save the life of my child

she knew she had to do it. she had been thinking about it for days, constantly thinking about it. she felt like someone had said to her, in three days you will be hit by a car. you cant avoid it, it will happen, theres nothing you can do to prepare. it was nervousness without the butterflies, dread without the final result being relief. but the alternative was so unthinkable, the nightmarishness of it trumping the nightmares she would surely have for the rest of her life after she did what she knew she had to do.
if she didnt, he would go. there was no stopping james, he was just as determined as she was. she knew what would happen, she knew like the time they had to take the cat to the vet and she had a horrible feeling about it, a feeling that james disregarded as her worrywartness, and sure enough their car broke down in the sheeting rain and she had to carry the cat in her arms the half mile home. she knew that he would leave and that he would be placed in the most dangerous area and that within a matter of weeks she would get a call saying he had died. that he had died in his countrys name and that it was an honorable, justifiable death. she knew what they would say because she had gotten a call like that before, decades before during vietnam. her brother was drafted and her family was proud, and nothing she could say could change their minds or his. she woke him up one night, in desparate tears, and said, ill break your legs, ill move with you to canada. ill do absolutely anything you want me to, no matter how horrific it seems, if only youll stay. and without moving a muscle, he simply said, i have to go. and she knelt by his bed, with her face in his flannel sheets, and cried until her face felt fiery. three weeks later the phone rang and she couldnt say anything to them, she couldnt say, youre wrong. she couldnt say how dare you. because it was true, he was dead and gone forever and the people who were to blame were so goddamned far away that anger almost seemed laughable. she never said to her parents, i fucking told you so. but they knew it was true, they all knew the truth, and again, anger seemed almost laughable.
it would not happen again. she didnt do everything she could with her brother, but with god as her witness she would do everything she could with her son. and gods was the only answer she needed, the only one she had ever questioned. god was the only one who she had to reconcile with tomorrow morning.
she sat on the edge of her bed with her hands cupping her knees and she prayed. she had images of her arms not working once she got into his room, so she prayed that she could muster the physical strength to do it. she assumed james would never forgive her, that he would live the rest of his life resenting her for keeping him from doing what he felt he had to do, so she prayed that if that happened she could live with it. she breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth like she tells her students to do before big tests. she nodded with her eyes closed, reminding herself that this is right and the alternative is wrong. this is keeping him alive.
she stood up and walked into the dark hallway where pictures of him, her only child, lined the walls. she walked down the hall, opened the closet door, and knelt down to pick up the hammer from underneath two winter coats, crumpled and waiting. she stood back up and, barefooted, padded to his door.
she opened it and saw him sleeping on his side, one leg under the sheet and the other one on top of it. his body was so new looking, so blank and clean. this was her child, this was her life and the reason her life meant anything at all. everything else she had ever done, from running a marathon to getting a state award for her teaching, was almost disturbingly irrelevant when compared with james. she would rather, and this is the thought that unlocked the tears from her eyes and gave them the right to slither down her makeupless face, go there for him. she would rather fight in a war that she felt was utterly wrong in every way, and she would rather be killed in the midst of it, than even risk his life at all by allowing him to go. there are times when parents can veto decisions, even if their child is nineteen years old. there are times when they can say no, not because they have more power or money or control over resources, but because they are more able to do whatever it takes. they can say no and pick up the hammer from the bottom of the coat closet and do whatever it takes to make sure that 'no' happens. there are times when parents just know better than the brilliant, stubborn, self-assured children they have raised.
her brother hadnt been asleep that night, she knew it because she could see his eyes open as soon as she walked into his room. he was just laying there, at three am, nowhere near sleep. she worried about that before, that james would be awake too, but she could hear his rythmic but snaggy breathing.
she tiptoed nearer his bed. his mouth was open and there was a dark stain on his pillowcase. she wanted to say something, something like one day youll understand. one day you will have a child and you will see yourself in the shape of their fingernails and the only real happiness in your life will be knowing that they are happy. and one day youll understand that sometimes things that are considered good, or right, just arent.
his knees were bent and stacked on top of each other. she raised the hammer and aligned it perfectly so when it hit it would hit the front, smooth part of his patella.
she knew she had to do it.

