Twenty Minutes

Honestly i don't know how long it was, it was if time had stopped, in my head i kept telling myself "you'll find him, you'll find him", i took slow and deep breathes, it was supposed to be something cool for the boyo to do and now it was a colossal fucking mess, "you'll find him", that's all i kept telling myself, "you'll find him"...   

My boy Nick Disaster wanted to play flag football this year and though it broke his old man's heart that he didn't want to play real futbol his old man didn't tell him that, it's his gig and he needs to do what he wants and so as part of his sojourn into the world of American football he got a chance to go out onto the field when the varsity team came out for their time under the Friday night lights, 200 some odd kids, after the team ran out and the kiddies got to slap five they'd come off the field and you'd collect them, at least that was the plan, a bit of a fucking daft plan considering the crowd but a plan nonetheless, and so they came off and i stood by the gate and waited and kids where going every which way and then there were less kids and still no Nick D. and then i saw one of his coaches and still no Nick D. and then i walked back to where his mom sat and looked up in the stands and made a few sign language type motions that only the mother of your children would understand and she made some back and then i started slowly forming that sentence in my head, "you'll find him"...

And so began a stretch of time that seemed to stand still, to not exist, as if suspended in some heavily clouded vortex, in reality it was no longer than a sit-com without commercials, but it seemed as if each minute were an hour and yet that hour felt like a few seconds, disorienting, and suddenly you are scanning everywhere and seeing all this light and sound and commotion and you just want everything to be fucking still, to stop moving and to shut up...

In cinematic terms i became Chief Brody as some girl on a bridge screamed shark in the pond, i began to move quicker and think faster, i searched inside the stadium, i looked low and in corners and didn't allow myself to think about him being scared in this mass of people on his own, i was soon ducking under the rope and heading towards the park, i asked the high school kids hanging out if they'd seen a little kid in a blue football jersey, i ran down to the ice rink and looked inside, i talked to the workers there, back in the stadium the girl was looking for the police, i began running towards where we parked, i called his name, i kept repeating that phrase, "you'll find him... you'll find him", i was gonna fucking find him, there was no other fucking option, i was gonna, i had to... he wasn't at the car... i found some people on the bleachers at the practice field where i parked, i knew them and asked if they'd seen him, they said they had not... and then my phone rang... and i didn't find him...

But someone had... he said he had gotten mixed up and ended up with the wrong team as they left the field, somehow he slipped behind us on the bleachers and was sitting three or four rows back, he said he had seen me walking but didn't want to yell and draw attention to himself, i laughed, because that was typical Nick. D., his brother would have been screaming at the top of his lungs but not Nick, he said that would be embarrassing, oh my head was swimming by this point, i wondered if he read Hemingway when i wasn't around, i wondered if i could be anymore fucking clown shoes as his old man, at the time though i didn't give a fuck about anything, except hugging the little shit and looking at those tear-stained cheeks and blue eyes as he tried to act all tough in front of his old man, i kissed his head a dozen times... as we sat in the stands i told him it was alright to cry, it was alright to be scared, but it was okay now and i joked (not really) that i  would do my damnedest not to loose him again, he asked if i cried sometimes and i said yes and he looked at me very thoughtfully, as if he was trying to imagine it, because having once been a little boy you never think of your dad crying, he's the toughest guy you know...

Later that night as i put Nick Disaster to bed, we laid in his room talking, admiring the light up moon he has on his wall, he was tired but still wound up and so i talked to him about things, things other than the events of the night,  he was settling in and had wrapped his blanket around him and was holding onto this favorite stuffed animal, a red panda he had got from the zoo a while back, he looked at the moon and said, what if you didn't find me Dad? and i took a deep breath and thought about something unthinkable and said, i'd have kept looking until i found you... but what if it took a long time? he asked... doesn't matter i said, doesn't matter how long it would have taken i'd have kept looking... even it it took a week? or a year? even it if took ten years, i wouldn't stop... would you stop to eat and sleep? only when i had to and probably not even then i told him, and he smiled and said well you have to sleep and eat Dad, you can't survive with out sleeping and eating... i smiled, you're right kid but i don't think your old man could sleep or eat until i found you... Nick Disaster seemed quite satisfied with that answer as he curled up under his blanket and quickly fell asleep, i took a deep breath, kissed his head, and crept silently out of his room...

To understand the relationship Nick Disaster and i have one needs to hear nothing more than the first words he said when he was reunited with his mom, you see many of the "traditional" roles in the last three years have been jumbled up here in the lily-white, the girl is the success story, she works a lot, is stressed a lot, and is the breadwinner, i do my best to make life easy around the casa for her, part of that is taking care of two rambunctious boyos, and since Nick D. was three most of his waking hours are spent hanging out with his dad, for better or worse it's hard to tell, his mom is a brilliant parent but it's his old man he's around and so when reunited with his mom he looks up, tears rolling down his cheeks, and tells her, i was only crying cuz i was afraid i was never gonna see dad again... as his old man was being relayed this message a smile was spreading across his face, he could see the smirk she had on her face and she told him this, as he hung up his phone he was glad it was dark so no one (except the girl who already had it sussed) would see him wiping the tears out of his eyes...

The relationship between fathers and sons are tricky things, i've heard more than my fair share of horror stories, much more than i've heard good stories from sons, anyone who's hung out in the lounge knows my father and i are super-close, doesn't matter how often we see each other, an average phone conversation between my old man and i is around two hours, he taught me how to be a man and still gave me the room to learn shit on my own, between the bar stool tales and the books read i understand the shadow a father can cast over his sons, i understand the shadow i cast and how my actions affect the boyos, how they look to me as a guide, albeit in completely different ways, i understand that it's my job to keep them out of my shadow and in the sunlight as much as possible, to do my best to leave as little psychic damage that a father can cast upon his sons, i understand it and yet i know at times i fail miserably, and when i do i examine my mistakes and try to learn something from it, hopefully to not repeat said mistakes but the judges have yet to tally their scorecards on that account...

Of course when all this is going on one does not allow themselves to think about certain things, about walking and searching and the maniacs that the 24 hour news cycle tells me run the streets preying on lost children, you just hope that it's a big fucking laugh, a story to be told for years to come, in the end hope to never have it happen again, make sure it never fucking happens again, and so somewhere around 3:37 AM my eyes popped wide open and i got out of bed and walked to Nick Disaster's bedroom, i gently pushed open the door and looked in, he was there, hugging his red Panda, a rhythm to his breathing, he was there, my boyo, sleeping soundly, and had he woke up he could have seen his old man smiling and once again wiping the tears from his eyes...