For my thirteenth birthday my father took me to Sportmart and bought me a San Jose Sharks Starter jacket, a black-and-teal half-zip pullover. I ripped all its tags off and put it on the second we left the store. I tried to ditch the huge red-and-white plastic bag it came in right there in the parking lot but my father shook his head at me and made me walk back and pick it up.
–That what you do when your mom and I aren’t around?
When we found our Cutlass Ciera in Section 9-J, I ogled my reflection in the passenger-side window. The jacket was two sizes too big, an XXL, its elephant-trunk sleeves devouring my hands. It was perfect.
–Little hot out for that, no?
My father was pointing out the obvious, that it was early-August and a particularly-humid one at that. I didn’t care. When I heard the pop of the automatic locks I climbed in the car and turned the plastic knob for the A.C. all the way to the right, full-blast. Then I angled all vents so the cold air would blow right on me.
–At least one of us will be comfortable.
When we pulled out of the parking lot there was a ton of traffic because somebody’s Pontiac Trans Sport was playing possum in the intersection of LaGrange and 159th, plumes of smoke slithering out from underneath its hood. The cars behind it just kept honking and honking and honking until a fat guy wearing Oakleys and an Alive With Pleasure! tank top got out and flicked everyone off with both fingers. Then he directed traffic around the minivan until an Orland Park cop pulled up and took over, bitched him out.
Stalled indefinitely, my father reminisced.
–I ever tell you about playing wide receiver in high school?
I was busy fumbling with the numerous velcro-sealed pouches on my new jacket, tearing them open and smoothing them shut, too preoccupied to respond.
–God, that was back in… ’74? Way back in the B.C.E. The Before Contacts Era. Back when you’d either wear your glasses under your helmet or you wouldn’t wear ‘em at all. Take a wild guess which route your old man took.
I discovered a pocket inside a pocket. I decided right then that that’s where I’d keep my Walkman and rap cassingles.
–Couldn’t see the ball for shit, so I had to listen for it. Zhhhhhhhhhhhh…
My father took his hands off the steering wheel and held them out over his right shoulder, palms-up, like he was going out for a pass.
–Think Jerry Rice ever could ever do that?
I looked over at my father and saw that he was staring straight ahead, squinty-eyed, like there was an object far off in the distance that only he could see.
–No way. Only you could do that, Dad.
***
Thomas Mundt
Thomas Mundt lives in Chicago. His stories can be read now or later in places like Annalemma, Wigleaf, Acreage, IsGreaterThan, and Thieves Jargon. His whole megillah can be found at www.dontdissthewizard.blogspot.com.
