“HEY!” I hear a shout and look over to see my son with his hands out to his sides, with the expression of, “What’s going on?” written all over his face. I’m confused, then he points behind me. I turn around and spot his bag I brought in sitting on the bleachers. I grab the bag and heave it over everyone’s heads three rows down to the right landing and right in his hands. He gives me a thumbs up then sprints out of view and disappears as quickly as he came. I sit back down as the other parents stare at me scoldingly so I point out to the equipment in front of them to remind them, hey your kids are down there, watch them. Your kids aren’t up here with me. A few shake their heads but then revert their attention back to where it belonged.
Matt would be about halfway done with his warm-ups now so I get to sit and watch the next section of Hadley before having to take off by Matt. I always try to split up the viewing time evenly between the two. Thankfully in middle school there’s not a lot of actual competitions. It’s more of a demonstration for parents at the end of the season of how good they’ve gotten and they haven’t scheduled them on the same day since we’ve been here, fingers crossed.
Looking back, Hadley’s section had rotated to the uneven beams. They begin their exercises with simple mounts and dismounts, really just jumping onto the bar with their stomaches and then extending away and down, nothing too exciting. Now we’re getting into it. It’s time to mount and do a bunch of spins. I swear it’s an exercise to just dizzy up the girls, but I still hoot as Hadley mounts up and does her spins. The next exercise introduces a spotter as the girls have to mount up, do one spin coming to a stop on the top of the low bar and then jumping to the high bar followed by a simple dismount. A few of the girls needed help transitioning to the top bar as they either didn’t have enough momentum or the balance for it.
Hadley’s up, and she mounts the low bar. She spins easily and gets on top of that bar but then loses balance and is spotted down to the ground. I can see her huff from here, but she backs up and immediately mounts again. This time she does not hesitate after her spin and immediately transitions to the high bar before her balance could be called into question and beautifully dismounts. Two girls later the line is done, and the typical sitting group assumes their positions with Hadley to watch the spectacles of the talented few.
Taking this as my cue I get up and head down the short walk off the bleachers. Then, standing to the side I give a quick whistle to gain Hadley’s attention. She turns her head, and I give her a wave and thumbs up. She returns the wave, and I walk out.
Heading over to the north gym now I stop by the vending machines in the cafeteria and grab an apple juice as they have no caffeinated beverages for distribution at the school. Guess they don’t want the kids being that awake and alert, rather be passive zombies they can easily tame.
“Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!” I hear Matt’s coach bellowing before I even walk in. I walk into the thick and musty air of the north gym where all the sweaty boys trained. The bleachers in here were pulled back to accommodate for the size and number of mats that were put together on the floor. Chairs lined one wall for the parents to sit, mostly fathers in here though. One or two single moms would occasionally pop in if they didn’t have to work, so it was mostly just us guys.
The whistle blows as I sit, and I turn around to see the assistant coach wiping up some blood off the mat with bleach and a towel. The victim was Matt’s partner and Matt had a hand on his back to help guide him to the first aid station.
Once there, the whistle blew and the boys went at it again with the exception of Matt and his partner. The assistant coach came over and pulled out a small tampon while looking at Matt’s partner’s nose. He inserted the tampon up the nose and the bleeding immediately stopped. A snip of scissors to the embarrassing string hanging down and he was good to go.
Matt and his partner jog back to the one empty spot on the mat and shake hands. They wait for the next whistle. Seconds later the whistle blows and the two charge at one another and lock up like two stud deer fighting for a doe. Matt is aggressively trying to control his partner’s hands but he keeps losing his grasp due to the sweat dripping off the two of them. The whistle blows and everyone stops.
“SPIN DRILLS!” the coach bellows. Matt drops to his hands and knees and his partner puts his chest on Matt’s back with his hands behind his back clasped. The whistle blows and Matt’s partner spins as fast as he can. Each time the whistle blows faster and the boys change their direction of spinning. “SWITCH!”
