Schadenfreude

Faithful readers of this column (And you don't have to have been all that faithful; there are only eleven of them. My "oeuvre.") will recall that a few weeks ago I wrote about our local T-ball league and how one of my kids is playing in it, and how we played against the bad team (boo) led by the evil coach (big boo), who had taught his players to chase down our kids like loan-sharks going after truant customers. I also wrote that my heroic wife (yay) had stood up to the evil coach (another boo) and was dressed down by the umpire for her troubles. And how proud I was of her, and that even though I wasn't present at that game, we were going to be playing them again, and that I was planning to move heaven and earth to be there the next time. (Unless, of course, I was filming a love scene with Liv Tyler, in which case I was planning to move her like heaven and earth. Okay, that's never going to happen. I'll be at the next game.)

Well, we played them again, and I was there (tough luck, Liv), and fortune gave me a string of opportunities for revenge, and I took those opportunities, and this is that story. With a twist. And there's only one people who could have a word for what occurred, and those people are the Germans. And the word is "schadenfreude."

I think German is the only language that has juicy, steak-thick words like that, nuggets that have deep and intricate resonance, that not only don't fly off the tongue, but, rather, drop straight down like the collected works of Proust. To save you the web-search I just did, schadenfreude is defined as "pleasure derived from the misfortune of others; a malicious satisfaction, synonymous with gloating or fiendish glee." Delicious. (It's noteworthy that the name "Freud" is in there, from the Middle High German "vreude," meaning joy. Ironic as well, since, judging from his body of work, no one ever pointed this out to Freud himself.) In other words, it was not going to be enough for us to outplay them and win the game; their coach had to suffer, to writhe and moan in a mythic, Teutonic struggle and come out the other end shattered like Michael Skakel's ego when Martha Moxley told him he was fat and ugly.

Ahem. Normally, of course, civilized people recoil from these dark desires. Quite right, too. Why should anyone look to create a drama out of a T-ball game that would make "Gotterdammerung" look like "Cats"? Well, these are not normal times, my friends. We're at war. And at that moment, on that field, looking at that man, I was girding for a fight on the home front. Or in the throes of a neurotic delusion. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. Prepare, villain! Gaze into the abyss! Your judgment is at hand!

As Lee Marvin said after his big duel in "Cat Ballou," ohhhhh, it was sweet. From the first play, with our guys at bat, everyone on the bad team made error after error. That wasn't the sweet part. After all, they're just kids, too. (Well, maybe it was a little sweet.) The really joyful part was that after each error, after each of our kids reached base, the red-faced, evil coach would charge out and over to the offending tyke and yell at him like a French chef yelling at, oh, anyone.

He was clearly more and more livid after each play, which, of course, made us giggle more and more after each play. At one point I said to the dozen or so parents on our side, "The happiest I've been in two years of this goofy league is seeing that guy this unhappy." That got a big laugh. My wife squeezed my hand. Then, his son made an error, too, and he really laced into him, so much so that the umpire told him to cut it out and let the game continue. I turned to the peanut gallery and said, "In ten years, the first one that kid shoots will be his father, and there isn't a jury in the world that will convict him." Another big laugh. Another squeeze of the hand. A couple of innings later, with their team up at bat, a little girl missed the ball after a mighty, little-girl swing, and accidentally flung the bat backwards at her coach's feet. One of our mothers called out helpfully, "Hold onto the bat, now, honey." To which I added, "Or aim higher." Another laugh. A kiss on the cheek this time. I leaned over to The Divine Mrs. M. and whispered, "How about I grab a bottle of champagne on the way home? After we put the kids down, I'll take a quick shower, shave, and . . . Qui sait?" She smiled in agreement. Ronald Colman, eat your heart out. And the cherry on top? The next time we were in the field, my kid scooped up three grounders in a row and made three put-outs, the last one on the coach's kid. Yup, mighty sweet.