The subway was loud and DJ did not answer with words. Instead he began to bob his head, slowly at first, then at a quickened pace, moving in a deliberate, methodical, manner. Up down, up down, up down. He continued bobbing as he picked at the edge of his red seat with an index finger. Much like a squid’s curious tentacle might, he pushed forward with his probe, eventually curling his fingers under the plastic edge to plum the area beneath his seat.

“Jesus Christ, DJ. What are you doin’? It’s nasty under there. Nasty. Give me your hand.” I pulled his hand from the lip of the seat but, within a moment, he wriggled away. “Don’t stick your fingers down there again, DJ. OK?” He bobbed his head.

Gee looked up towards me waiting for her cue to stand up. I remained seated as she leaned towards me to speak over the din of the subway car, “I’m ready, dad!” We shared a smile.

“Don’t get up just yet, you two. We’ll stand after the train stops. OK? Here, hold my hand.” On each side I placed my hands out, palms up towards the ceiling. Respectively Gee and DJ deposited their miniature versions of my hands in my own. They were warm. DJ’s deposit felt funny. Looking down, I slowly opened my left hand and spied a blackish pink lump of chewing gum perched like a bubble at the end of his right index finger.

“What tha…?”

I recoiled then, recovering, grabbed his gum enhanced hand between my index finger and thumb, “DJ, what the heck? That’s just gross. Gross. Give me your frigg’n finger.”

He stopped bobbing and, in a not so fluid motion, jerked his newly capped finger away from my grasp. First feigning a desire to hold his hand against his chest he lunged forward forcing me to reach out and stop him from falling off his subway seat. He then thrust the dirty blob across my chest towards Gee. He was going for her long brown hair which, unaware of the incoming attack, swayed peacefully in time with the rocking motion of our subway car.

Like DJ, Gee was quick. She lurched away, bumping the arm of the rider next to her. She squealed, “Ewe! You’re disgusting. That’s someone’s gum, stupid! Get it away from me. Daddy, get it away!”

I grabbed for DJ’s hand and, in the process dislodged the wad of blackened gum. Masked by the sound of the train, it silently plopped to the floor, falling like a little turd to the smooth surface in front of us. I still had a couple of seconds before we arrived in Harvard and, as the train began to slow, I zipped open the front pouch of the well-worn (and well stocked) backpack resting between my feet. I grabbed a wipe and, taking hold of DJ’s hand, thoroughly rubbed the remnants of the gum from the tip of his finger. There was a pinkish piece stuck under his nail as well. I scraped it out with my wipe-wrapped finger.

“DJ, that’s just gross. Gross. How many times have I asked you not to poke around under the seats, huh? There’s tons of germs under there. And that gum is dirty. It was is someone’s mouth, you know, and it could make you sick; really sick.”

I looked from DJ to the wad on the floor. The gum had been recently chewed as it was still gooey. It took root to keep from rolling as the train continued to slow.

DJ shrugged, “But daddy, I didn’t know it was there until I pulled it out and it was stuck to me. It stuck to my finger.” He held his index finger up and stared; as if amazed his finger had survived such an attack. I shook my head side to side and smirked before grabbing his hand and giving his finger one more wipe, “No more, deal?”

“Deal.” He underscored his agreement with renewed head bobbing. Up down, up down, up down.

As we entered the station I used the dirty wipe to scoop up the gum from its restful spot on the floor. I jammed the newest member of our team into the mesh pouch hanging from the side of the backpack. It joined other bits of dirty napkins and travel trash from earlier this morning.

“And when the train stops we’ll hop off, OK? Oh, and who remembers the name of this stop; the stop where we’re getting off?”

DJ continued bobbing away like a slow motion bobble head. I rubbed the top of his head as the woman in running shorts and Nike tee shirt seated across from us smiled at the older sister younger brother scene. Apparently she’d enjoyed a front row seat to our show. Her light brown hair was pulled into a pony tail, tucked through the back of a Red Sox cap. Her hair was long. She had a radio or cassette player Velcroed to her left arm with headphones pumping rap music into her personal bubble. Our show must have appeared as a silent movie with, what sounds like, Lil’ Kim as the soundtrack. Though no one asked, I would have gone with Sargent Pepper’s.

As the kids stared out the windows of the decelerating train I stole an additional glance at our audience of one. She was looking to the left, towards the nearest car door. Her forehead was moist with specs of sweat sprinkled just above long thin eyebrows. A Harvard athlete, I wondered. Her cheeks and neck were flushed red and blotchy from, I assume, a long run; a run which had deposited her at the end of the subway line in time for a front row seat at the Gee and DJ locomotion show. She breathed deliberately. Every couple of breaths she sat straight and inhaled deeply. She had pushed it. I’m guessing she’s probably closer to Gee’s age than mine. She shifted a Gatorade bottle from one hand to the other and placed it on her bare right knee. Her left knee sported a slim vertical scar. I imagined the coolness of the bottle’s bottom must have felt good against her sweaty skin. I turned to face Gee, “Well, Gee, what stop?”

“Harvard? Is it Harvard, daddy?”

“Correctamundo, Gee. High five.” She slapped my right hand as DJ kept up the bobble head routine. “And look, DJ agrees with you!” He ignored us as Gee and I shared another smile.

“DJ, high five. High five.” Spying a ready target he stopped moving his head and wound up, cracking first my hand and then a smirk before yelling for all to hear, “High five!” We laughed as the Red Line came to a stop at Harvard. I shook my afflicted hand in mock pain, scooped up the backpack and tossed it on my shoulder. We stood and as I tried to grab hold of my children’s hands, DJ muscled over to my right side, switching places with Gee. Gee obliged the move and, once in their new positions, they took my hands.

“Ok, here we go.” As the car doors slid open the runner gave Gee a little index finger wave and a wink. Gee returned the gesture with a shy little waive of her own. Witnessing this exchange, DJ stopped and then tugged at my hand, stepping towards Gee’s coconspirator. Still holding onto me he leaned towards the runner to hold up his right hand, inviting her to smack it, “High five.” She hesitated, perhaps recalling the chewed gum’s role in the recently concluded locomotion show. Then slipping into a nearly contained smile she gave him a little high five. He beamed at her before turning his attention to me, “She gave me one, on the hand.”

The runner and I exchanged our own smiles before I scooted off the train with Gee and DJ.

“Hurry up. Let’s go!”

The doors closed immediately behind us. Our hands formed the links of a little three person chain as I tugged Gee and DJ away from the train and towards the center of the platform, “Whew, that was a close one, huh?”

As the train began sliding into the black tunnel with the runner Gee looked back towards the emerging blur of red, white and glass, “That lady was nice. She waived at me.”

“She gave me a high five,” DJ crowed. As we walked down the ramp he held his right hand in front of his face examining the invisible remnants of his most recent high five and perhaps, the memory of the chewed blob of gum.

“She was nice, wasn’t she? She waived at you Gee and she gave you a sweaty high five, DJ. Hey, DJ.” He craned his neck upwards as I continued, “Why don’t you share the lady’s high five with Gee? And give Gee a high five too. You know, if you do, then you’ll all be connected; starting with Gee’s waive, the lady’s high five to you and your high five to Gee, like a little circle. Go ahead. High five.”

DJ wasn’t interested. He pulled his hand back and protectively jammed it into his armpit. He scrunched his round face into a puckering frown and proceeded to squeeze his right hand between his left arm and body.

Tired of the little brother routine Gee barked, “You mean it all started with that gross gum stuck on his finger! He’s contaminated! With germs! And I don’t want to touch his gross finger. It’s disgusting. He’s disgusting!” Gee stuck out her tongue. DJ responded in kind.

I shrugged and sought to move forward, “Alright, alright. Come on kids, let’s keep moving.” We started walking away from the tracks. “You know, DJ, it’s OK to be nice and share a thing like that, like a high five. It doesn’t take anything away from you. And, ya know, sometimes you get a little something in return.”

He wasn’t buying it. The three of us walked the rest of the way down the ramp, through the turnstiles and up the escalators towards Harvard Square. We continued to hold hands, with one un-held hand securely tucked into an armpit. We made our way to the top of the last escalator as it deposited us under the Red Line’s grimy steel and glass exit. The noise of Harvard Square greeted us. Sunlight arced through the glass ceiling covering the end of the escalator and made its presence known by reflecting off tiny specs of dust swirling around us. We moved from under the glass ceiling and swirling specs to the warmth of Harvard Square’s red bricks.

“Feels good, huh?” I looked down just in time to catch Gee and DJ closing their eyes and tilting two softball sized faces skyward to catch the rays of the sun. As if frozen in time they stood still, smiling and drawing in the warmth. I obliged them as crowds continued to belch out from the subway exit flowing towards the Mass Ave. cross walk. Men, woman and children slid past like a school of salmon slipping around three well anchored rocks poking their tops through the surface of a newly swollen stream. Beginning at the curb the surge of people grew to engulf us, each member of the swell waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green. As the crowd flowed and then clogged around us Gee and DJ were jostled back into reality. Eyes open, they scanned their transient neighbors and then looked towards me.

“We’re waiting for the crosswalk light,” I volunteered, “When it turns green we’ll cross the street and go, first to my very favorite store, and then we’ll get a snack and go to the park, OK?”

“Will you read to us in the store?” DJ asked.

“Of course I will. I’d be happy to, DJ. And when we get there we’ll walk around and find the kids’ section and you can pick out a book for me to read to you. You guys have to pick it out together though. And remember, I can never find that doggone kids section. So I think I probably get lost unless you two help me when we get there. Will you help me find it so I don’t get all lost and all turned around in there?”

Gee rolled her eyes, “Daddy, we’ve been there like a hundred times. How can you even get lost anymore? We just have to go down the stairs and look around like we always do, then go to our book section or just ask someone. You’re silly, daddy. Really silly.”

Not to be outdone, DJ jumped in, “I’ll find it for you, daddy. I can help find books to read. I’ll show you. We have to go down the stairs.”

I pulled them together into a little squeeze, “Well you can both help me, OK?” The light turned and we crossed Mass Ave. continuing our walk of about 100 steps from the subway to the end of the block. As we made our way to the entrance of WordsWorth we were in agreement.

At the entrance to WordsWorth we were presented with two sets of stairs; one up, one down. “Gee, you pick.” Without hesitation she led us down and into the first floor of my favorite store. We made our way past a homeless man sleeping in the corner of the platform at the bottom of the stairs. Withdrawing his right hand from his left armpit, DJ held his nose, “It smells.”

Holding my gum-free index finger to my lips I whispered, “Hey let’s be quiet here, OK?” I nodded to the homeless man curled in a swirl on his piece of cardboard. At one point in his life he had been a child greeted by the arc of sunlight. It smelled a bit of urine and, though summer was everywhere, the store’s homeless sentinel wore a winter coat. His hooded head was tucked safely into a corner as far away from danger as possible. “He needs to sleep and, inside, people need quiet to read.” DJ nodded as Gee quietly pulled open the first of two doors. Before crossing the divide their glances both returned to the homeless man.

“I feel sad for him.”

“Me too.”

We stepped through the doors to find the store crowded with young and old alike. We were greeted with a different type of warmth. The aisles were jammed with readers, some sitting, some standing; most holding books cracked open in a personal hunt for new words and thoughts. The smell of the newly cracked bindings mixed with the scent of summer sweat and perfume, enveloping us. It reminded me of studying with a pretty girl on a Sunday morning at the school library; a mixture of curiosity, desire and expectations; of expectations only recently coming into view. I breathed deep, replacing the lingering smell of urine with the scent of a small piece of heaven.

“OK you two, now where the heck is the kids section? Could it be … over there?” I asked, pointing towards the first floor travel section.

“Yes!” yelled DJ. He released my hand and bolted forward, running away from the last known location of the kid’s section towards the travel section. He took a sharp left into the first aisle. Gee and I waited a moment to see if he would return. He did not.

The kid’s section was upstairs but Gee shrugged and followed after DJ, turning the corner to find him readying himself to sit on the floor with a photo book featuring Barbados, by coincidence, the country in which he had celebrated his first birthday. As DJ assumed a place on the floor Gee plopped down next him. Cracking open the book they took turns flipping the pages and commenting on the images.

That was easy.

“Hey, you two. Do you want to come with me to the front desk so I can ask for a book or do you want to stay here?”

Gee looked at DJ and then at me, answering for the two of them, “Stay here, daddy. Stay here.”

“OK, fine, but you can’t leave this aisle, deal?” They nodded. “Please be careful. And be gentle, with that book, OK? And move back towards the wall so no one trips over you. I don’t want you to get hurt.” They scooted back and continued flipping through the world of Barbados.

As a parent perhaps I should have been concerned about potential kidnappers or perverts in Harvard Square but, here in WordsWorth, I found no reason to be worried. In this place I felt comfortable balancing Gee and DJ’s independence with close monitoring as I feared the risk of dependence and over parenting as much as any other risk. Here in WordsWorth the worst that might happen is a Harvard student might try to persuade my children to become Democrats or, perhaps, consider Green Peace as a future career path. I wasn’t worried. If they became Democrats, well, that was their choice. I’d still love them. Nonetheless, I kept stealing glances in their direction as I made my way to the customer service desk next to the cashiers.

Arriving at the customer service desk I assumed a position in the short line. It moved quickly and, after a brief wait, I was greeted by a pretty lady, a few years younger than my 40+ years. Her reddish hair was pulled back in a bun to show delicate ears filled with multiple piercings. She sported dark rimmed rectangular librarian type glasses allowing her green eyes to better survey the bookstore landscape. The glasses worked well for her. Her lips were full and accented with glossy lipstick. She stood on a lift so her head was above mine aligning my eyes with her neck. She wore a white blouse with short sleeves and a high collar, unbuttoned enough to allow me to see a remnant trail of sweat between her small breasts. Through her white blouse I could see she wore a sheer bra, presenting the actual shape of her breasts as opposed to the Wonder Bra shape. The real shape – no matter the size – is always more beautiful than the lift and separate version.

She gave me an efficient customer service smile, “What may I help you with today, sir?”

Before answering, I stole a glance over my shoulder to confirm Gee and DJ had not been kidnapped by Democrats. I turned back towards the pretty lady and returned her smile with a little shrug. “Hi, I’m a looking for a book. It’s called ‘The Only Guide to a Winning Investment Strategy You’ll Ever Need’ and I’m, ah, hoping you can tell me where it is. Thank you.”

She was very businesslike, quickly typing the name of the book into her computer. As she did so she looked over my shoulder towards Gee and DJ asking, “Yours?”

“Yup, girl eight, boy four. They’re keepers. Yeah, I think I’ll renew their contracts.” I turned to look at my children.

“Cute.” She responded with a smirk. “Do you know the author’s name?”

I shrugged, “Excuse me, ah, no. Sorry, I don’t.”

“I have two myself. Two girls. A bit younger than yours. They’re with my mom now; on days when I work… Oh, OK, here it is. ‘The Only Guide To a Winning Investment Strategy You’ll Ever Need: Index Funds and Beyond–The Way Smart Money Creates Wealth Today’ by Larry Swedroe. It’s in the business and finance section. It’s a frequently requested title.” She looked up, “Are you a student at HBS or something?”

“Me? No. Though I graduated from Sloan a while ago, so I kinda like finance.” I shrugged, “That was a pretty long time ago though so, ah, thanks for making me think for a moment I can still pass for a student.”

She smirked her half smile. She gave smirks. I gave shrugs. Without thought an exchange rate had developed; one smirk for one shrug.

I continued, “And, I guess I’m a pretty good saver. I’ve been doing the index fund thing for years now.” She smirked the second half of her smile inviting me to continue, “And, well a friend and me, we ah, we just sold our little company so I’ll be able to save some more going forward. And I, ah, did some digging and this is one of the best investment books around; this and ‘The Intelligent Investor’ by Benjamin Graham.”

Without thinking, she typed The Intelligent Investor into her computer.

“We have ‘The Intelligent Investor’ by Benjamin Graham as well. Same section; business and finance.”

“Oh, no thanks. I have the Graham book already so I’m all set with that one.”

“I see,” She looked over my shoulders and then turned her attention my way, for the first time taking a measure of me with her green eyes and librarian glasses. What did she see I wondered? I wore a Lillehammer Olympics tee-shirt, tan cargo shorts, brown metal glasses and simple white sneakers. A light brown backpack with a little green snake embroidered on the side was draped over my left shoulder. My short hair had not been combed since Gee was born so it stuck out at various angles. When it grew long I looked like Don King. Now, though, it was short. I was fit and tanned from our recent trip to the Caribbean. Probably not much to look at but I suspect I looked happy. I was. As she eyed me I tried a smirk. She already had smirks; she wasn’t buying.

She nodded thoughtfully, “Ok, well, you know what? Why don’t I go grab the book for you so you can keep an eye on your kids, OK?”

“Ah, wow, yeah, that would be great. Just great. So, yes, thank you very much.”

“Please wait here. I’ll ring you up when I return.”

She left as the gentleman behind me sighed. I turned and watched DJ pull a second book from the shelf. Gee was on the floor engrossed in the Barbados book. She was old enough to remember Barbados.

Green eyes returned, handing me the book. “Is this it?”

Her fingers lingered as she handed me the only guide to a winning investment strategy I would ever need. Her fingers were tan and strong looking, tipped with a French manicure. I flipped over the book and nodded, “Yup, you got it. Thank you. And I like your nails.”

She smirked before going into transaction mode, activating the register next to her station, “Step over here please and I’ll ring you up. Cash or credit?”

“Oh, cash please. I’m not really into credit cards, ya know?”

Her actions came to a stop and she rested her French manicured fingers on the counter top in front of the register. Standing on the lift she was still taller than me. She leaned forward just a bit as a Cheshire cat smile formed across her face. She smelled of strawberry; and of expectations. A faint latticework of very attractive tan lines appeared along the corners of her eyes. She appeared prettier than when I first saw her. She peeked over her glasses as if looking over a divide, “Hmm… so let me get this straight. Sloan, sold your company, investment books and now no credit card. Well, you don’t look the part but I guess it’s safe to say you must be kinda rich or something, huh?”

In one motion I tilted my face to the left, leading with my chin to point over my shoulder towards Gee and DJ before turning back to green eyes. I gave her another shrug, “Well, I have those two; and they’re healthy and happy and I love them and, when they’re in school I know their spelling words, so, yeah, I guess you could say I’m pretty rich.”

“No I meant…” She stopped midsentence and looked away; at something outside the store.

A longer than usual moment passed between us before she returned her gaze to me.

Starting with a smirk, she broke into a full smile, the first of our exchange, “Well then, I guess I’m pretty rich too.” She became even prettier.

I gave her my last shrug, “I guess you are.”

“Dad, you’re so boring. So boring. You need wine for a toast! You know; wine! Come on, a toast! To us!”

I grabbed my Coke with ice, raising it from the table to clink away in our circle of glasses; one wine, one Coke and two pineapple drinks. We drank.

Liz beamed, “To another vacation together.”

Vacations are sacred to Liz. Slivers of heaven placed upon a pedestal, they span a distance measured in hours away from home. Because she spent so much time away, first in medical school, then as a resident and now as a physician, she focuses mightily on crafting perfect vacations. They are her release, her escape.

