Honea Express

Archive for the ‘boys’ Category

His face is pale against the flush of his cheeks. The red is rosy and perfect, like it was painted on. His eyelashes are long and fluttering. His hair is full of fever sweat and tussle. He takes no notice of me in the doorway. He notices only the nothingness and whatever dances upon the edge of distance. He is a few feet and a million miles away. He coughs. He sleeps. He is burning.

There are waking hours on the couch and the meeting of needs. Start the movie. Stir the soup. More fluids. Thermometers. Medicine. Tissue. Blankets. The movie is over. Start the movie. There are other things that I must do, and they are all ignored in equal fashion.

He escapes through sleep to sweet relief. This is when I should attend to matters that should be done, but I do not. I clean the room. I play soft music. I dump the tissues and restock accordingly. I hit reset and then I lean against the doorway and watch him breathe.

They say don’t get too close. They say that germs are best kept at bay. But I am a parent. I cannot sit on the dock armed with life preservers and gentle whistles. I wade chest-deep and let him float against me. His burn becomes my burn and I try to take it all. I want nothing more than to soak it all in and open my arms to a bay gone dry. I want to watch him run across rocks and starfish and so many sponges, free of fever and free of pain. The only sounds should be waves retreating and the lingerings of health and laughter.

But there is a difference between giving and sharing, and fevers read the fine print. I fear we will float out to sea upon a brown pleather raft, a foolish father and his somber son, with rosy red brushstrokes like stains on our faces.

The music is soft and the dance in the distance.

Morning is a game they play. It is the crossroads of grumpy and hijinks, and there are shoes to be tied, teeth to be brushed, and a number of things that really should have been done the night before. It is the kind of chaos that lends itself to immediate cursing and a lifetime of fond, sweet memories. It starts too early and ends on a dime.

Sometimes there are too many metaphors to bother.

The boys are sleeping now, between mornings and the shadow of them, and the world is quiet save the sound of frogs in the stream outside. The stream was dry just days ago and the frogs were dehydrated and forgotten like so many sea-monkeys on the cusp of greatness — covered in leaves, dust, warts and all. Now the frogs are awake and alive and they want us to know it.

We know. We know.

And the boys sleep on while the world spins constant around them. There are late night projects, glasses of whiskey, promises kept and those unfulfilled. Their breath is a bass line beneath the songs of the night and my keyboard types out like a broken-down piano. Every sound is clear and haunting, every breath a melody. The notes between are soft and silent. They linger until the moon fades, then the sounds are soon to follow.

Morning is a game they play. They will win every single time.

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Illustration by Arnold Lobel

He was dressed all in green, cute and quite tiny. But he’s six, they do that. The agenda of the day was on repeat and by the third time through, between bites of oatmeal and large gulps of orange juice, I believe I had the gist of what he was saying. First, they were doing a flash mob on the school playground, and then they were walking to the park for a leprechaun hunt.

“You’re hunting leprechauns?” I asked.

“Mr. Magic Leprechaun lives in the park,” he said. “My teacher saw him.”

“Is this a catch and release thing or do you plan to eat him?”

“We’re not going to eat a leprechaun!” he said. He seemed insulted.

“Then what are you going to do? Make a rug?”

“A what? They don’t make leprechaun rugs!”

“They should,” I told him. “Although I’m not sure how big of a rug you can get from a leprechaun hide. Maybe we can make a doormat.”

“Daddy! We’re not making a leprechaun doormat!”

“That’s a good idea. If a rainbow ended on our porch we’d get all kinds of crazies. Maybe we could have him mounted, like a trophy. We could hang lucky charms from his antlers.”

“Leprechauns don’t have antlers.”

“Are you sure about that one?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure they have antlers.”

“Leprechauns aren’t animals.”

“Then why are you hunting them?”

“We’re LOOKING for Mr. Magic Leprechaun,” he said. “We just want to say hello.”

“Oh,” I said. “So tell me about the flash mob. Do you need to borrow a trench coat?”

Photo

“If the stars were any closer I would fight them,” he said.

“The stars are not the problem, it’s the people between them that are causing all the trouble.”

“Then why is it called Star Wars?” he asked.

“Why aren’t you in bed?”

He stood there laughing in his pajamas, seeming so much smaller than a moment before.

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“The doctor called,” she said. “They say she only has two months left. Maybe three.”

“Holy fuck. How is she? How is he?”

“They aren’t good,” she said into a phone far away. “They found out on Friday, but you were in San Francisco and we didn’t want to bother you. There was nothing you could do.”

There still isn’t.

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“Is a cable car the same as a trolley?” he asked. His hands were grasping polls on either side and his feet were firm along the running board. The hills were fickle, climbing high then falling forever. The street was a blur beneath his dirty blue Converse.

“Are you having fun?”

He smiled against the wind and watched the peak rise to meet us.

“I am,” he answered.

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“We are shutting it down,” she said.

“Oh.”

“You have been here from the beginning, and this is hard,” she said.

“I know.”

“I’m sorry,” she added.

“I know.”

I walked for a while after that, lost in thought beneath a sky too blue and trees with the audacity to bloom.

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