Read by David Mildon
Chance’s high-pitched screams filled the house. They spread like ripples, starting in the kitchen and expanding out until they reached every corner of our home, his four-year-old lungs as powerful as an air-raid siren. Peggy’s sounds came to me caught up in the waves of Chance’s screams. Her shoes slapped the kitchen floor. She gasped, “What happened? Let Mommy look at it.”
“What’s going on in here?” I asked. Chance panted, his lower lip extending and retracting, extending and retracting. I looked towards Peggy, her eyes still fixed on Chance’s forearm. All I could see of her was the back and top of her blonde bob.
“Are you okay, Chance?” I asked. I grasped the top of his head and tipped it back to get a look at his face. I liked the way his buzz cut felt against my hand. The tingle of the bristles against my palm reminded of my boyhood summers, of Vito’s barber shop and graying old Vito, who always smelled of hair tonic and pipe tobacco, of my father nudging me toward Vito’s chair and telling him, “Take it all off, right down to the scalp.” Chance’s bristles against my hand reminded me of climbing out of the barber chair, the exhilaration of rubbing my head and discovering it had become a new thing.
“Sam bit me,” Chance said. With his free hand he removed his wire-rimmed glasses and set them on the table. He raised his arm slowly out of Peggy’s hands, moving as if he had been shot in the shoulder. He nodded toward his forearm. I leaned over him, followed his eyes toward a pink spot. I let out a low whistle.
“Yep, you got bit all right.”
“I hate Sam,” Chance said. He dropped his arm into Peggy’s waiting hands. Tears ran down his cheeks, tumbled through space, shattered against the linoleum floor.
Sam. I hated that kid, too.
*
Three-year-old Sam, the only other kid in the neighborhood, lived next door and often came over to play with Chance. Their favorite game? Canadians.
I’ve heard stories about Joseph Conrad as a boy lying on the floor of his home, studying the incomplete maps of Africa and conjuring magical visions of the mysterious continent. Canada was that kind of place for Chance. Peggy’s sister lived in Toronto. Canada was the only foreign country Chance knew of, and he had decided Canada was a distant, exotic land filled with more wonder than a Mother Goose story collection. He loved all things Canadian.
Games of Canadians always started with Chance running in big circles, Sam chasing after him, their Keds thrumming against the grass of the backyard, squeals escaping from their lips. Why they were running changed with each new game. Sometimes Chance cautioned Sam to stay alert as they raced through the snake-filled jungles of Canada. Other times Chance led Sam into battle, charging at foreign devils threatening the king of Canada. But every time they played, eventually Sam would decide that Chance was a hungry jungle beast or a spy for the invaders. And Sam would jump on Chance, send him tumbling to the ground, his soft flesh smacking against the earth, a sound like somebody punching dough. After some rolling around, Sam always ended up on top of Chance.
Sam with his knees pinning Chance’s shoulders to the ground. Sam with his arms raised. Sam, a conquering Canadian. Chance squirming impotently, face twisted, like a man strapped to a torture rack. These are my staple images of my son playing in our backyard.
But I’d always try to stay out of it, try to look busy picking up sticks in the yard while watching the struggle out of the corner of my eye and silently rooting for Chance to turn the tide.
But that never happened.
Every game of Canadians ended this way: Chance would squirm and squirm, the muscles in his neck and shoulders straining, his feet churning the air, while Sam laughed. Then Chance’s eyes would grow large and watery, and his face would turn pink, and he would start to sob, his lips would tremble and big tears would get caught in his glasses, and I would hear Peggy yell from the back deck, “Ed, do something,” and I’d jog over to the pile of little boys and grab Sam by the back of his overalls, pluck him into the air and hold him there with one hand, awkwardly, out away from my body, like a man inspecting a fish he wasn’t proud to have caught, and while Sam twisted slowly in the air, he would laugh and laugh and laugh.
And then I’d always look down and see Chance lying in the grass, gasping for breath, choking back sobs. He always looked as if he had just barely escaped drowning, as if he had just washed up in the backyard thanks to some fortuitous ocean current.
*
Standing next to Chance in our kitchen, watching Peggy fuss over him, I said, “Let me see your arm.”
Slowly, Chance raised his arm toward my face. He turned his head towards me. I held his forearm from underneath and stroked the pink spot with my thumb. I felt slight indentations in Chance’s smooth skin. I asked the question even though I already knew what his answer would be: “That doesn’t really hurt, does it?”
Chance didn’t say anything at first. He looked away from me and towards the wall. He looked back towards me, winced, and nodded his head up and down, just as I knew he would.