Periodically pressure from work builds up inside Liz, like a Champagne bottle, nearing an explosive state. With a bottle of Champagne the cork might be popped to release pressure. With Liz a vacation is required to release this internal accumulation. As a result of this cycle of work, pressure, release our children have been to more countries and on more flights than I had in my first 40 years. Until age 16, when I boarded a Delta flight from Newark en route to a three day hockey tournament in Atlanta with a lid jammed down the front of my Sasson jeans, I had never been on a plane.

Our current vacation, like many of our vacation ideas, was born from the stress associated with a buildup of Liz’s internal pressure. I stood by and watched that pressure squeeze my Liz against the inside of a bottle formed in the shape of her skull. I waited for the explosion.

“I need to get away, Beasley. To decompress. You don’t understand, I just need to go somewhere and relax.”

“Ah, yeah, Liz I do understand. Every six months or so you get so wound up you explode. And, you know, you put this pressure on yourself by choosing to work long hours. And now you want to cram a vacation into your week off. How ‘bout just resting at home and letting your mind decompress? We go away all the time. Relax. Do nothing for a change.”

She folded her arms and simmered, “I need to get away.”

I pushed back, “Wait, I know, how ‘bout this? How about we not think that maybe I have client meetings scheduled for that week, the week you have off. And, hey, let’s assume I’ll pay for it, right? How’s that? Fair? There ya go. We’re all set. Now let’s go on a vacation.”

I had positioned myself on the wrong side of the cork.

“God damn it, Beasley, what’s your problem. My god, we’ll split the stupid costs so don’t be such a jerk, alright? Why? Why are you such a jerk about this stuff, huh? This is about me being under pressure you can’t imagine and me needing a vacation. You just don’t get it, do you?”

“No, Liz, I guess my simple god damn life of getting the kids up and ready for school and pushing my company forward and making sure I come up with a honking payroll every month and making sure we satisfy all our clients is just me jerking off, right? Right?”

As if in a stream my momentum carried me, “Ya know, Liz, all that pressure? Well, it comes from inside your head, not outside. You create the need for this vacation thing. And, ya know what? You shouldn’t need a vacation to escape your life. That’s what you don’t get, Liz. I mean, come on, Liz, from what I see, it’s not work, it’s you.”

She stared straight through me. “You don’t get it, Liz. You don’t. Is this gonna continue for the rest of your life?”

“Beasley, you’re the one that doesn’t get it. You have no idea. No idea what I face every day. I give up. I give up pushing against you. Just tell me, are we going or not? I have to book a flight.”

She was right on that count. I didn’t know what it was like to tell someone they had ovarian cancer or that their pregnancy was at risk or, after 20 years of faithful marriage they had been exposed to a SDD, the only source of which they would come to realize was a cheating husband. Pressure was something we handled differently. I used to tip a few, or maybe a few dozen, to relieve pressure. Now, I just got belligerent and pushed against those around me. Liz, well, she builds up pressure until she explodes. And now she was exploding.

I tired of pushing. Why was I on this side of the cork, anyway? It wasn’t worth the fight so I shrugged and stepped away. As escapes go, vacations are not a bad alternative. It could be worse. She could be a shopaholic or an alcoholic. And if history was any guide, I’ll end up enjoying the vacation anyway. So why continue? This was a pattern I was not going to change.

“Fine, Liz, fine. Oh, and I truly don’t give a crap where we go, Liz. You pick. I’ll be just as happy here in our house as anywhere. So pick a place and we’ll go.”

And so we went. And here we were.

That round behind us, our four glasses knocked against each other once more over the table. Liz’s wine spilled on the white linen, spreading like a Caribbean sunrise. Save for my fleeting glance we paid the blossoming red stain no mind.

Looking over her pineapple concoction, our teen daughter, Gee, probed for a vacation treat, “Hey, mom, can I try your wine? Please?”

She waited an instant before landing a well-timed follow-up, “What’s it like? It’s so red. Is it any good?”

“Sure, Gee. It’s a Bordeaux from France. And, Oh. My. God. It’s delicious. It’s utterly wonderful.”

Liz pulled her shoulders up, towards her ears in a smile plucked from early childhood, “So, so good. I love it. I just love it.” She was in heaven.

Before Liz passed the glass to Gee she explained how to proceed, “Smell it first, then sip it. It’s a Left Bank wine. This one’s an older one. You enjoy the smell first and then turn your attention to the sensation of the wine as you taste it. It’s heavenly, Gee.”

Liz swirled her glass and took a small sip.

I had no idea what she was talking about except I knew ‘older’ sounded more expensive.

Liz leaned towards Gee, “These wines are really concentrated. They’re stored in a wine cellar for years before serving. The tannins give it an, I guess you’d say, an almost bitter taste. It’s so strong. So good. Here, Gee. Here you go. Try it.” She passed the glass to Gee.

I watched as Liz’s sure fingers unwound from the stem of the glass and Gee’s delicate digits methodically filled the vacancies left by each of Liz’s fingers. A silent symphony of movement unfolded before me. As if an experienced spider gracefully retreated from a position of poise at the edge of her silky domain she allowed her baby a turn minding the web. Liz’s fingers slipped back one after the other as Gee’s took their place in a movement of elegance lasting but a moment.

Gee sipped the wine and puckered her lips into a screwed contortion. She squeezed her eyes shut, “Ugh, too, too… I don’t know what it is… Too tart or something. Too tart! How can you like this stuff? How can you even drink it?” She shuddered.

Gee’s arm lurched towards Liz as she sought to place as much distance as possible between the glass and her lips. A single drop fell from the glass held at the tip of Gee’s extended arm, adding an offspring to our tablecloth’s red sunrise. The young dot grew, seemingly trying to catch up with the existing red splash. Liz smiled as she retrieved her wine.

“It’s an acquired taste, Gee.” As she spoke she placed her free hand on the table, sliding forward to tug at one of Gee’s spider-leg pinkies, “This one, well this wine is considered more of a masculine wine. So, I guess it kinda makes sense that…”

Before Liz could finish, DJ jumped in, “Let me try, mom. It sounds pretty good. I’ll just take a sip or something. Ya know, like, just a sip, OK? ”

Liz looked up at me then held the glass out to DJ.

I smiled, “DJ, you can try it, but remember buddy, you’ve gotta be careful when you drink. I’m tell’n you, you’ve got our family’s addictive personality gene and…”

He grabbed for the glass, looking more like a lurching dragonfly trying to plow its way through a web than an elegant young spider sliding into a position of grace, “I know dad, I know. I have to watch out with alcohol so I don’t become an alcoholic or something. You already told me that. Like a million times.”

He reached for the wine but Liz pulled back her glass, keeping an even distance between her drink and our 12 year old’s grasping hand. It was as if a taut string existed between his grabbing fingers and the wine. The distance remained constant and the dragonfly was forced to adjust his path as the savvy spider kept her silky string tight. He wobbled as he tried mightily to balance himself on that invisible string connecting childhood with adulthood.

“Listen to your dad, DJ. My dad was an alcoholic and, well, he died because of it. And your dad’s grandparents were too. Both of Grandpa Dick’s parents struggled with alcohol. This is serious business, DJ. Can you handle being grown-up about this?”

He nodded assent.

“And, well, if you wanna learn to drink responsibly you have to understand that it’s up to you to be careful about drinking, all right? Do you understand what I’m saying to you?’

He folded his arms in the space between his plate and the edge of the table, exposing his milk-white skin. While Liz and Gee looked like light chocolate natives after just a few days in the sun, DJ took after me. His whiter than white skin blended in with the tablecloth. Matching the two red stains on the linen, two swatches of sunburn, one big and one small, marked his forearms, spots we apparently missed when applying sunblock.

“I know mom, I know. I’m not stupid, ya know. I get it. Now, can I have some? Please?”

I jumped back in, “DJ, it’s not about being stupid. Come on now. You know what I’m gonna say. We’re a family of patterns, of cycles that we have to watch. My father never had a drink in his whole life and you know why? Because his mom and dad were such drunks. When I was a kid, younger than you, I used to go to their apartment in the Bronx and they never even smiled. They just sat there in their stiff backed chairs and drank themselves into an angry stupor. Ya know, my dad told me when he was a kid his mom and dad got so drunk they wouldn’t even remember if they fed him.”

I pointed to my Coke, “See this? I drink this to keep my distance. ‘Cause I have the same gene as my grandparents.” I stretched my Casper the Friendly Ghost forearm across the table and placed it next to his still folded arms. Our three white limbs lined up like a row of fallen candle pins. I nodded at our milky arms, “And look at this; don’t think you don’t have the same genes as me, my little buddy. The same as me. And the same genes as my grandparents. And ya know, with this gene, I fall into patterns and, well, can get addicted to stuff in a snap.”

I snapped my fingers close to his ear before he could swat my hand away.

“And,” I said pointing first to DJ and then Gee, “it’s in you too. It’s in both of you; you DJ and you, Gee.”

I reached back across our little table, trying to tussle DJ’s hair. He was too quick this time and pulled back, putting his arm up perpendicular to the table in a defensive move.

“Ya know the thing inside you that makes you want to never stop playing video games, or seems to force you to eat a whole box of crackers in one sitting, or makes you crave bread and salsa or even helps you concentrate on karate so much that you get your black belt before you’re 10, well that’s the gene. It’s mixed in with a gene that makes you more likely to get addicted to alcohol. And, believe me, you do not want that, buddy. You do not want that.”

Gee, the facilitator, waded into our conversation, looking first at DJ, then me, “It’s true, DJ. But we can handle it, dad. We can.”

Oblivious to Gee’s parry, DJ stared straight through me, with a ‘WTF, is it lecture time?’ look on his face.

“Ya know, when I was a teenager and then in my first year of college, I drank every day. Every day. And when you’re drunk you can miss an awful lot. You can miss life. And life is not something that you want to miss.”

Looking for a precedent to pull out at a later date, Gee probed, “How old were you, dad? You know, when you, when you started drinking?”

“Nice try kiddo. I’m tell’n you Gee, you’re gonna be a psychiatrist or a gold shield detective or, who knows, maybe an investment banker or some artist that touches peoples souls when you get older. You always know where to probe; how to focus on a point of interest. You’re good. You’re good.”

“Let’s just say I was older than you. And I drank just about every day for, like, three years. And even after I went back to college and cut back to just drinking on the weekends I still got drunk when I went out with my buddies; for probably 10 years or so.” I looked over Gee’s shoulder, out the window at the slipping sun, “That was a long time ago. A lifetime ago.”

I looked from Gee to DJ and back to Gee, “Neither of you want that.”

“Why’d you stop, dad? Why’d you stop drinking? And, if you drank so much, well then how come, how come I never saw you drunk, huh?”

DJ jumped in, “Yeah, dad, I’ve never even seen you get ‘tipsy’, you know like mom does on vacation?”

Liz feigned indignation, before dramatically placing her hands on her hips, “Hey, now, wait a minute here! Two drinks is my limit! And I work hard for my wine! So there!”

We laughed before Gee continued, “How come dad? How come you don’t drink anymore?”

Liz rested her glass on the table. Her hair was pulled back tight in a ponytail accenting her features. She was dark and her big eyes rested on podium-like cheek bones. They twinkled as she watched me, perhaps thinking of a similar conversation she may or may not have had with her hard drinking dad some 30 to 35 years ago. My eyes moved from her eyes to her lips. I thought that I wanted to kiss her.

Then I thought of the last time I was drunk. Gee was almost 16 now so it had to be, well, I guess 15 years ago. Liz was still in medical school then and I had just been promoted to Director within the group at GE, a level far above my capabilities; a level offering two or three years of unrelenting professional pain and pressure requiring periodic release. This weekend, like so many weekends, Liz had to leave on a Sunday morning to meet lab partners at the BU library. She had to be there by 8AM and would return to us in 12 hours.

DJ had yet to be born. In those days it was me and Gee spending entire weekends together while Liz was off studying. Usually, I liked those days. We went to the park up the block from Davis Square, visited art galleries and museums, walked the bike path, grabbed a snack for Gee and coffee for me at Au Bon Bain and, when we returned home, Gee napped. We’d cap the day with a Disney movie on the VCR or I’d swing Gee around in my arms as we danced to the B-52s or Art of Noise in our little apartment’s even littler living room. We had fun on those days. As we couldn’t afford to go anywhere those days were our mini-vacations.

Last evening though, while Liz stayed home studying, I escaped with Tony to celebrate my most recent results at work. After a string of losses, my office had finally made forecast for the first time in months. Last night I celebrated, not my victory but, my lack of defeat. And so it was that this morning Liz had to shake me in an attempt to raise me from my stupor. First gently, then harder to confirm I was alive and ready to spend the day with Gee, “Hey, Bease. Hey. I’m heading to the library now. I have to be there by eight, alright? I have to go. Gee’s awake. I gave her a bottle already.”

I withdrew my hands from under the pillow and groped at the air around me, trying to push back the increasing weight on my pounding head. Slowly an invisible ribbon twisted around my head squeezing any remaining liquid from my skull. The pressure too great, my head caved in as I tried to speak, only to muster an open mouthed cough. I smelled smoke as I pulled a long brown hair from my mouth. Liz was speaking but as if from a time far away.

“Man, you stink. You smell like the Cantab. I guess you had a rough night with Tony, huh? How much did you drink?”

I covered my eyes. “It was. We ah, we did kamikazes. I ah, I ah, I stopped counting when we hit double digits. Oh, man, my head is frigg’n crushed. Crushed. What time is it? What’s Gee doing?” I leaned over the side of the bed and let some drool slip from my mouth onto the blanket. Liz watched in disgust. I tried to touch the floor but couldn’t reach. “Where’s Gee?”

“It’s just after seven and listen kamikaze man, I’m taking the car, OK? Gee’s still in her crib. Don’t let her stay there too long, alright. Come on. Get up. Get moving, OK?”

Liz not so thoughtfully increased the volume on the baby monitor and placed it by my ear, allowing me to better hear little Gee jabber away at her favorite stuffed bear named, for whatever reason, Pooconkee. I had no idea what she was saying. Gibberish poured from both Liz and Gee as their words just seemed to float above my head like a swarm of bees before melding into a single sharp stinger, a stinger which proceeded to pierce my forehead and deposit molten metal into my broken skull cavity. A wave of pain passed through me like a convulsion. I was gonna puke.

Like a beaten boxer struggling to rise from the mat, I staggered from the bed towards the bathroom. Liz politely stepped aside and I nearly made it to the toilet before a tsunami of dry heaves hit me. I fell to the yellowed linoleum floor, heaving bile and spittle into the toilet. My head throbbed with each dry heave. I placed my arms across the toilet seat and rested my head there.

Liz followed me to the bathroom. It was dark. “Nice one, Bease. Nice. Ya know this is not good for you, this drinking. Not good. Stuff like this ends in tears.” I remained still, resting on the toilet.

“Here. When you’re finished puking take three Motrin and sip down this glass of water. I gotta go. The water will help you.” Liz’s next eight footsteps fell like sandbags on my head as she made her way to the door. The anvil dropped as she slammed the heavy wooden door before heading out.

“Oh my fucking god,” I wailed, “My head. My fucking head.”

I sipped at the water gingerly, hoping to keep a mouthful down.

The phone rang, “What the fuck?” Like Frankenstein I lurched forward with both arms stretched out, grasping to shut that goddamn ringing.

It hurt when I walked.

“Hell, hell, hello?”

“Bease, it’s me, Tony. Dude, I am messed up. Are you hungover, too? I’m a wreck, man. A fuck’n wreck. Hey, listen, is my car at your house or somethin’? Please say yes.”

“Hold on.” I let go of the phone and it fell to the floor, adding to the pain inside my head. I went to the front door and pulled back the old yellow curtain. Oh, god! Pain. Brightness. Pain. I let the curtain fall back to its dormant position; the painless position.

It hurt when I used my eyes.

Gee started to yell, “Dad-dee! Dad-dee! DAD-Dee!”

I squinted and pulled the curtain back just enough to see outside. Yup, there was Tony’s red Acura. Seemed undamaged.

I returned to the phone and, finding it on the floor, slowly bent down before falling to my knees. I placed both palms on the floor to steady myself. The worn wooden floor was cool to the touch. I picked up the phone.

“Yeah, dude. Your car’s outside. It’s fine. Don’t you remember? We took a cab from the Cantab to here and then you took it home.”

“No, I don’t remember leaving. I do remember someone trying to take my shirt off. So, we didn’t drive, huh?”

“No numb nuts, we’re too grown up for that shit. Your car’s fine. Listen, I gotta get going with Gee. And assuming I don’t fuck’n die here I’ll be at Paulina park by, what the hell time is it, shit, by nine. Maybe I’ll see ya there? Man, I thought drinking was supposed to wash away my pain?”

“Well, you weren’t feel’n any pain last night, I’ll tell you that. Wait, what’d you ask? Oh yeah, I’m too fucked up to go out, Bease. I’ll try to make it but, man, I doubt it. I’m going back to bed, Bease. Watch my car for me, alright? Thanks, man. I, I gotta go puke.”

Click.

I returned to the bathroom, found the glass of water Liz had prepared and raised it to my lips. Softly I sipped. I looked into the mirror. My eyes were blood red and my hair looked like Don King’s. I watched as my reflection ran a finger over my cracked lips.

It hurt when I used my hands.

I took another sip, monitoring my progress in the mirror as I did so. Water slipped from the side of my mouth. A single drop made its way down my neck and fell to my white t-shirt, upon impact spreading in the shape of a darker than expected sunset. Weird. Hey, my t-shirt was torn. How the hell did that happen?

The first sips of water stayed down. So far so good. My head pounded as I wrestled with the hungover-person-proof Motrin bottle. After popping the top I grabbed three orange pills, plucking them out one at a time. I let them roll around in my hand for a moment before dropping them into my cotton mouth. Then, ever so slowly, I filled the front of my mouth with water. Like a pelican holding three precious fish I tilted my head back and swallowed. I was dizzy and grabbed the sink with both hands, hoping to avoid a second tsunami of dry heaves.

“Dad-dee! Dad-dee!”

The Motrin stayed down, though my head continued to pound. I took a last look in the mirror and sighed. My reflection stuck his tongue out at me as I turned to make my way to Gee’s room.

She beamed when I entered. She was standing in her crib. First she jumped up and down, then she rocked back and forth as she squeezed the crib railing. She stopped and thrust both arms out towards me in what could have been a pretty good imitation of my earlier Frankenstein walk, “Up! Up!”

“Hello, Ms. Early Bird. How are you today?”

It hurt when I talked.

“Up!”

“Gee I’m a bit groggy this morning so we’ll take it a little slow before we head out this morning, OK.”

Before I could take my baby steps across the room to scoop her up, she turned back towards her pillow and bent down to pick up Pooconkee the bear. With Pooconkee in hand she returned to the rail.

“Up!”

Gently, I bent over and scooped her in my arms. I squeezed her against my chest. She smelled like Johnson’s baby shampoo. I smelled like a bar.

And, great, her diaper was full. I could probably survive a pee but if I had to change a poop I was a dead man. I’d probably puke all over the place; right in front of Gee.