the death drills

we were in the tenth grade when it happened, when flemming almost choked to death and mr. wilkins had to give her the heimlich in the middle of the lunchroom, the entire school paralyzed in disbelief. it was a piece of broccoli, a piece of broccoli that eventually, after three pained pumps, sailed out of her throat and landed on the sticky grey linoleum of the cafeteria floor with a slippery sigh. it was that, and john mcfaddens faces that caused her nearest death experience.
john mcfadden was two years younger than us, a fresh faced blonde boy with cluelessly cool glasses who i used to ride home with in carpool. he had the most genuine laugh, the kind that caused you to laugh and then feel satisfied afterwards, like you had accomplished something, crossed something off a to-do list. when my dad died the year before he walked up to me in between 1st and 2nd periods and hugged me, and he didnt let go and he wasnt afraid of feeling me cry. it was the only time that week, other than when mr. julavits hugged me and said nothing, that felt unscared, honest, like they hadnt worried about what to do or say. john mcfadden and i had the type of friendship that was constantly playful, so when it wasnt, it really wasnt.
that day he was sitting three tables down from flemming and i, with a kid who was half his size. they were hardly talking and it was clear that john was just being nice by still sitting there, so that the kid wasnt all alone. he was doing stuff like that, sitting with people and saying hi to people, that was, like his glasses, completely un-self-conscious but exactly right. we were making faces at each other, mostly for flemmings amusement, but the more grotesque and rubbery our faces became the more we started laughing, so it became a staring contest with an acrobatic twist-- who could resist acquiecsing to hysteria while doing something hysterical. the kid sitting at his table even started in on it, clearly wild with happiness at being included.
at the very height of the humor flemming, who had bravely continued eating while looking and laughing, began shaking her head. at first i thought she was just begging us to stop, we were simply too funny, it was hurting to laugh this hard. but when she started slapping the base of her throat and stood up, knocking over the smooth blue chair with a staggering bang, john mcfadden and i understood at the same moment that this had nothing to do with us. still shaking her head and looking around feverishly in every direction, she ran to the teachers table. mr. wilde jumped up as if a snake had sprung from his mashed potatoes and his chair too, like a signifier of the the second act, clamored to the floor with a grating noise. he had no idea what to do, he seemed to be saying as he threw his hands up. john and i, along with the rest of the lunchroom, were standing still, both of my hands covering my mouth. we looked at each other briefly, confirming silently that had we not been so outrageous none of this would be happening, that basically, we are to blame. within seconds mr.wilkins lunged for her and began the heimlich, a process that looks arduous and painful and sloppy. flemmings hands were still at her neck and her face was darkening. and then, from god, that peice of broccoli made contact with the floor and we breathed again--flemming, john, mr.wilkins, me and the rest of the people who saw. she started sobbing and hugged him, and to move towards her was like wading through pudding, everything was muted and murky. we hugged and she said, you almost fucking killed me, and mr.wilkins, who now had tears in his eyes, laughed.
five years later, my mother told me that john mcfadden, a ghost i hadnt seen since my junior year when he transferred to a more afforadable school, was in iraq. i tried to imagine him there, sweet pure john, covered in dust and camoflauge, holding something that could and maybe did kill someone. i tried to imagine him falling asleep at night there, his blue glasses-less eyes open and staring at the tiny holes in the ceiling. i wondered if he laughed there, if he still sat at the table with the lonely guy, or if it had changed him somehow, put callouses on the places that used to be so uniquely soft, so uniquely untouched.
flemming and i were on the phone when i told him he was in the middle of it, in the middle of a war that i still couldnt believe he believed in. we started talking about the day she choked, about how it was all me and johns fault, the poor peice of broccoli just got in the way.
"it was truly the most terrifying thing ive ever felt," she said. "it was like someone had said to me, do this or youre going to die start NOW, like a drill or something. but it wasnt a drill, because if i hadnt been able to get it out, i would have died."
"i cant imagine," i said. because i really couldnt.
and then flemming said, "i bet john can."

