safety
Wham-O Super Balls
Linking the wondrous lines that carom about inside these recollections, falling like Wham-O Super Balls on uneven concrete. I forget how easily I can revisit those days just by digging in the dirt. All I have to do is take off my shoes.
6am – I get it in my head to transplant ferns. Into the understory with a shovel. One sandal comes off, but I keep walking. I step on blackberry thorns and keep moving. I find the plant I want, hidden underneath bark and brush and detritus. Shards of fire in my legs, I've found a colony of ants. I cut my arm. I have the root ball in my hands.
The ant bites again. I don't understand why such a tiny creature would go to such great lengths for my attention.
Those friends of mine with no demons have always wanted them. Asked to borrow them. Romanticized them. Looked into our faces as the troubles faded away and wanted that peace. The peace you can only get through drowning the misfortune. But after some time you realize they're laughing the hardest. Their B minuses and metal braces instead of ceramic and the younger brothers with Down Syndrome that cause you to ask, 'You have a younger brother?', all combined into a very potent cocktail.
Misery loves chemistry.
Papier-mâché
Those of us who know better keep their glasses full nonetheless. Our little science experiments, seeing just how much vinegar we can add to the baking soda before the papier mache top explodes.
We had a co-worker in those days, a big, quiet guy. Played rugby and carried the pallets two at a time. Once, the factory where I worked got a shipment of lead bullets packed inexplicably into 40 kilogram crates, Asian characters seared into the wood. He lifted them calmly, pit-bull eerily silent and determined.
We thought he went to church on Saturdays, how clean-cut he was, but we asked him anyway, and he came and smiled. He started in with the shots, and we were so eager and curious we added more, and then the whole bottle, and wondered whose wrist he would break when the arm wrestling started, but he suddenly rose from the table and roared, the only person I've ever seen do so. I've seen yelling and screaming and other piercing sounds with no appropriate names, but never had I heard a human roar. He would come after us and throw us to the ground. We backed away secretly, and some of us would find ourselves flung from behind, shirts torn nearly in half. After the last of us had escaped, we watched him from the safety of indoors, sitting by himself at the picnic table outside, quiet, drinking from a plastic cup.
Afterwards, you might think we never asked him to return, but that's what separated us from the kids in college. We constantly invited him, eager to see what might come out of this kid. This is how we mixed each other, adding false catalysts and chemical antagonists. I forget how easily I can revisit those days just by hearing Fourth of July fireworks in the background. All I have to do is take off my shoes.
I wish it were easier to teach integrity, but it's even harder to teach experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment