by J. Dursky
My coach is the first person I recognize. He has a confused and concerned look on his face overtop of me. I see a woman with a name tag on my left. She is very pretty and looks familiar. Her name tag says Sabrina Hogan in bold block letters. I know her, she is a paramedic.
"Try not to move." Coach says. "Are you ok?"
I look around. I am next to one of the benches close to my locker. I am surrounded by coaches, paramedics, and some of my teammates. I see Ford and Curry. They are in street clothes.
"What's going on?" I ask.
"We still don't know." Sabrina tells me. "No one saw what happened to you."
"Saw what?" I ask as I try to sit up.
"Whoa, take it easy!" Coach says.
They help me sit up. All my muscles are sore. I ask again, "Someone want to tell me why I am lying on the floor of the locker room?"
Coach and Sabrina look at one another. Without breaking eye contact, coach says. "We think you may have been struck by lightning."
Sabrina raises her eyebrows and shrugs her shoulders. "You should have some sort of burn marks on you but I couldn’t find any."
"What!?" I ask. When I raise my voice I feel a pain go through my body.
"And the game has been pushed back to next Friday due to lightning taking out one of the light poles on the field."
Coach stands from my side and tells the players in the locker room, "looks like he is going to be ok. Go on and head home you guys."
I wipe my eyes and try to stand. My muscles ache. I do a self-assessment. Other than the feeling of two day old lactic acid in my entire body, I am uninjured.
Sabrina performs the typical checks an EMT would do. She checks my heart rate, blood pressure, reflexes in my knee, and looks into my eyes with a light. Everything checks out. She can’t find anything wrong with me.
“Maybe you didn’t actually get hit by the lightning. It could have just been close enough to knock you unconscious. I suggest you go to the hospital just to be safe and you shouldn’t drive.” Sabrina tells me.
“Ok, I will have Lila take me.” I respond, thinking to myself there is no way in hell I am going to make my parents pay a medical bill when she just told me she cannot find anything wrong with me.
I get dressed and walk to my truck. The parking lot is almost empty. There are a couple vehicles spaced out down to the end of the parking lot, and two that are side by side, parked just past the corner of the building. The vehicles are my truck and Lila's car. Even our vehicles look like they belong together. My truck is black with chrome accents. It has an effects kit on the sides that resemble the tattoos I have on my right arm and left leg. They are just flowing shapes that fit the panels they are placed on. I got the tattoos first. The truck having the kit already on it was mere coincidence. I did not have any tattoos until my 18th birthday and when I went to get them I thought, go big or go home. My parents made me a deal that if I qualified for state in all four events in track and field, they would take me to get a tattoo before I turn 18.
I qualified my sophomore year in high jump, long jump, 400 meter hurdles, and I ran the first leg of the 4x100 meter relay for our team. They held up their end of the deal about letting me get a tattoo, but still made me wait until my birthday of my junior year. I am the oldest one in my class. I started school a year late. The only medical procedure I have ever needed was getting tubes put in my ears. I don’t know too much about it, only that it needed to be done. Whatever it was, it hindered me from starting school when I was supposed to.
I ended up spending my entire birthday in the tattoo parlor getting tattooed by two guys who were more ink than skin. One tattooed my lower left leg, from my knee down to my ankle. The other worked on my right arm. It is more than a full sleeve. I call it my front right quarter panel to anyone that asks. It is the best way to describe a full sleeve that expands to my chest and back. Both tattoos are black. I just like the contrast of black ink on white, heavily freckled skin. Even from a distance you can see what mine are.
Her car is clearly a girl's car. She drives a sporty looking black car that smells amazing on the inside. It is always very clean and has nice chrome rims.
I see her through the windshield. I could not normally see into her car in the dark but I see the light from her cell phone glowing on her face. There is someone standing at her driver’s side door. I can’t tell who it is from here. I can hear them talking but can’t make out what they are saying. When I am a few feet away I can see it is Darr.
“What’s up Darrfish?” I ask in a playful voice.
“Oh, hey, I was just telling Lila about your shocking personality. I think instead of Spiderman we should call you Electro.” He says.
“Spiderman’s enemy? No way!”
Lila jumps out of her car, almost hitting Darr with her door. She doesn't say anything. She just wraps her arms around my torso. I stand there for a few seconds just holding her. Nothing else in this moment seems to matter. I could do this for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy, and if I asked her, she would say two lifetimes. I hold her in my arms. I can smell her hair. Even after it is rained on, it still smells good. She is nearly the same height as me. I love how we feel in each other’s arms. She rests her chin on the corner of my shoulder and neck as I lean my head against hers. She leans back and looks up to say something and I kiss her.
"Well that answers my question, if you are ok or not." She says with a smile, yet concerned look. "But seriously, how are you feeling? What do you remember?"
"I feel fine, kinda sore I guess." I reply. "But I don't remember anything."
I search my memory for the last thing I saw, heard, or felt.
"The last thing I remember is looking around the corner of the school to see the cops go by." I say. "Have you heard anything about what they were doing? Or the military trucks headed into town today?"
