The Missouri Review
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The Shinty Ball

Adam Boggon

The first person I saw in a psychiatric outpatient clinic had a shinty ball in his hand. His GP believed he was paranoid, perhaps psychotic. The knuckles of his left hand were clenched white. The shinty ball: stitched leather enveloping cork. I asked him why he carried it. He told me about the place he lived, a deprived area north of the river. His days saw dangerous neighbours, frightening dogs, a pervasive sense of dread. He was always on edge. His friend suggested a stress ball, which he’d bought and squeezed until it was taken from his pocket at the pub. He replaced it with a tennis ball, which was eaten by a dog. One day he found a shinty ball, which he now carried with him and which, although it was unyieldingly firm, he continued to squeeze. He struck me as neither paranoid nor psychotic nor depressed. There was little I could add of value to his life but to listen to his story. The shinty ball stuck with me, a reminder of the particular ways we all must find to settle ourselves. And a reminder that my job was not simply to apply labels but to do a more difficult thing: to see people as they are.