"Make yourself useful, dad!" I said, out loud, to no one but myself, and my father's ashes.
It was one of the greatest comebacks I had ever uttered in my entire life. My dad would have been furious at me.
It's true.
***
When Tuesday came around, I picked up Nat in the rental car my auto insurance got for me: a three-door, miniature Nissan. The car looked like toy, like some kind of robotic beetle-bug with donuts for wheels. It was a ridiculous color of blue, bordering on nauseating, like the color of a blueberry Slurpee. And the large, round headlights and plastic grill with upturned sides made the goddamn thing look like it was grinning, although I don't know what it was smiling about; it was a pathetic excuse for an automobile. It should have been ashamed of itself. Nat got a real kick out of seeing me drive that stupid, little car, probably in the same way kids get a kick out of seeing their parents fumble through their favorite video games or wear their style of clothes in an attempt to be hip. When she got in the little car, she was laughing and wheezing and giggling all over the goddamn place, slapping her knees and all. She just couldn't get over it. And she could barely fit in the car herself. Her long limbs folded in front of her after she put her seat belt on, like a gigantic praying mantis wearing a tank top and shorts sitting in the passenger seat twisting and contorting to fit in the small space.
"This is, like, the kind of ride a college student would get from their parents!" she said, laughing some more, trying to contain the laughter by covering her mouth. "It's like a go-kart!"
"Very funny. I didn't really have a choice of the type of car I could get. This is just what the insurance company gave me. All right?"
"That's fine," she said, giggling some more. "Just sayin'."
"At least I have a car to use."
"True. And you'll be getting a new car soon. Right?"
"Yep. And look at you. You barely fit in here. Who should be laughing at who?"
"Shut up!" she said, then giggling.
Turns out, according to my auto insurance company, the model and year of Volvo I owned had a recall for a component of the electrical system that could potentially turn off the engine while the car was driving--something I wasn't aware of at all--and I found this out the hard way, of course. I was very conflicted upon learning this information, considering how much I wanted and loved that stupid car. Sometimes, things you dream about just don't turn out to be as great as you hoped. In fact, sometimes things you really desire turn out to be nothing more than big piles of shit. It's true. Be careful what you wish for 'cause it just might potentially bite you in the ass.
"Well, the car will be new to me," I said, stopping at a stop sign, then turning right toward the kids' elementary school, good ol' Wells Port Elementary. All the other parents were maneuvering to and around the parking lot, jockeying for position in the car line so they could pick their kids up as soon as possible. As I stepped on the accelerator, the go-kart emitted a sound like mouse flatulence, sputtering and squirting noxious gas from its rear end. It was so embarrassing. "My car wasn't worth more than $10,000. I can't get a new car with that unless I want a car like this thing. And I don't want a car payment."
"No doubt. Car payments blow."
"Exactly."
But rather than wait in the car line, I parked on the street that ran next to the school, so we could wait for the kiddos, and just in time, the school bell rang and the kids poured out of the school like a tsunami. Keeping the engine running, we waited in the car.
"I appreciate you going to taekwondo with Jessie today. I promised Sammie that we could have some time together and I thought this was the perfect time to do it."
"It's not a problem," she said, smiling. "I'm, like, glad to do it."
"Then Sammie and I will pick you guys up after practice and we can all go grab a bite to eat. Sound good?"
"Of course."
Before we knew it, my kids attacked the door handles, trying to get in the little blue insect mobile. Nat and I opened the doors then reclined the front seats, allowing the kids to hop in the back seat.
"This car is so small!" Jessie said, crawling through the tiny space between the driver seat and the back seat.
"This car should be in The Wizard of Oz! A tiny car for the Munchkins!" Sammie said, climbing behind Nat's seat. Nat and I popped the seats back upright and got in the car. "You know. Munchkins Shmunkins!"
"Everybody buckle up," I said, putting the car in gear and tearing off, the miniature car screeching like a mouse in the grasp of a hungry cat.
I drove around the perimeter of the school, around the playground at the back of the school, to the street on the opposite side, the street that led to the strip mall where Jessie's taekwondo dojang resided with Master Lu and the other junior black belts inside, all waiting for Jessie to show up so they could try to kick each other's little asses. I pulled into the parking lot and parked right in front of the entrance to the dojang. I got out of the car to let Jessie out, and Nat too.
"I'll be back in an hour and a half or so. OK?"
"OK, Daddy!" Jessie said, hugging me around the waist. Nat came around and grabbed her hand, then the two girls went inside. I hopped back in the car.
"Ready to go, son?" I said, buckling my seat belt.
"Yeah!"
I put the screeching go-kart in drive and we tore off. Good ol' Sammie Boy decided the day before that he and I needed some Daddy / son time and I agreed, knowing that it had been a while since he and I had spent some quality time together. Especially after what happened in San Antonio, it just seemed like the right thing to do. So, when I asked him where he wanted to go to spend time with me, he replied, "My favorite place!"
We drove down the road leading away from the strip mall then I quickly turned right on Mallard Duck Drive--the street our old house resided on--and slowly drove until we stopped in front of it, so our little routine could play out again.
