Hero

Yesterday was the Carnival Hangover. It wasn't just the carnival, of course. The day was full from start to finish. It was Saturday, and it was beautiful. We bought new gloves and baseballs and bats and then had lunch at an outdoor cafe in my own hometown, then bought toys at the new toy store that a friend has opened up. It is a hit, and the fellow in the photos here has the owner's cell phone number, so he is hardwired. At school, he can tell them that he knows The Man. He can hook a buddy up. And of course the kid is working on a discount.

The Kid wanted to know if I could make a piece of paper catch on fire with a magnifying glass, so I showed him, staring at the concentrated rays on the paper trying to keep it in focus. The sun was bright and the paper started to smoke to the joy of the Kid, and then it burst into flame. Hero, I thought to myself. Very memorable, but when we walked away, I saw pink dots painted all over the sidewalk. Odd. Then I noticed they all looked the same. When we went inside, I saw them, too, dotting everything. I realized it was my retina and tried not to panic. It took a long, worried ten minutes for my eyes to get normal, after which I thought it time to celebrate. Tell the kids not to look at the focused rays of light.

We played together in a shadeless field with the new balls and bats and gloves. It has been a long time for me, and I hobbled after grounders bending my bad back and painful knees, throwing with a shoulder that isn't held together by anything after a mountain accident, three tears in the rotator cuff, a ruptured bursa, fenestrated ligaments, and a labrum that looks like a torn flag. Hero, I thought. Broken Hero.

At the carnival, the mother and I took turns going on the rides with the boy, finally both too sick to continue, so he decided to ride himself. Head twirling, eating food on dirty tables surrounded by the horde.

And that night, a Halloween movie, the beer and the spirits conspiring.

Sunday's plans were a wash. I think it was a bug. Even my skin felt sore. It could have been anything, the sun and the beer and the baseball and the rides. But the dirty tables and the food prepared in carnival tents surely had a hand in it.

It was a day full of sunshine and adventure, though, the sort that burns its way into memory when you are nine, shaping your idea of days in later years, everything big and bright and beautiful, mornings full of intimate toy stores, afternoons in endless green fields, twilight filled with the swirl of lights and the rapturous cacophony, spinning through space 'round and 'round, then the falling darkness, walking to the car with the two new fish you've already named. At home, everyone on the couch to watch a movie.

Hero, I'm still thinking. Hero.