Before the Ever After(12)

But the noise snuck past my hands.

And then there were sirens.

And then there were two cops bringing my daddy back.

You were the best tight end they ever had, one cop said.

Better than— And then the other cop named another guy.

That’s for sure, the first cop said.

But my daddy didn’t say anything. He had stopped screaming.

Just lay down on the couch and closed his eyes.

I miss you on the field, the first cop said.

Game feels different without you in it.

Thank you, my mom said, walking the policemen back to our door before they could ask

what everybody asks.

If my daddy could sign a piece of paper or their jackets

or their ball.

I stayed under the table listening to my daddy’s voice become a soft moan

that floated past me like

it was a song he was singing.

But in the place where the music should have been it was just lots and lots of pain.

I wanted to believe it was how the singers did it.

But knew it wasn’t.

I fell asleep beneath the table and Mama found me there at dawn.





Part 2


   The Ever After





Visit


There’s a doctor in Philadelphia that the doctors in New York

and New Jersey recommended

sending Daddy to.

They say it has something to do with his brain.

Say maybe

it’s a concussion that is hanging on.

Rest, they say. Sleep, they say.

Take this pill. No, this pill. Well, maybe this one.

And there’s the pill that makes his feet swell.

And the one that blurs his vision.

And the one that makes it hard for food to stay in his belly.

And when none of those pills work, there’s another doctor to see.

Mama gets up before it’s light out to drive him.

Makes their coffee so strong, I can smell it upstairs. I hear her making breakfast, smell the bacon and then the sweetness of her maple pancakes, the ones where she spreads syrup over them, then puts them back in the pan until they nearly burn but don’t— just get sweeter.

I know I’ll come down to find my parents gone, my breakfast under foil on the table, the house too empty. Too big.

Later, with the sun up, I go from room to room, touching my daddy’s trophies and medals, sniffing his pillow—which smells like the lavender oil Mama rubs his head with every night to help him sleep.

I walk into his closet, touch the line of helmets on the shelf, the rows of sneakers and cleats, the ties hanging together like one big red, green, orange and blue fan beside his dark suits.

I put my feet inside his leather shoes that are so big, my feet disappear.

Try to walk and fall.

In the quiet, with nobody but me in the house, I put my head on my arms

and cry.





Friends


One Saturday, Darry, Daniel and Ollie show up at my house so early, I still got my pj’s on. Under their jackets

they got on pj’s too.

Darry’s wearing ones with Batman on the shirt, and Daniel’s are covered in blue and pink poodles. He says I dare y’all to try to laugh

at these jammies my grandma sent me.

We all go into the kitchen and Ollie opens the fridge

like it’s his own house, which

it kinda is because he’s always here and always opening the fridge.

Y’all want grilled cheeses? he asks and we all say Yeah.

Ollie learned to cook from Bernadette, who said I’m not raising a son who can’t feed himself when he needs to.

We sit in the kitchen eating and talking about everything except my daddy, and it’s like my boys know that all I need right now is for them to be around me, stretching our grilled cheese as far as we can from our mouths and laughing when it strings down our chins or snaps against our noses.

All I need right now is the sound of their voices filling up

all the empty spaces.

Who wants seconds? Ollie says.

And we all say I do!





Pigskin Dreams


My daddy always loved telling me about his pigskin dreams.

Even as a little boy, he’d say, I had all kinds of dreams. And I was always somebody’s hero.

And I’d say Now I’m a little boy, and you’re everybody’s hero, and my dad would smile, hug me.

Sometimes

there’d be the beginning of tears in his eyes. I didn’t know why then.

But I do now.

It’s hard to stay a hero.

It’s like everybody’s just sort of waiting for the minute you fumble the ball or miss a pass

or start yelling at people when you were never the kind of guy to yell before.

They call it pigskin, my daddy once told me, because back in the 1800s, footballs were made out of pig bladders.

And we’d crack up when he said Who was the person who thought “I happen to have this bladder sitting around, might as well fill it with air and throw it”?

Pig bladders, my dad would say.

People were out there playing with the bladder of a pig.

Then rubber came along, and I guess the pigs were probably happier than anyone.