A Tapless Shoulder (21 page)

“
I’d like to see you try,” he said as though I was already
walking away. He laughed. He was brave again now that my
persistence had dwindled. Too much time had passed. I had spoken
too much and in turn appeared calm again. The first initial
explosion had come and gone, but that didn’t mean the fire was out.
His laugh ended and everything became images I was given quick
glimpses of as though jumping past them – pain ran up my arm in a
burst like my shoulder had said
come get me
. He was
retreating, not only from me, but from being vertical. He exploded
away from me in a spasm; his arms twisting to catch up as the rest
of his body was seized by the direction to come. When everything
had resumed its natural flow, he was crumpled awkwardly to one knee
with his other leg out to the side and pressing a hand to his
bleeding face. I had hit him and only now realized it. It was odd
and silent and I didn’t know if I should have been stepping toward
him or away.
Was it worth
it?
I thought in fragments
between the glimpses I was catching of him and those around
us.

Guilt had
replaced satisfaction much quicker than I would have liked, but, I
knew, had it been a conscious decision, it would never have come at
all. I had broken anger open at the seams and released pandemonium.
“Was it worth it?” I whispered to myself and the noise that was
trying to consume me. It wasn’t something I should have done on a
playground. All I could do was hope that everyone present, children
and adults, knew why we were fighting. Many had either left or
quarantined their children to a different area, far enough away
from us,
the
idiots
. I had to believe that
there would be some Q-and-A for a lot of them. Maybe I’d have to
have one with a lawyer.

I looked at
his kid; he was on the verge of crying, but looked too afraid. I
tried to spear my awful feeling with the optimistic thought that a
lesson may have been learned. “I’m sorry your dad’s… not better
than he is,
try to become
more than him
,” I said on the
verge of begging, and walked away, steering Ding Ding, who too was
staring in shock with tearful eyes, as the man sniffled blood and
hurled profanities towards the clouds from his knees.

“
It’s okay
big guy, no, he didn’t hurt you. You were scared, I know, but
you’re okay now. Yes, I hurt him. Sometimes people are going to
surprise you with how stupid they are, and it’s going to scare you,
and better they get hurt than you, maybe.” Katie was silent. She
was carrying Knuckle Butt. He had pretty much missed everything,
which was just part of being as young as he was.

“
A BUG!” he
yelled, pointing at the air. I hoped to remember that so we could
laugh about it later. It was the one beautiful moment I could pin
my heart to.

"I would love
for people to see arguments as an opportunity for values and
beliefs, and not just a showcase for their anger and ignorance,”
Katie said behind me, and I felt the words sharp against my
back.

“
Katie, that's bloody brilliant.” I said over my shoulder,
“I should write that down… or you should write that down; as long
was one of us writes that down I'm good...
balls
, why
didn't you say that a minute ago?"

I slowed my
pace to let Katie catch up. “I know, I know,” I said in a tone I
hoped suggested apology, “but you have to understand… the
lineage.”

“
The
lineage
,” she
repeated mockingly.

“
Yes, love, the lineage. I come from a line of men, or as
some call it,
a
lineage
, and they, we,
believe that violence is certainly wrong, however,” I proclaimed,
“an ignorant person is believed to be even worse, and so on
occasion there may come a time henceforth when I have to sock the
ugly face of the sworn enemy; the moronic, egotistical, sometimes
fat, ignoramus.” I nodded my head affirmatively.

“
Sometimes fat,
” she
repeated in a tone I felt should have been reserved for enemies and
people whose weight fluctuated significantly.

“
No,” I
admitted, “I was just seeing if you were listening. Appearances are
of hardly any consequence in such run-ins. It’s usually there in
their eyes: that deep, empty look of no return. Say what you will,
it will not be heard no matter the reason you unfurl.”

“
Where does
even half of what you say come from?” she pressed. “One minute, you
don’t say a thing; the next, it’s like you could go on forever.”
She shook her head and laughed a laugh purposely cut
short.