*
I didn’t plan to stay up late to watch SportsCenter after Peggy had already gone off to bed. I just did.
I didn’t plan to march toward Chance’s room when I finally clicked off the TV, but I did. The rest? Pure instinct.
Chance’s door stood open, as it always did. Peggy wanted to hear every cough or tumble from bed. I stuck my head in. The light from the hallway illuminated the space. Red and blue plastic bins holding Chance’s toys lined the walls. His bed, a small, red-framed thing with guardrails, stood to my right, centered against one wall. I sat down on the foot of the bed. The springs creaked underneath me.
Chance lay rolled into a ball on his side, his knees nearly touching his chin. He took slow, shallow breaths, made a whistling sound each time he exhaled. He had a puzzled smile on his face. I wished I could walk into his dreams.
I grabbed Chance by the ankle and gave his leg a shake. He rolled into a tighter ball and pulled his hands up around his head. I shook the leg again and Chance rolled on to his back. He straightened out his legs and dropped his hands to his sides. He slowly lifted his head and looked towards me. His eyelids hung at half-mast.
“Don’t be scared, Chance,” I said. “It’s just me, Daddy.” Chance nodded his head twice, dropped it back down on the mattress, and curled back into a ball.
I gave Chance’s leg a more vigorous shake. “Wake up, Chance. I want to talk to you for a second. I’ve got an important question for you.”
Chance stretched out and raised his head.
“That’s it,” I said, “Great. Now sit up.”
Chance groaned and squirmed until he sat cross legged in the middle of the mattress. He swayed like a drunk struggling to clear his head.
“The world can be a little scary, can’t it, Chance?”
Chance looked at me, wobbled, and nodded yes, his movements, slow and exaggerated.
“But fathers should always love their sons, and sons should always love their fathers, right?”
Chance nodded again, still half asleep.
“This is important now, Chance. I want you to really listen to this.” I grabbed Chance by the shoulder, felt the bones, slight and knobby against my hand. I tried to look him dead in the eye. His head bobbled as if it were on a spring.
“I want you to punch me, Chance.”
Chance’s eyelids rose.
“Give me a shot, right here.” I pointed to my shoulder.
“Daddy?”
“That’s right. Give me a shot right here. That’s how the game starts.”
Chance shrugged his shoulders and made a fist. He pulled it back past his ear and brought it forward. His fist moved sluggishly, looked as if it was traveling through water. It bounced off my shoulder and landed back in his lap. Chance giggled.
“Shh. Okay,” I said. “But you’re right, that was great. A good solid punch, but did you see what I did? Nothing. Did you see that? That’s how you take a shot, get it?”
Chance nodded his head as he clenched and unclenched the fist in his lap.
“Now it’s my turn,” I said.
Chance’s back stiffened. He tilted his head, looked at me as if I spoke a foreign language.
“I’m just gonna give you a little shot right in the shoulder.” I reached out and pointed at my target as I spoke. Chance wiggled away from me as if I was coming at him with a needle.
“Hey, that’s not the way we play the game,” I said.
“Daddy?”
“Just relax.”
“I don’t want to play any more.” Chance raised his hands and covered his eyes.
“Come on, now. You don’t want to be a quitter, do you? I’m gonna give you a little punch, and if you play it cool and act like nothing happened, if you can take the shot, I’ll give you a quarter.”
“A quarter?” Chance dropped his hands down to his lap.
I raised my right hand and made a fist. I lined up my target. My fist looked huge next to Chance, nearly twice as big as his shoulder.
“I don’t want to play” Chance said. He pulled his arms up around his head, like a boxer on the ropes, just hoping to make it to the end of the round.
“I’ll make sure it’s a Canadian quarter,” I said.
“Canadian?” Chance dropped his hands down to his sides.
I pulled my fist back toward my chest. Chance turned his shoulder to me and looked towards the opposite wall.
“Here it comes, Chance. Just a quick little shot.”
I didn’t hit him hard, just hard enough that he would feel it. My knuckles against his shoulder. We both felt it, felt it in our bones.
(c) Tom Weller, 2014
Tom Weller lives in Greencastle, Indiana, and teaches at Indiana State University. His fiction has appeared most recently in Epiphany, Litro, Paper Darts and Bop Dead City and is forthcoming in Phantom Drift.
David Mildon is an actor and playwright and was a founding member of Liars' League. His stories Worms’ Feast and Red were performed here and appeared in Arachne Press anthologies London Lies and Weird Lies. His play The Flood will be produced at the Hope Theatre Islington this summer.
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