The vanishing sunlight of a summer's evening cast long shadows across the sports field and over the armored children of the Johnston Panthers running into each other at football practice. As a sports parent, Peter Lazzarino graduated from the sidelines at Mazzulla Field four years ago, after cheering his son through seven years of Panther football. He was back last summer, watching again, hands stuffed in his pockets, his eyes following a skinny 13-year-old in shoulder pads, whom Lazzarino had only recently met.
"Everybody says when a guy gets divorced he has it made," Lazzarino said quietly, offering his own pragmatic philosophy. "That really isn't the case. Yeah, I do what I want, but nothing can replace what you have with a family."
He was back at Panther football practice with George Raymond, a Johnston teenager matched up with Lazzarino through Big Brothers of Rhode Island. George had waited three years, a quarter of his life, for a Big Brother.
Lazzarino was 45, fit from construction work. He dressed tidily in golf attire: shorts, polo shirt and new white athletic shoes. He had married at age 23, fathered a boy and a girl, and then divorced about nine years ago. His children, in their late teens, lived with their mother. Lazzarino lived alone near the airport. His apartment building, a long two-story rectangle with a concrete balcony between floors, would fit in a movie as the anonymous motor lodge where a character on the lam might hide out.
His birthday was coming up. He shrugged. No plans for it. "It's not a big number."
On the field, the Panthers' coach blistered his team for what he judged a lack of effort. "You will RUN like you've NEVER run before!" he threatened.
Lazzarino never raised his voice to cheer or to nag George on the field. He just watched. He didn't have to scream for George to know that someone, an adult, a man, was paying him attention.
"I want to teach him that you've got to work," he said, softly, almost in a whisper, as if he feared George might hear him across the field. "Respect people. Be polite. Be a good kid. It hasn't hurt me. I don't want to replace his father but I want to serve that purpose. You know there's a void."
The Panthers' coach had seen enough. The kids ran punishment laps. Their heads bobbed unevenly as they jogged together in a long line that looked liked a tremendous fleeing caterpillar. Lazzarino watched quietly.
Nothing was more enjoyable for Lazzarino than being a father. Though his marriage didn't last, he saw his kids on the weekends when they were little. Then they grew older, and had their own friends and commitments. His kids were busy. They didn't always have time to pal around with their old man.
George trotted over for a water break, panting.
"Lotta laps, huh?" Lazzarino said. "Three?"
"Yeah." He gulped Gatorade.
There was still a polite formality between them after about two months of seeing each other several nights a week. George was a shy kid; Lazzarino used to be. Neither minded a little silence. They spent about four hours a week together, at ballgames or going out for ice cream.
Lazzarino bought George a left-handed golf driver at Sports Authority and they hit balls together on the driving ranges where Lazzarino had taught his son to swing. George was deferential toward his mentor. He listened, nodded. His eyes are large and expressive; with just a look he could silently ask for advice on the driving range.
Yet Lazzarino was careful not to spoil George with too many presents -- sometimes they just hiked at the Scituate Reservoir.
The coach cracked brusquely, "Guys, this is not a COFFEE BREAK over here!" George jogged back to practice.
"I take it to heart that my kids don't want to come with me. But they're kids. They don't want to hang around with their father." With George? "As much as I need someone, he needs someone."
Construction work is brutal, and after years at it, Lazzarino's body is beginning to break down. He knows he cannot work as hard as he does for much longer and might have to do something else.
Lazzarino has thought a lot about where he stands in his life. He thinks somebody should write a book about divorced fathers, to expose the myth that a man with his freedom has it made. He thinks there is nothing worse than not seeing his children full time; it's a particular kind of emptiness for a father that cannot be filled by a date with a woman, a night out at a bar, or a hockey game.
"It's the life I created," he said in a low voice. "Nobody did this to me. The loneliness is the worst part, by far. I have a lot of free time. A lot of free time to think. It just came to me." Be a mentor. "My kids are getting older and I realized that's what I was missing."
On the field, the Panthers bounced in unison, doing jumping jacks.
Lazzarino said he talks to his children all the time, plays golf and pool with his 18-year-old son, and though he has less in common with his daughter -- he's a guy's guy, she's 16-year-old girl -- he takes her shopping and to dinner. "I don't want my kids to think . . . " He stopped before saying he didn't want them to think he was replacing them with George.
"I don't know what they think. I'm not ignoring them." He looked off. After a moment he said, "Probably just a foolish thought."
Your turn: Do you volunteer your time as a way to feel more fulfilled?
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