Game Day

“I need to get that rattle checked out,” he muttered while pulling the rusted Chevy into the parking lot of the football stadium. His svelte 14-year-old progeny sat quietly in the passenger seat staring out the window with his arms wrapped lovingly around a massive bulletproof backpack. They were both dressed from head to toe in black and gold.
“You think it’s the crankshaft?” the son asked innocently while watching his diagnosis fog the glass.
“Fuck if I know,” the father barked as he backed his 4x4 into the last parking spot in a long row of vehicles, ensuring there was enough space between his truck and the shiny SUV parked next to him. “And don’t even think about dinging my shit,” he sneered while staring down the Hyundai; shifting into park; quickly removing the keys from the ignition; then garishly proclaiming, “Let’s do this!” as he forcefully leaned his fleshy shoulder into the driver side door which eventually opened with a Jurassic squeal.
The son slid himself along the bench seat with his paraphernalia in tow and exited on his father’s side of the vehicle. He used both of his gloved hands to close the finicky portal 95 percent of the way, chased by an aggressive booty bump for the remaining five.
A seagull circled the scene from above.
“How’s the hussy?” the father hissed while attaching his keys to a carabiner on his belt loop.
“You mean your ex-wife, aka Mom, the one who divorced you for cheating on her a half dozen times, the same one who now owns a quarter percent minority share in YOUR Pittsburgh Steelers, oh, and the one that pays for my blue-chip education as well as your right to freedom?”
“Fuck you.”
The hovering gull swooped down and unloaded a massive splat of liquid shit on the windshield of the Colorado LT.
The father raised his fist and howled, “Never forget!” as he fumbled for his keys in the hope of grabbing a BB gun from the backseat of the Chevrolet before the seabird was out of range.
“You’re kidding right?” the son said while watching his dad squint as he locked his sights on the circling prey.
The father fired the flimsy rifle three times, scarcely coming close. “Let that be a lesson to you. I could have blown your fucking brains out,” he bragged as he tossed the gun into the back seat before kicking the door shut with the heel of his boot. “Now where were we?” he said to no one as his son had disappeared.
“Pops, I’m up here!”
“What the?” his father whispered, arms akimbo and mouth agape as he witnessed his son hovering twenty feet above the ground.
“It’s my new science project! I’ve been working on it all summer; a solar-powered bucket seat drone! Smooth as silk if you’re under ninety kilos. Check me out!” he exclaimed while navigating figure eights.
“But what about the game? We have primos on the 50-yard line. And I’m fucking parched! I need a High Life.”
“Sell my ticket. It’s a division rivalry against the Ravens. It should be worth $500, at least!
He furtively admired his son’s ingenuity and happiness. Nevertheless. “Your loss,” the father said, flipping him the bird before hustling toward the gate, sporting a puckish grin.

⌘

Bona Fide

Today his mother told him to never go into the basement.
“Why?” he asked.
  “Because I said so,” she answered.
  “But I’m 13 now, I understand things. Is it toxic? Haunted? You can’t say ‘never’ without an explanation.”
Long silence.
“Ask your father.”
  “For fuck’s sake.”
  “Jackson, please. Never utter that tripe again.”
  “Everything’s never now.”
His mom quietly folded the last pair of undies. “I will, on every relevant occasion, love you.”
“Is it because of the still?” he quipped before obliterating his chocolate chip cookie.
“Like I said.”

~

At 6 a.m. the next morning Jackson walked into his parents’ bedroom and poked his dad’s fleshy deltoid with a broom handle.
“For FUCK’S sake!” his father roared.
“Pops. I wanna learn how to make corn liquor. I need a job that pays, man. I’m fixin’ to buy a Mac and wax Promethean. I’m focused, resolute. I can clock before school, after, in the dead of night, weekends. I want to be your deputy. POPS! You awake?”
“Now I am. Meet me in the kitchen. Five minutes.”
Jackson ran out of the room, brushed his teeth, donned the yellow hard hat and safety glasses his Uncle gifted him for his birthday, snapped on a pair of rubber green gloves and a surgical mask, then skipped down the hallway with bona fide momentum.

⌘

Do What You Love

How can we survive another day?

I recently read Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, which is an affectionate and detailed memoir by Oliver Sacks. And now—I must acquire a wall size periodic table so I can memorize the noble gases. The idea of reading a book and learning something fresh lifts me from the gravity of stagnation.

I wasn’t a doomsayer at birth, but I was born reluctant.

Everything has always been slightly fuzzy to me. I am constantly practicing The Ninja Warrior Feigning Sleep Pose, which embraces the power of sublime ignorance.

Today is fresh produce. If I bought it yesterday it would be unripe. If I bought it tomorrow it would be decadent.

I love the scene in Silver Linings Playbook where Bradley Cooper throws the Hemingway book out the window because he wasn't satisfied with the ending.

"The world's hard enough as it is guys. It's fucking hard enough as it is." — Pat Solitano

My bedridden grandma was an avid reader. When I visited her in the convalescent home I would always bring her two things: a pint of bourbon and a whodunit. I would sit in a chair next to her and we'd both read our books, and I'd leave after she fell asleep. On a Friday when the sun was setting low, I watched granny take a nip, then turn a page. Nip, then turn. It was a soothing visual for me, seeing her under the blanket with those rosy cheeks. At the time, I was reading The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath, which inspired me to be patient. I was immersed in the poem "Channel Crossing" which read:

"On storm-struck deck, wind sirens caterwaul. With each tilt, shock and shudder, our blunt ship cleaves forward into fury. Dark as anger, waves wallop, assaulting the stubborn hull. Flayed by spray, we take the challenge up, grip the rail, squint ahead, and wonder how much longer such force can last."

When I finished the verse I noticed a peaceful silence. I lifted my eyes and looked at Grandma's gentle face as the mystery slithered out of her hand, bounced off the comforter, and thudded against the dusty wooden floorboard. Her bookmark, freed from the deckled pages, fluttered beneath the hissing radiator, disappearing from view.

⌘