Matt gets up and it’s his turn to spin back and forth like a crazed nut, hell of a workout but still looks like a crazed nut. The last whistle blows and the exercise is complete. “WATER!” the boys run over to their squirt bottles on command, pound as much as they can then sprint back to the mat and form up in a circle. “Matt, center,” the coach commands.
I scoot up on my seat and watch. The coach gets down on his hands and knees and Matt mounts on top of him. “Cross-face and hold the lock,” the coach tells Matt. Matt takes his forearm and slowly presses it into his coach’s cheek and nose, forcing his coach’s entire head to turn to the side. Matt opens his palm and firmly holds his coach’s opposite shoulder. The two turn in unison in a circle to demonstrate the cross-fake hold technique to the entire team. “Now from here you want to follow through, Matt go ahead,” the coach instructs.
Matt keeps his lock while curling his bicep and thrusting forward with his legs. He sends his coach to his back and they stop with Matt’s chest centered on his coach’s while the lock has been released from the take-downs positioning.
“Very good,” the coach praises. “PAIR UP AND PRACTICE!” Matt returns to his partner and takes the floor first allowing his partner to try the technique first. “Now if you're on the bottom, do not give in. Resist as much as you can and force that top person to make you go down. Fish flopping or giving in will get you laps. BEGIN!” The whistle blows.
Matt is a rock. He just kneels there and takes every bit of his partner’s attempts while barely budging. The coach notices and begins to walk over. Matt doesn’t see him approach. Matt’s partner and the coach swap places secretly, and then the coach cross-faces Matt and plants him on the back. I chuckle as Matt now faces his coach and is helped back up by him followed by a pat on the back. The coach shows Matt’s partner the pressure point in the nose that forces the opponent to move and tells him to go again.
Matt gets down again with his partner on his back and resists with all his might. He moves some, but does not go down. “HARDER!” the coach bellows next to him towards everyone. The veins strain in Matt’s partner’s neck and arms then Matt caves in and goes to his back. Satisfied, the coach walks off and begins surveying other partners. Soon, both sides get their turn to practice and then everyone is called back into the circle.
“WRESTLE OFF. THEN SHOWERS!” The coach yells. Everyone cheers and takes a knee outside the ring except for the two lightest people. One lightweight goes down and the next lightest jumps in. Matt is about in the middle so has to wait another eight wrestlers before he gets his turn. Gradually the lighter weights are knocked out by the heavier weight classes.
Matt is up against last year’s state wrestler Chris Stock, and locks toe-to-toe on him. Being better on top, Matt waits for him to shoot and then presses all his weight down on him and gives him a great cross-face. Chris spins out of it and is back on his feet. They lock again and Matt is soon thrown over the Chris’ hip and taken down into a headlock where he taps out, a valiant effort. I applaud and we watch as the state wrestler is taken out by the 171 pounder and everyone cheers, especially as it’s his first year wrestling. Soon it’s down to the two heavy weights but that’s a disappointment because one is just a chub that tries to throw his weight around and is easily outmatched by his lighter and leaner counterpart.
Practice is now over and the boys head to the locker room. I help stack up the chairs and then head outside to wait by the truck for the both of them. You’re not supposed to sm
oke on school grounds but I do so anyways as all the teachers are gone and there’s only a few parents’ cars left in the lot. Hadley comes out first as she didn’t shower, and I put out the smoke.
“Dad…”
“I know I’m trying,” I had promised Hadley that I would try to quit smoking. Truth is, I’m working on not getting caught by her first. Doing that alone has cut it back by about half so I am on my way, slowly. “Since you’re out first what do you want for dinner?”
“Breakfast food,” she states. My stomach turns at such a filling thought, but I nod in agreement.
“Chocolate chip pancakes it is,” I smile and give her a hug. Matt now comes out sopping wet, no longer wearing his headphones and actually acknowledges us.
“Hey you two. Where we going?” he asks while approaching.
