from something impossibly long (tentatively titled _what it is_)

Sean Ranney takes his wedding ring from his truck’s ashtray. Before he goes into the bar, he works the ring back on his left hand.

He grabs coins from the ashtray for the pool table. He grabs an extra lighter in case his brother steals the Zippo. He moves the Visene from the ashtray to the top of the truck’s armrest, so he won’t forget to put it in whenever he decides to drive home.

He holds a flint point his son Michael had found and given to him the day before.

Parked outside the Well, he feels the point’s still sharp edges. His ten-year old son had told him it is called a Snook Kill Point. Obsessed with Native Americans, Michael had said, “The Mattabesec hunters didn’t make the point. But they were the last to use it as a knife.” With a flamboyance that unsettles his parents, the kid went on to explain exactly how the flint, mined in New York State, ended up in Connecticut. Sean had heard this story, and many like it, thousands of times before.

Roseport’s streets are wet. The October air is humid. The leaves on the maples lining main street are still green. A steady flow of European sedans make right-hand turns on red into vinyl-sided subdivisions. People on the sidewalk, on after dinner walks, wear shorts, with rain jackets or Uconn hooded sweatshirts tied around their waists. Young mothers jog, pushing sleek baby carriages past competing gas stations and a veterinarian clinic. Children on bikes cut through the parking lot of an auto-body shop on their way to the park for one last game of tag before it is time to go home.

Sean Ranney takes the safety off his pistol. He holds the gun. The weight means something real. Heavy, he feels the urge to put the gun in his mouth. Sean Ranney wraps his lips around the barrel. It has been over twenty years since the gun has been fired, but somehow he can still taste the last explosion. What if he bit down on the barrel? Would his teeth break like opaque icicles, cracking and falling in different directions? Would his teeth be pushed through his gums and out his jaw and out his head? He can see it happening like a Shel Silverstein animation. Both of his boys were once so fond of those poems and those minimal drawings. He puts the gun farther down his throat. He gags. The muzzle touches his tonsils. He gags again. He dares himself to touch the trigger. The gun feels heavier when he does. He tries to make his mind go blank. Just blank.

Instead, he feels absolutely ridiculous.

He pulls the gun from his mouth. Saliva off the barrel drips into his lap, spotting his khakis like he has wet himself.

Sean Ranney puts the safety back on the pistol and wipes the end with the sleeve of his canvass work shirt. The gun goes back under the driver’s seat. Tightly, he grips the steering wheel.

Desperate and depressed are not the same as selfish and worthless. Or at least that is what Sean Ranney convinces himself as he decides to suspend his own death. But powerlessness: that is a horrible feeling. It is guilt. It is regret. But if he is honestly asking himself—honestly—if he wants to die like this—in a parking lot with his head ripped open with no note, without any explanation, leaving a wife and two kids all alone—he honestly has no idea.

He puts the flint point into the pocket of his trousers, takes off his tape measure from his belt placing it next to the rolled blue prints in the passenger seat. He shuts the truck door. He does not lock it.

The sun is about to set. The sky is going to turn purple and pink and be streaked with Stratus clouds that will look like thousands of individual lakes; that will look like an upside down version of Monet painting the wild lights of Maine. The time Sean might spend, supine in those lakes, with the water up to and covering his ears, each breath beating in his chest, his eyes wide and mind meditating and reaching beyond everything but nothing that is not inside himself already. He will feel like Melville up on a mast, high above it all and connected. For whatever reason, some people cannot afford to be sentimental. Given the chance, Sean Ranney would love to experience something else. 

The Well is not busy. But it is Monday. And it is football season. The Well will soon be full. The local drunks will be slapping Sean on the back, asking him why he never comes around, asking him where his Patriots jersey is, wanting to talk about the good old days. It is always about the good old days in bars like the Well. And that is exactly why Sean Ranney avoids bars like the Well. Happiness—with a reliance on the past for present comfort—that is not how Sean Ranney wishes to spend his time.

He buys a pack of cigarettes at the convenience store in the same plaza as the bar. Sean Ranney has not had a cigarette since before Michael was born. Before he goes into the Well, he stands just outside the doorway and lights the Winston with the Zippo.

Relaxed, almost dizzy, temporarily relieved of his guilt, he watches the sky change.

It is beautiful. It is the first time in a long time he has been willing to realize it, or at least admit it. But somehow, it still is not enough.

1.

The ball skipped around the pitch as players decked in mud did their best to stay on their feet. The ball was hard to control. Long passes, if not put right to a teammate’s foot, went skidding out of bounds.

Because of the weather, Roseport High School was forced to change their style of play. From working class kick and run to a short pass, possession game, the Roseport boys adapted well. But the switch in tactics had disrupted the opposing team’s game plan. Deerville could not adjust.

Roseport was playing a man down. Billy Rizzo, the coach’s son, received a yellow card. It was Billy Rizzo’s second of the 1988 Class S Connecticut State Soccer Tournament. Billy Rizzo sat on the bench. A bundle of nervous energy, Billy Rizzo was ready to explode at any moment.

Roseport was holding onto a one to nothing lead. Their defense was in control. But their offence continued to keep pressure on their opponents.

The sky looked like it could snow at any moment. Seagulls circled overhead. It was cold. But the soccer field wasn’t frozen. It was torn up, or peeled back like the skin of an orange, revealing a sloppy brown underbelly that probably, not more than 40 years ago, grew shade tobacco.

The Roseport subs huddled on the bench in black and white warm-ups, their breaths visible in the November air. On the sidelines, Roseport fans stood in the wooden bleachers ringing bells and blowing air horns and drinking hot chocolate or thick Italian coffee from green metal Stanley thermoses. Some fans—usually the anxious fathers of players—paced behind the bleachers, smoking, unable to watch as their sons did their best not to embarrass themselves. 

Sean Ranney stood in goal. His uniform was unrecognizable. The Roseport logo was illegible under a mess of mud and cold rain and sweat and maybe an opposing player’s blood. The son of a builder, Roseport supporters could not mistake the goalie’s solid frame. His blast of red hair could be spotted from the parking lot. Newspaper reporters, late to the game, had no problem finding Sean Ranney. He was going to be a story. He was one of two Roseport players most likely to win player of the tournament. Through four games, he held Roseport’s opponents scoreless.

The reporters’ cameras were pointed at Sean Ranney. The cameras followed his steps snapping pictures with every twitch of his reflexes; snapping multiple pictures as he leapt through a crowd of players to grab a wet ball out of the cold air. None of the pictures, however, would make it into Sunday’s Hartford Courant.

Sean Ranney stood in goal. With obsessive concentration, he followed the action in the midfield. He bounced on the toes of his cleats to keep loose. His gloves were like oven mitts. His hands were huge from swinging hammers alongside his father. Slave labor was the family joke. He clapped his gloves together to encourage his teammates. 

“You’ve got help square,” Sean yelled as a Roseport midfielder dribbled the ball down the sideline. “Look right.” He was calling to his best friend, Joseph Ripa. Joseph Ripa was controlling the midfield. Running around with endless energy, Joseph Ripa was controlling the whole field. 

The game was being filmed for a local cable access channel. One camera was used. The commentator was unabashedly a Roseport supporter. He was a Roseport student. He commentated on the game into a Radio Shack microphone while another Roseport student manned the camera. They worked from an aluminum press box above the stands. Not wet, they were impressed with the school’s performance.

Joey continued to dribble down the sideline. His hair was gelled perfectly in place. The skin on his face was like olive cream, but crisp with a snap only youth could maintain. Even though every other player on the pitch was drenched, Joseph Ripa appeared clean and dry—like a cinema hero with perfect posture from an era long past, bushwhacking through some impossible jungle to rescue the girl. He crossed the ball into the opposing team’s 18-yard box. In the air, the ball met the head of a Roseport striker, about 12 yards from goal. The re-directed ball sailed wide out of bounds.

Sean eagerly clapped, encouraging his teammates to keep the pressure on.

The ball boy ambled for the errant header, forgetting to send the extra ball he held over to the Deerville goalie. Coltan Ranney, Sean’s younger brother, felt no need to hurry. He was more interested in playing his Nintendo Game and Watch.

The Deerville goalie yelled for Coltan Ranney to give him a ball. Coltan, nine and already always bored, with a careless hurl, eventually tossed the extra ball to the impatient goalie.

Coltan had to conceal the hand held game, which was a gift from Sean, for fear he wouldn’t be paid the twenty dollars he was to receive for doing the ball boy job. With “Gold Cliff” safely in the front pocket of his Red CB ski parka, Coltan dragged his matching Nike Air Force 3’s to get the ball that sailed out of bounds.

Sean didn’t pay attention to his younger brother. Sean’s mother, however, stood in the stands, huddled under a Red Sox blanket, watching her youngest son with a smile on her face. Lorrie Ranney, always feeling the need to explain Coltan, said to Joseph Ripa’s mother, “The bigger he gets, the sadder I get. I wish they could just stay little.” Lorrie Ranney laughed. Joseph’s mother said nothing in English. She responded in Sicilian accented Italian. Lorrie Ranney laughed even though she only half-understood.

Later, Joseph’s mother, in Sicilian accented English, would ask Lorrie Ranney where her husband Douglas was. Lorrie Ranney didn’t know she would be lying when she would respond in American accented Italian, “He had to work.”

*

It was early in the second half. Some Roseport students were still in the parking lot. School administrators called these kids cutups. Their classmates called them river rats, the Roseport equivalent of white trash—because a few did indeed live along the banks of the Connecticut River. What in Deerville would be considered prime real-estate—populated with multi-million dollar homes with Ipê decks leading to teak docks out to 14-foot boats fathers used to teach their children to sail—was in Roseport, a dumping ground for those on state aid, single parent households living in three family apartments, those with substance abuse issues, those unable to maintain any semblance of balance or harmony in their lives. These students stood around the opened doors of a Chevy Nova as a hard-rock mixtape played on the car’s stereo. A stolen bottle of Bukoff was added to half a bottle of Coke. The students passed the bottle around, taking turns taking hits off a pipe fitting, blowing the marijuana smoke into the Nova and playing air guitar along to songs by AC/DC and Black Sabbath and Metallica and Guns N’ Roses.

*

The track around the field was new. It was red and made of some kind of porous rubber. It was official. It was expensive. And the town of Witlock, the oldest in Connecticut, was happy to frame the 1988 Connecticut High School Boys Soccer Tournament with its track.

Though it was just before afternoon, lights stretched over the field fixed atop large wooden poles. Hewed from pine logged in Maine, the poles were like oversized telephone poles, or the unfinished masts of 19^th century sailing ships.

Lights on a town field were a status symbol. Witlock was proud of their lights. They were proud to have spent over 150,000 dollars to have their football team play at home at night.

Both Deerville and Roseport were towns too small to justify the expense of lights on their fields. Neither school had a football program. If a town was lucky, having a football program was supposed to generate enough money to justify something like a field with lights. Soccer didn’t bring in the same kind of money football did.

If you were to ask a Deerville parent why their high school didn’t have lights, they’d probably mention the classless nature of night sporting events. Look at Wimbledon, they might say. The famous British tennis tournament played on grass has never had a night match. What about night skiing? they might say. But ask a Roseport parent the same question, and they’d probably say something like, ‘We’re saving.’

Official stadium rules stated there was to be no pets allowed. Yet, a Rhodesian Ridgeback was off its leash just left of the Deerville section of bleachers. The dog was intimidating. Little children, upon seeing the dog, hid behind their fathers. The mother of a Deerville player, a news anchor with a local station, with a face recognizable anywhere in Connecticut, had convinced the old man at the ticket gate to let the dog in. Face-to-face with a face he knew from television, the old man at the ticket gate let the dog in, free of charge. The Deerville parent was letting the Ridgeback roam free, occasionally and successfully calling the dog back to her side.

Deerville was having a difficult time maintaining possession. Their strength relied in their strikers, but their midfield could not feed their star scorers the ball. The Deerville head coach had even tried swapping some of the players, moving strikers into the midfield and midfielders up front. The tactic proved ineffective. Not only did the strikers run out of energy—running a greater distance for a longer period of time—but Roseport so efficiently maintained the ball, the Deerville strikers had no real opportunity to gain possession.

Frustrated, Deerville got cheap.

The ball was passed back and forth between Roseport midfielders. Players organized into a series of triangles setup to spread the Deerville defense. Quick one touch passes had Deerville scrambling. The more they scrambled, the more tired they became; the easier it was for Roseport to move the ball forward.

Frustrated, Deerville purposely stepped on their opponents’ cleats. During set pieces, they refused to give Roseport the minimum ten yards during free kicks. Deerville would elbow Roseport players as they lined up during corner kicks. The officials missed it, or allowed it to happen. It was all an attempt to unsettle Roseport. The same tactic had been successfully implemented in a regular season match that resulted in Roseport’s only league loss of the year. The idea was to get under their skin—much in the same way trash talking is used in basketball—effectively disrupting a player’s concentration, which hopefully would lead to a team breakdown. But Roseport resisted the temptations of retaliation.

The score was still Roseport one, Deerville nil when a Roseport corner kick, taken by Joey Ripa, was lofted into the box. What’s called a floater, the ball hung in the air for an impossible amount of time. It was a straight kick with no in-swing so as not to easily curl into the goalie’s reach. The players watched the same way a baseball infielder tracks a pop fly.

The Deerville goalie came off his line, looking like he wanted to punch the ball away from danger. The tallest player on the pitch was a Roseport defender, big and Polish, brought up front just for these types of situations. He was the ball’s intended target. He waited. He timed his jump. The Deerville goalie started towards the ball. With the extra advantage of being able to use his outstretched arms and hands, the Deerville goalie was going to get to the ball first. But he didn’t. It was almost as if the goalie had waited. So as the ball was going to find the forehead of the Roseport defender, the goalie’s fist struck at about the same time—struck both the head and the ball.

The ball ricocheted away. The Roseport defender fell to the ground holding his head. The referee didn’t deny he saw it. He blew his whistle for the play to stop.

Billy Rizzo was off the bench ready to fight. He cursed. His hands signified his anger, flailing like they were pushing back an unbelievable swarm of bees.

The referee on the sideline sprinted to Billy’s side. Just in case the coach’s son got out of hand.

Coach Rizzo told the line referee he would handle it. But Billy didn’t want to sit back down—but he did shut up. Still on edge, he watched as the referee chatted with the opposite line official about what the proper call should be.

Up in the aluminum box, the Roseport student said into the Radio Shack microphone, “This has to be a penalty kick. And there’s only one player for the job. There’s no other logical option. Joey “the Ripper” Ripa should be lining up to score his first goal of the 1988 Class S Boys Soccer Championship.” The voice was self-assured, practiced, even and articulate, but there was an almost self-deprecating undertone, like the public access sports caster was all too aware his was a parody of those he idolized. In the United States of America, at the end of the 20^th century, there were no sports announcers in the country who could give memorable soccer commentary. So it was Marv Albert and Vince Scully and a young Sean Mcdonough, voice of the Boston Red Sox, the student studied and emulated with aplomb. His name was Salvatore Viscontii. Next year he would be going to Syracuse University. He knew exactly what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

Joey went to the sideline for a quick drink of water. The referees agreed it was going to be a penalty kick.

The Deerville coach was careful not to get himself ejected when he expressed his displeasure with the call. The goalie wasn’t as calm. He had to be held back. What he would have done had he not be restrained was up for debate. Salvatore Viscontii had an idea:

“Let him go and Deerville will find themselves in a world of hurt. With no backup keeper other than a freshman starter for their junior varsity squad, Deerville will be left to search their wallets for an answer. But there will be no buying their salvation today. So let him go, Deerville, and watch your hopes of holding back the surging Roseport Eagles disappear. I dare you.”

Sean sprinted off his line, making his way to his team’s bench. The athletic trainer was inspecting the punched defender’s head and neck, making sure the player wasn’t injured. Billy Rizzo was still fired up. Sean put his arm around Joey. They discussed the penalty kick as Sean massaged Joey’s shoulders. Coach Rizzo went over things the Roseport players needed to pay attention to, mainly the fact Deerville was staring to get overly aggressive and chippy. Coach Rizzo warned his players about retaliating. He said, “We didn’t come this far to have something unfortunate like a fight ruin our season.” The players agreed with claps and whistles and ‘let’s go’ calls and cheers. Sean and Joey stood off to the side. Calm and collected, Sean explained to Joey what he thought the opposing goalie’s weaknesses were. Joey agreed. They high-fived before the team huddled. All in a circle, the Roseport players each put one hand in the middle, Coach Rizzo led the chant: “State Champs!” Sean Ranney sprinted back to his goal.

The ball was placed on the spot after the goalie was given a yellow card as a warning. After such a blatant attack with a closed fist, the yellow card was welcomed by the Deerville coach.

Joey looked down at the ball. Under his uniform and under his white turtleneck was his lucky t-shirt: The red and gold of Messina. The shirt was purchased on his last trip back to his parents’ hometown of Mellili on the island of Sicily. Joseph, a fan of Messina’s star, Salvitore Schilacci, brought the shirt back and wore the shirt under his uniform for every game. Before he took the penalty kick, Joseph Ripa re-tucked all three shirts into his shorts.

“He makes the Sign of the Cross. At this point in his soccer career it’s probably an unconscious habit. He starts his approach. It’s slow and steady. The goalie doesn’t look ready. He bounces, quickly, from left to right and back. Here’s the shot! It’s taken with the outside of his left foot, it curls… And goal and goal and goal! The ball found the top corner of the net and goal! Perfectly curving from foot to net. A beautifully delivered shot that had the Deerville keeper beat even before Ripa touched leather to leather and goal! What an amazing sight it is to watch this kid play! Goal! There’s a reason he was so heavily recruited by colleges across the country. With the outside of his opposite foot, Joseph “the Ripper” Ripa has made it a two to nothing game. How about that shot. Goal! Amazing. Simply amazing! Give the kid his trophy—Roseport has dominated their opponents and there doesn’t appear to be a single way Deerville could ever come back to make this a game. Goal! Joseph Ripa, ladies and gentleman. Soccer fans around the country remember this young man’s name. Joseph Ripa! Goal!”

The Ridgeback watched as seagulls circled overhead. Five miles from the river, adapted to scavenge wherever and whatever, the birds searched from the sky for overflowing trashcans or dropped concession food. The birds searched for the red and white-checkered paper of discarded French fry cartons smeared in high-gloss ketchup that might hide another crinkle-cut fry. The birds were ready to eat. This far from the Connecticut River, this far from Long Island Sound, the birds obtained the more appropriate name, dumpgulls.

*

Douglas Ranney, Sean’s father, pulled up next to the Nova. The Roseport students recognized the truck. They put the pot away. They kept the bottle of Bukoff and Coke out. Douglas Ranney parked. He got out. He locked the doors. He walked by the Nova. The students uncomfortably started to mumble the words to Van Halen’s ‘Jump.’

“What you got in the bottle?”

“Coke.”

Douglas Ranney pulled a flask from the pocket of his red and black hunting coat. “Trade? Sip for sip?”

The students looked confused.

“Serious,” Douglas Ranney said. He drank from the flask. “I’m not telling. Long as you don’t tell.”

“Oh man, give him a sip,” some kid, with a wispy moustache and a thin mullet, no older than sixteen, had said.

The owner of the Nova said, “Look. We’re not bothering nobody.”

Douglas Ranney knew the kid’s parents. He knew all these kids’ parents. Some of these kids, he even knew their grandparents.

“It’s just Coke, man.”

Douglas Ranney took the Coke bottle from the owner of the Nova. He handed the kid his flask then kicked back a sip like it was his purpose to get drunk. Wide eyed, the students hesitated to respond.

“Seems like something important is going on,” Douglas said, out of breath, looking towards the field, all before taking another swallow.

“None of you have any herpes I should know about?”

The kids laughed. They passed around Mr. Ranney’s flask.

The kids didn’t understand. This wasn’t the conservative Mr. Ranney they remembered was once a Cub Scout den leader. This wasn’t the Mr. Ranney who protected his oldest son, Sean, captain of the soccer team, student body treasurer, recital pianist, National Merit Scholar finalist, as if he was the man’s only daughter.

Standing six foot four, Douglas Ranney stood in the parking lot, drinking liquor with minors. Standing in the parking lot, Douglas Ranney looked for his wife’s Caravan. He found it parked next to cars he recognized belonged to other Roseport parents. He couldn’t mistake cars decorated in balloons and signs—cars with erasable marker across windshields: Go Roseport! and other local slogans punctuated with exclamations. 

He sipped from his flask. Douglas Ranney looked at the group of what must be Deerville automobiles all huddled together. All German or British or Swedish and prim, most with the red, white and blue yacht club affiliation stickers in the rear windshields. Deerville was society country. It was country clubs and art galleries in old and donated family estates. In Douglas Ranney’s mind, Deerville was seersucker and men in pink polo shirts with healthy investment portfolios with second or third houses on mountains in Vermont; men with little common sense or concern for what Douglas Ranney found important. Douglas Ranney was under the impression men from Deerville knew nothing about self reliance, something he, a man who had built by hand his family’s home, knew all about.

The Deerville parents parked their sedans as close to the entrance as they could possibly get. The grouping was on purpose, almost like blatant segregation; it was obvious, like groupings in a high school cafeteria. Instead of being black or white, jock or nerd, it was old New England vs. new New England—and new New England could be anywhere in the United States except for old New England. Or at least that’s how Douglas Ranney measured it.

Using a Zippo, Douglas Ranney lighted a cigarette his doctor had told him never to smoke again. Douglas Ranney lighted a Winston his wife told him she would leave him for if he did. He knew it was an idle threat. Using a Zippo, Douglas Ranney lighted a cigarette he knew was killing him.

“Hold on to this. I’ll be right back.” He handed the kids his flask.

Douglas Ranney got in his truck. The doors didn’t advertise his business. People in town new what he did. If something needed to be built, he built it, and he built it well. He pulled up to a Mercedes station wagon with a double digit Connecticut license plate. The Mercedes was off to the side, out of the way; parked like the owner wanted it to be left alone. Douglas Ranney parked his Suburban as close as he possibly could. The driver of the Mercedes would not be able to get in unless Douglas was already gone or they got in through the passenger side.

The Roseport students laughed.

Mr. Ranney got out of his truck, walked over to the kids, took back his flask, and with a cigarette in his mouth, he said with a sneer, “It’s never too late to make a scene.”

* 

Joseph Ripa won a Deerville goal kick out of the air, trapping the ball off his chest, placing it at his accelerating feet. Impossible to dispossess, irresistible to watch, Joseph Ripa dribbled down the middle of the field.

Sean saw a viable give-and-go develop between Joey and a Roseport midfielder. Sean called the midfielder’s name. But with the racket in the stands, the direction was lost in an echo of chants.

Joseph stopped dribbling. Deerville players tugged at his uniform, a desperate move they had learned spending their summers playing in Europe. Joseph saw the give-and-go. And with his head, he motioned for the midfielder’s participation. The midfielder noticed a split second before the Deerville defender and he took off.

Joseph threaded his pass and then followed it. Joseph sprinted down the sideline, breaking free from a hold. The referee singled to ‘play on.’ Joseph received the return pass before the Deerville players had time to catch up. He gathered the ball, pushing it farther after trapping it; he started a sprint.

Now it was more a game of strength than skill. Joseph, the son of a brick-layer, shook the Deerville fullbacks with speed.

He was being sized up by the opposing sweeper.

The defender played a practical angle.

Joseph looked up and instinctually measured his options.

He ran on his toes, touching the ball with sharp yet graceful nudges that kept the ball closer as the defender closed in.

Sean had no advice. Sean, like the spectators, just watched. He admired the full control Joseph operated under. On the field, Joseph kept perpetually cool, even while under attack. Joseph would be going to the University of Massachusetts to play on a full athletic scholarship. He out classed every player trying to stop him, employing a deceptive calmness coaches around the country admired. He was dribbling in what appeared to be slow motion. It was like the split second before you’re involved in a car crash. Time seemed to bend around him. When Joseph had time to dribble, spectators felt the need for silence. It was as if their cheering would upset their viewing. They just wanted to watch. Joseph burned his opponents; he made them look simple, like they were each an orange cone players train to dribble around. Reporters took his picture the whole way down the field. Joseph left his opponents behind, wrecked in awe of how ineffective they had just been made to seem. It was beautiful to watch.

The Deerville sweeper bounced on his toes. Telegraphing, the defender turned his hips in the direction he thought Joseph would take.

Joseph capitalized on the defender’s mistake, pushing the ball in the opposite direction of the sweeper’s hips. Bouncing on his toes, the defender was able to react faster than if he had been standing flatfooted. The defender adjusted his position. But it was too late.

The Deerville goalie knew his sweeper was beat. It all happened so fast. The rest of the Deerville defense had no time to get back. After three long, yet fully in control dribbles, it was again Joseph and the goalie.

The stands remained silent. But like religious observers, spectators started to bounce in the Saturday bleachers. Filled beyond capacity, the wood started to bend as fans from both sides hopped in unison. A man in a bright yellow jacket, with the word EVENTS printed across the back monitored the bleachers, afraid they were about to collapse. The man with Events radioed his concern to his boss.

The Deerville goalie came off his line. With bent knees, he held his gloved hands spread below his waist anticipating the shot.

Coltan Ranney had the perfect line of sight. Showing a rare bit of emotional intrigue, with the Game and Watch closed, Coltan Ranney clutched the ball to his parka, following the action with complete attention.

Instead of shooting, Joey decided he would dribble around the goalie.

The goalie dove.

Joseph Ripa slinked past the outstretched hands of his opponent, firing the ball from the laces of his right cleat. Before he shot, the goalie desperately scrambled after the ball. Looking down out the corner of his eye, Joey saw the goalie crawling after him. But before the keeper could snatch the ball, Joey let loose the shot that left his foot clearly as a message meant to be a coup de grâce.

The net snapped, sending a spray of collected rainwater into the air. The referee signaled the goal. The stands went berserk.

But the keeper didn’t stop. Enraged, he followed after Joey.

After a confusing tussle that interrupted the Roseport midfielder while making a celebratory Sign of the Cross, Joseph Ripa was sent to the mud.

No parents’ cameras caught the original incident with any clarity. No newspaper cameras did either.

From their dry position in the aluminum press box, Salvatore Viscontii and his cameraman had a bad angle. Without the aid of instant replay, they thought they too had missed it.

Coltan Ranney said he saw it. He would later say, ‘Joey tripped over himself.’ Only Lorrie Ranney would come to believe her baby boy. Everyone else believed the kid was too lazy to have an honest opinion. ‘Joey tripped over himself.’ Coltan never repeated the statement. But it needed to be said again. ‘Joey tripped over himself,’ Coltan Ranney had said.

Billy Rizzo was the first one off the bench.

Soccer players fight with kicks. It makes sense. So when Billy Rizzo stomped on the Deerville goalie’s kneecaps, no one was surprised by his technique. What was surprising, especially to the Deerville supporters, was how effortlessly Billy Rizzo unleashed his aggression. Where was the control? The referee certainly wasn’t expecting it. And what about Billy Rizzo’s father, the head coach of the Roseport soccer team? Shouldn’t he be responsible for his son’s outburst? Shouldn’t the coach be able to control his players, especially his own son?

No one is too good to fight. It might take more to unsettle certain individuals, but push anyone in the right place at the wrong time, and the most faithful of pacifists will resort to some form of aggression.

The brawl that took place between Roseport and Deerville at the 1988 Boys Class S State Soccer Championship had nothing really to do with class, but almost everything to do with tribalism.

Billy Rizzo was kicked in the back. He fell in the mud next to a startled and dirty Joseph Ripa. The Deerville goalie continued to roll around, holding his knees, screaming. Players in the middle of the field started attacking each other. A Roseport defender spit on a Deerville striker. Fists flew. Kicks were landed. The stands were not safe. Sides were crossed. Defenses were penetrated. Parents began attacking parents. Hair was pulled. Thermoses were used. Age wasn’t a factor. Sex wasn’t an issue. Some player’s grandma struck an opposing player’s uncle, not with her purse—she didn’t bite with her replacement teeth—she hit with her liver-spotted, arthritic hands. The uncle pushed the 80-year-old women down. Someone knocked the uncle out.

The man in the yellow Events jacket radioed for backup. “Shit,” was all he said. It was chaos. Like fireworks, only no one really had time to watch or lounge. It was all physical participation, action and re-action, explosions of aggression. Events was in turmoil, pacing ready to be struck with a punch at any moment. Cops would be showing up. People would be arrested. Though it was two years away, the fight between Roseport and Deerville would prime some of the Roseport student body for combat they would eventually see in the Persian Gulf. If asked, they’d probably say, the infamous fight of 1988 was more dangerous than any action they saw in Iraq. Serious. The fight was serious.

* 

“Now something really sounds wrong.” Douglas stubbed out his cigarette. Leaving his flask, he raced towards the field. 

In the man’s mind the doctor was telling him what he already knew to be true. Douglas told his wife he had to work. But that was a lie. Douglas Ranney knew he had cancer. But the doctor had to tell him. He already knew what he was going to do with his business. He would leave it to Sean. He just didn’t know how he was going to tell his wife he was going to die. He thought maybe he wouldn’t tell her at all. He thought maybe he might keep it a secret and then, hopefully, after making all the plans with his lawyer, just die. No questions. Just die. That seemed like the right thing to do. He didn’t want any special treatment. The man knew if he told his wife and family and friends he was going to die, they would all be looking at him differently, all treating him differently, putting him up on a platform or putting him in a cage to pet with their sympathies. He didn’t want anybody’s pity. That was the last thing Douglas Ranney wanted.

He sprinted towards the field thinking maybe, conveniently, his heart would just stop on the way over.

At the ticket gate, the brawl spread out before Douglas. Because knowing he was going to die—the doctor gave him a year at the most—he knew he would be treating his family and friends differently. How could he not? Is that fair? What’s fair?

Lorrie Ranney was holding back Mrs. Ripa, keeping the fiery wife of a quiet bricklayer at bay, keeping Elvira Ripa from knocking out some priss in a neon pink one-piece ski suit. The Sicilian accented Italian was flying from her mouth faster than she could think about what she was saying. Lorrie Ranney couldn’t keep up enough to know Mrs. Ripa wasn’t making much sense. But her intent was definitely clear. Elvira Ripa wanted to knock some heads.

Sean left the field, climbing into the stands, to make sure his mother was safe.

Salvatore Viscontii was out of the press box, as was the cameraman with the camera over his shoulder. The microphone was still connected, the camera still recording, the two had to keep close.

Joseph Ripa got up, understanding just then exactly how dirty he was. He walked over to the Roseport bench, emptied of players, dodging the mayhem in the field.

Joseph Ripa sat down on the bench, alone, and watched as the Witlock Police, backed by the Connecticut State Police, stormed the ticket gate. Both sets of law enforcement arrived in riot gear. Both appeared to be more intent on defeating the riot with their own riot. And Joseph Ripa just watched.

Was this a riot? Douglas Ranney asked himself this very question as he searched for his wife in a crowd of heads and fists and harsh words that seemed to grow their own arms and feet and Douglas Ranney almost felt those harsh words could actually be seen, walking and fighting right alongside the corporeal forms.

He found his son Sean first. Then he found his wife by his son’s side. Then he saw a Rhodesian Ridgeback leap the fence; over the track the pure bred muscled across the field and pulled a seagull from the air. It was all so primordial, beautiful, so graceful.

Feathers flew off the bird as if it had been shot. The dog brought the bird down to the torn up grass. All the fighting seemed to come to an almost automatic stop. Three hundred people stopped and watched as the Rhodesian Ridgeback ripped the bird apart.

The owner of the dog stood still. Rather than looking horrified, she looked as if she had almost expected it.

“And believe it or not, but out of nowhere, a dog has come onto the field, and snatched, what I think is a seagull, out of the air. The dog, as you can see, is eating the bird. And this is unexplainable: amazingly, the entire crowd has come to a stop. A complete standstill. The fighting has stopped, and the crowd is just watching the dog—it’s a large dog—devour a seagull. I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t watching it. Oh my. But there it is, folks. Perhaps the only way this comic mess could have ended. And thank god, it has. Lord knows the police were doing nothing to end the mayhem. They only made it worse. But this game, I would think, is over. But what will the official ruling on the field be? The bird is dead, no question, but what about the game? My best guess, I think, would be the game ends: final score: Roseport 3 Deerville 0. But I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Douglas Ranney took the moment of stunned silence to make his way to his wife. Through a shocked crowd of spectators not paying any attention to anything other the dog tearing through the bird, through feathers and skin, tearing through to get at what little flesh there was amongst all that plumage and toothpick-thin bone.

When’s the right time to tell a loved one you’re going to die?

With his mind nearly blank, Douglas Ranney turned to his stunned, nearly crying wife, and asked in jest, “What I miss?”

Then, as if Douglas Ranney’s words were a passcode for the sky to open up, it began to snow.  

2.

“Michael you have to eat something. You’ll starve.”

“Michael you have to eat something. You’ll starve.”

“Stop echoing. Seriously. You need to eat.”

“Stop echoing. Seriously. You need to eat.”

“You haven’t eaten anything in two days.”

“You haven’t eaten anything in two days.”

About to give up, Jessica instead perks up when Michael says, “Do you think I actually need to eat everyday? I don’t. You don’t even know what you need, how are you going to tell me what I need?”

“Because I’m your mother. End of story.”

“If it was only that simple, Jessica.”

‘Precocious children are what the world is coming to,’ Jessica’s friend had recently explained to her. Half serious and half mocking, the friend was attempting to make a point Jessica wasn’t interested in believing.

‘No, you don’t understand,’ Jessica had responded. ‘Michael, he’s different.’

‘We all think that. About our kids. And they are, to a certain extent.’

Andrew Ranney is visibly trying to ignore what’s going on at the dinner table between his mother and Michael. Andrew Ranney watches the television on the kitchen counter, turning the volume up whenever Michael and his mother raise their voices.

Ten and already adept at changing the conversation, Michael asks, “When’s uncle Coltan coming?”

“Your father is meeting him for dinner. Sometime after that.”

“How long is he staying for this time?”

“Your father didn’t say.”

Before Jessica could turn the conversation back around, Michael starts to eat.

The quinoa and cod were a suggestion made by the doctor. Jessica and Sean had been taking Michael to doctors ever since he could speak, which happened to be before the he ever decided he wanted to walk.

Jessica’s brother-in-law, Coltan, had been prescribed Ritalin at a young age. It devastated her husband to see his parents dependent upon a drug to control his brother. Jessica promised Sean they would never do that to their own children.

Recently, when the doctor suggested a change in diet could prove helpful in managing Michael’s erratic emotions, the Ranneys didn’t hesitate to try it.

Jessica keeps a journal in the kitchen and is supposed to fill it with Michael’s eating habits, that way the doctor could check it, and then make further suggestions. She has to keep the journal hidden or else Michael would change it or steal it and hide it on her. Jessica is all too aware of what Michael is capable of doing.

Michael sits at the kitchen table eating. The many books by his side are open and marked with post-it-notes. All Native American reference books, passages are highlighted in multiple colors. Michael’s dressed in pink tights and a purple top. The outfit was from a dance recital one of Michael’s female classmates had worn last winter. At the start of this school year, Michael said he traded some of his birthday money for it. Not impressed, the Ranneys made Michael give it back. He did, but the classmate had just brought the outfit back to school the next day.  

On the television, David Attenborough narrates a documentary on lions. ‘A male from a another pride will readily kill their young.’

Using the female voice Michael has grown accustomed to using, he asks his mother, “May I have a glass of milk?”

Normally, if Michael wanted to use “the voice,” Jessica would make Michael do whatever it was he wanted for himself. For the most part, Michael was fine with that. He just wanted to talk the way he wanted to talk. But because Jessica wants to test to see if Michael would like the unsweetened almond milk the doctor suggested, she pours her son some herself.

“And what is that supposed to be?”

“Almond milk.”

“Said whom?”

“Said the doctor: it would be good for him.”

“And she knows for sure I have no nut allergies?”

“Yes.”

“I’m beating the odds then. Something like 1 and 8 children suffer from a nut allergy. It makes classroom birthday parties intriguing. You know? Say someone doesn’t know they’re allergic to nuts yet. And some mother slips something pecan into something brownie. And some poor classmate of mine eats a pecan and starts to choke. And I stand over them as they twitch in agony. They die. The horrible scene could force me to become a serial killer or a poet or—”

“Michael.”

“Yes, Jessica?”

“Nothing.” Jessica gets up from the table and makes her way to the kitchen sink, puts both hands on the granite counter top, stares at the veins in her hands, her aging hands, at her wedding ring, at her engagement rings, then says to Michael, “Why do you say such awful things?”

“You’re the one that forces me to go school. Talk about awful things.”

‘For highly strung predators, violence comes with the territory, it’s best not to take it personally.’

Andrew finishes his food. He rinses his dish, finishing his water at the sink.

“Where you going,” Jessica asks her oldest son.

“Outside.”

“To play?”

“To eat dirt.”

