!!!!!*****WORKING DRAFT*****!!!!!
The rain ended about the same time Mike finished eating. We sat on the front porch, staring at the leaves and branches flung down by the storm. One arm around his shoulder, my other resting on his leg, I asked, “You sure you’re OK? It must have been scary.”
“I was worried for a minute that the car was going to leave the ground…”
“Really?”
“Really. My parents told me when I was a baby, a hurricane came through when we lived in that apartment on Lynn Shore Drive. I’m starting to rack up disasters. Next, I suppose it’ll be an earthquake? But really, that’s not the worst thing that happened to me this week.”
I took my hands back, got up and started walking down to the street. Mike followed, continuing, “We have the swim meets every Thursday, this time was at home. This late in the summer, it starts to get dark before we’re done, so they have these light poles they stick in the concrete deck. The electricity comes underneath, it’s supposed to be turned off after the meet. But yesterday morning, I was working with the kids, yelling at one of them – you gotta yell, ‘cause it’s hard to hear under water – yelling at Linda, this really strong eight year old, the anchor of our relay. She was dogging it, and that’s a bad example when your best swimmer isn’t working. Anyway, I grabbed onto one of the poles so I could lean down, get closer to her.” He stopped, smiling ruefully.
“What happened?” I prodded.
“It must have still been live, because they tell me I started dancing around the pole, holding on with both hands. It was like when you stick your finger into a socket, but going all over and through my body. They said I was screaming, but the only thing in my head was a loud buzzing, drowning out everything and everyone. The head coach was on the other side of the pool, he dove in, swam over. By the time he got out, I must have spun myself off. The coach said, “Great! I don’t know how I was going to get you free, maybe a running tackle…’ So I must have been electrocuted, right? And everything from now on is a bonus, like I should have died but didn’t?”
“How do you feel now?”
“I was tired all day, slept 10 hours last night, I’m still a little tingly, but I’m OK. Just this spiritual afterglow, like I said, I should be dead but I’m not.”
I thought that was a little much, too dramatic a reaction. I decided to play along, though. “So what do you think you were saved for?”
“You know, I was thinking about that after the tornado passed in front of me. Two lives down – no three, with the hurricane? – six to go, that sort of thing. Funny, my first thoughts were about kids.”
“The ones at the pool?”
“Not really, just kids…and families…in general. At the club, there are all these big families, four, five, even eight. And you – you’ve got three brothers and sisters.”
“Sister, singular,” I interrupted.
“Right, sister. Anyway, I realised, I like the idea of a bigger family. I think that’s what I’m here for, to keep the chain alive.”
“How many would you want?”
“At least three, maybe four. I think I missed out on something, with just one other, my sister. The chances for interaction increase geometrically as the group size increases arithmetically, right, so adding just one or two makes a big difference in how many opportunities you get to learn from other people, other kids, when you’re real young. Like you, you had three older sibs, maybe that’s why you’re so much more sociable than I am?”
I gave that some thought. Linda, always using my naïveté to get me in trouble. George, quiet George, immersed in books and his fantasy world, never any help at all. Only Eddie, almost a decade older, seemed to be on my side, caring about me, helping me learn and grow. “Not really. It might just work the other way. The more there are in a family, the more chances for dissension and dysfunction.” I thought of my time cut short that summer in the psych lab. “For really little kids, infants, mothers are most important. That’s what I can’t get out of my mind.”
Two weeks later, on his day off, we drove up to Columbus, to the Ohio State Fair. “It’s supposed to be the biggest one in the country,” Mike said.
I didn’t really want to go. During two years in Boston I had become indoctrinated in the belief that the Midwest was a backwater, full of farms and auto plants, but not a haven for intellectuals or high achievers. The State Fair, no matter how big or famous, was that whole ethos writ large.
Mike was enthralled. Without a hint of irony, he reveled in the animal barns, the 4-H competitions, the cotton candy, and the blue-jeaned crowds. By the evening, he was ready for the midway.
“Look, there’s a ring-toss. I wanna try it!”
He missed badly the first time, which only spurred him on. “I can do this,” he growled, putting up another dollar for three more rubber gaskets. Circling one bottle, he won a rabbit’s foot key ring.
“You know those things are weighted, it’s rigged so you can’t really aim or win,” I whispered as he pulled another dollar out.
“Watch. I’m gonna win a big prize. I’ve got the feel for it now.”
He adjusted his feet, bent a little at the waist, shook the first ring to test its balance, then flicked it out with a little push from his right index finger.
“One!” he said firmly.
Repeating the ritual twice more with the same success, he hollered, “Yow! Got ‘em!” Looking over at me, he pointed at the top row, where the big fuzzy animals hung. “Which one do you want?”
I scanned the options – teddy bear, lion, pony. My eyes lit on a lower row, where a small bald baby doll in a gingham checked t-shirt waited. “That one. The baby.”
Walking towards the rides, cradling our prize, I decided, “I didn’t think this was going to be any fun. I’m glad we came. It makes me think, makes me see, we can be us again.”
Mike gave me a squeeze around my waist, then guided me into a Ferris wheel car. While we ratcheted our way to the top, one car at a time, he pulled a yellow paper from his back pocket, unfolded it, producing a short, handwritten poem. Offering it to me, he said, “It’s not much, but the more I read this, the more I like it.”
Let’s not demand so much of every
single moment;
in each fragment we’re
alive, a different herald trumpets in
a newer, fresher life and home for us.
Don’t expect that every heartbeat holds
its promise all fulfilled,
each breath
an intake filled with laughter, carried
in on waves of something deeper than we see.
Look out from life, not in at living;
The things I share,
so filled with giving
Are handed over freshly carved from the
Chisel of my joy –
If I stop smiling, I might never know I’m happy.