A New Game

In the dark, freezing rain jammed the flimsy windshield wipers on the beaten Chevy Hardbakin' Bakery bread truck. Rod didn't see the sliding tractor-trailer until it curved through the light-controlled intersection just outside Findlay.

Panic-stricken, Rod tried daringly to avoid the semi-truck, but there was no chance at all for him to bring tons of steel and iron under control on the slippery road in time to avert a crash. Rod's left foot was on the brake, where it shouldn't have been, flooring the pedal in blind, unthinking desperation. His ten fingers were wrapped around the steering wheel in an unalterable, frozen grip.

The collision was eminent, giving Rod cruel time to fear with a horrible knowledge the impact to come. The crash was mind-bending and body-crushing.

***

Rod drove the length of the black hardcourt and dunked the basketball over a defender dressed in surgeon's garb. The ball slammed through a tractor-trailer tire rim netted with strips of steel weighted down on the ends by flapping loaves of bread.

Chasing Rod were six small boys in gym clothes. One of them was his thin little son, Mark. Tears streamed down the boy's face.

On the opposite side of the highway was an asphalt court with a line of players in Boston Celtics uniforms taking turns shooting layups.

Again and again, Rod stole the ball from them, dribbled to the other side of the highway at top speed, drove the court, and scored mightily. But the fans crowding the roadway acted strangely.

Half of the fans stood and cheered, while the other half sat in silence. One threw a tomato onto the asphalt, where the fruit splotched a red, steamy circle. Written across the fan's chest was Rod's high school's name, West Central, in blazing orange.

***

Two years later, former Findlay College and West Central High School basketball star Rod Lawson sat at the weak-legged kitchen table in his tiny efficiency apartment on High Street in Findlay absorbing the sports page of the Toledo Blade sprawled open in front of him. His plastic left leg shot out from the seat of his chair, stiff as a telephone pole.

Destiny? he thought to himself. Herman Archmiller, his high school coach, dead from a heart attack at age fifty-six. Rod reread the words.

He hadn't tipped a bottle in over ten months, and, recently, he had been reconsidering his questions of destiny. He wanted to see Mark. Are these words about Coach Archmiller part of my destiny? he wondered.

Rod silently considered the last two years. A broken marriage. A divorce six months after the accident. His renewed battle with the bottle. The long ago loss of contact with his son. His ex-wife's death -- complications from pneumonia, they'd told him. Now Coach Archmiller's death. A sudden reason to return to West Central -- a beloved coach's funeral. Was this all about destiny?

In the morning, Rod nervously steered his rickety rust-green Chevette to Lonny's Wrecker and Garage and gave Lonny his notice.

"Quittin' on me?" Lonny spat tobacco juice on the garage's greasy concrete office floor. "And where else do you think you're gonna catch on, Mr. Gimp?" Lonny added with more tobacco-spitting sarcasm.

I have no idea, Rod thought drearily.

***

Rod observed how different Editor Ralph looked. A lot older, gray hair, wrinkled eyes, and he moved a lot slower, too.

Rod accepted the key with a question on his lips. "It's a key to the office of the Town Crier. Come on down after you're settled in your room above the garage. Maggy's got it all fixed for you. And while you're settling in, think about writing. You're gifted in more ways than one, Rod. And I can use the help."

But just as generous as he ever was, Rod thought as spoken words failed him.

"Your boy's with Sherman."

Rod fought back grateful tears.

***

"Look, Rod, I can help you handle this --"

"I know you can, Sherman. Financially, if that's what you mean," Rod told his ex-brother-in-law. His dead wife's only sibling, Sherman was fundamentally solid and successful as a lawyer, and he was offering Rod monetary support to have Mark come to live with him. Rod wobbled a little in the stones of Ralph's driveway as he switched his wooden handled cane to his left hand and lifted his body weight from the plastic prothesis.

"Rod, I don't mean to be flip, but why in the world do you have such a lack of confidence in your son's regard for you?"

Rod pinched upper lip to lower and looked back to his ex-wife's brother. "Fact is, Sherman, he hasn't seen me like this, and...Well, I'm not all man anymore."

"You are still all father, Rod."

***

Many times before Mark shook him more or less awake, Rod cried out his ex-wife's name. He was chilled, and there was a loose cannon ball trying to settle itself between his shoulders. Despite it, he patted Mark's hand, which was clamped onto his forearm. "It's okay," he told his son. "Just a bad dream I get sometimes."

"I dream about mother sometimes," Mark moaned and leaned into his father. "Sometimes I'm scared without her."

Rod drew his son close. "I know. We have to get past it. We'll help each other, okay?" Mark squeezed him.

***

Transfixed by strange immobile participation, Rod listened for the gymnasium scoreboard horn.

There is was then, the horn to commence the final eight minutes of West Central's state championship basketball game. He drifted...

You want once again to do, not just to watch now, helplessly; to snap the cords with your wonderful rimless shot, with the touch, the gift God gave you; to soar back into action with your heart pounding, the adrenalin racing, both feet running; to fly again with eagles while barely controlled frenzy from the stands follows you; to sprint the length of the court two-legged and to rise high for the jam, airborne and free, apart from the supporting system of the fans and yet the center of their universe; to glide high and to fly mighty, for them, for yourself...

"Dad? Dad?"

Rod swiveled round so suddenly and hard that he almost fell to the grass of the soccer field. Steadying himself on the cane, he stared at Mark. Mark stared back, anxiously tapping the soccer ball between his hands.

"Time for practice," Mark said hesitantly. "The team's all here. You okay, Dad?"

Rod laughed. "Of course!" He glanced across the row of eager faces behind his son. "All right, men, who knows the dimensions of the soccer ball?"

Soccer. My new game, my destiny, Rod thought, smiling inward.