Shifting her to my right arm, I grabbed the changing mat, a couple of diapers and the wipes before retreating to the living room. I set up on the couch so I could kneel on the cool hardwood floor while I changed her.

Pee, wonderful pee. Thank you, universe.

My head continued to pound as Gee lay on her back on the changing mat. Old fashioned egg beaters slipped through each ear and made short work of my remaining brain. I held my breath and, in turn, made short work of the diaper. Gee twisted Pooconkee back and forth above her head. While I changed Gee, I noticed my left hand was cut across the knuckles. How the hell did that happen?

Still kneeling, I tossed the diaper towards the Diaper-Genie, not bothering to stuff it into the plastic temple of dirty diapers. Mission accomplished I slowly placed Gee on the floor with Pooconkee. With bear in tow she crawled towards the throw rug and, once there, began a cycle of hugging, then extending Pooconkee to arm’s length, examining the bear then repeating. She was happy.

I was a mess.

After a couple of Pooconkee cycles of hug, extend, examine, I determined she wasn’t going to make a move for the diaper lying on the floor next to the Diaper-Genie. I rolled backwards from my kneeling position, resting my butt on my heels before sliding to my side and dropping to the floor. As elegant as a sack of potatoes. My head continued to throb. I realized my right knee hurt too.

It hurt when I lied down.

I pressed my face against the cool wooden floor, the chill dampening some of the pounding inside my head. I lie there like a beached whale; like a big white whale waiting for Greenpeace to rescue me with a dose of water and Motrin big enough for a whale. I lie there thinking of how I could probably survive if I didn’t move for, oh, say an hour or so. I lie there still.

After less than a minute of hug, extend, examine, Gee grew tired of Pooconkee and cast her gaze towards me.

I flogged a hand at her in a halfhearted wave. With one eye smushed against the cool floor I watched helplessly as she dropped the bear and crawled towards me. She was fast and made her way across the floor to take up a position within a foot of the beached whale.

“Up! Up, daddy. Up!” I smiled a crooked smile, “Just a few more minutes, Gee. Let’s play rest and just rest for a few more minutes, OK wonderful?”

She crawled the remaining distance, placed both hands on my head and began to yank my hair. Rhythmically she repeated a cycle; hold, yank, hold yank, hold yank. Her little fingers became entangled in the web of my Don King-like hair. She continued and I was helpless to protest.

It hurt when my hair was pulled.

Placing one hand on those tiny yanking hands of Gee’s I gently pulled her spider-like fingers from my hair, “That’s enough of that Gee. That’s enough.”

I rolled over to see her looking down at me with Liz’s eyes. We stared at each other for an indeterminate length of time. However long it was, though, it was long enough.

I held Gee’s little hand, “Remember this moment, Gee. Remember it ‘cause this is the last time you’ll ever see anything like this; the last time.”

Liz cleared her throat, “Bease, Gee asked you a question.”

“Ah, Earth to dad, over. Are you still with us, dad? Over.”

At the sound of Gee’s teenage voice, I returned to the table.

“You didn’t answer me, dad. So, why? Why’d you stop? Why’d you stop drinking?”

I reached across the table and took her spider leg fingers, “Because of you, Gee. Because of you.”

I put the little sheet of paper down on my well-worn Crate & Barrel desktop. The letter was type written with a raised logo across the masthead and now featured some newly formed bumps scattered across the bottom of the page. I flattened it out on the desk, gently smoothing it with the palms of my hands.

I sat still and reread it. This time more slowly as I searched for, and discovered, the unwritten words and emotions squeezed between typed words. I got the feeling this was not the sort of thing he wrote quickly. He had crafted these words with care and tied his note to the shaft of time’s arrow; the sharp end of which was dipped in the open heart of a man standing on the doorstep of winter. A man eager to take aim with his words, he pulled back and released an arrow laden with unvarnished thoughts, arcing it across time. It hit its mark, passing through me and landing on my desk. I wiped my eyes.

I finished, lingering with a finger on his proud signature. From my seat at the desk I craned my neck upwards and stared at the clock as it drummed away seconds in slow motion.

DJ came into the room, “Hey. What’s up?”

I nodded.

“What’s a matter, dad? Everything OK?”

I pulled my sleeve across my eyes, “Yeah. Yeah, DJ. I’m fine. I just got, I got a pretty nice letter from a friend of my dad’s. You, you remember when we went the World Series game against Colorado and…”

He jumped in, rattling off a staccato response, “Oh man, do I! Of course I remember. We crushed them! Crushed them! 13 to one, man. 13 to one! And, remember how Pedroia led off with a homer over the Green Monster? Boom! Game over. And then, and then, remember even before the game, when the jets flew over us in the bleachers. You could see the blue flames, man! It was like, you could feel them above us. And ‘Bleacher Guy’? Remember the guy who kept chanting at everything that happened around us. Whad’he call that guy next to us with the green visor? Oh yeah, how could I forget, Visor Guy!”

He started pumping his arms up and down, mimicking the words of our chanter, “’Visor Guy! Visor Guy! Visor Guy!’ He was crazy. And, who was, who was that pitching?”

He didn’t wait for my answer, “Oh yeah, Beckett. It was Beckett. And he struck out the side in the first. Man, that was so cool. So cool. How could I forget that, huh?”

Caught up in his excitement, I jumped in, “And the ‘K’ Men? Remember those guys holding up all the ‘K’s behind us; one for each Beckett strikeout? Now they were crazy. And I remember after Pedroia hit his homer you grabbed my arm and said, “This could be the best night of my life!” I think I probably remember every detail about that game but that’s the part I remember most.”

“Yeah, that was awesome, dad. Awesome.”

“And well, remember how I told you how I couldn’t help but get you and Gee the tickets for the Series, even though they were too expensive for us? Remember I told you about the guy that, gosh in 1973, gave me and my brother tickets to the Mets – A’s World Series when I was a kid?”

“Oh, yeah, your dad’s buddy. I remember. The guy you bought the hat for. How long did it take you to find that thing? You couldn’t decide, remember?”

“Yeah, I guess I wanted just the right one. Well, when I sent him the hat I wrote a letter too, thanking him for providing me with one of my most wonderful childhood memories and for planting the seed for the game we went to, which just so happened, turned out to be one of the best nights of my adult life, with you and Gee.”

He rolled his eyes, “Kinda corny, dad; kinda corny. Well, did he get it? Did he email you or write you back or something?”

“Yeah, he wrote me back and he, well, he told me some nice stuff about my dad I didn’t know about.”

I looked up at the clock. Had it stopped? “Didn’t know. And I, well, I’m kinda blow away by how he said it.”

“Whad’he say?”

“It’s in this little letter, here.” I smoothed my hands once more over the slip of paper, still trying to flatten out the little circles that had bubbled up when I read it the first time. “All packed into a half sheet of paper. You want to read it? It’s kinda personal.”

“Sure, dad. Wait, though. What’d you say to him? Can I see what you wrote? You know: what you said to him?”

“Yeah, wait, I typed it up in Word. Let me find it.”

I talked as I sat there searching through My Documents, “And just think. All I did was put pen to paper, so to speak, and write him a letter. And, and what do I get in return? Something from probably way deep inside him. It’s like, I just wrote this letter and in return he gave me something better than words; something I suspect was neatly folded up and tucked away long ago, just waiting for the chance to be launched across time. Ah-ha, yes! Here it is. Here you go, buddy. Go ahead and read it.”

November 18, 2007

Beasley Kinkade

I shrugged, “Not my best writing but, ya know, I just wanted to let him know how much he, well, how much his kindness from so long ago meant and, well, basically planted the seed for that awesome night we had at Fenway last month.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Did what hurt, DJ?”

“You know, the ah, the a letter. When I came in you were like sad or something. Like, what it said hurt you.”

“Come here.” I pulled him into a hug.

After first resisting DJ rested his head on my shoulder. One, two three seconds slowly clicked away on the clock above us as I held him close. By the clock’s fourth click he grew restless, fidgeted and pulled back.

I smiled and answered, “It didn’t hurt. In fact it felt pretty good. Kinda like the beginning of that hug. You know, before you got bored of me and pulled away like a little tough guy. Kinda like a warm feeling delivered from the past, traveling through time and, as if perfectly aimed, it landed right here in this room with us.”

He looked up at the clock now clicking away at normal speed, “When’s karate?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, “Do I have time for… hey, will you help me with something before karate?”

“Yeah, sure. We have plenty of time; like an hour or so before we have to head out. Why, what do you want to do?”

He cocked his left fist in front of his face, holding an imaginary bow. He took aim, tilting his head to the side and tried his best to close one eye. Settling on a target, he pulled back and released an invisible arrow, before breaking into a smile, “Write someone a letter.”

Protected by a hoodie and doing his best to pull away from his mother’s embrace, the preteen’s shoulders moved up and down in a silent drum beat. From this distance I couldn’t hear him. I could, however, see the rhythm of his movements; as if observing a scene from afar. As if watching stock video on the evening news accompanying a well groomed anchorman’s delivery of a story, a story of loss. I looked away from too private a moment and tried to take comfort in the routine the newscaster might enjoy.

Perhaps, before delivering the story, the newscaster looked towards the camera’s bright lights peering past lingering childhood insecurities in a search for assurance, “How’s my tie? Straight? Should I purse my lips at the end, at the end of my delivery? Do I look burdened?” Then arching his powdered neck towards his producer, as if seeking a father’s final approval, “What do you think?”

“You look fine,” the producer whispers into his clip-on mike.

In the distance words come into focus, “In five, four three, two, yes.”

Looking away from the producer’s blessing the anchor responds to the camera’s red torch and glides into performance. Drawing a wise breath, he droops just the right amount and delivers a perfectly packaged glimpse of sorrow.

I return my gaze to the boy; that poor boy. He was closer than a newscast; much closer. I watched from far away and, if possible, felt myself break a little more.

We had started the day at 6AM, filtering towards the peer on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. Poor in circumstance but rich in grief, the families were gently searched, processed and instructed to board the ferry. Once on the ferry families huddled for comfort, some looking over the rails towards the future, others curled together in the seats. As I looked about those sitting, I couldn’t help but notice nearly every family appeared to be accompanied by an empty seat, a seat reserved for someone from the past; for some missing piece. Exiles from the comfort of previous lives together we struggled to find footing in a new world with an empty seat.

Upon arrival at our new world, our group of incomplete families departed and lurched forward towards a beacon of smoke. We made our way through various chokepoints and checkpoints towards a phalanx of blue uniforms.

Each family had been assigned a representative from FDNY. I marveled as every family, mine included, greedily pulled their assigned FDNY liaison into their orbit, assigning him the role of the missing piece.

The lieutenant assigned to us, FDNY LT. Sullivan, knew my dad. As he introduced himself he removed his hat. We took turns hugging. My sisters both took turns crying into his dress jacket. As he pulled away I watched my sisters’ tears cling to his lapel as if too scared to move. Gathering their strength, those tears deciding not to hold on and they began to roll down the dark blue uniform, gaining speed and lunging towards the earth.

He stood back, looking from person to person, methodically searching our eyes and wringing his hands, “When I saw you’s was coming, I asked, I asked if I could be with you and your family.” He stepped forward and held both my mom’s hands, “Ma’am your husband, he, he uh…” He stammered. “Oh man, let me catch my breath. Sorry, I can’t, I’m tryin’ ta breathe here. I’m so, so sorry for your loss, ma’am. So very sorry.” Without changing expression mom released tears. They traveled a short distance before joining my sisters’ tears in a leap to what I imagined could only be their death.

Still holding mom’s hands he looked around before continuing, “He, he was right here with us. They saved so many, so, so many. And, I, I ah well I knew him from Steam and OEM.” His mild eyes welled up. He stepped back and wiped his cheek. Mom stood firm, first gliding her hand up to squeeze his arm, then pulling him into a hug. So very tired, we fell around the two of them in a huddled mass, crying together. Looking down, I saw black dots blink into existence around my feet. They lasted a few moments and then, as if taking a breadth before a dive into the dirt, faded away.

We separated as I squeezed mom’s hand. Sullivan pulled in a breadth and smiled, for a moment almost content, “He was a great man, your husband. We worked many an incident together, many a long night.”

He smiled into the distance, into the past, before returning to us. He wore the expression the newscaster strived for, “The last I saw him, he was over there, at Command. They was set up there,” he said pointing toward a two story mound of rubble, “and when, when…” He trailed off. “Well, then we lost contact…” His voice floated away, joining the smoke around us. He was gone again. Then, jerked back to the present he stiffened his shoulders, “Please this way.” Mom feigned a smile as we joined others walking towards a destination marked by a pile. She squeezed my hand with all her might as her lower lip quivered. She released a second salvo of tears. They disappeared quickly into the earth below.

LT. Sullivan led us forward with the others.

In the distance the workers came into focus. Grayed out by smoke and appearing like immigrants in an old black and white photo standing at the golden gates of a slaughter house, the workers slowly stopped their scavenging for treasure. They now stood as ghosts, staring at the tempest tossed. Watching us.

Our huddle of families could not help but slow to a stop and stare back. We stood as one, like a jellyfish recently made homeless on a sea-washed beach.

As hundreds of workers stopped in their tracks; stopping cranes, leashing dogs, resting shovels and holstering walkie-talkies comfort’s maiden, silence, returned in a graceful bow. They watched us come to our standstill as if watching a background video on the nightly news supporting the story, the story of loss. Like me, however, they were closer than a newscast.

Then as one, as if choreographed, they removed their helmets, each man staring at us, mixing tears with the dirt on their sleeves.

After sharing this gift of silence our group moved forward. We came upon an opening in the wretched refuse of this place and silence was joined by bagpipes. Mimicking the foreign sounds first let loose on this island by those seeking succor over a century ago, her cries bounced off the wounded buildings surrounding us. The wails mixing with smoke as the buildings stood firm, like cliffs gouged in battle.

We crept past a final protective ring consisting of a chain link fence manned by armored personnel with automatic weapons. On the ground thousands of black rat traps stood vigil around the site. The children stepped over the traps, staring at the rubble and listening to the call of the bagpipes. Catching site of the traps the centers of every family huddle waivered. All around me the mothers broke out in tears.

We arrived at the site and formed into a large circle, with FDNY leaders in the center. The bagpipes let out their last echo.

Losing my train of thought I realized a Chaplain spoke. “… and your loved ones ran towards…” was all I heard. His words blended into a murmur as the workers on the pile slowly returned to task, probing and searching on behalf of the families they spied from afar. I floated away, up into the smoke, until DJ tugged at my arm, pulling me back.

Following DJ’s extended finger I focused on the boy. He was sobbing. Around our circle many sets of shoulders moved in such a motion; like pistons on an assembly line of tears. They were all crying as the individual parts of our circle rhythmically produced tears, depositing them one at a time onto this spot.

I closed my eyes hoping to contribute my own tears to the volley. None came.

I wanted to add to this production line of tears thinking, perhaps, if those workers don’t find our missing, our tears will. Crafted individually and at great cost, they take flight from lashes, and chins and cheeks and lapels and dive gracefully towards the earth, embracing the dirt in the form of those tiny black dots.

Our circle of families worked nonstop, pounding out tears and releasing salvo after salvo in search and embrace missions. We worked on behalf of each other, not caring who our tears were to find.

“Go where fingers and shovels can’t go. Dive deep to find someone, some small piece of a loved one and let some part of me deliver this final embrace wrapped with care in a tear.”

I watched the small storm of tears form into black dots before they took a last breath and vanished below the surface.

“No, we can’t embrace you again, or tell you one last time we love you, but some small part of us – of me – will find you. Some small piece of me, poured from a circle of blackened teapots, will find you. We tilt and pour servings from broken spouts, serving a last dream of going where our injured hearts and digging fingers cannot, to say something we wished we had said earlier, perhaps on that morning before you left.”

Leaping forward then rooting through the earth these tears shall wind their way to some distant piece of you, buried perhaps a hundred feet below and mixed with glass and beam and concrete and the former routine of daily life, whispering, “I’m here with you. I’m with you now and, yes, I love you.”

DJ persisted, leaning forward and pointing to a second boy somewhere between DJ’s age and that of the preteen, “Look! So is he. He’s cry-ing too, daddy. They’re all cry-ing!”

I turned my attention from the circle of families, and cupped the back of his head with my hand, “I know, wonderful, I know. He’s crying because he’s sad.” I bent down to join DJ’s two year old view of the world. I pulled him close and whispered, “He lost his daddy. He’s sad because, somewhere around here, he lost his dad.”

“These men,” I turned and pointed to the men crawling into voids and pulling rocks off the pile like lines of ants digging into mounds of earth, “well, these men are looking for his dad; for all the dads. And he’s crying because he’s so sad. He’s sending, we’re all sending, tears to find his dad. To say a final ‘I love you’ to his dad.”

Focusing on a specific portion of my comment, DJ asked, “Where? Where’d his dad go?”

Before I could answer, Gee stepped forward, blocking my view of the boy. She had been listening to our budding conversation. Like the boy, she was crying, yearning to breathe free of sobs, sucking in air as her tears leapt towards their journey, “I’m sad, too da.., daddy. I miss. I miss him.”

I pulled her forward. She pushed her head into my shoulder, nearly toppling me over into the dirt. I rebalanced myself, settling on a kneeling position in the dirt in front of my children. I held Gee against me as Liz looked down, stroking Gee’s long brown hair.

I squeezed Liz’s hand, forgetting the fight we’d had early this morning when getting the kids ready for this journey. At 5AM we had broken into a heated exchange. I looked up to see her crying. Her tears fell first on Gee and then on the dry earth, joining the search for fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, and sons and daughters.

Throughout our journey to this place, Liz had been stoic. She lost her dad when she was 10 and her mom was forced to leave their Caribbean island in search of a future. A newly minted widow, Liz’s mom brought three small girls, no skills, save for the will to struggle for a future, and enough money for maybe a couple of months to this new world.

Cast from her Caribbean home that newly minted widow brought my future wife, a woman whom, over three years of painfully trying as an adult, as my wife, never gave in to my urgings to check the nationality box labeled “Foreign” when completing her medical school applications.

I had pushed her. “Liz, you’re from another country, check the frigg’n box. Check this one!” I urged, stabbing my finger onto the application. “You’re from the Caribbean. Just say so. You’ve been trying to get into medical school for years. Just check it. It’ll help get you into school, god dammit.” We had broken into heated exchanges again and again as I persisted. “Liz, come on, it’s a fact. Just check the god damned box.”

“Stop it! I’m an American now. My God, don’t you get it? I live here. I’m from here now. This is my country, Beasley. Just leave me the hell alone and let me decide who I am.”

My wife, the mother of two. My wife, the doctor. My wife, the surgeon. She had decided for herself. And she had decided to love me and love my parents and now this loss was I imagine more painful for Liz than for me as it dug deep into her past. I saw her jaw muscles clench as tears let lose. Like my mom, she was too tough to sob.

DJ poked my cheek with his index finger, “Why aren’t you crying, daddy? You’re dad’s here.” Annoyed at his poke to my face, I grabbed his finger and then, thinking twice, gave it a little squeeze and pulled his hand away from my cheek, holding it. I pulled Gee and DJ together so they faced me as I knelt before them. I whispered, “I wanna cry, but I guess I have no right to cry here. Look around you. Look at all these people. Over there. And over there. Look around, at all these kids your age or, maybe a little older or maybe even a little younger.”

