where Mama’s plants—a bright red rhododendron,
rose vines, bay leaf and lavender—
all look like they’re beginning to live again.
It’s spring.
Around the edges
of the cold, there’s the tiniest bit of warm air.
I move closer to Daddy, let my arm press against his.
Feel his muscles moving
as he massages Mama’s feet.
Riperton’s voice lifts up again, says a word and holds it
for what feels like forever.
I’m gonna write you some more songs, Daddy, I say.
I’m gonna write you a whole lotta new songs.
My daddy looks at me.
Nods slowly. Says
I’d like that a whole lot, little man.
And smiles.
Maplewood Blues Song
Look at all those trees, little man.
That’s why I moved y’all here.
Look at all those trees, little man.
That’s why I moved y’all here.
And when the night falls on Maplewood,
those trees just disappear.
I want to write a blues song, Daddy,
and sing it just for you.
I said I want to write a blues song, Daddy,
and sing it just for you.
The doctor said the music is
the only thing getting you through.
I look up at all those trees, Daddy,
and it takes me back to the time.
I said when I look up at all those trees, Daddy,
it sure takes me back to a time . . .
I don’t know how to finish this song.
Pigskin Dreams 2
Me, Ollie, Daniel and Darry are walking the trail.
A warm drizzle spraying around us and us slip-sliding on the leaves,
fooling around.
I got one of my dad’s footballs under my arm
and throw it long to Daniel, who snatches it
with a high jump,
then lands like someone floating back to the ground.
There’s sun
behind him and I have to swallow cuz the beautifulness of it
makes something in my throat jump.
Ever since I walked off the field all those weeks ago, I’ve
been done with playing football, and my boys understand.
But still, we like to throw it. To run and catch it,
to hug it to our chests
like one of our long-time-ago stuffed animals.
When we get deeper in the woods, we see Everett jogging toward us,
dressed in a tracksuit, weights
around his wrists and ankles.
Hey, he says, out of breath.
Hey, we all say back.
Y’all about to play a game?
Nah. I quit football, I tell him.
I’m training, Everett says, holding up his wrists.
Weights supposed
to be good for resistance and whatnot.
We’re just walking and throwing the ball, Daniel says. Just hanging.
You can join us if you want.
Nah, Everett says. Gotta stay true to the course if I plan to go pro.
My boys look at me. At home, my dad is probably sitting at the window
or in his room asleep. The new medicine he’s on makes him tired and groggy.
He walks like an old man now, his head down mostly,
his feet dragging.
I toss the ball to Everett. Keep it, I say. It was my dad’s.
Everett’s eyes get wide. This is Zachariah 44’s ball?
I nod.
For real?
For real.
Daniel gives me a look like You crazy? But I ignore it.
Good luck, bruh, I say.
And the good luck means so many things
I don’t know how to say.
So many things I wish my daddy could still understand.
Thank you so much, Everett says, looking at the ball like
it’s the best present
anyone’s ever given him.
Then he waves goodbye to us, jogging off again,
only this time a little faster.
And we go back to slipping and sliding on the leaves,
trying to see who can slide the farthest
without falling.
The Partridge Family
There was this song you used to always sing, Daddy,
from when you were a little boy and you watched
a show called The Partridge Family.
Whenever you told me about it, I thought about birds,
a whole show about them.
Nah, nah, little man, you said. Show was about a family
and they all sang together. And they had
this big crazy-colored bus that
they took out on the road. And something always
happened. Not a bad something. Just a something.
Then you’d start singing a song from the show that went
I think I love you.
I think I love you!
You said our town, Maplewood, for some reason
reminded you of that show.
So many trees up and down the block.
Linden and maple and oak and pine.
You said, I used to know all the names for all of them.
I just stared at them, listening to your voice.
Looked up to see you standing above me
with your eyes closed
and such a huge smile on your face.
You told me Those were the good old days, little man.
You in front of your TV screen just singing along.
I asked you if that was before the pigskin dreams.
Nah, little man, you said. The pigskin dreams were
always there.
I know I love you, Daddy.
I know I love you.
It’s All Gonna Be Right in the Morning
The crash comes late in the night.
I’m half asleep when I hear the glass,
shattering once, then again as it’s falling.
I hear my mother screaming and run to their room,
where my daddy is standing at the window, his arm through it,
and cold air blowing in.
And then the sound of Mama on the phone
and, somewhere far away, a siren coming closer
all of it slow motion as my daddy turns,
holds his cut hand
in his not-cut one. So much blood, so much glass,
so much sadness in his eyes.
I have to get to that plane, he says again and again.
I have to get to that plane.
And then there are men in our house, in white
a stretcher
voices coming through walkie-talkies
cops again
and then the house is quiet
my mom and dad gone
and then
and then
Uncle Sightman is there.
Get some rest, ZJ, he says, his big hand on my shoulder.
It’s all gonna be right in the morning.
Ways to Disappear
Uncle Sightman makes me toast and eggs and ham
for breakfast.
He has music on, some old-school song about blue lights
in somebody’s basement. The woman sounds
like she’s crying,
and even though I went to sleep right after I went back to bed last night,
I still woke up in tears.
I wipe my eye
s again before coming downstairs.
What’s up, big man, Uncle Sightman says.
I guess you seen it all last night.
He tells me both my grandmas and my auntie
are flying on in later.
All your people rushing here to be with y’all, he says.
He looks at me. His eyes are dark brown, big and clear.
Mama always teases him, calls him the Pretty-Eyed Man.
I sit down, suddenly hungry and not hungry all at once.
They gonna be with us awhile? I ask him.
Long as you need them to be. After a minute, he says
You know that’s true for all of us, big man.
