Sean Beaudoin - Welcome Thieves

Rose especially digs Sly’s “Family Affair,” doesn’t seem to mind that Nikki always fucks up the changes to “Good-bye Mr. Porkpie Hat.”

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

Rose likes to start a question but never knows how to finish. For a second Nikki thinks that’s a pretty good metaphor for every string he’s ever plucked, every melody he’s never written.

But then decides that’s just more arty bullshit.

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

Her little mouth trembles, desperate to force out something of value. Nikki can already tell by the time she’s thirteen she’ll cut her hair at an angle across her jaw, dye the tips purple, get a nose ring. She’ll have posters of bands that don’t exist yet above her bed and a leather-pant boyfriend. She’ll crash a car and burn down a bodega and spend freshman year teaching herself to play Siouxsie on the trombone.

She’s got the time, she’s got the genes.

She’s got the jones.

Nikki tries not to be jealous, fails.

“C’mere little petal,” he says, plays Rose another song.

1995 Ford TraumaHawk SL Ambulance

The Dayton State Cornholers. Actually Musketeers, but still. They really only took Danny because of his willingness to hit. And be hit. His high school had made an unlikely run at the state lacrosse championship and it was more or less concluded his coarse and speeding bulk was the reason. There was a scholarship offer. He was thinking enlist. Strap on the Kevlar, get seriously ballistic. Also, he hated to study.

But the old man told him to smarten up.

“Have fun in Ohio. Try not to be a pussy.”

By the second day Danny had a reputation. Bigger players stepped out of the way as he came tearing across the field, pads slapping, bent low for maximum collision.

“Chillax, brohman,” they said, mimed doobie fingers. “It’s only practice.”

“Chillax this,” he said, hit even harder.

There was a purity to mayhem. To split lips and sprung hamstrings, when mud tasted as good as blood. Coach started calling Danny “Junkyard.” Girls stared in the caf. He became a minor god of chaos and cracked ribs, the terrifying silence of a blindside tackle or unattended erection. Danny’s teammates jumped at the bite of his voice, soaked in the wisdom of his elbows, Saturday nights with pitchers of Bud and gathered blondes hazed with smoke and stories, Then Junkyard flies over and absolutely destroys the dude! I bet he still hasn’t gotten up!

He took every dare. Eat a worm, run through traffic naked, follow that hulking waitress into a stall and make like a two-backed animal, moan loud enough for the entire bar to hear, release untold tiny flagellates across her skirt more than a little on purpose, leave proof of the negation of life itself.

Release being just another form of destruction.

Or, hey, maybe that’s thinking too much. Fucking’s fine but lacrosse is decisive. Put the ball in the net, tally it up. Put your man on his ass. Constantly. Assert a hominid dominance. Not out on the street after six tequilas and a trip to the drunk tank: within a grid and according to strict and unwavering rules. Because to face a rival in pads whose chest is made for nothing so much as to be stepped on, and then to do so, is a work of art that not only resists the censure of those who absorb no pain, who form opinions on the sidelines, but often results in the ability to sit in a packed bar all night long without a dollar in your pocket and howl for pitcher after pitcher of cheap beer utterly secure in the knowledge that someone will eventually bring it.

Junk-yard! Junk-yard! Junk-yard!

The third game of the season Danny took a cheap shot in the crease, bled out like a pig. Time was called. His teammates kicked at the dirt and swore revenge, without the sac to actually follow through. So he sat for forty-eight stitches with a fish hook and no anesthetic, sprinted from the locker room and doled near-Balkan retribution. The Cornholers won by eleven. Even Coach was like, “Bring it down a notch, Danny, they’re gripping their pearls.” And it was true, the other team full of guys with something better on the side, prelaw, premed, all of them suddenly asking, Who needs this madness?

Danny did.

Every second, minute, inch, foot.

Sweat and uniform and pads and stick.

The Cornholers rose in the standings, playoffs in sight for the first time in decades. Then the last game of the season a big-name Ivy League team rolled in, none of their players much except the midfielder, all jaw and shaved head. A towering Cossack with three-day stubble and yellow breath. His eyes were empty, lips flecked with blood.

“I’ve heard of you,” the Cossack said.

“No you haven’t.”

“I’ve seen you play.”

“No you didn’t.”

They danced and hacked and elbowed all the way across the field.

It hurt.

Danny watched as the Cossack clotheslined their forwards, dished cheap shots to the fullbacks, delivered pain with pro efficiency. With a radiant grin. There was no hesitation, no nuance. It was almost like being in the backyard with Dad again, running drills, pushing limits. Exploring the fine line between Just Doing It and puking a streak of Gatorade across the neighbor’s fence.

“You and me? We could be friends,” the Cossack whispered, as they chopped and muscled in front of goal. “Let’s hang out, go to dinner and a show.”

Danny knew he had to quip back. Be funny and casual. Arch and bold. But his shit talk was gone. The Clint stare, the Bruce smirk. He wanted to take off his spikes, feel his toes in the grass. He wanted to eat graham crackers dunked in milk, go home and lie under a quilt, watch something old and dumb like Melrose Place , the episode where Heather Locklear wears tight pants.

During timeouts the guys punched Danny’s arm and shouted encouragements, confused by the loss of their beautiful madman.

Smack him! Shut his mouth, Junk!

Even coach wadded an entire pack of Dentyne.

Christ on a stick, Danny, you waiting for an invite?

In the third quarter he stole a pass and raced up the left sideline. A breakaway. Just the net and thirty open yards. The goalie waited, resigned. They both knew Danny was going to score and then pretend like he couldn’t control his momentum, feed the dude sixty pounds of marinated shoulder.

There was no sound, no sweat, no grass.

Just his feet, just his breath.

And then the Cossack coming.

Fast and from behind.

A low giggle, the heavy tromp of cleat.

They connected with a slobber-crack that echoed across the field, rose through the stands, halted the game.

An hour later Danny woke in the ambulance while a nurse with a Kid ’n Play lid hooked him to a tube. It felt like he was wearing himself sideways.

“Did we win?”

“I doubt it.”

“There a problem?”

The nurse slipped Danny her phone number. “After the surgery? You decide you don’t need them leftover Oxys, you give me a call.”

That night the entire squad gathered around the bed, stared at his leg in traction, the pins in his hip, said all the things you say, relieved when the orderly finally kicked them out.

The article in the campus paper was intentionally vague, combed by a paralegal for liability.

A week went by, then three, then six.

Six teammates visited, then three, then none.

Some pimply kid cleaned out Danny’s locker, dropped off his gear jammed into two Ninja Turtles pillowcases. He was allowed to stay enrolled, but no more scholarship. “The good news is you can concentrate on your classes,” a counselor of some sort suggested. Friends stared at their onion rings while Danny limped through the caf. He’d pass the team on the quad, all the chillaxers and brohmen lowering their eyes, his torn gait evidence of something damning.