Game Day
Eliminate all dangerous objects, small items and sharp ones. Take away food that might choke. Put the knives up high, all glass out of reach. And then he grabs the grill just minutes after you arrive for the BBQ. The ER Dr. stares at your failure, two large blisters, one across the palm of his small hand. What was only deep red has ballooned into something his mother will use to keep him from you. You know this, and all you want is to comfort him, make him laugh, and for a moment the bright white of bandages behind glass doors catches his attention. The plasma television in triage room 2 blasts the local football game. As you cradle your crying son, people stop to watch the game playing above your heads. Oregon goes ahead of Stanford, and the ER staff grins, as if your pain is secondary. And it is; you are secondary to all of his falls, his bruises, that first broken bone. You imagine him with shoulder pads and helmet, his mother on the opposite side of the bleacher. On the way home, police winnow traffic into one lane, so the fans can slowly filter from the stadium. How simple, you think, to watch a game, to wear yellow and green, to go home. Instead you head for Wal-Mart to pick up antibiotic cream and bandages, wishing this night would end, and you could awaken to the boy clapping his two hands together. Instead he crawls with a sock over his bandages, one elbow to the ground; and you want to explain it to him, how you looked away just for a second, how his mother might have done the same, how even though your breath is caught somewhere in your ribcage, you can take the hit and still carry him into the end zone.
(Previously published in Bellingham Review)
