Ch. 137; Vol. 10
Sometime after 2:30 I was running – somewhere near Mom’s and Dad’s house, but nowhere really near it – running up a hill, a great hill, trying to get to it by crossing patches of flaking brownie tops. Then a dark black night, rain, driving with Mom, Carrie-Bri, and Joe to a market in the city in a tall building, where stacks of incredible chocolate truffles in different colors and flavors were piled in brightly lit shelves. I don’t usually dream in themes, particularly edible themes, but there it was.
Puck was sitting on my back. So was Crackers. I guess it was time to get up. Puck had wedged her against my side, speaking in a light, high, sweet voice…
“Crackers, you are the adorable-est kitty I ever met!”
I could sense she would rather be free…
“I think she was going to slash you, Mom.”
“Why’s that?”
“She thought maybe that she needed to protect me.”
“Ah…”
“Crackers, you don’t have to defend me. I’m serious.”
WHACK.
I can be incredibly clumsy sometimes. I miscalculate more than I’d like to admit. My thumb was bleeding, peeled-back skin, by the time I removed it from thwacking the book bin at the library. But I still needed a tiger band-aid from Puck’s first aid collection.
Puck and I were being bad. A bag of Tootsie Pops went into the cart to share with Sun and the family. I never buy candy. Chocolate, yes. But I literally don’t think I’ve purchased any candy for our home in… ever. So $2.24 or whatever for a little happiness on a stick wasn’t so bad. Blue corn chips. Green apple Chapstick. Puck found it while we loaded the conveyor belt at the check-out. Sometimes it’s ok to get little things.
The rain spit on the drive home. Low-hanging gray in the sky.
The Bear was hard at work behind the old blue-gray desk, punching out about eight hours before our date night. Another game downtown.
Life for Puck was like one big never-ending carnival. It can’t be helped, really. Home schooled, road trips, field trips, hanging out with aunts and uncles and grandparents multiple times a week, a cat, library books, spend-the-nights, church groups… It’s one sparkling merry-go-round. I’ve got my job cut out for me.
Puck struggled through the living room with Crackers’ carpeted condo – with Crackers inside it – on his way to Quiet Hour…
“Whew…” he marched back through the living room with his coin jar. “That was heavier than one hundred caterpillars.”
Quiet Hour…
“I can’t get to sleep, Mom.”
“What?…”
A sheepish Puck walked out of his curtain-closed room decked in footy pajamas, grinning in his carefully planned joke…
“You goofball.”
We played soccer outside for a little while, until we collided for the same kick…
“Don’t laugh, Mom. I think I broke my ankle.”
Puck was giggling pretty hard over my Korean dramas later, killing a little time before the next departure. That’s why I watch them.
I knew it before he hit it. I don’t mean to pat myself on the back on anything, but I just sort of knew it was going to happen. David Freese. Grand Slam. His first home run of the year. Confidence boost successful. But anyway, I had to mention that, because I was feeling pretty good about my contribution to that play.
I love St. Louis at night. Any time of the day is great, but sitting with a sack of banana chips, power berries, moths in the light-haze skyline, on a warm night in May, a line of obnoxious yelling middle school Reds fans behind us… I can even handle that unaffected on a night in St. Louis.
We drove home, talking country music backstory and the few years The Bear lived on a horse farm near Chicago. About nine years married, you still learn new things about the past.