moon face

i am beginning to feel dizzy when he walks up to us. im drunk and sitting down on the metal chair that bobs up and down on the back patio of the orchard bar. im wearing a skirt and to keep myself awake i am imagining, in as much detail as i can muster, the imprints that the ovals on the chair are making on the backs of my legs. i just want to go home.
theres really no one sober enough to even suggest going home, or to even know thats where we all need to go, all 7 of us, back to some collective home where we can wake up together and not feel lonely or bad because we all got this way together. if he had walked up to us a drink ago maybe he would be easier to get rid of, this baseball hatted moon face of a guy. his friends have clearly left him behind and he is making little to no sense. he's trying to steady himself as he talks to will by holding on to the back of my chair and i doubt he even realizes it isnt stable, it rocks back and forth and so really what hes doing is making everything worse. im getting queasy and im too inarticulate at this point to do anything at all about it.
he and will start talking about some girl they both knew from vestavia. its a rambling, cyclical conversation and even though im sick-drunk i can tell they are do-se-doeing around any real point.
"yeah," the moon face says, "she was hot though."
"yeah," will says, "she came to the lake with us once, like i said she was like good friends with virginia, but i dont really know her that well."
"whos virgina?" moon face asks even though wills already told him.
"my sister."
"oh, right right. yeah that girl was hot."
claire, beth and chase decide to leave but theyre going back to chase's and i dont want to wake up there, headachy in the faded taupe couch that smells like ash and dogs. i want to go back to alice's, where at least i can sleep in a bed and brush my teeth. she's talking with will and moon face now, and i catch her eye and plead. she holds up one finger, which could mean we really are leaving in a minute or it could mean never. it could mean ill be woken up here, underneath the pod tree, when the church down the street starts ringing its bells tomorrow morning.
leed and devin come back from leed's car. its clear they just did coke, and to tell myself otherwise is sad and almost desparate. leed's arms are crossed and squeezing his torso tighly; he and devin are laughing in that urgent way, like someone just said something surprisingly funny, like someone just really uncorked one. but no one has, and watching them laugh like that makes me feel dirty and tired.
the five of them are talking now, about high school still, people they know in common. devin went to vestavia for awhile, so they go down the list and everyone else seems entirely too interested.
"so you know jared and all them?" devin asks
"fuck yeah man," moon face says, "i was on the baseball team, those were my boys."
"fuck. dude some of those guys are bitches. i mean, whatever i dont really know them anymore you know, but fuck when i was there they used to talk some racist shit. "
"naw man, theyre cool. sure they didnt mean anything by it"
devin sort of expells this vicious laugh, like he couldnt help it. "whatever dude. all im saying is they said some fucked up shit to me and they are one of the main reasons i got the fuck out of that place. "
moon face doesnt want to talk about it anymore so he and will and alice start a new conversation. i look at her again, with even more desparation, but she gives me these eyes that mean she might potentially like this guy. i give her eyes back that mean, oh please alice he's clearly some guy who drives a pick up truck with a fucking confederate flag bumper sticker. it may even say these colors dont run. she gives me eyes back that mean shut up, i may be able to convince myself hes cute enough to kiss.
we're pretty much the last people in the bar, except for the band who played earlier and some regulars who may never leave, ever. i suggest not sticking around to find out if this place is in fact open all night. everyone mumbles to themselves about the time and about being drunk and hungry and then we're all walking outside, saying goodbye to mac and lisa behind the bar, joan the woman who never talks to us but just sits at the corner of the bar and drinks hot toddys all night. will and alice and devin are still talking to moon face, who is now named sam. leed is still bound up by his arms, and he looks a little scared.
"hey listen kitty," he says to me, "devin really hates that guy."
"well whatever we're about to leave anyway and i seriously doubt we'll ever see him again. i dont think he really ventures out into this part of town that often. banana joes maybe? we could find him there every night i bet. or tiki toms!"
im amused by imagining moon face sam getting trashed in one of those gimmicky bars, im amused by how right it looks in my mind.
we're crossing the street now, just leed and i, and he turns around to look at them then whispers,
"no kitty you dont get it."
i look at him for a second to see if hes serious. he goes on,
"you didnt know devin back then, but i remember the stories. he was the only black guy there and those people they were talking about did some fucked up shit to him. " we've crossed the street and are watching them, standing by the door of the bar smoking. "he left that school, you know."