“
What?” I asked innocently, so very thankful she had
actually laughed, and already,
she had laughed already
. It didn’t fix anything that had happened, but it meant
she and I were okay, and that made me feel like dancing. “I was
just trying to get back to cool word usage, you know, unfurl my
lineage, and stuff,” I was emphasizing the words like I was about
to disappear into a deep sulk, as if hurt by the fact she didn’t
understand.

“
You can
unfurl your lineage alone tonight,” she said, undaunted by my
antics.

“
Fine, but
I’m pretty sure you turning me down counts as foreplay,” I said
trying very hard not to smile.

She shook her
head, “Okay, fine, but you not making any sense
undoes
that foreplay. Love, you really couldn’t have just looked
the other way?” I had to have known she’d return there… at some
point. I just expected her to give it more thought, certainly
enough for us to have gotten more than a mere thirty steps away
from it.

“
I did look the other way! Twice! And there he was, still
stupid. Katie, it was an accident! Two accidents in a row! What are
the odds? That’s a dangerous park.” She made a noise, involving her
lips and air; I knew it well, it was code for ‘bullshit.’ I decided
to try a different tactic. “Him and I, we had a moment, and I
reached out to touch his face but my
stupid fist
got in
the way, and, well, then his face got a little punched.” She made a
face that showed her disgust, and maybe disbelief. “I know, I know,
I was almost about to let it go,” I said, trying to getting closer
to something truthful, something we could agree on, “I just… it
suddenly made too much sense not to let it go. I don’t know, maybe
nothing made sense when I hit him, maybe that’s what happened. I’m
really sorry. But it’s hard for me to walk away, you know that. If
I walk away I’ll just blame someone else somewhere else for so much
more.” My heart sank at the remembrance of the look on his son’s
face. I didn’t even let myself imagine how I would have felt had it
been the other way around, but mostly because I knew I would have
done the right thing to begin with – or so I tried convincing
myself.

“
What are you
teaching our kids? That it’s okay to hit people like that? That was
just awful,” she said with tears suddenly in her eyes.

“
It’s not
about bullying people; it’s about pointing out their
stupidity.”

“
Yeah, I
know, pointing it out with your fists!”

“
That guy’s
ego would never have let him take any responsibility… so I put a
dent in it, and left him and his ego to try to hammer it out. Some
egos don’t hear anything.” She looked at me suspiciously and said
something, but I wasn’t listening. “Who knows, that guy’s son may
have learned something. You can’t tell me he won’t soon forget it,
and he watched me try to reason with his dad. I tried, but there
just was no reasoning with that… stupidity. It’s something
obviously even I have. Hell, we all have it. Doesn’t mean everyone
is stupid. I may call the odd person stupid out of anger, but we’ve
all some degree of stupidity in us. The challenge is in how we
choose to let it out. From now on, maybe that guy will be a little
less obvious about how dumb he is.” I looked at her desperately.
She nodded and smiled in agreement through her tears.

“
I know,” she
said softly, “it’s just… I hate that. It makes me want to be sick,
and, I don’t know, I just, I can’t help but panic.”

“
Oh, love, I know, I know that, and that’s how it should
make you feel, it’s not something anyone should be comfortable
with. I just… we will teach our boys that violence is horrible but
that there are sometimes going to be things that are actually even
worse. We have to teach them when to make that call. And we will
teach them to stick up for others. That’s what
that
was
about,” I motioned to the park that was now a couple streets behind
us.

She looked at
me like I should have known better.

I couldn’t
throw my hands in the air since I was still carrying Ding Ding, so
I raised my shoulders instead, “You teach them how to run and if
running doesn’t save them, as a backup, you can teach them how to
talk to doctors.”

My cell phone
rang, it was Katie. “Hello,” I sang.

“
Hi,” she
said, sounding slightly awkward. “Remember when you said we traded
luck for love; you still love me right?”

“
For the most
part, why?”

“
Oh good,”
she sounded like herself again. “Because you have mono. Your doctor
just called, he was looking at your test results right while I was
talking to him.”

“
How do I have
mono
?” I asked,
thinking she had to be joking, “And what
is
mono,
and
how
do I
have
mono
?”

“
Um, how
would I know? I’m just telling you what he told me. You have an
appointment for tomorrow morning. I guess he’ll explain everything
you need to know then. I don’t know what that means for work, but I
assume you might be off for a little while or
something.”

I was still
back where I had stalled in my initial reaction of complete
disbelief. “So… I got mono from thin air, thin, contagious air?” I
added, “That’s bullshit,” as if the words were actually one word
but had just never been said fast enough until I had finally done
it. “Seriously?” I still didn’t believe her. “Aren’t I too old or
something, I don’t know, but
something
, something
has to make it not true. Is there anything else it might be, or
could they have mistaken that for something else,
maybe?”

“
Um,” Katie
answered quite shy of helpful, “I really don’t know, you’ll just
have to go and see him tomorrow and ask him these things. I love
you though.”

“
That’s… I
don’t even know, well, yeah, okay… thanks, I guess. I love you,
I’ll be home shortly.”

I raised the
bag of milk I had just taken out of the grocery store fridge above
my head as though I were about to throw it. A woman stared at me
with wide eyes, so I lowered it almost to my head and raised it
again, which I then did a few more times like I was exercising. I
finally let it down to bounce cold against my leg as I walked
toward the checkout. I tried to take a deep breath but it was
overcome by a yawn. I shook my head and thought,
SOMUCHBULLSHIT
.

Oh, hi, yes,
you’re the doctor, I’m the patient. Pleasant, pleasant, lovely,
lovely, and alright, the file is out, the reading glasses are on,
and we are digging in. Family is good, you don’t say… or did you
say, you may have to speak up: everything you’re saying has to make
it through this buzz of disbelief in my head, and inside that buzz
my inner dialogue will likely be making fun of the both of us, SO
BE SURE TO TRY AND TALK OVER ALL OF THAT.

Mono-nuke-lee-osis, or whatever you said back there,
check.
Got
it
. Basically a blood
infection, okay, I got that part. Nodding now so you know I got
that. Nice, it’s often referred to as the ‘kissing disease.’
Okay,
funny
…
to you.
I don’t know; I kind of think throwing disease on the
end of something really stomps the
funny
out of it for
me. Spread through saliva. Well, oh, I get it, the kissing, mouth,
and I’ve been kissing no one but my wife so… wait, wait, I’ve
fallen behind. I will get a rash, all over. Well, that’s just
stupid. There’s a really good chance, maybe eighty percent, that I
will develop strep throat as well, you’ll give me a prescription
for that in case I need it. Sure, yeah. Fatigue, yeah, you’re
practically painting the room with that word. I heard some of all
of this loud and clear. Glandular swelling, I can stand up. Yeah, I
am packing a golf ball in the side of my neck there, now there’s
some pressure on it, yeah, no, it’s still out, you maybe want to
maybe push harder, pop it back in, holy F, I’m sitting. I don’t
care, point from there. I’m not even listening now. I think
you
ruptured
my
gland
.

Signed off
work, for a few weeks
to
start
, come back how
many times for how
long
? See how I feel then.
Okay, wait, did you just refer to the upcoming year as then? Check
blood, something about numbers,
every time?
Okay. We
didn’t want to get ahead financially ever, this is really good
timing, holy hell. No physical activity that may bruise my sides.
But, the year, this part sounds serious, okay, no rough housing. I
got it. Oh, liver and spleen, yeah, they’re where? And they could
haemorrhage? Bleeding out; that sounds bad, oh, die from that,
right. Okay. There’s a lot to this, everyone else just slept,
didn’t they? This is way more complicated than I expected. Oh, it’s
worse for adults, yeah, of course, well, that’s why I
waited.