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.

⌘

Encouraging Fruit

They silently stared at the last two mangos while standing side-by-side. Both of them were regulars at the organic market but today was the first time their paths coalesced.
“Have you recently feasted on these feisty fruits?”
“Happy to confess—guilty as charged!” raising both hands in a surrendering gesture.
“And what was your recollection, if I may impinge on your fortuitous indictment?”
“Well, it was just last week, so it’s relatively fresh in my …” poking their forehead with a rigid index finger, “frontal cortex,” then elaborating, “pre-med wannabe, art school tragedy. Anyways. The sweetness of the pulp was transcendentally sopping!”
Nodding in agreement while gently caressing the mango’s facade, “Should be ripe in three summer moons.”
“Howl intoxicating!” Then reaching for the last remaining delicacy, “This beauty has beguiled me from the get-go.”
“And I shall treasure its twin.”

~

In the check-out line five minutes later.
“Salutations, comrade.”
“Charmed, my fruitarian confidant. So what are you plotting for the feast?”
“An unabridged lassi comes to mind.”
“Oh! Yum. Need a sous?”
“I would fancy a crackerjack.”
They purchased nothing else, just the mangos, nixing the brown paper bag.

⌘

The Faded Sleeve

“My fingers smell like citrus. How strange,” he said while sliding the cranberry curtain a smidge to his right so he could get a good look at the family across the street tossing toys into the backseat of their four-door coupe.
“They must be going to her mom’s house,” he reckoned while taking an unhurried step along the sun soaked hallway of his second story apartment before elaborating, “for dinner.”
“And I shall make asparagus with baked parmesan,” he announced while gazing downward at a dusty crate of records from the ‘70s.
“Perhaps I’ll listen to Alice Coltrane,” he declared while delicately bending a knee to browse the albums, patiently flipping from one to the other, yet curious about the wall map above his head: the United States of America, ripe with purple and green pushpins that formed the shape of a wilted mushroom.
He returned his gaze to the vinyl as a wailing fire truck rumbled down Druid Park Drive shaking the floorboards.
“Om to my Kundalini rising, here she is,” he whispered excitedly, pushing himself up from the wooden floor with the album “Journey in Satchidananda” tucked beneath his arm.
“It’s a full moon tonight,” he murmured while spying a folded piece of paper buried deep inside the left-hand pocket of his saffron robe. “What the?”
He repeated the mantra in his head: Breathing in, two, three, breathing out, five, six.
“It’s decided, I will invite the downstairs neighbor for brunch. Then I can ask,” he paused to exhale a hangdog sigh, “if my nag champa chaps their tranquility.”
Filled with unreliable confidence, he prudently walked to the end of the hallway, stopping at the mouth of the living room to unfold the diminutive note he found in the confines of his hooded cloak. It read: “Sprinkle the lemon on your asparagus.”
After a mindful exhale, he gingerly lowered himself into a lotus position on the crimson zafu in front of the turntable. He slid the record from the faded sleeve and reverently played the B-side first.

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