Content Warning: Language
I knew my Pa. I knew my Pa for the man who endured, who suffered, who knew what it was like to cope with the vicissitudes of life.
“Cody, son, you can do no better than play the cards that life has dealt you.” He said to me. I think it was my first year at senior high. I believed him. Of course I believed him. He was my Pa.
He taught me to throw the football high, with a tight spiral. He couldn’t teach me to run and catch the damn thing or how to cope with the frustration of the ball bouncing past me time after time.
“Pa, could you catch the ball at my age?” I asked.
“Run, son, run.”
The ball flew high and fell out of the sky like a comet. He laughed as I jumped forward, seeing the football bounce in front of my chin, while I slid across the turf.
“Son, you gotta do better than that!”
I picked myself up, dusted dirt and grass off my knees and cursed at the green stains down my pants.
“You’re an ass Pa, a real ass.”
“If I could run and catch your ass, I’d kick it black and blue, butterfingers.” He was laughing hard, his wheel-chair rocking as he did so.
We left the park at sunset, me covered in grass and dirt and carrying the ball. Pa wheeled himself out, the leather on the palms of his gloves making a swiffing sound as they slid round the chrome push-ring on his chair.
The routine was to play ball, and then go for a burrito and pop at Casa in Lexington. I loved to sit and count the cars on the streets between the park and the restaurant. It kept me busy for the drive.
Mama yelled. Whatever time Pa brought me back she yelled. If I had burrito she yelled, if we pretended I hadn’t had burrito, she yelled. I covered for him, he yelled at her and covered for me, and then I ate whatever crap she had prepared in the microwave. I wanted to live with Pa. The judge said no.
The day the Feds came looking for Pa we were enduring Thanksgiving. Mama and Steve, my latest ‘uncle’ were flush enough to have us eating out at the less than prestigious Railhead Diner in Purcell. The food was good, but to be honest, the excitement of a real life F.B.I. agent walking in and demanding to know where Pa was, knocked the food out the park. Mama almost choked and Steve got all indignant until they threatened to run his license plate. He quietened down real quick after that.
Pa’s disappearance was the talk of Purcell and Lexington for a few weeks. The adjoining towns hummed with excitement over the story. After all, he was a hero, disabled hero at that. Kind of made me a hero by proxy, and now I was a dangerous proxy hero, which some of the girls at school seemed to think it was cool.
“Hey, Cody, the feds chasing your dad because of what he did in Iraq?”
“Yeh, some rag-head dick found a D.C. attorney to sue him for being the best goddamned sniper the Marines ever had.”
They loved that line. Hell, I loved that line. Took me four days to come up with it Got me a date with Sharron Westernock, to first base with Abbie Dance and all the way with Sally Terman. Though she probably would have gone with me anyway, she had that reputation. The truth was, I had no idea what had happened to Pa. At that point I just knew he had disappeared and the F.B.I. were looking for him.
The fall they came looking for him was kind of big for me. But it wasn’t everything going on in my life. There were the girls, I got a little work as a busboy and Mama seemed to be getting pretty serious with Steve. For all he was a jerk who dealt dodgy license plates and dated Mama, he was a cool guy. He took me fishing at Owl Creek, hunting deer in Grady County, and to watch the Sooners at Owen Field. I liked Steve, he was nicer than some of the other. The closer he got with Mama, the more he tried to do Dad things. Sometimes I let him.
“You gotta be nicer to your Mama, Cody. She loves ya, y’know?”
“Sure Steve. S’just she’s riding my ass about school all a’ the time. My Pa did okay without much school, you did too. I wish she’d stop chewing my ass. Know what I mean?” I was really chancing it with this little speech. But the game had been good, and Steve had lit a joint in the truck on the way back, so I knew he would be mellow. I know I was, from the secondhand hit.
“Yeah, she gets a bit uptight does your Mama. But that don’t mean you get t’disrespect her none.” He reached over to cuff me gently I ducked out the way and we both laughed as the truck swerved across the yellow lines. He straightened us up, the headlights sweeping across the edges of the road.
Text by stuartcturnbull. Photo via Good Free Photos
Nice story! @stuartturnbull. Thank you for sharing! God bless you! I come from #dreemport
This could be a standalone slice-of-life story, nice job. I think the dialect works in the dialogue, helping to create the regional flavor. I also like how you build up to revealing that his father is in a wheelchair with the detail about his inability to teach his son how to run and catch.
Thank you. I'm glad the dialogue worked for you. It's tricky enough to do with your own, but playing with someone's from another country was a gamble
Yeah, I don't think I would ever attempt to write dialect from another country! I've read that the key is to only give a taste of the dialect, without going overboard. That's what I mean when I say yours works; I don't think you did too much. As far as how accurate it is to Oklahoma ... that I don't have clue about.
Nice narration. I will love to read the part two.
It's already up. 👍
Alright, I'll check it out.
Always writing a good story. I stuck till the end if that matters.
But Cody's dad's disappearance made me wonder if the wheel chair was real or if he was faking it to stay low....forgive me if I am messing with your characters
No worries.
No, real war injuries that put him in a chair
I don't know exactly why I find your writings so intense and interesting. There's this wry but of humour you infuse into it that people may not like but I find incredibly charming.
They are alright right? Somehow, it feels like it should mean that something happened.
thank you
and yes, they were all right. just the tires catching at the edge of a dirt road like when the drivers not concentrating enough, but easily correctable.