Dutifully they looked around, before returning their gaze to me. “Of all these people in this circle, our family is, by far, the luckiest. I am the luckiest. We found my dad, up there.” They followed my finger as I pointed towards the destroyed atrium. “Almost all these people, all these kids – kids just like you – well, they, they don’t even know what happened to their dads. They never found them. These workers around us are looking but I don’t think they’ll ever find them. Ever. So, I guess that means they’re still here somewhere, mixed with this, this dirt and rubble.”

I rubbed my hand in the dirt, making sure not to disturb the black dots preparing for a final mission. Drawing up my dirty hand I presented my palm. I leaned in and whispered, “They’re here, mixed in this dirt. In here could be the tiniest pieces of their dads. That’s why they’re crying.”

“And, well, ya know, my dad was older. I got to have my life with him and he got to see me grow up and fall in love and have you two. And, he ah, he taught me to drive. And he gave me advice when I fell in love with your mom and he, ah, he told me stories like about when he was a little boy. These kids, well, they won’t have that like I did with my dad or like you’re gonna with me.”

DJ scrunched his eyebrows, struggling to understand.

At six Gee was capable of coming to grips with the situation and the context of our loss and the context of loss to those around us, “Will they forget, them, daddy? Will they forget their dads when they’re older?”

“Oh, Gee, I hope not, I really, really hope not. But ya know, when you lose someone, they’re not all the way gone. Pieces of you stay behind; some are here in the earth and some are here, in your heart,” Softly, like a wisp of smoke, I touched Gee’s and DJ’s chests. I moved my hands up, stroking their hair, “and here; in what you learned from them, in all your memories. And sometimes, well, sometimes you remember them like movies, or sometimes like pictures and sometimes it’s like you remember a story someone told you. Like the stories I tell you.”

DJ began to cry, “What if you die and then, what, what if I forget you?”

Gee joined in, “I don’t want to forget you or mom. What if I do forget?”

I leaned in close, smoothing the edge with a smile, “Well, how ‘bout this; since I can’t cry, well then I’ll use the tears inside me to make stories. They’ll form black dots on paper and dive deep to find a buried piece of me. OK? So, when you’re growing up, when you’re getting bigger, I’ll write down stories and then you can search through them to see a little piece of me any time you want, OK? ”

I looked up at Liz, “And mom, well mom’ll take pictures ‘cause she’s really good at taking pictures. I’ll write down my stories, even the private things or the ones I won’t want you to know about until after you’re all grown up. And it will be like a secret and, when you’re older and grown up, I’ll leave them for you to find somewhere. And you can search for them and find a piece of me. So you won’t forget. Alright?”

They nodded. Gee stared at me, “Ok daddy, you write the stories on paper and we’ll read them when we’re grownups. And I’ll read them to DJ if he can’t read yet, OK?”

“Deal. I’ll start today and, someday, you can read them and you can find a piece of me.

Grabbing the railing, mom leaned over, stretching towards us to get a better look at what was going on in the neighbor’s driveway, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Beasley! Is that my hamper in the driveway? Is it? Tell me right now young man. What in Joseph’s name are you doing with my hamper? And, and where the hell are my clothes?”

“Mom, I caught some fish, look. The brook flooded and…”

She exploded, “Fish! Fish? Are you telling me there’s a dirty fish in my hamper?”

My friends were silent. They knew a goner when they saw one. Trying to tone down the screaming I attempted to slow my words and reason. “Two fish, Mom. They were trapped. When the brook flooded. And they got stuck. I saved them.” Given my mom’s devotion to the Church, I went for broke, “Like Jesus. He had two fish.”

She leaned back and glared, first speaking slowly then incrementally raising her voice so the final words fell upon the driveway like a tidal wave, “I see. Like Jesus. Perhaps then you can go get a couple of loaves of bread, invite some more of your Godforsaken friends to stand around my hamper and then you can feed the entire neighborhood! Why not? How ‘bout it, Beasley?”

I returned to silence. William stepped forward and poked one of the 18” fish with a stick. The fish swirled about in a circle opening its mouth gulping for freedom as William bravely joined the conversation, “I don’t think so, Mrs. Kinkade. It has something gross, something swollen, on its side. No one is gonna want to eat this guy.”

She stamped her foot so hard, bees scattered from under the porch. “Where are my clothes?”

All eyes turned towards me. They wore sympathy. “Ah, uh, don’t worry they’re not in here, mom. I uh, I uh, dumped them in the basement.”

Mom stormed down the steps and tore her apron off throwing it on the grass as she marched across the lawn. None of this would have happened if she hadn’t spied us from her kitchen window across from the LeBlanc’s driveway. I shook my head. “I shouda known better,” I mumbled.

It was from this same window she had watched the LeBlanc family move from Canada into the neighboring house just over a year ago. Minding her business in the kitchen she smiled as the moving truck and family station wagon disgorged the neighbor’s belongings and the neighborhood’s newest kids, Mario and William. She watched as they ran into our yard to try out our Sears swing set. Before mom made it to the back door to say hello, my brother KJ and I had dropped our street hockey gear, bolted from the driveway and pulled the benevolent boys off the swings, throwing them to the ground. The two new neighboring moms met over the tangle of their fighting children, with mom finally peeling me off a wailing Canadian by the hair and throwing me to the ground, gasping for breath like my new fish and staring at me in horror.

Today she wore the same look as she stormed across the yard towards her hamper. KJ and the two Canadian brothers stepped back leaving me alone with my fish and her hamper. I didn’t want to meet the same misfortune as John the Baptist so I stepped behind the fish hoping they would save me. I doubted it.

The hamper was an old plastic diaper bin, capable of holding 25 gallons or so. Mom used it for whites and “delicates” as she called them. After William and I had discovered the trapped fish in the flooded brook this morning I ran home to find a five gallon paint bucket to scoop up the flailing fish with the intent of dumping them into our bathtub upstairs. When investigating the tub, I noticed the plastic hamper in the nearby closet. Thinking quickly I grabbed it, ran to the basement and dumped all the whites and underwear on the floor next to the old Sears washing machine.

Empty hamper in hand, William and I ran back to our friend the brook to turn fish into pets. With the recent rains the brook flooded, surging violently. Normally, the brook was a peaceful babbling stream no more than a foot deep. Meandering along the bottom of a small ravine parallel to The Boulevard, a relatively busy two lane street running through our neighborhood, the brook was our dear friend.

We loved the brook and spent hours in her company. We played within a one block span framed by two low-slung concrete overpasses under which the brook flowed. With water at a normal level we removed our Keds to creep under the two street bridges, yelling to create echoes, splashing each other with the biggest rocks we could find and peeing in private because we were having too much fun to go home just to use the bathroom. Under these two bridges darkness rested; I imagined this was where night slept during the day. The only noise was the periodic hum of traffic from the street above and the murmur of the brook at our feet. Save for our yelling and splashing, it was peaceful.

The upstream bridge offered a place of shelter, of rest. Walking upstream, I could touch the ceiling under the bridge and quietly walk to the midpoint, where a thick black cast iron pipe crossed the brook about two feet above the water. On hot days we slipped under the bridge and sprawled across the cool pipe listening in silence to water below and the passerby and traffic above.

The downstream bridge presented an end point. As opposed to a welcoming pipe on which children would find peace, the second bridge covered a rusted chain link fence built across the stream. Under the bridge, the fence collected rubbish and floating branches from the brook before allowing the filtered stream to exit the far end of the bridge into a private area bound by the backyards of a line of nice houses.

The men from the DPW periodically visited the second bridge to clear out debris captured by the fence under the bridge. “This is the stupidest thing I ever saw,” I heard the foreman complain the first time I saw them there. “They put a fuck’n fence under a bridge just so those folks,” he said as he jerked his head downstream, “don’t have to look at garbage. Stupid, man. Just stupid.” Finally noticing me, the foreman asked, “You live downstream, kid?”

“No, I live up the hill, that way,” I said pointing. “Hey can I help you guys?”

“Just stay away from this fence kid. I don’t wanna be fishing you outta here too. This brook, when it rains, she can turn on you.” I stared blankly, having never thought of the brook as a she.

“Hey, kid, on second thought, you can help me; by running home and getting us some beers. That’ll help.” The guys were still laughing as I ran the two blocks, cutting through yards to make it home in a search for beer. Finding none in our house, I returned with a six pack of Cokes for the guys, “Hey Mister, I couldn’t find beer so I got this for you.” They left a Coke for me and let me watch. The next time, after I said I couldn’t get any more soda because my dad smacked me for snatching his Cokes, they let me help.

And I remained on good terms with the brook for years. Across her span of open stream we floated model boats, built damns and constructed stone bridges, played war among the rocks, attempted unsuccessfully to jump the stream on our bikes like Evel Knievel and, in winter we used the banks for cover as we pelted passing cars on the Boulevard with snowballs.

Today the brook was angry. Engorged with overflow, she smelled like dirt and sewage, belching out brown water from under the first bridge, greedily snatching away the banks from her neighbors, the bushes and plants, before rudely jamming herself under the second bridge; the bridge with the fence. Usually above her reach, the archway of tree branches and limbs were curtly slapped away as they tried to dip their curious fingers into her newly formed rapids.

Returning to the brook to catch fish with the hamper, William and I could not help but stare. The brook’s normal gurgling and bubbling sounds were replaced by a rush of water and the periodic cracking of branches. As we stared a log burst from under the first bridge, lurching past us and, slamming into the side of the second bridge, splintering before disappearing under into the darkness.

I grabbed William’s arm, “Whoa! Did you see that! That thing shattered, man. That was so cool. I bet the fence got it! Let’s get more stuff to throw in,” I urged, nodding towards the upstream bridge.

Without answering, William began scrounging for sticks and branches. I laid the hamper down by the edge of the road as we walked up and down the Boulevard looking for crap to toss in. I found some good sized tree branches but William won the search as he came upon a cracked 2 by 4 and a waterlogged tennis ball.

“Come on,” he yelled, “To tha bridge!” William helped me drag an oversized tree limb towards the first bridge. A couple of cars slowed to investigate as we pulled the branch to the bridge. We caught our breath before shoving it up onto the three foot concrete wall overlooking the brook. “Ready?” I shouted over the roar below.

“Wait,” William hollered over the rapids. “Let me throw the ball in first.” I gave him the thumbs up as he placed the lonely ball in the middle of the thick concrete wall. Slowly it rolled forward before plopping into the rapids and disappearing.

He held his hands up in victory then pointed downstream, “Look; down there. Holy shit, man! It was under water that whole time. Like a commie submarine. It’s going… under the bridge. Outrageous, man! Outrageous. Let’s do your log.”

We rolled the limb towards the edge of the wall preparing it for a final ride. A car slowed to a stop directly behind us, piercing our private world, “You kids, be careful now, OK? You stay up here and away from that water. Understand?”

Startled, I turned. I wanted to tell the old guy to fuck off but held my tongue, “We’re cool, man. Thanks.” He continued to idle his car as I turned to William, “Let’s just do this.” William joined me as I started to count, “One, two, three!”

We shoved the limb over the edge. It hit the torrent below and was sucked forward, flipping end over end before shooting straight down the middle of the brook, smacking overhead limbs from its path. We leaned forward, straining to follow the limb before it finally disappeared under the second bridge. “Fuck’n A, man. So cool! So cool!” William slapped my back, “That was totally cool, man.”

I turned to our interloper, “Mister, did you see that? Got anything you want to chuck in here, Mister?” Put off by our hysteria and assured we were just tossing branches over the side, he drove away. We lobbed everything within reach over the edge as our imaginations were swept away by the power of the angry brook. With nothing left within reach we stood, staring at the rapids.

“Oh shit, man. Shit! We forgot the fish! Fuck’n A!” William followed me as I ran to the last known location of the fish. They were still there, stuck in what we called a whirlpool; a dead end formed by a series of rocks and the forward pressure of the current.

Retrieving the hamper from the side of the road we slowly slid down the bank, feet first, towards the water. With the banks wet with spray, we struggled to control our slide, could not stop and ended up standing in the little rotating whirlpool. No harm done. Along the side, the rapids were not overwhelming. “I got ‘em, Bease. Give me that hamper thing.” I tossed the hamper to William as he tried to scoop up a fish without success. “Let me try.” I slipped in next to William. By now we were knee deep in the side pocket of water. The fish were a good 18 inches or so and did not follow instructions well. Frustrated, I tried to punch the nearest fish, lost my balance and fell down drenching myself. William burst out laughing.

“Help me up, Will. Man, my mom’s gonna kill me now.”

Shaking his head he pulled me up. Realizing the fish did not want to be caught we finally tilted the hamper on its side with the open end facing upstream so it partially filled with water. We waited and eventually first one, then two, ugly fish simply floated into the hamper. Turning it right side we secured our new pets and tried to lug the water-filled hamper up the bank.

“Ugh, Bease, Andre the Giant couldn’t lift this thing. It’s way too heavy man. Way too heavy.”

We tilted the hamper against the bank and drained as much water as possible. With the fish trying to wriggle out, I yelled at William, “Hold him, down, Willy. Come on, they’re gonna get away.”

“I’m not touching that thing! It’s gross, Bease. Look at it!”

The fish were gross. They looked beaten. Scratches ran across their stripes. “You’re a big pussy,” I yelled as I grabbed a fish and shoved him under water. He quickly squirmed from my grasp but not before we had dumped enough water to make the hamper manageable. “Come on, help me carry this thing.”

We carried the hamper across the Boulevard and up the street before tiring. We ended up dragging it up the sidewalk and across lawns, gauging scratches matching those on the fish into the bottom of the hamper. “If my mom asks, just say those scratches were already there, OK?” Knowing that fish tale was not going to fly William nodded anyway.

We made it to the driveway and used the hose on the side of William’s house to fill the hamper the rest of the way. “There, that’ll make ‘em happy, huh?” As our brothers joined us we formed a little circle around the fish, watching them swim in circles. We tossed out ideas regarding what the fish were thinking.

“Where are we, man?”

“Is this Heaven?”

“Where’s my family? Where are my babies?”

“How do we get outa here?”

“I’m scared.”

“Do you think they’ll eat us?

“We’re fucked.”

“Thank God we’re outa that crazy brook, man. We’re saved.”

Our bantering lasted about two minutes before mom slammed the kitchen door into the wooden hand railing, silencing us.

“Oh boy.”

I positioned the hamper and our two fish between me and mom. On the other side of the hamper, she jerked to a stop, placed both hands on her hips and screamed. “My God. They, they, they… they’re disgusting; utterly disgusting.” Her head seemed to move in a small circle as the pair circled her hamper. “I. Am. Furious.”

Without warning she wound up and cracked me in the side of the head. “Get these fish out of my hamper and clean it immediately. I want you to scrub this thing with bleach. Understand?”

I didn’t flinch. Being reminded later by your friends that you flinched was as bad as getting hit. I put my hand up to my left cheek. It was warm were mom caught me. “Mom, wha, what’s your problem. They’re just fish. They’re just fish.”

“Get them out of my hamper. Now!”

“What should I do with them, then, huh? Throw ‘em in the street? Eat em?”

William shook his head back and forth, “I don’t think so, Bease.”

Mom’s head moved like that of a predator, “Zip it, William.”

Turning to me she summarized a likely scenario in my immediate future. “I am going inside the house to get my clothing off the floor and into the wash and then, when I come back out here, the only thing I better see is the back of your head as you scrub the inside of this hamper. Now move!”

Breaking his silence, KJ, shrugged. “I’m outa here.” Sensing a no win situation he and William’s brother turned and walked away.

“Fine, then. I’ll toss them back in the brook. See if I care if they die, mom! See if I care!”

I started dragging away the hamper, stopping as mom started screaming again. “You’re ruining my hamper dragging it across the gravel. Oh my God, just pick it up and get outa here!” William jumped to my aid as we waddled up the driveway and then down the street with the hamper, periodically dumping water to lighten our load.

From a distance we heard the brook. Like my mom she was still angry, roaring at us from a distance. William started to the upstream bridge but I stopped him, pulling him downstream, “Let’s dump them downstream. I don’t want ‘em smashin’ against the bridge like our log or stuck in the fence under there, ya know.”

William shrugged and we continued the final steps of our waddle. Approaching the second bridge, we heaved the hamper up on the wall and slowly poured our friends over the far side, introducing them to the downstream portion of the brook.

“Go swim with the rich folks, fishes.” We watched for a moment and then lost them as they scurried away just under the boiling surface.

“I was right,” William suggested.

Confused, I stopped looking for the fish and turned towards William, “’Bout what? What are you talk’n about?”

“We’re saved.’ That’s what they were thinking. ‘We’re saved.”

We stood for a moment before I wheeled and turned, “Willy, follow me.”

I marched upstream to the first bridge with William following right behind me. “Look, I’m goin’ in. I’ll be like Apollo splashing down and you be the SS Ticonderoga pulling me out of the water if I need ya, OK?”

“The what? I don’t know, Bease. Those branches got smashed up pretty bad. I wouldn’t.”

Ignoring William’s trepidation I stopped at the wall of the upstream ridge.

“Look, I’m not going near that thing,” I said nodding my chin towards the second bridge. “I’ll jump off in the hamper from here, maybe a little closer to the side, and push myself towards the banks where the fish were. I’ll land in the little whirlpool; by where we just were. Yeah, and if I’m goin’ too fast I’ll use my arms to paddle over to you. And in the worst, super-worse, case, I’ll just grab onto the branches ‘till you pull me out. You know, like how they get the astronauts when they splash down. You fish me out.”

William grabbed the hamper, “Don’t. Just don’t do it, man. Look at her. Look how angry she is. What do ya think she’ll do if you jump on top of her like this? She’ll be as mad as your mom. Madder.”

I yanked the hamper back, “Give me the fuck’n hamper. I’m going in. Now. Just do me a favor and get over there.” I saddled up onto the wall and slipped my feet into the hamper, encasing my legs. My heart leaped as I tottered back and forth before grabbing the edge to steady myself. “Whoa, that was close!” I feigned a smile as I looked down at the screaming brown water. She was angry. Again, a car slowed to a stop on the road behind me. “Hey kid, get off a there. You’re gonna get killed. Get off.”

I twisted around, “I’m fine, Mister. Come on, I got a friend right there.” The guy shut off the car and watched me as I turned to William, gave him the astronaut’s thumbs up and slid off the slide towards the rapids 5-6 feet below.

With me standing tall in my 25 gallon capsule, the bottom of the hamper slammed into the rapids as if hitting concrete. My legs collapsed as I buckled down with the force of the impact. The hamper lurched out from under me and I smacked my head against the foot of the concrete bridge before falling into the water. It was freezing. Like a shot, I was sucked forward. Mission failure.

The last thing I saw before going under was my mom’s hamper hurtling downstream, jerking like a tumbleweed in an old fashion movie across the top of the rapids.

Roaring brown currents filled my ears. I went under. Out of control, I somersaulted underwater, trying to protect my head from the rocks below. I scraped along the bottom, catching my shirt on something. It tore open. Trying to breath I sucked in her brown rapids. My chest convulsed as water spewed from my mouth, returning it to its rightful place. My eyes stayed open the whole time as I tried to grab towards the lighter brown water rolling above me. I hit a large rock and was thrown upwards, breaking the surface.

