that attitude, that ethos, comes from Larry and the code, the coaching philosophy, and the level of attention and care and tolerance that he showed all of us as a coach. So in that way, Larry Hart lives on.

Yeah. Mickey Dujay, a great dad and. And a real man and a former goth. Happy Halloween.

Same to you, Pablo. Fade to Black.

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.