"Yeah, Ayla told me she heard there was some sort of accident down at the depot. Something about a National Guard train car tipping over. I don't think anyone got hurt."
"Can I come over for a while before weekend curfew kicks in?"
"Yeah, come over, mom said you can stay."
"Well, let’s go. Darrfish, I’m out Bro. You lifting tomorrow?" I ask as I walk around Lila’s car.
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
I nod at his answer.
“Ready to go Babe?” I ask Lila.
She doesn't say anything. I think she can see on my face that something is bothering me. She rolls up onto her tip toes and kisses me.
"I will meet you at my house. Oh, text your parents, I don’t think they’ve heard anything but if they do, I’m sure they would freak." She says as she turns to get in her car.
I get in my truck and follow her out of the parking lot. I press the AM/FM button on my radio to listen to some music. It doesn’t make a sound so I turn up the volume. I hear the melody of my favorite country song. It’s hard to make out though. It’s laced with static. I press the CD button instead. I have the same band in my CD player, I can still listen to it regardless.
I roll my window down. Its dark now, the storm as passed once again, and it’s the perfect temperature.
Once we both get to her house we go to her room. It smells just like her car and has the soft hum of a fan running in the corner. We can be in there together but the rules of the house are to have the door open and at least one light on. My muscles ache as I sit on the corner of her bed. They hurt more now than they did in the locker room. She changes clothes in her bathroom. I am still wearing grey gym shorts and a black and red Spiderman t-shirt. She comes out of the bathroom in her pajamas. This is when I think she looks her best. She wears soft little shorts and a tight white tank top. I love how it hugs her skin and shows her curves.
With her school spirit makeup removed, and hair down, she walks straight over
to me. I put my hands on her hips as she stands at the corner of her bed. As she leans into my hands I wrap my arms around her lower back and rest my head against her chest.
She wraps her arms around head and neck. She kisses the top of my head and says "You really scared me tonight. I have thought about losing you before and I’d be lost without you."
"Baby, I'm not going anywhere. Nothing could keep me from you, not even being struck by lightning." I tell her with a smile as I try to ease her worry.
"It's just, I have always pictured our lives together, growing old, and holding hands in rocking chairs on the porch." She says with seriousness in her voice.
"I know, I do that every day. You know you’re the reason I wake up excited to go to school right?" I say smiling again.
She gives me that "I know" smile back and pulls me back into her warm body.
"Hey baby..." She starts. "You know what I'd like right now?"
"Umm... I can think of a few things I think we'd both like right now!" I say with a big grin.
"Can you play my song? It would really mean a lot to me. The first time you played it, you didn’t let me know beforehand it was about me. Remember how I made you play it four times in a row when I found out? You became my hero once I learned the truth and you made me believe in soul mates." She says.
"I don't have my guitar in my truck babe, I'm sorry. Or else I would." I tell her.
She leans back and looks at me. Her eyes light up, she smiles and her eyes go to the space between her wall and bed.
I look over and see the edge of what looks like a black guitar case. She steps back so I can go see. I pull the case up from the floor and set it on the bed. I am in awe. Did she really buy me a guitar? I pop the case open and inside is a brand new Taylor Acoustic-Electric Grand Auditorium cutaway guitar. My eyes open wide! It is a dark brown guitar, the wood grains are very defined, and I have told her I wanted this since the first time she heard me play guitar. She smiles knowing how badly I have wanted this guitar.
"I was going to give it to you tomorrow for your birthday, but after tonight I just want to hear you sing my song and not have to wait until tomorrow to give this to you." She says softly.
"I am speechless baby. Thank you."
I grab it from the case and sit on the edge of the bed. It feels cool in my hands. I pluck the E string. It is out of tune. Lila doesn’t know how to play so she couldn’t have done it for me. It has a built in tuner so I turn it on and pluck the string again.
I tune the remainder of the strings, this guitar sounds amazing, it feels amazing, and it gives me butterflies that she would do something so thoughtful. As if I didn't love everything about her anyway, she never ceases to amaze me. She is the type of girl who doesn't want material things. Granted, she won't say no to them. But if you wanted to see her when she is at her peak of beauty mixed with pure joy, give her something of sentimental value.
On our six month anniversary I gave her a picture frame that houses four smaller pictures. One of the pictures is of a stage with a band on it from the very top row of an arena. It was taken by me, from about the eight o'clock position of the arena. Diagonal from that picture in the frame is the concert ticket. The other two frames house pictures of us we took while we were waiting for the concert to start. It was the first concert we saw together on her birthday last year. It was her favorite country band. She melted when she saw I made it for her.
I clear my throat and strum a couple chords. It is an honest story about how nervous and excited I am when I am around her, yet how lonely I am when we’re apart. I have written a lot of songs over the years, most come out too personal for me to ever play for anyone. This one happens to be exactly how I feel about her, masked in something we both love. I play her song, Thunderstorm.
If you would like to hear this song please visit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MntHMXO524M
Or
Search Youtube.com for Dursky Thunderstorm