“Beasley!”

I stayed up, gasping as I bolted past William. Terrified, I tried to jam my feet into the rocks along the bottom. I couldn’t feel bottom. I tried to yell and swallowed water, “Hel-ap!”

Coughing violently, I fought to keep my head up as the second bridge raced towards me. I looked up just in time to see the hamper crash into the edge of the concrete, fold in half and disappear under the bridge. The brook had mom’s hamper.

I grabbed wildly towards the archway of branches as they reached towards me from above. Deferring to the wishes of the angry brook the branches let slip through my fingers. Gasping, I thought to myself, “Oh my God, I’m going go under, gonna hit the fence. Please. Oh, God.”

I tried to pull myself towards the bank and lunged for a downed limb spanning a portion of the brook. My feet pulled forward as if sucked by a vacuum. I held my arms up to try and hook the limb, hitting my face hard, harder than my mom had hit me, and grabbing tight. I saw stars. My feet continued to pull downstream, tugged forward by the brook’s greed. She was mad and she was gonna make me pay. My face pushed against the limb as I kept trying to hook my arms around it. My legs felt warm and I couldn’t tell if I peed my pants. I guess it didn’t matter now. I craned my neck, pushing my chin harder into the limb, trying everything to resist her pull. I slipped. Slowly I scraped against the bark, cutting my chin, then my lip. I held on, squeezing.

From below her surface the brook pulled me. From behind she poured freezing water down my torn shirt. I felt her fingers grabbing me from below, groping for my legs, now horizontal with the top of the water. She shoved me from behind as my chin pulled away from the bark and I went under. I saw the brown swirl jumping over me, getting darker and wearing me down. Inviting me to give in. My arms burned as she continued to claw at me.

“Just hold on. Just, hold on. Someone. Someone will come. Someone’s gotta see me. Maybe the DPW guys? Oh man, what if no one sees me? What if they pull me from the fence?”

In the distance, perhaps in the past, I heard yelling. Screams mixed with the roar of the current. I couldn’t tell if it was mom or the brook. I couldn’t tell.

I pulled my face up and sucked in my last breath. I tasted blood. And dirt. My hands were raw and started to slip.

I tried to dig my fingers into the bark, “Just hold on. Just hold on.”

“Oh man, this can’t be it. It just can’t be. I’m just a kid; I, I wanna grow up. I wanna be someone.”

I closed my eyes as I went under one last time, thinking, “I never kissed a girl.”

I felt clawing at my neck, at my hair; pulling me by the collar, by the sleeve. I couldn’t hold any longer.

“I’m not. I’m not gonna… not gonna say it. I, I…”

Finally, I ran out of breath. Gagging, I drew in a mouthful of brook.

She had me. I opened my eyes to see flickers of sunlight darting through the angry brown surface, forming shapes, like dancing triangles, just above my face, reaching towards me. I felt her embrace.

I let go.

“But dad, I have to finish my flower.”

As a child Gee was a picky eater. Perhaps it’s a first born thing; not used to eating what remains after older siblings snatch first dibs at the kitchen table. In the not too distant past breakfast was a bit of a challenge. Then, for some reason now unknown to me, I started presenting the kids’ breakfast fruit in patterns; in familiar form.

Splayed across the plastic children’s plate orange slices might be positioned into a smile while a strawberry formed a nose. Blueberries sprung to life as eyes. It varied. This morning eight skinny apple slices blossomed into a circle of flower petals while a less than straight line of raspberries acted as our upward-reaching stem. After an initial prompt Gee worked her way up the raspberry stem and knocked off the apple slices, petal by petal.

“Gee, let’s toss the rest of your flower in a baggie and head to school.”

I didn’t wait for a response as I leaned over to kiss the top of her head. She wore her Catholic school uniform and my best effort at a Pebbles Flintstone ponytail of hair spraying her hair upwards. More often than not one of the teachers at school took pity on Gee’s hairstyle and returned Gee with a beautiful ponytail. This morning my kiss lingered as I smelled Gee’s hair. I squeezed my eyes shut and held back tears.

Straightening up and turning towards Gee’s school bag, I pinched my eyes between my index finger and thumb. I squeezed until pain ran ahead of the steady pace of sadness. Black and silver stars appeared. I lost my balance for a moment as I reached for the bag.

Recovering, I focused on logistics, “Put your shoes on, Gee. OK?”

“We already put them on during breakfast, daddy. I’m already ready!” She scrunched her eyebrows at me. “Are you still sleepy or something, daddy?”

I forced a smile, “Let’s go.”

We held hands as we scooted down the front steps towards the car. It was mid-September and the New England air had turned cool. I wished I’d given Gee more than her blue school sweater. Above us, the sky was silent.

“Are you cold, Gee? I can go back upstairs and get your jacket.”

She shook her head and kept walking to the car. We hopped in.

“How do we look, Gee?” She leaned forward, craning her neck to and fro as she peeked past my seat looking for traffic. “We’re good.”

We pulled out in silence.

Like my mom, Gee had a finely tuned emotional antenna. She sensed I was struggling.

She probed. “Can you tell me a Jacquo Panalese story? The one when he’s in the circus with Doody Bear?” She waited for a response. I stared ahead as I drove.

“Are you too sad to tell a story, daddy?”

I shook off my stupor, responding, “I am Gee. I don’t think I can make up a story with you this morning. I’m too sad thinking about Grandpa Dick; and about Grandma Pat.” I wiped my eyes. “It’s been a couple of days now and we still can’t find him, Gee. So, yeah, I’m sad; really, really sad.”

I watched her as she looked at me through the rear view mirror. She glanced away, to look out her window at passing homes. Though Liz and I kept the kids up to date I wondered if Gee really understood what had happened to her grandfather.

I caught her eye again, “Gee do you understand what happened to Grandpa Dick? Do you know why we’re looking for him?”

“I know why you’re sad, daddy. ‘Cause the building fell on him and because, well, now he’s in Heaven.” I nodded and pushed forward another smile, “I’m afraid you’re right. You know I love you Gee.” She nodded and looked out the window before catching my eye again in the rear view mirror.

“Dad, ya know he’s not at the building anymore.” I slowed down as I turned to her. She held my gaze. I reached back and squeezed her hand as the car behind us leaned on the horn. I winked at her and returned to driving.

We pulled up to school, parked illegally and walked to the door holding hands. I reached down to kiss Gee and she grabbed my neck in both arms, squeezing me, “He’s in Heaven, daddy. He’s in Heaven.”

We hugged for longer than usual before I let her go. She turned and marched into school.

I returned to the car and sat there, imagining what might have happened to my dad after the building stopped falling.

I imagined my father to be initially upset at finding himself separated from his scattering colleagues and I got to thinking about my father’s conversation with his God upon entering Heaven…

I suspect that once he realized he was no longer running from the collapsing North Tower he’d grow to be upset, demanding answers, railing to the silence filling the space around him.

“My God, what… what am I doing here? Why am I here? This, this, isn’t right! It’s wrong. It’s all wrong! I’m not finished. People need me. Why now? Why?”

Finally screaming, “Why am I here, Goddammit?”

God would have likely startled my father as He smiled softly and asked, “Dick, you do not remember our agreement do you?

Many, many years ago, I asked for a volunteer to tirelessly lead men by example and, Dick, you accepted My offer.”

God would have continued, “I stated to you, Dick, I need someone that will never become famous, never be rich, and never have an easy time as he leads and protects the men and women of his community not from a desk, but from the trenches and the front lines.

Dick, I said I need someone that will live the values I honor, even though those values; loyalty, dedication, integrity and selflessness, will be considered outdated and ill-fitting to more fashionable values such as wealth, power, and fame.

I told you that, as a young boy, you were to be raised in a house devoid of affection, never to hear the words, ‘I love you’ from your mother or your father. Never. And, in that house when the whip shall come down, when the only thing you want to do is run and curl up and hide, I will not let you. You will have to stay and protect your brother and sister, learning early to place your back between others and the whip.

And though you will be raised in a house where love is dear you will have to learn to build a home where love shall take root.

Throughout your life you will struggle with the words, but I will force you to try, and to plant the seeds of love so those seeds may bloom as flowers among your children and your grandchildren.

I explained I need someone with the raw talent and drive to succeed, but I will force you to work as a child to earn enough money to attend a prep school where you will thrive. I need someone that will have to earn a scholarship in order to continue his education, and someone that will have to work full time while pursuing an advanced degree.

Dick, I asked for a volunteer capable of tirelessly, quietly, and successfully battling skin cancer for over 20 years and I stated you will not be allowed to ask for help, ask for sympathy, or ask for recognition of the challenges posed by your battle. Yours will be a silent fight.”

I suspect God would have gone on and said, “I asked for someone that will truly fall in love once – just once – in his life and in exchange I will let you remain with that one woman and love that same woman for over 40 years.

I said you will have to support your family as a young adult by working two jobs in addition to your full time work with Con Ed. You will deliver mail-order blankets in the Bronx and you will work with children at night for the NY City Board of Education to save enough to afford the down payment and mortgage for a house that will become your home for over 30 years.

And once you acquire this house, you will have to welcome children other than your own into your home – children needing a place to stay for days, weeks, and even months.

And I will introduce you to children who have lost their fathers and are seeking guidance. And you will have to stop what you are doing and make time and become involved in their lives – and love them as you love your own children.

I told you I need someone to visit 107th Street every week for over 10 years to quietly, thanklessly, take care of an elderly aunt, chauffeuring her about, buying groceries, and making sure she is safe. However, for that 10 year period, you will never be thanked by your aunt and your reward will be nothing more than the inner knowledge of knowing that what you did was right.

I need someone capable of working with a compassionate, skilled, medical staff responsible for treating and healing burn victims at the Cornell Burn Center but upon meeting them you will be required to make the Center in which they work more capable and better funded than when you found it.

I said I need someone capable of rising through the ranks of a Fortune 500 company but before doing so, you will have to start your career as a steelworker walking the beams on the George Washington Bridge’s lower level so you may fully understand the demanding daily requirements of the men and women in the field.

I wanted someone capable of working with the leaders and decision-makers at this company, however you will be required to treat everyone as your equal, regardless of their rank or position. You will be required to see the potential in every man – not as an ally or prop used to support your agenda but as an individual worthy of your attention, your care and your respect.”

God would have continued explaining, “I require someone I may introduce to thousands and thousands of people, yet I won’t let you view them or categorize them by color, religion race, or income. You will have to treat everyone you meet with dignity and, upon meeting each person and getting to know him or her, you will have to ask yourself ‘how can I help this person gain a better station in life?’

I need someone to work tirelessly for the safety and wellbeing of the men and women within your company regardless of the personal or professional costs. You will have to put the safety and education of your coworkers before your personal success. And you will measure your success not by your title or your income, but by the success of those around you.

And even if you do this, I will not let you become President of the company you will eventually give your life for while serving but I will let you become the mayor of Con Ed, as recognized by the respect of your coworkers – union and non-union alike.

I will let you earn the right to work among the bravest men and women in our nation, New York’s HazMat personnel and New York City’s firefighters, and allow you to be welcomed into their brotherhood, but you will have to protect them and leave them safer and better cared for through years of training and preparation.

And working alongside the Firefighters, your Con Ed coworkers and the city’s police department, I will require you to respond – immediately – when your city needs you; without respite and for years on end. You will wear a beeper and when your city needs you they will track you down and call you directly and you will respond; regardless of your location. They will track you down and you will respond from Boston, from Chicago, from El Paso, from British Columbia and from the arms of your sleeping wife, Patricia, in your home.

In turn, though, when you are lost and on your last assignment for Me, you will receive thousands, literally thousands of messages a day, from as far away as France, Japan and Turkey, from friends, coworkers, relatives, family and even strangers, seeking to help you…for they have heard of you and know Whom you have served, with each message they send asking, “What is your location? Are you OK?”

You will not be famous and your race will never be over. But you will be admired and respected by all you meet and all who hear of you.

Dick, I said, if you accept my call, I will let you experience a life bathed in love and passion for what you do and I will allow you to do what you love to do, literally, up to the moment of your death.

However, I shall choose that moment.

You will go through your professional life, telling everyone you meet you will ‘see them on the big job’ but when the big job comes, I shall snatch you away and leave the job for those you have trained; responding and then rebuilding the city you served without you.

Do you remember, Dick?

I said I would take you back if, and only if, you met My demands and that in return I would give you 66 years to experience life on earth; to prepare your family, your company, your community and your city for this challenge.

This was the agreement, Dick. And you accepted it.

And now, I can say without reservation you have kept your end of the bargain.

Welcome to Heaven, Dick. Welcome home.”

“Sure, Wonderful, sure. Let me think of one…”

Well, I had been sleeping and I dreamt something was touching my face, like a mosquito. So I tried to swat it away. It stopped for a moment but the feeling didn’t go away. Slowly, it floated back to me like a feather, like a memory softly landing on my cheek. I rolled over annoyed and the light slid through the blinds catching me, forcing me awake. It wasn’t a mosquito or a feather; it was my mom, sitting on my bed, stroking my face. The girls were at early morning swim lessons and my dad had taken my brother KJ to one of his traveling all-star baseball games. Mom had let me sleep late, waking me by sitting on my bed with a cup of tea and stroking my face.

I caught her eye. She smiled and I continued.

“Hey, what time is it?” Mom’s smile broadened and, without speaking, she offered her tea. I propped up on an elbow to take a few sips before plopping backwards as she quickly pulled the tea away. She gave me a scolding glance as she managed the sway of the tea. It didn’t last long, “Careful, Bease.” The smile returned, seeping across her lips.

I had stayed up late watching a Yankee game on TV and was still tired. I rolled over on my stomach, jamming my head under the pillow.

Softly, mom started scratching my back. Her finger tips gently lolled back and forth across my shoulders as she silently sipped her tea. Her nails were sharpened to red points. Not so long ago I had asked why she cut them that way; to sharp points. “So I can scratch my son’s back better, that’s why.”

The hum of the air conditioner and the sound of her tiny sips accompanied the soft scratching noise. She finished by writing a note on my back with her index finger and then pulled the pillow off my head. She leaned forward to kiss my cheek, whispering, “You can see what I wrote in the mirror.” I listened as her footsteps moved down the stairs soon swallowed by the noise of the AC.

I followed a couple of minutes later, stopping in the bathroom to pee. As I washed my hands I twisted in front of the bathroom mirror trying to make out the message mom left on my back. I tried both sides, turning and arcing my chin over my shoulder. Lots of loops and red swirls and what looked like the top of a circle. I couldn’t read it.

I went downstairs to find mom standing in front of the kitchen sink, filling the teapot and looking out the window, “Mom, what is it? What’d you write on my back?” She didn’t turn from the window, “It’s something you already know, Beasley. I don’t even have to tell you. You know it.”

“Study? Don’t fight? What? What’d you write?”

She turned her head slightly before returning to the window, “You already know it. Now have a seat.”

I could tell she was happy.

Taking my seat in the corner of the kitchen, I started in on my Quisp cereal. The kitchen seemed bigger without everyone else. I looked around. The room was filled with smoke and the scent of bacon. My eyes rested on mom’s back. She turned to face me, “Just you and me this morning, kiddo. The place seems bigger without KJ and the girls, doesn’t it?” I nodded. Her white Emerson radio played AM music. Mom hummed along, every now and then turning towards me with a flourish as she fixed breakfast to the beat of the music.

She cooked my favorite, Pirate’s eye eggs, by tearing a whole in a slice of Wonder Bread, placing the bread in a butter soaked pan and then breaking the egg into the hole. Flipped over once or twice the resulting combination resembled a pirate’s eye with a patch over it. Mom continued to cook as I plowed through my breakfast of four such eggs, bacon, cereal and orange juice. I waited for an opportunity and, as mom returned to the sink, I scooped an entire spoonful of sugar from the sugar bowl and jammed it into my mouth. Silently crunching the sugar between my teeth until it turned to a gooey syrup. Swallowing, I licked my lips and asked if I could watch TV.

Still facing the sink, mom’s head turned slightly towards me. I saw a small smile curve up the corner of her mouth. She ignored my question. “Do you want some tea, Beasley?”

I nodded. Though she didn’t turn to catch my response she filled the teapot at the sink again and placed the water on the stove. She turned and smoothed her apron before joining me at the table.

“It’s too nice to be inside watching the boob tube, Beasley. Today’s a perfect summer day. You should be outside enjoying it.”

“Yeah, I know mom but Kimba the White Lion‘s on. You know I love Kimba.”

She rested her elbows on the table and laced her fingers together, creating a support for her chin. She rested her chin on her finger archway. Her brown hair formed two long inward arching curls around her white face. Her red lipstick popped, drawing your attention to her mouth. She had long black eyelashes that rose up and down like handheld fans made of leaves from the Amazon. She was pretty. A few freckles peeked across her small nose, a nose my sisters wished they had inherited.

“Beasley, do you know how much you love Kimba?” I nodded. “Well, think of a thousand times that amount and, well, that’s how much I love you.” She broke her lattice work of fingers and reached across the table to touch my cheek with her extended fingers. They were long, ending in the red nails. They matched her lips. Slowly her fingers floated up to my mess of curly hair. Quickly they became tangled. She shook her head, “My God, Beasley, when was the last time you combed your hair?”

I shrugged, “Before school one day, I guess.”

She burst out laughing.

“Before school! School ended weeks ago, Beasley! My God. My messy little boy, what am I going to do with you, huh? Go get me a…” She stopped herself. “No, you just stay here with me and be my messy little boy, OK? School! Good Lord.” She was enjoying herself. “My goodness, Beasley, do you think there are any squirrels in that hair of yours? Maybe a bird’s nest? Huh, what’s up there in that mop of yours? Let me take a look.” She leaned forward and started probing my hair, searching for animals. Quickly, she moved her hands down under my chin and started tickling me.

We heard steps on the stairs leading up to the back porch. Hard pounding steps on the stairs usually carried an adult complaining about the behavior of me or KJ. The result was silent nods from mom or dad, apologies to the adult and a thrashing of the individual responsible for the complaint. Today’s steps were quick. Quick steps on the porch were the steps of friends. A series of light raps followed on the back door. Mom had stopped tickling me and stood, stepping towards me, squeezing my head against her stomach. She turned to the kitchen door, “Come in.” Stan entered as I not so subtly pushed away from mom’s embrace. She made a show of it, “Stan, tell Bease it’s OK for his mom to hug him, will you? It’s not so bad is it?”

Stan shrugged.

“Did you eat, honey? Do you want some breakfast?’

“No thank you, Mrs. Kinkade. I had breakfast.” Thinking better of it he stuck his big nose up towards the ceiling, then scanned the room, “Gosh, it smells good in here. I’ll have some bacon if that’s OK.” Mom handed him a plate and he crunched away. “Oh yeah, can Beasley play today?”

She turned to me, “Well Beasley, can you?”

“Yeah, that’d be great. Can I go out now, mom?

“Of course, honey. Be back by lunch. And if you’re gonna leave the neighborhood stop by and tell me, OK?”

I got up to bolt. She grabbed my arm, pulling me into a hug. I hugged her back as quickly as possible. “Have fun. Oh, and Beasley, when I’m at the sink and looking out the window I can see your reflection in the glass. Ya now, if you eat sugar like that you’ll get worms.”

“Mom, I, I … I didn’t eat sugar.”

“Beasley, I see you in my window. No more, got it?”

“Um, OK. Come on Stan, let’s go. Thanks for breakfast mom.”

Liberated from my mom’s love, Stan and I roamed the neighborhood on our bikes, looking for things to use on our fort. We headed for a construction site a few blocks away. Slowing as we approached, we began to prowl back and forth, making ever decreasing loops on our bikes in front of the new house. No one was there. Riding up the curb and behind the house we jumped off our bikes, tossing them in the dirt. We climbed on piles of wood and peeked in windows. Walking around what was to be the garage we found piles of lumber, cinder blocks and digging tools. I pulled back a big blue tarp and a roll of window screening fell to the ground. I kicked it towards our bikes and then, nonchalantly, scooped it up. With Stan riding ahead of me on the lookout for cars, we returned home.

We went straight to the fort, tucked in the far corner of my backyard. The fort was a work in progress, always changing and always expanding. Cobbled together with lumber found around the neighborhood and extra 2 x 4s from my dad’s porch expansion project, the fort consisted of three floors. The center floor was our private hangout, protected by a hatch from the first floor and a hatch leading to the roof, which we liberally referred to as the third floor.

We were in need of a window as we were forced to peek through cracks to gain a sense of what was happening outside our sanctuary. Banging out a couple of planks from the second floor, we started nailing the new screening in place. We folded it over on itself a couple of times to create a thick mesh, letting light, but not curious eyes, join us. The fort was our refuge and we did not want prying eyes peeking in. Task complete, we sat in the fort drinking from a stash of Coke bottles we had stashed there. We took turns looking for neighbors to spy on.

Stan pressed his face against the screen, “Whoa, look at all the bumble bees by your kitchen window, Bease. I can see ‘em from here. They’re huge.” He turned to me. “That’s a lot of ammo, Beasley. A lot of ammo.”

“Are you challenging me, Beasley Kinkade?” I asked in mock seriousness. “Are you asking me to throw bees?”

“Let’s do it,” said Stan. “me vs. you, Kinkade. Let’s go.”

We climbed down from the second floor and cautiously approached the rhododendron bush under the kitchen window. The bushes ran along the side of our red house with the biggest blossoming below mom’s window. The bees roamed the airspace around the bush, landing, doing their thing and leaping up into the airborne crowd. Like miniature flashbulbs going off at a Yankees game, tiny spots of sunlight flicked on and off as the light periodically caught the bees’ wings. Busy at their tasks they paid us no mind. We crept forward, entering the bubble of their airborne crowd.

About eight feet above the rhododendron bush, mom’s head periodically bounced across the kitchen window. The window was cranked all the way open. We could hear cabinets banging shut and water rushing as she washed dishes in the kitchen. The radio was turned up and every now and then we could hear her singing or humming along with a song. Though a far better cook than singer she allowed herself to bounce around the room following the music. I could smell a cake baking in the oven. With no one else in the house she enjoyed her private time. The open window allowed pieces of my uninterrupted mom to spill out into the yard.

“Ready to throw bees, Bease?” He laughed at his own joke. When he saw I wasn’t laughing along with him he followed my eyes up to the kitchen window, “Your mom’s funny, huh? Whatever she’s cooking it smells great. Hey, think I can eat dinner over your house tonight? That smells like a cake.”

Unaware of her audience below, mom’s head bopped back and forth above us.

I watched her, seeing if she would turn towards me.

Drawn back to reality I looked around. “Yeah, hold on, I need a second here. Yeah, dinner will be great. My mom won’t mind. That is if you’re not crying like a baby from getting stung.”

Steeling myself for the bee fight I held my arms out to measure the distance from the rhododendron. “You’re too close,” I protested.

Stan extended his arms to confirm he was starting from the required arm’s length from the bush. “Chicken,” he chided me. “Ready now?” I nodded.

Together we counted, “One. Two. Three. Go!”

On queue and without sound we both stepped towards the bush, eyeing potential projectiles. Stan went to grab for a bee but jerked his hand away as it became alarmed. I worked more slowly, finding a bee on the edge of a purple flower. My hand slid towards the bee. I peeked at Stan. He was looking for a suitable bee. Looking back to the flower, my bee was unmoved. I wrapped my hand around him, pulling my arm back in one fluid motion. I felt the bee’s wings go wild in my hand as I flung it in Stan’s direction. He dove to the ground as the furious bee looked to dole out some punishment. Stan rolled away, crushing some of mom’s yellow marigolds. I quickly searched for another bee.

The trick to throwing bees is to hold your hand as loose as possible to avoid crushing the bee. If a bee feels like you’re going to crush it, you are in for a painful sting. The bee wants to get away, not fight; a lesson learned through dozens of failed bee throws.

Finding a second bee, I grabbed it and whipped it at Stan. It hit his chest as he backpedalled flailing his arms. The bee retreated in a series of sharp zigs and zags.

Overall bee activity kicked up a notch as their flights became more agitated. Their bubble expanded as they sensed intruders within.

Jumping up, Stan lurched to the bush, grabbed at a flower and pulled his arm back to bean me with a bee. I dove to the ground as he threw a handful of air towards me. Oldest trick in the book and I fell for it. With me climbing up from the ground Stan took his time, found a bee and hit me directly in the face. I fell backwards as Stan threw his hands up in triumph. No sting but a direct hit. He probed for a perfect bee to finish me off. I collected myself and hunted for a bee. Silently our arms moved back and forth as we raced against each other, lunging for a knockout bee without success.

I found my bee and turned to acquire my target. Stan had stopped and was just staring up at the window. The music was louder now and mom was belting out the words to Horse with No Name in the window. We could just see her head, perfectly framed in the window. She spun and twirled, tilting her face up the sky as she worked at the sink and sang.

Stan looked at me as we worked to contain our laughter. Without thinking I released my bee. Stan bent over laughing and I tried to mute my embarrassed laughter by covering my mouth. “Mom, hey, mom, we can hear you, ya know! We can hear ya singing.”

She was lost in her little slice of heaven.

Eyes closed she continued to sing along. “In the desert you can remember your name, ‘cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain..”

Stan started clapping to the music as we both jumped into the chorus, “La la, la, lalalala. La la, la la…” Connected through the window, we belted out our duet with mom bouncing and singing eight feet overhead.

The bees swarmed in confusion. We ignored them as we started dancing as well. They obliged our turn towards benevolence by not stinging us. Perhaps they liked our song.

After working our one-sided duet through a number of chorus’s mom finally glanced outside and saw us singing along and dancing to her song. She froze as we burst out laughing and applauded her. She pulled back from the window before regaining her composure. She returned to the window blushing, “OK, smart alecs, how long have you been watching me?”

I jumped into the chorus, “La la, la lalalala…” Stan joined in. We slowly turned in little circles, shaking our butts and dancing as the song continued to pour into the yard below.

She covered her mouth with both hands, enjoying the moment.

Mom noticed Stan and I were not alone in the yard. “My God boys, there are bees everywhere. What the heck are you doing out there?”

“You mean besides singing along with you, mom?” Just throwing bees.”

“For the love of Pete! You didn’t let me hug you but you’ll throw bumble bees at each other? Are you off your rockers? Get in here before you get yourselves stung. Come on, I just finished making chocolate icing for your dad’s cake. You guys can lick the bowl.”

We left the bees to their devices. I ran ahead of Stan, making my way up the stairs and into the kitchen before him. Mom was at the sink. The same sun reflecting off the bees’ wings pierced through her kitchen window. Her face lanced into the sunlight like a ship’s bow; curving the light around her and filling the kitchen. Before Stan made his way into the room I grabbed my mom and hugged her. I whispered, “I love you, mom,” pulling away just as Stan joined us.

As I finished telling Gee my story, her eyebrows scrunched down into seriousness, “You threw bees at each other? That’s crazy, daddy. Really, really crazy. Didn’t you get stung? Didn’t those bees sting you? And, hey, how old were you, anyway.”

I smiled back, “I was a little older than you, Gee. And, yes, sometimes we got stung, but not so often. The trick was to be gentle and not to squeeze the little guys. You may only be six but if you squeezed a bee, even a little, he’d get scared and sting you. Best to be gentle. Actually, I guess its best you don’t even try it, OK.”

Gee was rule oriented and assured me, “I won’t daddy. Believe me, I am not gonna be throwing bees like you and your friends did when you were little.”

She took a measure of me then asked, “Dad, scratch my back please?” Not waiting for an answer she fell backwards and rolled over on her stomach.

I put my coffee on the night table next to her bed and started to scratch her shoulders. I leaned forward and, as I heard the air conditioner kick in, a message nearly 30 years old slowly came into focus.

Like a lighthouse, her gaze glided over the room. As her eyes had passed over me, she saw the note. Caught, I smirked an insult. Her rotation lurched to a halt and she glowered, presented her warning and then, after receiving my smirk, took a step towards me. Without thinking I jammed the note into my mouth and swallowed. She stopped mid-step and cocked her head sideways before doing a little shudder and returning to her blackboard.

To pass the time under Mrs. Werner’s watch we passed notes using any piece of paper we could find. Today’s note was scratched across a corner torn from a blue tinted piece of ditto paper. The note read as follows; Me: kissed Mary in the woods behind the pool. Nico: did you have a boner? Me: yeah (with stick figure drawing featuring an oversized boner and a smaller stick figure looking up at it). Nico: cool. Barb wants me to take her to second base.

As a habitual classroom offender, I rarely received a warning from Mrs. Werner. I was on a short leash. Werner knew I was the one responsible for flooding the boy’s room, the one responsible for throwing six of the 32 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica from our second floor window, the one – along with Tony – shooting spit balls from straws we kept hidden in our socks when she turned her back on the class and, to top it off, she suspected I was the voice behind the “Heil Hitler” screams released every time she asked us to return from recess. Today though, Nico was involved and today I received the kid glove treatment.

Nico was considered a unique situation by the school administration. He had moved to town a year ago or so following his parents’ divorce. Divorce was not common.

Though I knew stuff was changing in America, as a fifth grader I had no concept of demographic or social treads. My sources of information regarding a changing America consisted of the school yard, in which younger brothers parroted the feelings of their older siblings, my parent’s pithy comments shared during nightly newscasts and the attitude presented by Archie Bunker in All in the Family.

Among other structural changes, the early 1970s saw the nation come to grips with a more assertive woman’s liberation movement, the passage of the ERA, the high court’s recognition of a woman’s right to choose, the emerging acceptance of divorce and, as a result of this new foundation of equality, a woman’s right to leave her husband. Nico’s mom had taken early advantage of these emerging rights to liberate herself. Her liberation, however, had resulted in an unintended debt; a debt paid with her 12 year old son’s broken heart.

Like me, Nico, needed repair. Nico had a broken heart and raged, seethed or collapsed into silence, shutting out the world when things turned sour. I had a broken control valve, the result of the ongoing application of corporal punishment at home. My concepts of communication and control were associated with violence. When things turned sour Nico shut off. When things turned sour I broke something or hit someone.

When Nico arrived at our school he was assigned to weekly sessions with the school psychiatrist, Dr. Floyd. As his closest friend I asked Nico what happened when he visited the shrink, “Is he nice? Does he make you talk? What if you don’t wanna talk? Does he shock you or something?”

After months of shrugging off my questions regarding his visits to Dr. Floyd, Nico began to open up and walk me through his sessions. Nico was smart. He noticed there was a routine. Dr. Floyd asked Nico questions, Nico answered. When he didn’t feel like answering, Dr. Floyd asked him to draw pictures, always asking Nico to draw a picture and then taking the time to examine the picture while Nico sat there in silence. “Nico, draw your family in a boat.” Or “Nico, make believe each member of your family is an animal, OK? Now draw the animals together.” After his examination Dr. Floyd asked the same question, “Now, Nico, can you draw another picture to show me how things could be better?”

“He wants me to draw sad stuff then happy stuff,” Nico advised me. Dr. Floyd expected Nico to want change; to want to be happy.

When picture time was over Dr. Floyd asked Nico to arrange GI Joe and Barbie dolls as if they were his family. “Nico, please share with me how your family would sit at the dinner table and have dinner. Will you do that for me, Nico? Over time Nico learned if he made up a yarn he could end the session.

“Dr. Floyd kept asking me to play with the stupid dolls and I told him I didn’t want to. He kept asking so, finally I told him, ‘Barbie don’t live here’ and then I just threw the fucking Barbie on the floor and stamped on its fucking head.” Dr. Floyd seemed to expect such a response and rewarded Nico with a treat. He gave Nico Oreo cookies.

“If I just do what he expects me to do he gives me a cookie and sits there smiling at me and then he writes something down on his pad and lets me leave. He’s nice to me but he thinks I’m his dog or something. When I want a cookie or want to get outa there I just make up a story for him or say something mean about my mom.” I nodded and thought Nico pretty smart for figuring this stuff out.

Unfortunately as was the case with the self-liberation of Nico’s mom, these well-meaning sessions with Dr. Floyd generated an additional debt incurred solely by Nico. Going to a shrink was not remotely common in our little New Jersey town. Going to a shrink meant you were mental or retarded. In the near future “One Flew Over the Cuckoos’ Nest” was to burst onto the scene and give voice to what our nation thought of the practice of psychiatric medicine. Going to a shrink was not normal. Going to a shrink festooned a boy with a target. “Hit me Mac. Hit me!” So, Nico and I were forced to fight the fifth and sixth graders saying anything inappropriate to him.

As I swallowed the note about my boner there was a knock on our classroom door. Dr. Floyd poked his head in and smiled. Mrs. Werner sighed at the sight of a life line and greeted him, marching over in her crisp flower pattern dress and placing her hand on his forearm. She leaned forward and whispered in the good doctor’s ear. Seeing an opportunity, I stuck my head under my desk and screamed, “Heil Hitler!” They both turned to see me looking incredulously at Bumper, the crew-cutted jock sitting behind me. I put my fingers to my lips to shush him.

“Turn around, you jerk. It wasn’t me Mrs. Werner! It was Beasley!”

“I know, Bumper. I know. You’re fine, young man, you’re fine.”

Shielded form Mrs. Werner, Bumper gave me the finger and smirked. I didn’t like Bumper. I was among our grade’s top players in street hockey, kickball and school yard football but Bumper was always better. He’s athletic prowess placed him at the top of the pecking order in the schoolyard and he bullied anyone he could. In little league Bumper regularly struck me out, mouthing the words “You suck,” as I skulked back to the bench in defeat.

Bumper was raised in what appeared to be a loving home, receiving more hugs than smacks. His dad practiced pitching with him every day after school. Sometimes I’d ride my bike past his house after dinner and there would be Bumper and his dad, practicing in the driveway. Sometimes I saw him crying. His dad used words, not hands or belts, to make him cry. When violence wasn’t an option words would do.

That said, one of the few advantages to being hit at home is you learned about the concept of controlling others with violence. With physical punishments at our house commonplace there was always hitting and fighting and violent chaos percolating in our home, in our yard and in our neighborhood. Such training provided me with an advantage when it came to kids like Bumper. When we did square off I usually went mental, as they say, and came out on top.

Dr. Floyd stepped forward, smiling, “Hello class, how are you today.” We mumbled and murmured. His faux smile turning to genuine affection as he settled his gaze on Nico. “Nico, may I see you for a little bit?”

Without a word Nico shut his book, slid it into his desk and walked his personal walk of shame to the shrink. Dr. Floyd placed his arm around Nico’s shoulder as they left us.

With the classroom’s eyes cast on Nico and Dr. Floyd, Bumper saw his opportunity. He screamed out, “Retard!”

The class burst into laughter at the comment.

Without thinking, I wheeled around and jumped from my chair. In an unending motion, I lurched towards Bumper, grabbing the corners of his desk and driving it into his chest, ramming it forward like a Pop Warner tackling sled. Sliding backwards his chair caught a tile edge and he began to tip. I didn’t stop. He groped for his desk but I had control of it, heaving it forward. He tottered and fell backwards, smacking the back of his nearly bald head on the linoleum floor. Momentum carried me and the overturned desk forward as I toppled over, landing on Bumper’s head. I imagined his skull to be flattened as Dr. Floyd and Mrs. Werner screamed in slow motion and pulled me and the upside down desk from the wailing bully. The only thing I remember after that is looking up and seeing Nico standing in the doorway, tears in his eyes.

Much disciplining followed this incident. I was punished with a belt and a wooden hanger at home, causing me to hate Bumper even more. Grabbing me by the collar my dad walked me to Bumper’s house and made me apologize on the front stoop to Bumper and his cross-armed mom. I was crying as I stammered out, “I’m sorry, sorry, for pushing you over and cracking your head and hurting you, Bump, Bumper.” I was brushed back and beaned in the upper back by Bumper in our next little league game. And, worst of all, I was sent to see Dr. Floyd.

“I don’t want to go Mom,” I pleaded after they told me the school called and thought it best that I spend time with Dr. Floyd. “Please don’t make me go. Everyone will think I’m mental. Please don’t make me go. I’ll do anything. Anything! Please!”

They made me go.

Within a week I was called from class by Dr. Floyd. As I stood from my chair I turned to look at Bumper. He glared at me as I whispered, “Shut up, asshole.”

He smiled quickly and then mouthed the word, “Retard.”

I walked the walk of shame and Dr. Floyd placed his arm over my shoulder. I twisted away from his act, causing his arm to fall like a deflated balloon to his side. He smiled down at me, “This way Beasley. Let’s go to my office and have a talk.”

He walked next to me as we went down the stairs to his basement office. His office was in the room next to the eraser cleaning machine. In days gone by, when I was well behaved enough to be entrusted with eraser cleaning duty, I was charged with the responsibility of taking the erasers from our class to the eraser cleaner and running them over the stationary sander type device connected to a power vacuum that sucked chalk particles into a bag of dust. Cleaning the erasers was a treat. Yellow or white dust poured from a hole in the bag as you were enveloped in a child-made cloud of dust particles. In the future if I am diagnosed with lung cancer I suspect they will find tiny chalk particles as they examine my biopsy.

Dr. Floyd opened the frosted glass door of his office and extended his arm, guiding me towards one of two chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat, Beasley. Would you like some water or some juice?”

“No thank you, Dr. Floyd.” I was nervous and fidgeted in my chair. I had to pee.

He watched me as I looked around. His office was painted light brown. I could see the outline of the cinder block bricks through the paint. Against the wall closest to the door was a desk with rows of manila folders piled high. I don’t know how he can work with that stuff in the way. A folded newspaper was draped across the desk. I could see a picture of Tom Seaver on the top page. I have his rookie card. There was dark, soft, carpet below me. The carpet seemed like the only new thing in the room. The walls were bare except for a few frames here and there. It smelled damp or musty. I smelled coffee too. It wasn’t very bright in here.

I looked back at him and found him staring at me. “Can I ask a question?” He nodded. “I don’t think it’s fair that I have to come here when Bumper started it. Did Mrs. Werner or my parents make me come here?”

He smiled, “Beasley, why do you think you’re here?”