"i know, i just didnt know it had to do with that." i look in his eyes and they are blood shot and skittish. the rest of him is perfectly still.
"he didnt just switch schools. he moved too, kitty."
"when? back then? because of them?'
"yeah. it was really fucked up, im not even sure if hes told anyone else."
"are you sure that guy had something to do with it?"
and before ive even finished the sentence leed is running across the street, towards devin and moon face sam, who are now an amorphous throbbing unit on the concrete, fighting. will's arms are in between them but its doing no good and alice is just standing a few feet away, both her hands covering her mouth. i run across the street.
all i can hear are sam's grunts and devin saying over and over, fuck you fuck you fuck you. hes out of breath so everytime he says it it feels weaker, closer to sad than mad. straddling sam, devin holds his shoulder down with his left hand and pulls his right one back. he punches him square in the face, covering his eye and the side of his nose with his fist. i scream, because it makes an almost satisfying sound like stepping on a cockroach,and i have never before seen a person get hit in the face in real life. alice is crying.
will and leed are prying them off each other, blood is running down sams face and devins is already red and swelling.
"calm the fuck down and lets leave" will says to devin, who seems too out of breath to try anything else.
alice is bent down by sam, asking him if hes ok, trying to figure out what to do.
"ok lets just go," i say "now? please can we just go"
alice looks up at me, "we have to find him a ride"
"ill be fine," he says, his moon face not looking like a moon anymore.
"alice i seriously think we should just get the fuck out of here."
we start walking back across the street when devin turns around and walks briskly, with purpose, past sam who is leaning up against the front of the bar. leed and will run after him but he has already picked up a brick and before any of us know how real it is he throws it at sam, who isnt even looking in his direction, and it hits him in the forehead. alice screams and starts calling 911, devin and leed run to leeds car before i can even move. will bends down and trys to talk to sam but devin and leed are yelling at him from the car, telling him to get the fuck in. will stays that way for a minute, bent down face to face with him, but when leed pulls the car up and the back door swings open, will runs and gets in, only stopping to look back once.
alice is nearly hyperventilating. "what if hes dead what if hes dead"
he isnt dead. "he isnt dead."
i put my hands on both of his shoulders and shake him gently. the gash on his forehead is so gruesome that i am on the verge of vomiting, both because i am still entirely too trashed to be dealing with this and because it is the most blood and raw flesh and hurt that i have ever seen in my life.
he makes a noise. "sam? sam listen you have to wake up and look at me, youre going to be ok, but we absolutely have to get you in the car and take you to the hospital ok?" one eye opens. "alice get the car." shes sobbing too hard to move. "get the fucking car alice." she runs sloppily across the street.
"i shat myself," he says to me, with that one diseased looking eye open.
"ok, its ok. it doesnt matter we just need to get you to the hospital. you need stitches i think, ok? its going to be alright but you do need to see a doctor."
"no im not going if i shat myself. im not. home please take me home."
the car pulls up and i look at alice. "he wants to go home first."
"no kitty are you shitting me! he could fucking die! no way. i am driving to the hospital only."
he looks like a halloween costume, it just cant be real.
i walk up to the window. "listen alice he isnt going to die and he shat his pants and i really think we owe it to this poor guy to do what he wants. i think it would be worse for him to go this way than to not go at all. i really think that."
alice looks at him and then back at me and then says in the tinest voice, "this is so fucked up kitty, i dont even know what to think."
"i know, i know. lets get him in the car."
getting him in the car isnt as hard as i think it will be, he can stand with our help and i get into the back seat with him, steadying him.
i remember my father one sunday came in and said, "i just drove a man to the hospital." he had been doing lawn work outside and had heard a ladder fall next door and there was a man laying on our neighbors front porch who had cracked his head on the marble floor. my dad put him in the car and drove him to st.vincents and told me that he had asked him questions the whole way there, to see if he was conscious or cognizant. i remember being so blown away by that, that my own father knew to do that, that had he not asked questions the poor man may have died.
i began asking sam questions. some of them he just didnt answer, and all of his answers were barely there. he stammered out an address that was un-understandable so i reached into his pocked and hoped that the address on his license was still good.