“Home for pancakes,” I tell him.
“Alright, sounds good,” he walks right over to the door and jumps in.
“Good job today Hadley,” I tell her giving her one more hug before getting in the truck myself.
Putting my rock music back on, Hadley takes her hair down out of the bun and sticks her head out the window. I watch her in my mirror as she plays with her mouth in the wind, hair flailing wherever it wanted to go. Looking over at Matt, he is tapping along with his hand to the rhythm, discreetly, on the arm rest and we fly through town.
Losing myself to the moment, it takes me two blocks to notice the flashing lights behind me. I pull over and sure enough the cop pulls over right behind me. I turn the radio off and search the console for my wallet. The cop approaches the truck, my window already down as I wait nervously.
“Sir do you know why I pulled you over?”
“No…” I tell him.
“ You ran two stop signs a few blocks back.”
“Ah shit!” I thought. I look in my side view mirror and sure enough I spotted at least one of the little red devils.
“I’m sorry sir I didn’t realize, I must have been distracted,”
“Distracted by what?” I turn towards Matt, but the seat is empty. I quickly turn and look in the backseat, but Hadley is not there either. Damn it, I don’t even remember waking up and leaving the house. How the hell did I get here?
“Uh, nothing,” I tell the officer.
“License and registration,” he demands. Taking the two from my wallet I hand them over to him, and he walks away. I’m shaking now, pissed scared. I can’t remember the last time I blacked out blocks of time, much less outside the house. Sure I’d black out drunk but not like this. It seems like the cop is taking his time reading an entire biography of me before coming back to me, pink slip obviously in tow.
“Now Mr. Curry. I’m going to have to write you a citation today, but I’m going to give you a break and only give you a ticket for one of the two stop signs you blew through,” he says as he hands me the paperwork. “If you have any questions call the county clerk at the number here, and be more careful driving the rest of the day.”
“Thank you sir, may I go now?” I ask
“Yes,” he nods and waves his hand forward to indicate I can pull out.
I spot Ed’s at the end of the next block and pull in. Shutting the car off I take a deep breath and try to recall what just happened.
Nothing, I got nothing. I was with Hadley and Matt. We were together in the truck coming back from the school. The cop pulled us over and then they were gone, just gone. Okay so they weren’t there, I was dreaming. If I was dreaming how the hell did I get there from my chair where I fell asleep?
Dizzy now, I had to get out of the truck. I feel like I just got shoved through a mob and barely escaped. Leaning against the truck now Ed comes out to see what is going on.
He listen’s, worried while hearing my tale, and invites me inside. I start all the way back from when I was shooting with Matt and with a frantic speed through up to the events that just happened.
Ed guides me through the store and selects a bb-gun as I described earlier.
“Here, this one’s on the house he tells me.”
I’m crying still trying to figure out what happened. We go the the managers room and Ed closes the door behind us.
“Ben, listen to me. An hour ago you called me all determined that you were going to head into town and pick up the kids at school. I told you it was a bad idea but you insisted and then hung up the phone. Worried about you, I called the cops and told them to keep an eye out for your truck.”
“Why would you do that! Why would you fucking do that! I thought we were friends Ed!” I shout. It doesn’t feel right to yell at Ed, but I couldn’t stop it. Breaking down I bawl in his office chair. “I was having a great time with Hadley and Matt. You should have seen them Ed; they did great in practice today.”
“I’m sure they did Ben, give me just a minute,” Ed picks up the phone and starts explaining to someone what just happened in the truck with the cop and calling Ed. I’m too exhausted to fight anything anymore so I just cry and let things unfold.
“Okay,” says Ed. “I just got off the phone with Dr. Schuder and she’s going to fit you in tomorrow but thought it would be a good idea if I stayed the night with you.”
“Alright Ed,” I manage.