Michael uses the effeminate voice and says, “Geophagy. Good idea. Build up those immunities. I’ll be right behind you.”

Jessica covers her hair—her tight blond ponytail—with the hood of the oversized UMass Soccer sweatshirt. She pulls the drawstrings tight. Only her little face peeks out form the burgundy hood.

“In hiding?”

“Perpetually in morning.”

“No worries. I’m still right here, not going anywhere, mother.”

“Why don’t you go outside with your brother?”

“Don’t you want me to finish my dinner first?”

“You know what, Michael?”

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

Michael picks up the fish. He let’s the thin, flaky flesh melt through his little fingers. He stares at his mother. It’s a taunt.

“Don’t you dare.”

For no reason other than because he can, he hurls the filet against the wall. It slides down the sheetrock, leaving a lemon streak behind, like an oil slick.

“That was for your journal.”

Michael gets up from the table, spills the almond milk on the floor on purpose, wipes his hands on his mother’s hoodie and goes looking outside for his brother.

*

Andrew isn’t eating dirt. He’s on the back porch. He’s playing chords on an acoustic guitar. His Uncle Coltan taught him last year how to play a Nirvana song.

The Connecticut River is catching the last of the day’s light. At the end of the dock Sean built, the Sunfish Sean bought to teach Andrew to sail wobbles in the current. 

Jessica wants to leave the fish dinner for the cleaning lady. But she knows she shouldn’t. But she wants to be finished with Michael’s outbursts. She wants to cry. But she shouldn’t. Her therapist told her not to take these situations personally. But how could she not? Everything one experiences is personal.

She watches from the kitchen as Michael dances like an unpracticed ballerina along to Andrew’s practiced guitar playing.

Andrew has been distant all night, she thinks. She cracks the window over the sink to hear what her sons say.

She wants definitions with answers attached to practical solutions. She wants to understand. Sometimes she wishes Michael just had Down Syndrome or Cerebral Palsy, anything someone could explain to her. It sounds sick, but Jessica thinks her life might be easier if that were the case. She knows better than to admit this out loud. She’d be chastised for this for sure. Mothers are not supposed to think these things. So why not just wish for a normal kid?

Andrew puts the guitar down and asks Michael if he wants to learn to tie a noose.

Michael says yes.

Andrew pulls out a four-foot long piece of string from his black Levi’s. On the porch table, Andrew works the string into an S shape. Michael sits in Andrew’s lap. “Now we scrunch the S shape together. And we take the right end,” he wiggles the string, “this end is called the working end. We’re going to make the knot with this.” Michael nods in agreement. “Form the middle, tie the working end around the entire S shape, going from right to left. Wrap it until the working end is just like a little nubbin like. We should have like a loop on the right side and one on the left side. And a tail on the left side. See?” Michael nods yes. “Pinch the nubbin end with the right thumb. Then we bring the left loop over like the nubbin. Make sure to hold the nubbin tight with the thumb. Next, with the right loop, pull the side that will like tighten the left loop over the nubbin. Pull it down until the nubbin is like, like tightly secure. See? Oops. I’m pulling the wrong side. Hold on. I got to pull the other one. There. Like that. That’s all. That’s a noose. A hangman’s knot.”

Andrew bounces his knees, signaling it’s time for Michael to get up. Michael doesn’t catch on, so Andrew has to stand.

Standing barefoot, in his pink tights, Michael studies the knot, trying to make sense of the knot.

“Dad teach you this?”

“No. Youtubed it during history.”

“During a lesson on Civil Rights, I hope. Any reason you need it?”

Andrew doesn’t answer this. Instead he asks, “You wanna try?”

Michael apprehensively nods yes.

Andrew undoes the noose. Michael sits down at the teak table. His feet fidget on the slate. He gets as far as the scrunching of the S before—bored—he gives up to dance around again.

Jessica writes the incident with the fish in her journal.

Monitoring Michael’s misbehaviors is a full-time job. Finding the appropriate discipline has been a problem. She’s not against punishment, she’s just unsure what the punishment should be, especially when none of it seems to work.

She fills the electric kettle with water for tea.

Jessica has always been impressed by her children’s decision to get along. If there’s anything to be thankful for, Andrew’s ability to relax his half-brother should be considered a blessing. When nothing else works, at least Michael has Andrew.

“So what kind of knot do you use to attach a noose? Like to a rafter or whatever? Because if you’re hanging yourself, you don’t want to just fall down with the noose around your neck.”

“I’m not sure.”

“Oh. I think that part’s also important.”

Andrew picks the guitar back up. He’s determined to perfect the song. He wants to impress his uncle.

“Let’s take the boat out.”

“I don’t think we should without Dad.”

“Come on. It’s beautiful. Look at that sunset. Look at those clouds. They’re like, like little individual lakes, or something. Come on. Just this once. There won’t be many more days like this. Come on. Don’t be afraid. Come on. Please. Pretty please. I trust you.”

Jessica reads the inspirational words on the tab of her teabag before she adds the water to the Umass mug.

She sits at the table for a second of relaxation. She changes the television to the local news. The anchorwoman says, “A Roseport woman is being investigated in the disappearance of her husband.”

The news report doesn’t register with Jessica. She tunes the television out as she nervously watches her boys head for the dock.

internet poetry

‘i don’t want to have to have sex.’

simon says this over and over again as he sits at the bar.

i have friends come over and listen to simon.

friends think simon is nuts or cute. 

i think simon is being serious.