we pull up to a ranch style house and there is a huge american flag outside. he says he lives with two other guys but there are no other cars in the driveway. we ease him out and find his keys. we walk him back into his room, where we realize that we have to help him changed his soiled clothes. alice and i look at each other, still in disbelief. she says, "im going to wipe up his face first." she comes back and with a wet dish towel she gently mops the area surrounding the major bloody spots, which are his forehead and his nose. blood is still coming out of both places and i realize we have to move more quickly than i am comfortable realizing. he puts his arms up as we take off his t-shirt. as soon as we do we both stop. his right arm is covered in tiny raised pink slices. it looks like a firecracker went off on top of it. underneath all the scars, which look relatively fresh, is a tattoo of an eagle. alice reaches out and gently touches the eagle.
he starts bobbing up and down a little bit. we're so paralyzed by his arm that without even saying anything we havent even started with the pants. he makes a few gasping noises and we can tell hes crying.
"i just got back," he says. "i just got back and for what."
alice looks at me. she shakes her head a little bit, asking me to tell her this isnt happening.
we are all still standing up. "got back from where sam?" i ask even though i already know.
"its shrapnel. in my arm. itll be there forever." hes crying now, full fledged crying, and all i know to do is hug him. so i wrap my arms around his beaten body and i hug him.
and through his tears moon face says to me, "itll be there forever."

to the twins

i am writing you this on your almost three week birthday. im not sure when youll read it, maybe when youre 16, or 18, or maybe when you graduate college. i want your mom to decide that. she will know when you are ready to need it.
i am writing you this because i havent met you yet, but i already love you, and there are very few people alive now who i love without ever having met. in fact i think there is only one person who i already love who i havent met yet besides the two of you, and that person is the one i sort of already know. hes the one i feel in my fingertips when words roar out of me, hes the one that will never feel like waiting. but this is beside the point, and hopefully by the time you read this you and i will both know him.
i am writing you this because i am putting hopes in the two of you. hopes, not expectations. i hope for you that every life stabbing thing that happens ends up being poetry. i hope for you that you have memories which feel unreal in their girth, which feel so beautiful and so scintillating that no matter how long you live they will always feel bigger than you. i hope for you that you will one day know where you came from, the truth of the place and the woman and the life that bore you, the courage and strength and purity and the perfection that you are now part of. i hope for you that life feels like millions of vast worlds, that sometimes you feel you cant conceive of it, that you cant contain it, that it cant contain itself. i hope for you that you never get bored, that you can always find some new thing to touch, to understand, to love.
i hope for you that one day you will know of the time you were born, of what was happening in the weeks before you were carried out of your mothers stomach. im not sure if any one person can tell you these things, about the fact that right now the only hope i can muster is the hope i place in two newborn babies, two babies who cant smile yet, who only weigh five pounds each. two babies who i have heard murmuring in the background of phone conversations, two babies whose tiny fingers i have only seen in photographs given to me by the internet. im not sure if i want to tell you, though i am sure you need to know this--right now, in terms of the world, i am as hopeless as i ever have been. i am terrified and appalled and i am disgusted to the point of wanting to simply ignore it. to simply say, its not happening here. its happening in lousiana and mississippi and pakistan and iraq and darfur but it isnt happening here, to me, as i write on my macintosh six floors above the wet west village pavement. so then, it isnt happening.
i hope you remember that it does happen. that it was happening then and that something equally as scary will probably happen to the world in the course of your lifetime. i hope you live your lives in a way that no matter what is out of your control, no matter what course the world seems to be taking despite your heart pulling it the other way, you can forgive it. you can forgive the world without being apathetic to injustice. you can forgive the world without being silent when you shouldnt. you can forgive the world even when it seems like the world has used up all its forgiveness on the people who least deserve it. you can forgive the world.
i forgave the world on september 24th 2005, the day you both were born. i gave in a little bit, i said but look! look what goodness there is! you two reminded me that the world is different from life. the world can seem to be chasing you, you and everything you know to be true, but that your life can be a testament to those truths, and you can live in a way, no matter where the world tries to take you, that justifies being born. the glory of being born at all.
live in a way that justifies being born, boys. live so much and so hard that at the end, the only wish you have is that life goes on.
i love you both. you have renewed my hope in the world and in life.

i cant wait to meet you.