You know we all got you.
I nod but don’t say anything.
Your mama said to let you know if you want to stay home from school today—
I’m okay, I say real fast.
I want to be at school. I want my brain focused
on science and math
and social studies and ELA. I want to fill up my mind with
everything
but this.
She said tell you your dad’s okay. He’s resting.
But he’s not okay, I say,
shoving eggs and toast into my mouth.
I know, big man, Uncle Sightman says. I know.
Company
Ollie, Daniel and Darry meet me in the schoolyard,
the four of us standing in a huddle, their hands
all touching my shoulders at once.
We heard about your dad, they say.
You know we got you, ZJ.
Ollie even gives me a hug, bro style, pounds my back,
then Daniel and Darry do the same.
There’s a bubble in my throat
and something painful pushing at the back of my eyes.
This is a whole nother kind of pigskin dream
to have your boys surrounding you,
telling you they got you,
their hands on your shoulders,
their arms around your neck.
Figure we’ll go to your house later,
Daniel says.
Keep you company and whatnot, Ollie says.
The Fantastic Four got this, Darry says.
Music
Because I’m only twelve now, I can only
visit my daddy during certain times
and only with my mom or aunt or grandmas.
Never alone.
But I can bring my guitar.
The first time I visited, Mom said I’ll wait outside the room,
let you two have some Man Time, kissed my forehead.
Said Everything’s going to be all right.
My daddy moves slow, sleepy-eyed, and sometimes
his words don’t always come.
In the hospital he looks smaller than he really is,
his voice softer.
But when I take his hand, he looks at me and smiles, says
Little man. My little man. Play me one of your songs.
Until the doctors figure out what’s wrong,
this is what I have for him.
My music, our songs.
This is what he has for me:
the smile that comes when I play, the one that’s really his
when he’s remembering again,
when he’s seeing me, ZJ,
his little man.
He has his hand holding on to mine,
his voice lifting up when he remembers our songs.
And we have this moment—Mom coming into the room,
standing at his bedside.
Listening to the music my daddy and I can still make together.
Knowing we have my grandmas and auntie at home,
cooking for us. Ready to laugh with us.
And sometimes to hold us
while we cry. We have Sightman and Bernadette.
I got my boys.
And we have some kind of tomorrow somewhere,
when we’ll know
what happened to my daddy’s brain.
We have the history of a pig bladder
flying through the air, becoming
a football, becoming a game
my daddy always dreamed of playing
and then did play
for a long, long time.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
In the late nineties and early 2000s, when football players began to experience what ZJ’s dad experiences in this story, few families understood why. But most families knew something was not right. Symptoms included headaches, mood swings, confusion, depression, aggression and memory loss. It wasn’t until 2002 that Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered that the same brain disease affecting boxers (where the term punch-drunk comes from) was also harming football players. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes and others who have suffered repeated blows to the head. At first, many doctors did not want to believe there was a connection between brain damage and America’s most popular sport, but Dr. Omalu persisted, and in 2016 the link was finally acknowledged. And while football helmets protect the skull to some extent, it’s not enough.
While there is still no cure for CTE, people can get some help now. Thanks to Dr. Omalu, a lot more is known about CTE.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Editor
For more than two decades, Nancy Paulsen has been the wonder behind my books. She’s read draft after draft, sent me research articles, pointed out my inconsistencies and repetition, told me what was fabulous about my writing and what “still needed a little work.” When I was bumming about my characters, she came over and made me and my family dinner and talked me through the hard stuff. For anyone who has ever wondered what an editor does—this is it. Well, this is my editor. Maybe other people aren’t so fortunate. I hope every writer gets this lucky one day.
The Trusted Reader-Friends
These are the people with whom you talk about what you’re working on. (You don’t talk to everyone, because if you’re talking about it, how are you writing it?) But sometimes you need to bounce something off some people. Sometimes you show your very new, very fragile writing to them and they go, “This is so exciting.” They read it with all its typos and half thoughts and clichés and they say, “Your writing is so great, just keep going.” They say, “This is going to be amazing.” And so you do keep going—knowing that you’re only at the beginning and that your friends are saying what you need to hear to keep you moving forward. Juliet, Toshi Reagon, Kwame Alexander, Jason Reynolds, Donald Douglas.
The Village
Here is where the peeps behind every book I’ve ever written or dreamed of writing live. They’re the ones who take your kids to dinner and study with them so you can write, gather around you, do their own changing-the-world work, break bread with you, vote with you, recycle with you, and sometimes just sit and talk and laugh with you. The Village is your air, your tribe, your strength. Jackson Leroi, Toshi G., Linda, Jana, Jane, Tayari, Tashawn, Kali, Min Jin, Lanita, Kaija, Ellery, Stephanie, Robyn, Karin . . . and everyone else—you know who you are.
And these are the people who help produce my books year after year—copyeditor Cindy Howle, designers Theresa Evangelista and Marikka Tamura, Sara LaFleur in editorial, and the late, great Wendy Pitts in production.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jacqueline Woodson was the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. In 2018, she received both the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the Children's Literature Legacy Award. Her New York Times bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, won a National Book Award, Coretta Scott King Award, Newbery Honor, NAACP Image Award, and Sibert Honor. Her adult book Another Brooklyn was a National Book Award finalist. Her over two dozen books inclu
de Newbery Honor winners Feathers, Show Way, and After Tupac and D Foster; Miracle's Boys, which won the LA Times Book Prize and the Coretta Scott King Award, and the New York Times bestsellers Harbor Me and The Day You Begin. She also received the Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime achievement for her contributions to young adult literature and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, New York.
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