Page 37 - WTP Vol.IX #3

knee, toe-to-knee, a standard warm-up routine.
Now Kevin launches. The ball flies high—high enough that Matt, ducking, lets it sail on past him, his coward- ice clear. He turns away, laughing. “Heading” just isn’t in the picture right now. Not given his condition.
By the time he’s ambled after it and fetched it from the high grass, Kevin is upon him. Their four feet skirmish, Matt managing to outmaneuver Kevin for the moment. Taking the ball in control, he starts a move up the lawn.
But his son smacks into him, a full body-slam. Matt reels backward and comes up for air, startled by the impact. Kevin’s face wears a mix of . . . what? Re- venge. Determination. The need for self-assertion. And, Matt sees as he draws in a hard breath, a need for reassurance. So, he says nothing.
Kevin has the ball now, dribbling from side to side, looking for a way to get past his father. Matt holds his ground, though, his son briefly stymied.
And here Matt makes yet another quick decision. What the hell! he considers. Two can play at this game! He, in turn, goes ahead and throws himself against his son, chest meeting chest. A full body slam.
Kevin staggers back, astonishment spreading its pink stain over his features.
The two take a pause here, facing each other. They have come, Matt reckons—more than reckons: un- derstands—to a moment that’s decisive, a turning on its axis of the whole situation. Kevin’s face, flushed and sweaty, conveys the same information, his eyes meeting his father with a trace of some tincture, as old as his birth, something reaching back to his first weeks of life.
They enter into it, no words required. The evening moves toward dusk as the two of them skirmish, body against body, hard slams traded, toes meeting shins, each of them enveloped in the other’s ready presence.
And as the skirmish continues, Matt becomes con- scious—could this actually be?—that an odd, miracu- lous thing is occurring every time his frame makes impact, makes hard, rough impact, with that of his son: he is freed from his symptoms! For just that one split second as their bodies collide, he experiences none of them—no heavy weights on his limbs, no skin peeled
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“Adyke had broken there, and the
gods had descended, their punishing whips flailing to sting him with regret.”
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