14
Quick story about Ma.
When I was ten years old, I got in a schoolyard brawl with my good buddy Scotty. We had two recesses a day back then, and the whole grade, all sixty or so of us, would flood the abandoned cement parking lot and go nuts for fifteen minutes. The grounds had a faded purple jungle gym which stood on decrepit gray wood chips and there was a pink slide which was painted in all sorts of blue permanent marker and spray paint. I remember going out to that slide every day and admiring the graffiti. All of our lives were displayed in those hieroglyphics; all of our stories. Love birds scribbled their initials into the plastic, bullies misspelled threats, and young Picassos and Pollocks did their best to adorn it in abstract works of young genius.
On the blacktop, there were a few basketball hoops with metal nets, and in the very back of the grounds, there was some trampled yellow grass perfect for games of football, but it was technically part of Mr. Samuel’s property. Mr. Samuel was an older African American man that taught sixth grade English. He was a former commander of a battalion in WWII, and at six a.m. every morning, if you wandered out to the high school track, you’d see him running countless miles, all alone.
Back then, I used to tell myself that one day I’d run out and join him. He had some kind of military mile record and the lowest voice you’d ever heard.
“Cash, are you proud of this?” he used to ask me, staring into my hopeful soul with harrowed eyes. I’d reach over and take my paper back from his strong hands.
“I can do better sir.” A small grin of pride would begin to curl his lips and he’d nod. Hard earned approval. I was a real sucker for it. All this to say, Mr. Samuel was an intimidating man and not too many of us had the sort of courage necessary to try and enjoy our breaks playing football on his lawn.
This day was ordinary other than Scotty deciding to steal my basketball and me deciding to slap him across the face for it like the thief I believed he was. He ran away into Mr. Samuel’s yard where we escalated to a wrestling match of sorts, and really lost our minds. Scotty was screaming like crazy, liable to bite and claw his way to victory, but we were all like that back then, young and desperate to make a name for ourselves. He was really causing a ruckus though, and it got worse as I managed to gain the upper hand. I had him pinned to the ground and was about to land a couple of blows, but a loud bang froze me solid. Mr. Samuel, who was somehow home for lunch hour, exploded through his back doors, pissed as hell. His giant black boots stomped the yellow grass and I swear the Earth shook as he approached.
I shot up off of Scotty and tried to scram, but I slipped on the terrible dying lawn. I scrambled back to my feet but before I could flee, Mr. Samuels had me in his grasp. He yanked us both to his side by our collars. His hands were vise grips and I’m not kidding. He dragged us all the way back to the playground and sold us out to the school. We were given detention from our principal Ms. Smith, who was a sharp, black-haired, perpetually unmarried, mean old witch who wore the same pearl necklace every day. She just so happened to hate our very guts.
Scotty and I were goners that day and we knew it. Her beady bird eyes tried to melt our constitutions, slowly and steady attempting to get us to confess to our crimes or blame one another. All afternoon we wasted away in that office, cold sweating and lamenting our fate. We weren’t afraid of Ms. Smith, or detention, or anything the school had to offer, we were afraid of what our fathers would say when we got back home. We were liable to get the belt for this one. In the confines of that office, Scotty and I never ratted on one another and became close pals because of it. I don’t think we said more than five words that entire day. We just knew what we knew about loyalty, and we knew we were more or less the same. We shared a fate, anyway, and that was enough for us.
Ms. Smith called my mother about what happened and by the time I got home I was already guilty as charged. She sat me down in the living room and I was downcast and furious. She, on the other hand, was calm as the Fox River on a windless Tuesday morning. My father wouldn’t be home for a few more hours, but I knew she wanted to sort this out before he arrived. If I was blessed, she might never tell him what I’d done.
Ma was Italian. She had this sharp long nose and the biggest brown eyes you’d ever seen. Long, curly, dark brown hair fell to her shoulders and a bright white, unblemished smile was always one second away from spreading across her face. Thing about Ma was she loved me far more than she loved herself. She loved me more than she loved my dad or anyone else. She loved me more than she loved anything apart from God himself. At ten years young, a fully ignorant kid through and through, I sat there fearing the worst, still oblivious somehow to the infinite love my mother had for me. She sat across the room, arms folded and patient like always.
“Tell me what happened.”
Her brown eyes nearly absolved my rugged, unreformed soul immediately. I met her gaze, and we stayed that way until I broke. I knew she had the facts of the story, but I also knew she’d believe me no matter what, even if I played around with the truth. All I had to do was change a few details to make myself seem a bit more hero than villain, but I simply couldn’t lie to Ma, never, and she knew that too. So, I let out a big disappointed and frustrated breath and told her the long stupid story about slapping the skin off Scotty and being humiliated in front of all my friends. I told her how Mr. Samuel dragged me through the entire schoolyard and how Ms. Merrill blew her fat red whistle on us and sent us inside to Ms. Smith to rot in purgatory. Ma took in every word, crossed her right leg over her other and folded her hands on that knee. Even then I think I sensed just a tad bit of amusement in her eyes. Not because of what I had done, but in how I confessed it all. Ma always thought I had a real talent for stories. Composed, she let me finish. The ridiculous tale hung in the air and then vanished when she went,
“And how do you feel about this?”
“Bad.”
“Badly, okay? What else?”
“Nothin else.”
“What else, Cash?”
“Mad.”
“Okay.”
“Mad as hell.”
“Cash.”
“Sad.”
“Okay.”
“Sorry.”
“Sorry?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you make up with Scotty?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay. You’re going to have to do that.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you spoken to God about it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Forgot.”
“I think you should.”
“Right now?”
“Whenever you like.”
“Before bed, maybe.”
“Okay.”
And she got herself off the living room couch and closed the gap to my little body. She gave me the warm hug of forgiveness, and it washed over me like a cleansing ocean wave, moved by centuries of love. Her arms were a blanket stitched together by every patient mother, everywhere. One hug comforted my restless, fearful spirit. Everything I ever learned about grace I learned from my mother. She looked me dead in the eyes and said, “Tomorrow, you’re going to apologize to Scotty.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t forget to talk to God.”
“I won’t.”
She drew a cross on the middle of my forehead and left me alone in the living room to think about my young, oh-so-complicated life.
And that’s just one little story about her.
Ma’s gone, though. And I haven’t talked to God in a very long time.