Ed gets up and starts doing his rounds to close up the shop. I pick up the bb-gun he gave me for Matt and inspect it. The tears start to fade as my hand glides over the smooth black barrel and fingertips graze the grooves of the stock. I smile knowing how much he’ll love it. Setting the gun back down beside me, a few minutes pass as I watch the rhythm of the second hand on the clock above his desk tick away, strutting forward boldly and then slightly recoiling before springing forward again.
Ed came back in and helped me up out of the chair. For an old guy he certainly still had good posture and was great support.
Ed walks me out of the store and I light a cigarette. Hands shaking, I slightly burn the inside of my palm, but I don’t care. The release I was going to get from the nicotine was much more important to me at the moment. Ed finished locking up and let me finish my habit and then guided me into the passenger side of my truck and helped me in.
I left the gun in the office but Ed remembered it and set it for me in the back seat before pulling out.
This wasn’t the first time Ed had brought me home and probably wouldn’t be the last either.
Ed brought both me and Matt’s bb-gun inside. He set the bb-gun up against the padlocked door making sure I saw it being set there and then assisted me to my room.
He went to the bathroom and came back with a glass of water and my medication. I sat up and took them both.
Ed walked over to the window, closing, and locking it, then left the room closing the door behind him.
I felt warm. To have a friend help you like that was something special. The warmth continued from my stomach where I could feel the pills hit and slowly began to fill my core before continuing out through my extremities. Tiredness soon came with it, and I was overwhelmed with the need to sleep. I tried to stay awake, even tried to get up to use the bathroom but it was no use. I wasn’t going anywhere.
I looked into the lamp’s light and attempted to force my eyes open. Even with them open, I began to black out and fell into the depths of my mind.
6
Ed comes in at 10:30am and wakes me up. He shakes my leg as the alarm is buzzing, and I begin to get my groggy butt going. I can smell the distinct aroma of coffee that he must have brewed just moments ago.
Sitting up now, Ed tells me to get ready and leaves the room. I try to stand but my legs are wobbly, and I have to sit back down for a couple minutes. After regaining my strength I get up and head towards the closet. My favorite shirts and slacks are lined up and I simply take one of each. I only have my favorites and I make sure I can mix and match anything so no matter what I choose I end up looking good.
I drudge over to the dresser to pull out a fresh pair of underwear and a pair of socks. All of my stuff in there is the same so I don’
t have to worry or take the time to match anything up accordingly.
After getting dressed I walk out of my room and Ed is waiting there with a fresh cup of brew.
“Thanks,” I tell him as I take the mug. We walk into the kitchen and sit at the table across from one another.
“Thanks for taking me back last night,” I say half asleep to Ed. Bringing the java to my mouth I try to take a scolding slip and wait for his response. Ed sits there, looking at me pondering what to do. Soon he leans forward and puts his arms on the table ensuring he is being very direct towards me.
“I don’t know what happened with you yesterday, but I’ll tell you what I know and what I told Dr. Schuder,” he says looking at me squarely. “When you said you were going to watch the kids at school and hung up I got concerned. So I called the local cops to have them keep an eye on you. I also drove by the school myself and saw you parked there. I went into the parking lot and circled your car once. You were just sitting there, spaced out, so I went back to work. I’m not sure how long you were sitting there, but it was like an hour or so when I went by until I got a call from the police that you ran some stop signs. I gave him your background story on how you see them which is why he probably just let you off with one ticket. Then he followed you here. After you came outside the squad was parked in the lot. I went out to tell him that I got you, and he left. I came back in, and you know the rest from there.”
There was a lump in my throat I could not get rid of, even sipping on the now cooler coffee. Taking a deep breath my thoughts went over what Ed has just told me, and I began pacing the house for answers.
The BB-gun was still leaning up against the bedroom door so I grabbed the keys and quickly tucked it inside with Ed watching my every move.
Going to the living room I couldn’t find any evidence of drinking that would have caused me to black out and leave. I beeline for the kitchen and there was no evidence of heavy drinking there either.
A Father's Dreams Page 6
