One of the charms of tennis is that it tends to induce social grace — a quality that seems to be dissipating with each day’s headlines. Tennis players compliment each other’s shots, give opponents the benefit of the doubt on line calls and fight for the privilege of buying the beverages after a match.
I mention this because it was 20 years ago this summer that I met my friend Arnold on the courts at the old Northwest Athletic Club in St. Louis Park. There were 11 of us racing around as our instructor put us through drills — 11 players of average skill, determined to exhibit as much civility as we could muster.
And then there was Arnold. He scowled, he grumbled, he cursed — usually, but not always, at himself — when he wasn’t happy with a shot. And maybe even when he was. He avoided eye contact. His vibes were bad. And so it was that within five minutes of meeting him, I was calling him Angry Arnold. Whenever anyone asked why I called him that, I’d reply, “Because his name is Arnold.” And all these years later, I cannot think of him as anything but Angry Arnold.
Within a week or two, Arnold had gone too far. I think what crossed the line was a high-velocity racquet toss. It was the first of many such webbed projectiles I would witness over the next two decades. Our instructor, Molly Ambrose — a gifted matchmaker who treated the drills as social functions as much as tennis lessons — reluctantly told Arnold he couldn’t come back again.
By then, he had been told this many times: by professors, bartenders, women…especially women. Although there was an elite group of us who cherished his friendship, he was a lonely guy — never married — and he didn’t exactly have a way with women. He once shelled out big money to join a prestigious matchmaking service called “It’s Just Lunch.”
As it turned out, it was just water.
The guys at the Jewish Community Center still speak his name with reverence because of an incident during a pickup game 30 years ago. Arnold got tired of being fouled by a clumsy opponent and decked the dude. Of course, he got banned from the JCC. But everyone agreed on one thing: Arnold had picked the right guy. In addition to a ticket out of there, he also deserved a trophy.
I never blamed Arnold for his missteps. He was doomed to eternal adolescence, completely lacking in impulse control, and way too intelligent not to understand these handicaps. Even with his friends, Arnold had a hard time finding common ground. He was just plain obstreperous, so much so that I sometimes had to remind him, in the middle of one of his angry rants about politics or theology, that I actually agreed with him. That would temporarily defuse him, but it was clear that he was somewhat disappointed to learn that we were on the same side.
I think you can blame his DNA for the fact that things just didn’t seem to work out for him. He was a brilliant student at the University of Minnesota and, after that, a passionate and committed teacher. Maybe he was a bit too passionate; there is anecdotal evidence that he was certainly too angry. “I got fired from every teaching job I ever had,” he once told me.
As it turned out, he had a knack for selling gold and silver, even if his heart wasn’t always in it. Finally, he used those same skills to broker health insurance, until that business — and Arnold’s body — went bad.
In the end, things almost always went bad for Arnold. It’s not surprising that his view of life — specifically, his life, but also the human condition in general — was unrelentingly cynical. And yet what is a cynic, after all, if not an idealist with a broken heart?
Mostly, he turned his anger inward, which is the definition of depression. And in that, I recognized a kindred soul. As he left our tennis group, dejected and remorseful, I caught up with him and told him — sincerely — that I never liked those people either and that we should bag the group tennis thing and just hit with each other.
With that, we were off and running. Before we got to the parking lot, Arnold was discussing Heidegger’s Theory of Phenomenology, the poetry of the misanthropic Charles Bukowski, and a broad range of his conspiracy theories that I regarded as somewhere between inspired and deranged.
Over the years, we hit tens of thousands of tennis balls, usually after I laid down the ground rules. Before we could begin to hit, I might say, “Now, Arnold, there’s a playground right in back of you, so when you throw the racquet, you have to toss it against the fence on your left side. We don’t want the children to get hurt today.” He would nod his assent. “Then,” I might say, “there are nuns who often walk through the park, so try not to take the Lord’s name in vain.” He would nod again. Sometimes, he would even comply.
Arnold was a big guy, a veritable beast of burden — although the burden was his own. He’d played high school football and still had the brawn. Sadly, he no longer had the knees. If I hit a shot that barely made it over the net — one of my own character flaws — he would begin the terrifying process of willing his body forward. His arms would flail, his hips would move like discount pistons, and something like a combination of will and rage would seize control of his visage. Almost always, he would wind up hitting the ball into the net, or not at all.
He had a habit of hitting line drives that sailed over my head, which would send him into a profane diatribe. Using the heel of his hand to rhythmically assault his forehead, he’d yell, “God (smack) damnit, Arnie (smack), it’s the same (smack) thing (smack) every time!”
Naturally, innocent bystanders on the adjoining court would stop playing to witness this outburst, and I would have to turn to the crowd and say, “I’m not Arnie, he’s Arnie.”
In recent years, Angry Arnold and I had to settle for long lunches. He had a couple of heart attacks, which surprised no one. He wasn’t a heart attack waiting to happen…he was a heart attack that was happening, in real time. The knees were shot. The discs in his back and neck were herniated, and as a result, he lost most of the feeling in his hands. Surgery was just one more thing that didn’t seem to go well. After the long and gory procedure, he was forced to use a walker, and even then he was barely mobile. I told him that the walker was a waste of a couple of perfectly good tennis balls. And he laughed. It wasn’t as if he lacked a sense of humor.
But there was no mirth to be found in the reality that Arnold would have to spend months in an assisted living facility while he underwent painful rehab. It was a long shot, but Arnold, bent and seemingly broken, threw himself into the job at hand. His immediate goal was to move back into his dream house. The place was modest compared to the neighboring metastasizing McMansions of Edina, but it was as orderly as Arnold’s life was not. He kept the grounds and the garden impeccably groomed. Somewhere in the midst of the manicured bushes and the blooming tulips, Arnold found a little serenity within the manic chaos of an angry life.
Arnold had, sadly, chosen an assisted living facility that was downright scary. Another questionable decision. Still, he soldiered on, not only working to get stronger but dazzling those of us who were proud to be his friend. After all, how often does a 70-year-old man get busted for possessing pot in a nursing facility?
Yes, that was Arnold. And how could you blame him? He was hurting and it seemed like a rather odd time, after all these years, not to find comfort in his customary one-hitter.
Even without his favorite herb, he displayed a rare malleability. To our amazement, he made friends with the guys down the hall and endeared himself to a few (not all) of the employees. His attitude, if not his body, seemed to be improving.
Then, sometime before midnight on a warm, starlit evening a few days ago, he went AWOL: called a cab and went home for reasons we haven’t figured out.
The next morning, he was dead.
I’m going to say it was a heart attack, but it doesn’t really matter. Something, maybe a lot of things, finally gave out between the solace of the night and the harsh glare of morning.
On Sunday, he’ll be laid to rest next to his mother and father. Then and forever, Arnold Hymanson will be angry no more.
Read Arnold’s obituary here.
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