Parklife - My Weekend at Children's Hospital

Let's just say this wasn't the post i had planned, see i had tickets to see My Morning Jacket friday night, and for those who've never seen them live they'll blow your fucking doors off. I had a hall pass to skip out early, i had booze and drugs and i had a ticket and then Kid B, who's new name is Nick Disaster due to his punk rock like attitude and never ending ability to destroy everything in his path, had this fucking red spot on his little munchkin leg and it just kept getting bigger so after much deliberation i took him to the ER hoping to still make the show cuz i'm kinda a fucking idiot like that, shit i figured they'd wash it out, slap some cream on it, bandage it and bill me later... no such luck.

See they wanted to admit him and they did and suddenly Dad wasn't thinking to much about his show anymore but was getting all worried and shit because even in my small, drug-addled brain i knew they didn't admit you unless the shit was serious right? And so i held him down and told him about nice things and two nurses stuck an IV in his little not even 15 month old arm and his big fucking daddy did his best not to cry cuz both my avid readers know that when it comes to cats and kids i'm like a big, hairy, marshmellow, maybe even one roasted over an open fire, hard and crusty on the outside but all soft and warm and gooey on the inside and of course they said he'd get out in the morning after a course of anti-biotics, so i ran home real quick (i only live blocks from Children's), tossed some shit in a bag and came back to spend the night on one of those horrible hospital room couch things. Of course now when in comes to my boyos i'd sleep on fucking broken glass if it helped, i've never been one to understand how people just kind of view their kids as accessories or nuisances, i mean you made 'em you ought to enjoy 'em, and though i'm not tooting my own proverbial horn i've been told i'm a pretty damn good dad, a bit unconventional but devoted and involved and all that Oprah shit, perfect? fuck no, i'm nowhere near that but i guess i try real hard and when it comes to shit like this i'm not leaving ND's side for a minute. Not that he would let me, little dude would scream if i closed the bathroom door to take a piss.

Now let me state i'm glad i live near this particular children's hospital cuz it is one of the finer one's in the country and let me also state that these places can be the most depressing fucking places on the planet, cuz it's hard to see some of these kids who most likely will never get laid or see a rock concert or fucking live to see 18, it literally makes me want to punch some asshole like Glenn Beck in the face repeatedly and ask him all sincere and shit to have him explain where his all knowing benevolent God is cuz if there was an all knowing benevolent God wouldn't he at least spare the fucking kids, i mean get fucked and since i'm tall and have funny sideburns these kids seem to like me and i like smiling and saying hi and then i walk away and try not to turn into a blubbering ball of mush, which brings me of course back to my kid and the news that he is not getting out in the morning and will most likely be held over til Sunday and this shit is starting to wear on said Dad cuz he's pretty much handling this shit on his own. Basically the infection in Nick Disaster's leg was taking a little longer to respond to the drugs, which was funny cuz daddy has always been quite receptive to them, and they wanted to see what would happen after a few more doses and it was round about dinner time while Dad and Nick sat outside on a beautiful late afternoon and ate dinner that Dad started to crack and though ND was having a blast pointing at neon butterflies, Dad was doing his damnedest to hold his shit together.

So we walked back towards his room and Dad bought him a stuffed puppy that he seemed to take a shine to, he liked to hold it and woof and show it to me so i could kiss it and later that night as the sun was setting over the East End, Nick Disaster and I sat in the window and looked at the 40th St. bridge, i watched the traffic going outbound toward Millvale and Mr. Smalls Theatre, a place i'd seen many shows including one by MMJ, i watched the inbound traffic all rolling into Lawrenceville and Bloomfield, me barrios, the hoods i made my name in, the place i live and drink and take walks in, i watched the traffic up Rt. 28 heading toward the burb i might soon move to and ND pointed at the colored lights and giggled, the colored lights that shown on the top of the hospital, the ones i usually saw as i drove over the Bloomfield Bridge toward home, the ones i'd never thought i'd be this close to and then ND just kind of crawled up under me and leaned his head on his Dad and held on to the aptly named Puppy and babbled in his sweet little voice and Dad realized that with all the action going down on a Saturday night in his hoods that there was no place on Earth that he'd rather be, nowhere but sitting here, holding on to his young son and watching the cars go by. Yeah i was still worried but somehow shit would work out. At times like this you wished there was a button to press that said "bring me the contract", the contract that states that i could bear all my of my sons illnesses/injuries whatever, signed willingly in my own blood... but i guess that's not how it works, it's there life and they have to life it.

We got out this afternoon and things seem to be going better, maybe not totally out of the woods but we're getting there. For the record you'd never know Nick Disaster had anything wrong with him the way he climbs around and raises hell, even the docs where surprised that he showed no sign of pain when they pressed on what was supposed to be his painful infection, they said most kids screamed, the most they got out of ND was a grunt and him shoving their hand away. Kid's a lot fucking tougher than that old man of his.