"Does it look the same?" I said, initiating the routine.
"It looks so different!"
"Nah, it looks the same," I said, just like the time before and the time before that. But even though it may seem like a routine that would get old, it never got old to me. I loved playing this game. I loved being a dad. "Maybe the grass looks different but I don't think so."
"I miss Mommy," he said, his voice trailing into a whisper. "Do you miss Mommy?"
"Sometimes," I said. I lied. But he didn't need to know that. It was just a little, as they say, white lie. Sometimes, a little white lie is better than a big, fat lie. Well, maybe that was a big, fat lie but I wasn't about to tell him that. Parents don't have to tell their kids everything, you know?
"I bet she's happy now," he said, a little cheerier.
"I hope you're right, son."
I drove away from the Crazy House and down the street to the cul-de-sac where the trailhead for the jogging trail around the lake was: Sammie's favorite place. I parked the car and unlocked the doors. We got out of the go-kart-mobile and Sammie started sprinting--full speed--toward the lake. He was running like his life depended on it, his little arms flailing, his little legs trucking. Have you ever had a pet dog who--whenever you open the front door--sprints out the door and down the street like a slave running for freedom? That's how Sammie was running, like for his freedom.
"Come on, Daddy!" he said, calling back to me. I was just standing there like a bump on a log, watching my boy run full-speed toward the lake. "Maybe we'll see that turtle again!"
I locked the rental car and followed after him, stepping onto the jogging trail then walking parallel to his running path, me on the jogging trail and my son on the shore of the lake about fifty feet away. He was having the time of his life, yelling and screaming and laughing and whooping it up and looked like he might fall in the lake since he was running so close to the water. But he didn't fall in although he did dunk one foot in the water, purely by accident. He attempted to jump over a large tree root protruding from the dirt and, when he lun
ged over the root, his right foot clipped the root, sending him off-balance to the water, where his left foot immersed itself in the cold lake. That didn't stop him though; he just kept on trucking.
"Meet me at our bench, Daddy!" he said, waving at me to follow him.
"All right!" I said, yelling back. "Meet you there!"
As he ran from the shore through the grass and up a slight incline to the jogging trail ahead of me, I remembered the first time I brought good ol' Sammie Boy to this lake. He was probably 2 or 3-years old, just a little tyke, a small guy who could walk but wasn't fast enough to keep up with my full-stride, so I strapped the little guy into a jogging stroller and pushed him around the lake. And although I was too much of a fat ass to jog, I wasn't fat enough to speed walk around the lake. So, one day, I pushed him around the lake and this expression appeared on his face that I had never seen before: pure joy. It was as if I had released him in Candy Land or in Willy Wonka's factory or some equivalent of a child's fantasy world. It was sensory overload for good ol' Sammie Boy. He watched the birds fly across the lake and skid into the water. He watched the turtles pop in and out of the water. He watched the squirrels run amok for nuts and bits of food. He watched the frogs and toads hop across the jogging trail. He watched the dogs of our neighbors run and fetch for sticks, even if the sticks were tossed into the water. He just couldn't get enough of the lake. When we were done walking around the lake and about to head back to the house, he turned to me and squealed, 'AGAIN! AGAIN!' Like I said, he couldn't get enough of it. And ever since that first walk around the lake, he had this expression that I affectionately called Lake Face, a look of pure joy and excitement that only a mention of a walk to the beautiful body of water could illicit. It really was the cutest thing. Really. I defy you to tell me of something cuter because there isn't anything cuter than that. It's true.
I snapped out of my daydream to see Sammie still ahead of me, sprinting toward a curve in the jogging trail that followed the lake to the left, and taking walkers and joggers and runners to where our favorite bench resided, a good twenty or thirty feet passed the curve, in the grass, at the right of the jogging trail.
"Come on, Daddy! The last one to the bench is a rotten egg!" he said, calling in the distance. I began to run after him but only long enough for him to believe I was actually going to run. Once he turned around and commenced sprinting himself, I eased back into my leisurely stroll. 'I will get to the bench eventually,' I thought. There really was no need to hurry and ruin my enjoyment.
As I walked further, I thought of a time when Sammie--a little bigger then than when I used to push him around the lake in a jogging stroller--watched a man toss a stick into the lake then the man's dog jumped into the water after it, swimming toward the floating stick in the middle of the lake, a good thirty or forty feet away. The dog diligently swam after the stick but Sammie was horrified. Good ol' Sammie Boy thought the dog was swimming to its doom and, in an effort to be helpful and save the dog, he jumped into the water as well, to swim after the dog and save it. The dog didn't slow down or even notice Sammie until it reached the stick and turned around to swim back to the shore with the stick in its mouth. When it reached Sammie, about halfway to the shore, the dog slowed down enough for Sammie to grab its collar and get pulled back to the shore by the heroic dog. I ran to see if my boy was OK. And as we stood there on the lake shore--the dog shaking its fur free of dingy, lake water and me clinging to my son--all Sammie could say was, 'I saved the doggy, Daddy. I saved the doggy.'
