Before the Ever After(21)

and then the house is quiet my mom and dad gone

and then

and then

Uncle Sightman is there.

Get some rest, ZJ, he says, his big hand on my shoulder.

It’s all gonna be right in the morning.





Ways to Disappear


Uncle Sightman makes me toast and eggs and ham for breakfast.

He has music on, some old-school song about blue lights in somebody’s basement. The woman sounds like she’s crying,

and even though I went to sleep right after I went back to bed last night, I still woke up in tears.

I wipe my eyes again before coming downstairs.

What’s up, big man, Uncle Sightman says.

I guess you seen it all last night.

He tells me both my grandmas and my auntie are flying on in later.

All your people rushing here to be with y’all, he says.

He looks at me. His eyes are dark brown, big and clear.

Mama always teases him, calls him the Pretty-Eyed Man.

I sit down, suddenly hungry and not hungry all at once.

They gonna be with us awhile? I ask him.

Long as you need them to be. After a minute, he says You know that’s true for all of us, big man.

You know we all got you.

I nod but don’t say anything.

Your mama said to let you know if you want to stay home from school today— I’m okay, I say real fast.

I want to be at school. I want my brain focused on science and math

and social studies and ELA. I want to fill up my mind with everything

but this.

She said tell you your dad’s okay. He’s resting.

But he’s not okay, I say, shoving eggs and toast into my mouth.

I know, big man, Uncle Sightman says. I know.





Company


Ollie, Daniel and Darry meet me in the schoolyard, the four of us standing in a huddle, their hands all touching my shoulders at once.

We heard about your dad, they say.

You know we got you, ZJ.

Ollie even gives me a hug, bro style, pounds my back, then Daniel and Darry do the same.

There’s a bubble in my throat and something painful pushing at the back of my eyes.

This is a whole nother kind of pigskin dream to have your boys surrounding you, telling you they got you,

their hands on your shoulders, their arms around your neck.

Figure we’ll go to your house later, Daniel says.

Keep you company and whatnot, Ollie says.

The Fantastic Four got this, Darry says.





Music


Because I’m only twelve now, I can only visit my daddy during certain times and only with my mom or aunt or grandmas.

Never alone.

But I can bring my guitar.

The first time I visited, Mom said I’ll wait outside the room, let you two have some Man Time, kissed my forehead.

Said Everything’s going to be all right.

My daddy moves slow, sleepy-eyed, and sometimes his words don’t always come.

In the hospital he looks smaller than he really is, his voice softer.

But when I take his hand, he looks at me and smiles, says Little man. My little man. Play me one of your songs.

Until the doctors figure out what’s wrong, this is what I have for him.

My music, our songs.

This is what he has for me: the smile that comes when I play, the one that’s really his when he’s remembering again,

when he’s seeing me, ZJ, his little man.

He has his hand holding on to mine, his voice lifting up when he remembers our songs.

And we have this moment—Mom coming into the room, standing at his bedside.

Listening to the music my daddy and I can still make together.

Knowing we have my grandmas and auntie at home, cooking for us. Ready to laugh with us.

And sometimes to hold us

while we cry. We have Sightman and Bernadette.

I got my boys.

And we have some kind of tomorrow somewhere, when we’ll know

what happened to my daddy’s brain.

We have the history of a pig bladder flying through the air, becoming

a football, becoming a game

my daddy always dreamed of playing and then did play

for a long, long time.





AUTHOR’S NOTE


In the late nineties and early 2000s, when football players began to experience what ZJ’s dad experiences in this story, few families understood why. But most families knew something was not right. Symptoms included headaches, mood swings, confusion, depression, aggression and memory loss. It wasn’t until 2002 that Dr. Bennet Omalu discovered that the same brain disease affecting boxers (where the term punch-drunk comes from) was also harming football players. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a degenerative brain disease found in athletes and others who have suffered repeated blows to the head. At first, many doctors did not want to believe there was a connection between brain damage and America’s most popular sport, but Dr. Omalu persisted, and in 2016 the link was finally acknowledged. And while football helmets protect the skull to some extent, it’s not enough.

While there is still no cure for CTE, people can get some help now. Thanks to Dr. Omalu, a lot more is known about CTE.





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