“Because I gave Bumper what he deserved? He called Nico a retard, ya know.”

“I know what happened, Beasley. I’m not just interested in what happened. I’m more interested in why it happened. I want to learn a little about what makes you tick, young man.” He smiled and some small talk ensued that I can no longer remember.

He leaned forward as he closed in on his target, “Now, let’s talk about what it’s like at home, OK? Can you tell me what it’s like at home, Beasley?”

“I don’t know. It’s like other places. I have a fort in the back yard and I play hockey in the basement with Kevin.” He wrote something down.

“Kevin, your, brother?”

“Yeah, my brother. Who did you think I was talking about?”

“Who’s older, Beasley, you or your brother?”

“Me. I’m in fifth. He’s in fourth grade.” He wrote something down.

“Tell me who else is in your family, Beasley. Will you do that for me?”

“Mom, dad and my two sisters.” He was pecking at me and I didn’t like it. I felt the brown walls creep a bit closer. “Can I go back to class now? It’s not fair that I’m here.” I felt like a cornered rat and did not want to be with Dr. Floyd. I crossed my arms. A series of questions regarding my mom and dad followed, each answered with a little shrug. He wrote something down.

“Beasley, will you do me a favor? Will you draw me a picture of your family?”

Ah, picture time. I knew this was coming. I’d been thinking about this since I found out I had to go to the shrink.

“Here you go, Beasley. I’ll be back in five minutes. You draw while I’m gone.” He handed me a sketch pad and left me in my chair.

“Asshole”, I thought. “He wants a drawing, I’ll give him a drawing.”

I began to draw.

Knocking first, Dr. Floyd returned with a cup of coffee in his hand and a smile on his face as he entered his office, “So, do you have a drawing for me, Beasley?” I shrugged and handed him the pad.

His eyes widened and his coffee-carrying hand slowly lowered to the point at which coffee dripped from the tilted smiley face mug onto the new carpet. “Dr. Floyd, you’re dripping.” He stared at the pad.

He looked at me, then at the pad, then at me. He studied my primitive drawing of a sitting lion with a man’s head. In one ill-proportioned paw the lion held a long bent sword. Four little headless stick figures stood with what appeared to be blood squirting from their stick necks. Like pumpkins in a patch their disembodied heads lay on the ground, each presenting round eyes and a circle mouth. A woman with a snake head stood next to the children. I wrote “mom” on her apron. To make sure Dr. Floyd knew which person I was, I wrote “me” across one of the headless kids. The drawing took me about a minute and I had finished before he returned. I spent the extra time drawing flames around the dad and mom figures. He opened the door as I erased the eyes on my dad’s face.

Silently, Dr. Floyd eased himself into his chair.

Did it work?

“Can I have a cookie or something, Dr. Floyd?” With eyes glued to my drawing, he mechanically reached down and opened a bottom draw, grabbing a bag of Oreos. He handed me the bag.

I celebrated by shoving two Oreos in my mouth. Black cookie crumbs sprayed from my mouth as I blurted out, “That’s my family, ya know.”

Jerked back to reality, he placed his hand on my knee and stared at me and my black Oreo encrusted teeth. “I know, Beasley. I know. Let’s take some time to think about this, OK, son?”

“OK.”

“Can you tell me about what you drew?” he asked.

“I dun know. It just came out like that. Can I see it?” He rubbed his forehead and turned the pad to me. I’m a shitty drawer I thought. I shrugged and took an Oreo.

“Do you want to talk about it, Beasley?” I shrugged again, then, thinking better of it, shook my head back and forth.

“OK, well, then can you draw me a picture of what would make your family better?” He peeled away the first drawing and handed me a clean sheet. I shrugged and accepted the pad.

He stared at me. I thought for a while. He expects me to draw a happy family. A family with heads.

I drew one single stick figure in the middle of the page and then shaded the entire page around the stick figure with scribbled pencil markings, sullying the side of my hand with lead. He crossed his legs and placed an elbow on his upper knee, then placed his chin on a fist as I shaded the world around me. Just before handing it back to him, I added a single extra line to the stick figure. I added that stupid boner that had started all this.

“That’s me.”

He nodded and let me return to class.

I doubt the engineers or marketers responsible for producing the swing set had our family in mind when launching the product. Standing over 10 feet tall it sported a steel ladder at one end, a long slender slide at the other end and a catwalk spanning a 12’ length of supporting piping. From the steel piping hung two chain-link swings and a booth-like contraption capable of holding four children on two metal benches. The swings allowed us to harness momentum and leap off as we tried to jump over friends or, in one ill-considered effort, land on our bikes. When not leaping from swings to land on the backs of friends or smashing our balls on banana bicycle seats, we turned our attention to the booth contraption.

Bored with simply swinging the booth back and forth, we created a game of chicken involving the contraption. One or two of us jumped into the booth and swung back and forth in ever widening arcs while a child of lesser age or, perhaps lesser intelligence, attempted to bolt under the booth as it reached its highest point on the arc. The booth cleared the ground by 6”. The cost of losing the game of chicken was severe as you risked being crushed against the hardened earth or being struck by the flying contraption on the return swing. Play time often ended at the booth. It was the 1970s and child safety, not to mention playtime injury litigation, was still a thing of the future.

About a half dozen kids in the neighborhood received stitches at the hand of the swing set, with the greatest disaster visiting our young neighbor James when he was knocked to the ground by the swinging booth only to rise to his knees in time to be struck again on the return swing, wedging his head between the metal flooring of the booth and the hardened dirt. Following the search for the missing part of James’ ear less dangerous activities such as making believe the swing set was a garbage compactor gained favor.

On this morning, though, I was not focused on the hazards of the booth. I was preparing for my future. Manny and I pulled the wagon to the base of the swing set’s ladder and methodically carried or tossed the toys up onto the catwalk. Once piled at the top of the ladder we lugged them across the catwalk to the slide. Climbing over the catwalk railing I jumped to the ground, rolling to a stop. Brushing myself off, I pulled the wagon from the base of the ladder to the end of the slide. Once the wagon was in place Manny shoved the toys down the slide, crashing them into the wagon. We were practicing to be garbage men.

As the toys clogged the bottom half of the slide we imagined the worst and, fearing an atomic garbage explosion, took turns holding each other’s feet or wrists to lower one another towards the logjam. Kicking or pushing, we tried to clear our jammed garbage shoot. In the end one of us inevitably fell, usually head first, clearing the slide of toys. After many practice runs toys began to break. My sister’s Barbie camper was crushed and eventually set on fire before being rolled down the slide on a final childhood romp.

Looking back, I suspect Manny was jealous of our toys. His father was ill and unable to work. Though I did not know it as a child, money was tight and toys dear at Manny’s house. He simply enjoyed breaking as many toys as possible to even the score. To me, damage to the toys was the cost of preparing for my future gig.

Following our third garbage shoot run, my mother flung open the kitchen door, tea cup in hand, “Beasley what the hell are you doing? Are you crazy? You’re gonna break those toys. My God, that’s your sister’s new Barbie camper! Stop it! Stop this right now.”

“Mom, I’m practicing to be a garbage man. That’s what I want to be when I grow up.”

“Jesus Mary and Joseph, I have raised a goddamned idiot. I don’t know what to say except I’m sure you’ll get your wish, Beasley. Just keep it up and you’ll get just what you’re asked for, acting like this.” The door slammed shut.

About six years later the door to my dream of being a garbage man reopened. I guess mom didn’t realize it at the time but apparently she was in the process of raising a garbage man prodigy. I reached my childhood dream with my first job as a garbage man in a New Jersey shopping mall. At 16 I began part time work just before school ended, logging full time hours during the summer and returning to part time work when school restarted in September.

In the late 1970s the enclosed shopping mall was more than simply the death of Main Street; it was the place to be. The mall teemed with a mass of kids, moms, disco-shopping twenty somethings and seniors, most of whom smoked indoors and threw their butts on the floor or left them burning in the trash receptacles. My title was Maintenance Man and I was charged with walking around the mall with dustpan and broom. I picked up every piece of shit tossed on the ground.

In addition to my ongoing broom & bin work, every two hours I wheeled an enormous plastic cart through the teeming masses to the various garbage cans located within my assigned area. On weekends the crowds were crushing and I was forced to pull the overstuffed cart through a sea of shoppers. As I yanked the cart forward I thought of my long gone wagon, destroyed in a collision with a parked car. After soaring downhill, I had swerved to avoid oncoming traffic and careened into a driveway. The front of the wagon splintered upon impact with the car. My parents refused to replace it and I was left with a memory.

My memory of the wagon fading to black and white, I wandered my assigned area at the mall. To inform me of garbage emergencies I was given a pager. Receiving a page meant I had to stop what I was doing and make my way to the main office for an assignment. There I was given a hand-written message by the secretary or supervisor informing me of my next task. “Spill at Chick Filet” translated into a kid puking up a milk shake or chicken sandwich or 16 oz. Coke. The never ending pukes were remedied by dumping sawdust on the puke and sweeping up the mess and accompanying trails of puke forged as shoppers unwittingly traipsed through the barf. “Clog mens room” usually meant some giant guy had laid a kangaroo tail down, clogging a toilet with a horrible dinosaur shit and covering his misdeed with wads of toilet paper, a paper towel or two and perhaps a soda cup tossed in for good measure. Such clogs were devastatingly risky and required a skilled plunger. One wrong move and a spray of stool water was unleashed upon your shirt or face.

I came to dislike my pager and was forced though a number of them as I periodically lobbed them into the trash compactor, acting shocked when my boss grabbed my arm demanding to know why I had not responded to his page. “Jesus, sir, I am so, so sorry. It was right here, on my belt. I must have lost it during rounds this afternoon. You want me to go look for it?” They replaced each one.

Our mall’s maintenance crew was organized into a strict hierarchy comprised of three strata. Bosses in suits representing mall management were at the top. I only responded to their specific questions. I did my best to avoid them as they were full of requests. “Take this scraper and get all the gum off the floor, young man.” “Traffic is light, Kinkade. Go mop the men’s room.” “Hose down the compactor shoot; make it sparkle, Kinkade. Make it sparkle.” I kept my distance. The suits all reported to Mr. Dinkler, the Mall Manager.

My immediate bosses, the crew supervisors, reported to the suit guys. The supervisors partied with us. They had usually crash-landed as a mall maintenance super after losing their job, going on parole or realizing leaving high school in the eleventh grade was not the best career move. The supers were usually running some sort of scam; stealing supplies from the mall in order to sell to one of the many store owners, selling drugs or trying – and mostly succeeding – in screwing the high school girls working at the mall. They were the top of the pecking order amongst the workingman at the mall.

I was a member of the third level of our hierarchy; maintenance worker. We were responsible for cleaning the mall throughout the day and mopping up after closing. My workmates represented a constellation of the surrounding county’s most ill-behaved, drugged out and mentally slow young adults. We were an all-star team of druggies and behavioral train wrecks. While working at the mall we were exposed to best practices of the worst behaviors, spreading our activities like enablers of a behavioral virus attacking fundamental societal norms. If a worker from Paramus knew how to make a bong out of his sneaker and a baggie, he showed us and we spread the technique to all corners of the county. If someone knew how to roll over a VW Bug with just one friend, Bugs were soon rolling in every neighboring town. We were the bottom of the pecking order and did not have much further to fall. We acted accordingly.

Supers and workers got along just fine. We took care of each other, partied together and shared our partying materials. Routinely, we pushed our huge garbage carts through the crowds, screaming out Doors lyrics, laughing or asking random shoppers to help us locate an ostrich or whatever else appeared during hallucinations. We were often reported to the bosses in suits and they rained down on the supers. The supers gave us a kick in the ass but protected us. Many of us logged years there. We grew close to each other, fell in and out of love and enjoyed being on the all-star team, even if, deep down, we knew we were on a team of social failures.

Among the supers Clancy became a fast favorite. During his first evening on the job he called a handful of the existing crew together, apparently selecting those looking most burnt out or ill-behaved and asked us to step outside by the garbage dumpster. I was among the small crowd he selected.

Walking single file we made our way outside and formed a little circle. Arms crossed, Clancy looked us over. “Who here is on drugs? Gentlemen, you are going to get one fucking pass and this is it. You look like a bunch of fucking burnouts so don’t go telling me you’re not baked right now. Which one of you is stoned, huh? Who? This is your onetime hall pass. You better take it.”

We looked at each other then looked at our shoes. We were at work; we were all drunk or stoned. We remained silent. He continued, “Ok you bunch of fucking mutes, tell me this; where do people get high?” I shrugged.

“Jesus, H. Christ,” he yelled, “anyone carrying right now?” Sully, the drinker of the crew and the closest thing I had to a big brother, was rocking back and forth by now. He pulled a flat bottle of Jack from his back pocket, “I got this. Want a hit?”

Sully was stoic Irishman. Strong like a bull, he lived behind his alcohol and a mask of acne ravaged skin. My first night on the job I shadowed him after a suit handed me a dust bin and broom and then handed me off to Sully. “Sully this is the new guy, Kinkade. Kinkade, this is Sully.”

“Follow me, kid” was all he said. We walked up and down his assigned area as he flipped butts and rubbish into his bin. I followed suit. He led us down a back hall behind the stores to the garbage compactor area.

He did not seem happy to have me on his tail and I wondered if he would try to throw me in the compactor. We crept behind the compactor to a long slender area about two feet wide, covered in years of greasy dirt. He yanked a bottle from his back pocket and downed a good quarter of the pint.

He nodded at me, “Want a hit?” “Sure, Sully. Thanks.” I gulped down some Jack, shivering as I did so. I returned the bottle with a mumbled thank you.

“How long you been drinking, kid?”

“Just a few years. I mostly drink Bacardi and Southern Comfort, though. It’s pretty cool that you can drink on the job, huh?”

He took another hit and stepped forward. I could see the hundreds of craters and crevices on his moon shaped face. I smelled Jack on his hot breath. “Those are pussy drinks. How old are you? What’s your fuckin’ name again?” I stiffened doing my best to stare him down, “My name is Beasley and I’m 16. And I’m not a fuckin’ pussy, man.”

Sully smirked, “Calm down there killer.” He looked me up and down, “You’re all right, kid.” I was relieved as being tossed in the compactor was preferable to fighting this Sully guy. He was thick as a bear, scarred and sported homemade ink across the back of his fingers.

He leaned against the grimy wall and closed his eyes for a long time, opening them with a cold, dead man’s stare. “Do you think I want to drink? Do you think I want to be a fucking maintenance man, Mr. Beasley?”

Caught off guard, I shrugged, “If you’re asking, I guess not.”

“Fuckin’ A,” he yelled out. He slowly tilted his head forward touching his chin to his chest, then purposely he banged the back of his head against the wall with a dull thud. “I’d be drinking wherever I was, Beasley. Wherever the fuck I am; I drink.” He downed the rest of the bottle and smashed it on the floor. “Think I owned that little bottle there, Bease? Fuck no. It’s the opposite. That bottle owned me.”

He chest was heaving and he was breathing hard now. He reached out and put a paw on my shoulder, squeezing the base of my neck. He had a vice grip on me. I put my hands up preparing to fight. “You don’t want to be here, kid. You don’t want to end up like me.” He released me and gently patted my face with a calloused hand. His fingers lingered for just a moment as he looked down before turning to leave the compactor area.

As we became friends I learned Sully wanted to be a super in the worst way but his drinking kept him from reaching his goal. His life consisted of drinking, working, fighting at bars and returning home where he lived with his widowed dad. This was Sully’s circle of life.

Clancy nodded at Sully’s honest response and grabbed the bottle of Jack. He took a long swig, causing Sully to release a rare smile. Looking at the skinny maintenance man next to Sully, Clancy asked. “Are you carrying?” The skinny kid, Dirk, pulled a bag of bud from the front of his pants. Clancy, beamed, “Alright, now. Where’s the best place to get high?”

Sully led our little band inside the building. We made our way up a set of stairs in the back hallway behind the second floor stores, soon arriving at one of the mall’s two service elevators. Knowing Sully’s routine, I pressed the elevator button and waited. Sully tussled my hair and shoved me. The elevator arrived and I stepped into the cab, pressed the # 1 button and quickly stepped out, sending the empty elevator to the first floor. As the elevator descended I pulled a Chick Fillet pen from my pocket and slid it into the hole at the upper middle corner of the external elevator door, tilting the pen up and finding the mechanical lever. As planned, the elevator stopped between the first and second floors. Sully was the strongest among us. He pealed the outer doors open and looked over at Clancy, “Hop on, dude.” Clancy hesitated so I jumped onto the carriage of the waiting elevator. The crew followed and we huddled on top of the elevator. Clancy looked up at the dark space above the elevator; about two floors of space. Sully smiled again, “You asked, chief. You asked.”

Dirk looked at Clancy and held his fingers to his lips. “Don’t fuckin’ say a word.” We let the external doors close and the elevator resumed its trip downward. The top of the elevator was dark, with light peeking in from the slits under two floors of doors. There was a single bulb at the top of the shaft, like a dying star reaching out with a final bit of energy towards us. The top of the elevator carriage was equipped with a box allowing you to control the elevator from the top perch, an alarm bell and two steel beams on which we sat.

Sully, started chugging his Jack. He was a bull and required much drink. We each took a swig. Sully saw me shiver and leaned over to me, banging me with his shoulder, “Pussy,” he whispered. I gave him the finger and he smirked, shaking his head. We sparked up, filling the shaft with lingering smoke. For five minutes or so, we traveled up and down as the passengers below us got in and out of the elevator. Some commented on the smell, “Nice aroma, douche bags,” said one fellow maintenance man knowing what was happening above him. We finished smoking and enjoyed traveling up and down with our new boss, Clancy. Then, without warning, Mr. Dinkler stepped into the elevator.

“Jesus Christ, this place smells like an opium den.” The elevator doors closed and we heard him squawking on his ever present walkie-talkie, “Get security back to service elevator two. Some kids are in the back halls smoking pot.” I flipped the switch on the control box to “top” and took control from Dinkler. We had to move fast as security would arrive in a couple of minutes. I stopped the elevator. My heart pounded as I heard Dinkler curse below us, “What the hell? God damn it.” I moved the elevator upwards towards the second floor via the controls. Silently, I took my pen and popped the outer doors open leading to floor two. Dinkler tried to ring the alarm bell. Before exiting the top of the elevator into the second floor hall way, I had twisted the alarm handle backwards, leaving it vibrating wildly but missing the actual bell. We scurried out to safety, leaving Dinkler stuck between floors and our relationship with our new super off to a good start.

Clancy lasted about six months. He was caught, stoned out of his mind, in a mall office screwing a mall girl. We were sorry to see him go. As a super, though, he was easily replaced. His replacement was an ex-military guy, about, 24, named Edward. Never Ed or Eddy. Edward. He was hard core, took no shit and confronted the maintenance workers one by one during his first week on the job. When the suit introduced me to my new boss he stared me down. After the suit left Edward grabbed me by the shirt sleeve, “Party’s over, jerk off.” I yanked my arm away, “Get the fuck off me, asshole,” was all I could say. He was hard and I was not going to be knocking down this guy any time soon.

When Sully heard what had happed, he confronted Edward, “Keep your fucking hands off my crew, jarhead.” Edward glared, “Your crew? You work for me you fuck’n drunk. Get the fuck out into the mall and clean up. One more word and you’re fired. Two more and I beat the shit out of you.” They locked eyes as Sully stared him down, warning Edward, “You and me, jarhead. You and me. We’re gonna have at it.”

Within a week they did have at it. I was off work at home with my mom and dad and I heard the details the next day. Sully ignored a day’s worth of pages and requests from the suits. At the end of the shift Edward called him out. They met in the parking lot as night fell. Sully charged him like a wild bull, knocking Edward backwards. Edward kept his balance and got a hold of Sully’s hair. He landed a flurry of rights to Sully’s head, dropping him to the ground in a bloody mess. With the girls in the surrounding crowd screaming, “Stop it, Sully. Please stop it, Sully!” he got up and charged Edward again. Edward side stepped and struck Sully once to the neck. Sully fell, turned blue and, two minutes later, died in the arms of his crew.

I put on one of my father’s suits and drove my parents’ station wagon to the wake. The outer stairs, entry way and lobby were sprinkled with pockets of crying friends and the stone faced Irish. The line to the casket snaked past a bunch of cardboard poster boards filled with photos of Sully as a child and teen. There were few adult photos. I stopped in front of a homemade poster and found a black and white picture of little Sully pulling a wooden wagon full of stuffed animals. There was a bear and an elephant and a bull. His skin was smooth and he was beaming. I started to cry. A stranger behind me rubbed my back.

Waiting my turn, I followed the line leading to Sully’s casket. I knelt down in front of my friend. His eyes were closed and his face was artificially smoothed. He was big and filled the casket. The overhead light fell on his face and highlighted tiny flakes of drying make-up. I wanted to touch his hand but couldn’t bring myself to do so. I put my hand on his arm. It felt wooden. “I’m sorry, Sully, I’m so, so sorry. You were my big brother, you know that right? I miss you, big brother. I miss you, Sully.”

Pulling myself up I turned to the back of the room and found his father, a weathered old man with a blotchy red face, standing alone. He watched silently as burnouts like me paid respects to his son. He stood motionless, hands clasped in front. What was he thinking? What could I say? I approached him hoping something would come.

“Excuse me, Mr. Sullivan, my name is Beasley.” I was trying to be strong, to hold back tears.

“I worked with Sully at the mall. He took care of us; all of us. He was … he was like a big brother to me. I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. I’ll remember him. Mr. Sullivan. I will. I promise. He’s in here right now,” I said, putting my hand to my chest. I was in uncharted territory and began to cry again.

Mr. Sullivan leaned forward and grabbed me with both hands, pulling me into a tight hug, squeezing me hard. I heard him gasp a hidden breath. He had been drinking. He released me and put a hand on my shoulder, “Thank you for coming, young man. Thank you for remembering my son, my irreplaceable son.”

He stared at me with eyes of the living dead, “My precious little boy is gone, never to return.” He sighed and looked over my shoulder. “Now all I want to do is join him.”

He returned his gaze to me, “Will you remember him for me, Beasley? After I’m gone will you take a moment and tell someone about him? Will you do that for me? ”

Who would think chocolate milk can offer an advantage other than those provided by calcium and vitamin D? Chocolate milk, served in a flimsy half pint white and brown box by my caf, will rip open upon impact with a hard surface such as a wall, chair or student. Acquisition costs are low as you may easily steal such a primitive armament from the Milk Lady working her cart in a distant corner of the cafeteria. The boxes burst into a shower of chocolate milk when connecting with the target. Collateral damage is high.

On the other had, a sloppy joe sandwich is sold as main entrée. Therefore procurement is expensive. They are nothing more than dumb ballistic chili sandwiches. When prepared to perfection they offer an attractive combination of taste and long term staining ability. They are best lobbed over a short distance towards a specific target, to drive away the vulgar from the streets perhaps or towards someone that had bested you in gym class or made you look stupid in history. To increase potential impact they are best hurled towards a large crowd, delivering a difficult to elude flying arc of chili.

Chocolate pudding is made for food fights. A dream weapon. Sold as 25 cent deserts they offer an affordable viscous cup of brown sugar. Chocolate puddings are the tactical nukes of food fights. The simple threat of use invokes duress and, once deployed, they are unforgiving in their ability to deliver an impact far exceeding initial strike. Pudding sticks to everything. We love pudding. Formed into a small flying saucer within a 3” wide by 1” deep disposable cup made of waxy paper manufactured in Paterson New Jersey (the bottom of the cups are stamped with a blue mark, “Made with Pride by Paterson Paper Products, Paterson, New Jersey”) pudding is the ideal projectile. I will miss pudding as today I will witness the strange impatience of the heavens in regards to their tolerance of pudding. Today will be the last day our school serves pudding.

Like every day, the lunch menu is discussed early in our day as we seek to plan the school day’s activities. One learns early in the morning what is on the docket for lunch. Since most of us buy lunch for $1.25 a pop I want to determine if I should: a) go to lunch or b) spend $1 of my $1.25 on a bone and then meander behind the hill behind the soccer field with a friend or two during lunch period to get baked. Today I find the cafeteria crew has blundered horribly and presented me with an advantage. They are serving sloppy joes and carrots with chocolate pudding desert. Today we are going to attend lunch.

During senior year my English class precedes lunch. With great pain we study Shakespeare. For my own part it was Greek to me. In an entire semester of English, I absorb one line, a line I heard whispered by a white haired teacher. As Ms. Sloan drones on about the horrors of war in the time of Shakespeare I raise my hand. She ignores me. I waive my hand back and forth until she sighs, “Yes, Mr. Kinkade, what is it now?”

“Ms. Sloan, I think I have diarrhea because of some bad baloney or something. Can I go to the bathroom? Please. I think I could have an accident or something, you know here or in the hallway.” Half the class works hard to contain cackles while the other half wonders what possesses a boy to publicly talk about such a thing. She eyes me as I wriggle in my chair, weighing what I might do next. To my credit this year, I have already placed a naked mannequin behind her desk, been pulled from her class by the police, kicked over the record player during Shakespeare film week and haunted her with screams of “Sausage!” every time she turns to write about the meaning of a rose or some such nonsense on the blackboard. Her eyes bore into me. They are cold. She bends forward and scribbles a pass to the bathroom, “Go.” I grab my bag with one hand and squeeze my ass with the other as I waddle to her desk, thank her, and exit the room yelling over my shoulder, “I thank you for your pains and courtesy! ” I look back to see her mouth form a circle then close. I have ten minutes before lunch.

Pass in hand I saunter through the hallways looking for my lunchtime tablemates in their respective classes. I find Marcus, head down on his desk. I jump up and down outside his classroom door until I gain the attention of the cheerleader sitting next to him. I waive at her and she waives back. I mouth the words “You are so fucking hot, so smoking hot.” She squints and silently mouths back a “What?” I point to Marcus and she obliges me with a poke to his arm. Catching my eye, he smiles. I mimic as best I can the actions associated with a food fight. He nods just before his teacher walks over and slams the door in my face. “Get to class, Kinkade.” I repeat these actions outside of a number of classes over the next few minutes ending each mime routine by pointing to my LCD watch and holding up five fingers, whispering, “Meet me in five.”

Five of us meet in the boys’ room just outside the cafeteria entrance. We have a few minutes before the tide of students swarms the cafeteria like so many locusts. The group has a lean and hungry look. They are the faction. My younger brother KJ, joins us. He is a year younger than me, starting tight end on the varsity football team. Cloaked in a brown bomber jacket with a fur collar that blends with his Ted Nugent shoulder length hair he looks like trouble. Strategically placed rips in his jacket pockets allow him to squeeze bags of weed into the lining just prior to being searched. Clever. While I prefer to talk my way out of trouble, KJ likes to punch his way out of a situation. In fifth grade he gained a trip to the neighborhood shrink when one evening at dinner he solemnly told my parents’ dinner guests, “I never met a face I didn’t want to punch.” He is a perfect combination of burnout and athlete and this combination provides a contributing factor to the football team’s state championship. He has a bone and is welcome to our troop with open arms. We smoke the bone and plan next steps.

Time to move out. Armed with a tar-stained roach, KJ stays behind to create a distraction outside the cafeteria as we meander towards the lunch room. The rest of us conspirators are charged with buying a dish fit for the gods; two sloppy joes and as much chocolate pudding as the lunch lady will part with.

Exiting first I enter the cafeteria and find the three teachers assigned to monitor the lunch crowd have yet to arrive. The cafeteria is a very large room, the original school gymnasium, I was to find out years later. The room is configured with well worn rectangular folding tables, set in three rows of 10 tables. At the far end of the cafeteria sunlight flows through a wall of weathered windows. Halfway up the 20’ wall, a set of thick, ugly, institutional curtains hang in solemn watch over us. They have no use as far as I can tell. The walls are polished institutional yellow brick, the type used to build schools, government buildings and mental institutions during the 1970s.

Save for the perfectly plump Milk Lady rolling her milk cart to her station in the corner of the room I am alone. I crawl under the first of a handful of the tables and release the safety on the folding legs. With the safety off the legs are prepared to fold, collapsing one end of the table. Wiggling the tables into a position pregnant with anticipation I set them to buckle if pushed too hard. The Milk Lady works hard to ignore me. Like Sergeant Schultz, she knows nothing.

As young teens flow into the cafeteria I join the front of the lunch line and wait my turn to buy two sloppy joes and six chocolate puddings exhausting my cache of four dollars. Satisfied with my take I make my way to our table. I immediately lose one chocolate pudding to the munchies. Our table soon fills with malfunctioning friends.

Ours is the bad table. Marcus and I are joined by Nico and an ever changing circulation of other problem children. While other tables settle upon a consistent group, our population changes every day as attendees cut school, skip lunch to get high, skip lunch to drive the 20 minutes into New York to get drunk, skip lunch to sleep or have sex in the well padded wrestling room or simply suffer school suspension. It is like a late night talk show in which special guests arrive and up the ante on inappropriate behavior. Lunch is fun. We roar in laughter as we share stories and straddle the line between Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens.

Before settling down, Marcus and I hop up and make our way to the milk lady. She basically caters to the kids brown-bagging it, selling cookie three-packs, brownies and the advantageous ½ pint milk containers. Marcus is the distraction. He cuts the long line and tries to grab a brownie.

The Milk Lady, though, is fast. She grabs his wrist, “Get to the back of the line, honey.”

“Come on, Mrs. Milk Lady (that’s what we call her), can I just have a brownie. I’ll trade you for a little kiss?” He puckers his lips in an exaggerated manner. “Kissy, kissy.” Marcus is good looking and the roly-poly little lunch lady blushes before pleasantly shooing him away. While Marcus flirts with his 50 year old friend I crawl through the legs of kids in line towards the cart. The kids above me peer down, incredulous. “Shhhh,” I whisper as I put my finger to my mouth. They trade glances from me to Mrs. Milk Lady and, I imagine, determine it is best not to try and catch a slithering snake. Milk Lady never sees me. I reach in and scoop up a carton of her chocolate milks from the bottom shelf on her cart. Seeing me back out with my booty, Marcus shrugs at the milk lady, “Oh well, it was worth a try,” leaving her to tend the line. She smiles and fixes her hair, falling into her normal routine.

Once returned to the table we organize trays and prepare our arsenal of chocolate milk containers by ever so slightly opening the pour spout. We have to prepare carefully as our table is subject to constant monitoring. Of the three patrolling teachers responsible for the entire cafeteria one is specifically assigned to our table. Nicknamed Fossil he stands behind us, his back to the windows, watchful eyes scanning us and the other poorly behaved children at the sharp end of the three rows of tables.

Crusty and slow to move Fossil is among the school’s toughest old teachers. He teaches science and his shock of white hair blends with the white coat he insists on wearing during class. We hate him. He is easily sent into rage though he struggles to keep his composure around us. Each time he nabs me or Marcus or anyone from our table for unsatisfactory behavior we respond before week’s end by disrupting his class. Our response usually takes the form of a quickly choreographed approach to his class from an open hallway in which one student (usually Marcus), yanks open his classroom door, screaming, “Fossil” or “Eat me Fossil,” while a second student (usually me) heaves a large cylindrical garbage can into his class shattering the scientific illusion. He returns the favor by slaughtering us on report cards. With this cycle in place we try to maintain a peaceful coexistence in the cafeteria.

Fossil does not want trouble. Like a prisoner looking to finish the last year of a 40 year sentence, he simply wants to stay the course and retire at year’s end. He avoids eye contact with us, intervening only when necessary (such as when we throw food or attempt to climb out of one of the windows). Every time he turns away from our table, we bellow, “Fossil” at the top of our lungs. He often closes his eyes for extended periods to escape.

With our sloppy joes, puddings and chocolate milks neatly organized on trays before us we wait for Fossil to turn away from our table. He keeps us waiting. He may be a fossil, but he is no dummy. Like a farmer feeling a weather change in his bones, Fossil senses the early warnings of a looming storm and remains at his post. He stands his ground, back to the windows, next to the curtains, vigilant. On guard against trouble.

Outside we spy KJ creeping towards the window behind our table. Fossil’s head tilts as he catches a glimpse of the brown blob of my brother slipping past his vantage point just beyond the sickly bushes reaching for the cafeteria windows. Outside the cafeteria is not his concern. He is focused inward. Like a Buckingham Palace Guard he does not budge.

In an effort to turn Fossil around, KJ bangs on the window. Nothing. Fossil knows something is up and arcs his wrinkled neck looking to gain the attention of one of his fellow monitors. KJ keeps banging without success. Time is dear as lunch will soon be over. Sensing a lack of success and armed only with his wits KJ lights up his roach and blows smoke through the window directly into Fossil’s vicinity. Light gray smoke envelopes the old fossil. I turn to Fossil and ask, “Dude, that’s weed. Did you just smoke some pot or something? Are you some sort of Dead Head or something?”

His eyes meet mine, “Shut up, Kinkade. You idle creature. Turn around and eat.”

My brother releases a second plume of pungent smoke through the window. Smelling pot, student faces begin to crane in our direction. I point at Fossil and hold my nose. Sensing a fast degrading situation, Fossil slowly turns in search of the smoke’s origin. Looking just outside the window he spies my brother crouched down, holding the collar of his bomber jacket over his face, cloaking his identity. KJ’s hair is all pushed up in a wad, sticking out like a bundle of wild straw above the top of his coat. Through his collar, KJ screams, “Fossil!” and runs from the window towards the parking lot. As Fossil’s gaze follows the unknown smoker I grab my food tray, and quickly set it on the floor under the table. My tablemates follow suite. Marcus whispers, “Dude, start with long range stuff. Start with your milks, man.”

With Fossil facing away from us, Marcus and I each heave two quick salvos of chocolate milk. We are careful not to hit Mrs. Milk Lady. She is nice. Our chocolate milks fly 100 feet over the row of 10 tables towards their target, striking the wall directly over the line of kids waiting their turn with Milk Lady. The rest of our table jumps into the fray, launching chocolate milk containers across the room. A moment later a shower of brown milk is released over the line. Chocolate milk rains down as kids begin screaming and running from the wall surging like an incoming tide towards the tables. Three of the six jury-rigged tables fall as students lurch from chairs and either run for cover or join the melee. Food, books and drinks slowly slide off the collapsing tables onto the floor. It has begun. The noise of battle hurtles in the air.

Fight or flight decisions unfold all around us. Some students, the kids in band, Cheerleaders and the very smart take flight and rush towards the exits. Those sitting in the center of the room, seeking to hide from a collapse into anarchy, hide under their respective tables. Jocks and young males, respond to the initial chocolate milk attack by unleashing a flock of flying food, first in our direction and then at anyone within striking distance. A third group joins in. It is composed of the crazies; kids that are either super smart but socially dysfunctional or those attending special ed. Sprinkled at various tables throughout the caf these individuals burst into the fray heaving food in any direction, first throwing their own food, then their neighbors’ abandoned food. Some rub pudding on their own faces. They relish the mayhem.

With our food trays tossed on the floor, I flip our table onto its side with a huge clang as I form our barricade. Fossil wheels around only to find a rainbow of retaliatory apples, milk boxes, cakes, cookies and oranges sailing towards us. Food smashes around us as we absorb the initial response. We have been taught this is how nuclear war will unfold; first strike, followed by massive retaliation with spoils of victory going to the side with surviving reserves.

We are pelted as the jocks pound our position furiously. A window breaks over my head as a football player sends an apple through a newly formed apple-shaped hole. Sensing an opportunity, a dozen apples hurl towards the windows above us, breaking a second and then a third pane. Glass tinkles onto the floor. Screaming at the top of our lungs we begin indiscriminately heaving our reserves.

Sloppy joes and chocolate puddings sail across the cafeteria. I look over at Marcus as he grabs a sloppy joe, shoves half in his mouth creating a huge clown-like red stain across the bottom of his face. He heaves the remainder of the sandwich and ducks for cover. I do the same with a pudding, jamming my face into the wax dish and tossing the uneaten portion towards the jocks. Brown pudding sails through the air like a flock of liberated birds, dropping ordinance on the cowering below. Full trays of food began to fly. Our barricade is hit with a chair. We quickly exhaust our cache of ammunition. To continue participating in the melee we grope around for apples and half spilled milks hurled our way. It is the day after as foraging takes root. Others do the same as ammunition is recycled and returned in a grinding circulation.

I peer over the table and witness what I imagine must occur during space flight. Food stuff simply appears to float about. I am jarred back to reality as an orange splatters against my neck, mixing orange juice with pudding dripping from my chin.

Chaos continues, interrupted only by a phalanx of teachers; reinforcements bolting into the cafeteria with hands held high. “My god! Stop! Stop this instant!” screams Mr. Boyle, first in the line of teachers. All eyes turn to him as he is pelted him with recycled ordinance. Boyle stops and turns tail, slipping as he stumbles towards the exit. The rest of the teachers are not so easily dissuaded as they swarm forward to restore order. Soiled from the initial assault they begin grabbing students and dragging them from the caf. It is like the Marines hitting the beach. We are soon overwhelmed by their resolve to return order.

As the teachers’ authority takes hold and order is restored food ceases to fly. Silence joins us as student and teacher alike begin to survey the resulting scene.

Still squatting, Marcus and I peek over our barricade and are presented with toppled tables, walls bleeding chocolate milk, broken windows, a shattered clock, chairs and trays scattered everywhere and legions of students shaking chili, pudding and carrots from their clothing, from their hair and from their school books. Some laugh while others curse revenge. Most laugh.

The room is destroyed. Students spontaneously burst into applause and begin to cheer. “Shut the hell, up!” screams the returning Mr. Boyle. “My God, shut the hell up!” He is shaking.

Slowly the curtain behind me jiggles. I look up to see Fossil emerge from his hiding spot, white hair poking out like probing antenna from behind the curtain. He sticks his head out, much like a turtle recovering from a scare. The curtains did have a use, they saved the old fossil. He scans the room and casts his gaze upon me. Covered in chili, orange pulp and chocolate pudding I return his stare. I can’t help myself as I break into a broad smile. He shakes his head and visits Shakespeare upon me, whispering, “Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war.” It is the first time in my life I understand Shakespeare. Thank you Fossil.