I snapped out of this daydream to find myself at the curve of the jogging trail. Sammie reached the bench way before I even got to the curve and he was dancing his little victory dance, knowing full-well that he had crushed me in his running competition.
"I win! I win!" he said, dancing around the bench.
When I reached the bench, I sat down and watched him celebrate a little longer.
"I beat you! I beat you!" he said, gloating. "I beat you sooo bad!"
"You sure did. My legs are too old to sprint after you around the lake," I said, patting the space next to me on the bench, inviting him to sit down.
"You're not old, Daddy. You're a spring chicken!"
"I'm a fall chicken."
"Chicken shmicken!" he said, sitting down. He kicked his feet back and forth, as kids do when they have too much nervous energy. If there was a way to store up that adolescent, nervous energy and use it to rejuvenate adults, then I would be a millionaire. It's true.
"Do you remember that time you jumped in the lake and swam after that dog?"
"Do I?" he said, excited. "I saved that doggy!"
"You did. I remember. That was awesome."
Then something caught Sammie's eye in the grass. He jumped off the bench and knelt on the ground, picking up a shiny object from between some blades of grass. He held it up for me to see.
"Look, Daddy. A quarter!"
"I see that," I said, holding out my hand for him to give it to me. He did, placing it in my palm.
"Flip it, Daddy. I'll guess heads or tails."
"Are you sure?" I said, skeptical. "I don't want to upset you."
"You won't upset me. No one is around and I can guess it for you."
"OK," I said, flipping the coin then catching it. "Heads or tails?"
A smirk appeared on his face, one that was borderline sadistic, telling me that my boy already knew the answer.
"Heads."
"Of course it is," I said, then opened my hand to reveal what we both knew. Heads.
"I told you!" he said, pumping his fist quickly, but his celebration was short-lived. "Hey Daddy? Do you remember the time Jessie fell and cut her knee and you carried her all the way home?"
I went through the Rolodex of child injuries in my mind and, not remembering that one, then said, "Of course I do. I..." Before I could continue down the imaginary path, I did remember this particular incident, the one where Sammie and Jessie were chasing each other and Jessie slid on the crushed granite of the jogging trail and fell down. The scrape on her knee wasn't really that bad but it bled profusely, as skin scrapes sometimes do. It looked more horrific than it really was, actually. "Yes! I do remember that time. Your little sister was pretty freaked out."
"Good thing you had that little first aid kit with you in your pocket."
"Yes, good thing I was prepared."
"You're a great daddy, Daddy," he said, kicking at a more furious pace.
"Thanks, son."
"Want me to guess heads or tails again? I can guess it every time."
"All right," I said, and we went through the fateful routine several times, four or five at least with this shiny quarter, the one he found in the grass, and good ol' Sammie Boy guessed every coin toss. I realized, right then and there, that I was never going to tell anyone about my boy's ability to see the future. Well, I had tried to tell a few people in our lives about his special ability but I decided that I wasn't going to tell anyone else. What would be the point? No one would believe me anyway. I mean, all it would do would cause us problems and I didn't want that. Our life wasn't the plot of some sci-fi movie, where a stressed out parent somehow finds contacts with the FBI or the CIA or some government agency that claims they want to study the child for the good of the world but really want to overthrow the Russians or counterattack mutant superheroes or some shit like that. So, rather than have more problems, I decided to just keep my goddamn mouth shut. I placed my hand on my son's shoulder and smiled at him. He smiled at me, too.
"Daddy? Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure, son."
"Where do you go when you die?"
"That's a good question," I said, searching for the best way to answer his question: the eternal question. Where did he come up with this stuff? Was he studying existentialism at school? Or philosophy? Or religion? I didn't know. "People have been wondering about that question for a very, very long time."
"Some of the kids at school say that when you die, then you go t
o heaven. But I don't know if I believe them or not."
"Why don't you believe them?"
"Well, because the kids that say when you die you go to heaven also say that mommies get pregnant when daddies go peepee inside them."
"Wha?!" I said, flabbergasted, not expecting the change in conversation from the philosophical to filthy, adolescent garbage. "Kids at school tell you this?"
"Yeah, some do. But they're stupid. Mommies don't get pregnant that way 'cause peepee is bodily waste. Babies aren't made from waste."
"Very true. That's not how procreation works."
"What is pro-cree-ay-shun?" he said, confused.
"That's a fancy word for how babies are created."
"Oh," he said, looking out across the lake. He stared at the reflections on the water, the ducks swimming in formation, then his legs stopped kicking back and forth. He stared and stared without saying a word, a look of astonishment on his little face. I had seen that look several times before, the look when he saw things, then told me, then they came true. Was it happening again? I placed my arm around him as he continued to stare at the lake.
"You OK, son?" I said.
"Daddy?"
"Yes."
"I see something. I see you. I see you standing in front of a lot of people, reading something."
"Oh yeah? What am I reading?"
"I don't know but it is making the people happy. They are smiling at you. They are watching you. There are a lot of them. Hundreds. A bunch. And when you're done reading, they all stand up and clap. They are clapping for you. They are cheering for you, like people do at a football game or something. They love you."
"Oh really? I wonder what that means?"
Sammie & Budgie Page 32