Winged Shoes and a Shield. Don Bajema

know. The man wants to intimidate other people, too busy ignoring his own kids, who are staring at Eddie in terror.

      Daddy’s kids are crying. Boy, are they crying. Screaming. Daddy is lying on the ground trying to get his burning elbows off the furnace-hot grit. Daddy is flopping around with his equilibrium fucked up from the knots on his head. The kids are under ten, two little girls and the youngest a boy. They keep repeating, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” in sobbing, breathless screams. Eddie has a vacant feeling, as though there is nothing left of himself. If he’d put it in words, it would have had something to do with nature, what he had done, and the way he felt about those kids felt unnatural.

      The wife is sitting in the honey seat. While Dear is getting up on his knees, Eddie sees the wife’s wide eyes. He knows that he has humiliated her husband. Her desperate expression tells Eddie that he has given her husband problems he will not overcome, and those problems will extend to her and her innocent kids. That although she will never express anything but hatred to Eddie, at the same moment she is pleading with him to do something. It is his responsibility because he is the one standing. Eddie’s remorse at the sound of the shrieking children, and the sexual tilt in the woman’s unspoken plea, is more than he can handle this morning. Eddie walks over to the curb and sits down. He realizes the man’s behavior is not an isolated incident, and his wife probably hates him as much as Eddie does. But the kids.

      Dear staggers to the car and parks it across the street. He’s yelling brave things now, since it is apparent Eddie is down for the count. The blustering pear is just that kind of guy. Then Honey starts yelling about the police and runs into Speedee Mart.

      The stock boy, a friend from elementary school, comes running out in his green apron. He squats down next to Eddie on one knee, surveying the commotion building on the corner. “You better get the hell outta here, Eddie. They already called the cops.” Eddie mumbles, “That’s good.” He focuses on a gum wrapper between his dirty, callused feet. His heart is exploding in fear and anger. The fear is climbing and the anger is falling. He wishes they would just drive away. He knows they won’t.

      The cops come. Dear stands there, the center of self-righteous attention. The cops stand nearby, regarding Eddie like a rabid dog. Eddie overhears Honey, who evidently has read Newsweek, because she is certain that Eddie is on “pot” or he would have run away. Dear picks up his cue and makes it clear in a loud voice to all the bystanders that people on “pot” have more strength than normal, and that is the reason he didn’t kick the kid’s butt. They start speaking in quiet voices suggesting that Eddie is winding down from some high and is falling into a stupor. The kids have quieted down. Eddie sits there smelling the wrapper. He’d bet it was Juicy Fruit — wrong, it was spearmint. Slight smile in the corner of Eddie’s mouth. Sentence inside his head — “Just not my day.” The man stands next to the big guys with the guns, nodding his head in some social bond. Eddie looks at Honey, who is smug with the knowledge that she has, probably for the thousandth time, gotten Dear his balls back.

      But as the black-and-white pulls away with a silent Eddie in the back seat, it’s because Eddie wants the kids to see the police take the bad guy away.

      BUCEPHALUS

      I was fifteen. I’d just gotten out of Juvy, and my parents were pretty upset. I was starting my first year in high school and I was hoping to do something right. My father told me I was trying out for the school football team. As usual, I wasn’t in a position to argue with him. I knew I’d never make the team anyway. So there I was on September 5, 1964, at nine-thirty a.m., sitting in the locker room of Wilson High School, the pride of interscholastic sports in San Diego, California.

      I had a helmet that didn’t fit right, way too loose. It looked stupid. My neck was too thin, my eyes too big, my face too narrow. The idea of intimidating anyone in the locker room was laughable. I sat in front of my locker with tunnel vision. Putting on the gear I was having an anxiety attack, before I ever got near the football field. I sat there surrounded by last year’s championship players, thinking, “Dad would just love this.” The linemen were acting big and brutish, defensive linemen especially. The linebackers were the characteristic psychopaths everyone imagines linebackers to be. There was a cluster of pretty-boy stars, undoubtedly the quarterbacks, running backs and receivers. They were all smiling, telling jokes, happy to have another year of glory, admiration, and sex beginning again.

      I sat there in my underwear and socks with the huge helmet wobbling on my head, a ridiculous stranger. These other guys looked like giants; thick cords ran up and down their wide brown necks. Whiskers collected beads of sweat. They looked at me kind of funny. Each pair of eyes would dart at me; each pair assessed me as nothing — that bugged me. I lifted the helmet off my head and put it on the floor as nonchalantly as possible — I had noticed that no one else was wearing his. I reached down for one of my cleated football shoes. At that instant, a huge foot sent it spinning along the concrete floor. I got so nervous I nearly fainted. My brain struggled frantically to determine if this was intentional or accidental. What challenge or warning should I declare? How could I get out of this without looking more absurd than I felt, which was very absurd? Without looking up, I crouched down, staring at the floor, and stretched a few small steps, reaching for my shoe. I could see a thousand tails on a thousand dogs tucked under a thousand chicken-shit dog butts.

      A thick-wristed hand intercepted the shoe and handed it back, saying, “Sorry, Red, here ya go.” “Thanks,” I peeped without looking up. Red. I hated to be called Red. This guy didn’t know my name, sees my red hair, red freckles, red nose, and assumes my fucking name is Red. Plus, I knew that if he had intentionally kicked my shoe again, I would have chickened out.

      I hid my burning face and pretended to need something in my locker. I dove way in, smelling at least eight years of athletic tradition at Wilson High School. My thoughts echoed, “This is not a good start.”

      My father never taught me a thing. He hardly ever said anything to me. He never put his hand on my shoulder, never extended it in a handshake, never even slapped me with it. He saved that for my mother. It was clear that he thought I didn’t exist, wasn’t even worth the bother.