Where'd You Park Your Spaceship?, page 28
first two fingers.
SILENCIO, I’M FOZZY.
Fozzy?
That’s a name?
And I’m SILENCIO?
There’s a word tattooed on her forearm: VILAMONSTER.
There’s a giant star on the front of her shirt.
The TWO’s come at us.
Fozzy barks orders to a fella she calls BURTUS.
Burtus chatters back. I GOT YOU FOZZY!
I try to keep up.
My lungs burn.
I am not, as they say, match fit.
I don’t know if the running or trying to follow all the chatter is more exhausting. Loose ball. Fozzy is on it. She points up
ahead to me, I make a run down the line. She drops it right in front of me, just before the end line. I chip it to a ONE making a run from the corner of the box. He’s got red hair and purple wristbands and he misses the shot. He looks in my direction apologetically. My bad Silencio!!
I’m so confused.
I’m a forward?
I’ve been playing in back.
I watch Fozzy press high on the keeper.
Is she a striker?
The more we play, the more turned around I get. I’m up
front, I’m in back, my fellow ONES do not stop telling me
where they are and where I should go.
I can’t find any pattern to it.
I cover the entire field.
We all do.
At one point the keeper rolls the ball out to me in the back
right corner. Moments later, I’m in the far left corner,
crossing with my left foot.
And Fozzy.
Fozzy is everywhere.
She’s like the central nervous system of our side-everything
we do orbits and flows through her.
And she isn’t even breathing hard.
It takes me I don’t know how long to figure out: THESE
PEOPLE DON’T PLAY POSITIONS.
On Lunlay-and every other planet as far as I know-a team
plays a particular formation and you play a particular
position in that formation. Rather straightforward, that.
There’s an order to it, a shape, a form. And you always,
always know your place on the pitch. That was drilled in
to me from a young age.
But here.
On Firdus.
Everybody plays every position.
Apparently the answer to
WHAT POSITION ARE YOU PLAYING?
Is
IT DEPENDS-WHERE IS THE BALL AND WHERE ARE MY
TEAMMATES?
What holds a side together is all the talking.
That’s the coherence, that’s the structure.
Not a lineup that was decided on ahead of time-the
ceaseless communication that happens on the pitch in
real time.
The awareness.
That’s it, right there.
The awareness of each other.
That’s the tactic. That’s the strategy.
That’s the glue.
I was fighting this.
Trying to figure out where I should be.
And then I’d know and I’d stay there.
But there is no SHOULD.
And there is no there, there. There is only the response to what’s happening. It’s an altogether different understanding of what a game even is.
Firdus.
Even the beautiful game is different here.
My lungs burn.
My calves ache.
I’m having so much fun.
Fozzy calls one guy on our team BUCKETS. Is this his real
name? I laugh every time she yells BUCKETS. Which
happens often. She scores, and BUCKETS runs over to
her AND PICKS HER UP AND THROWS HER OVER HIS
SHOULDER and starts running around the field. She
screeches and spanks him. Everybody thinks this is
hilarious. A player on the other team yells LIKE MOTHER
LIKE SON!
Fozzy is the mother of BUCKETS?
Another player named CLIMINTS catches up to them and
picks up the the player who picked up Fozzy. That player
carries them both down the field, chanting as he goes
LIKE MOTHER LIKE SON LIKE GRANDSON!!!
What a scene.
The game continues.
There’s a TWO named Hari. Fozzy is relentless with him.
She tells him he can CHAP HIS ASS. That’s a thing? She
calls him a CHEWY GOOSE. I have no interest in knowing
where that comes from. And my personal favorite, she
keeps telling our keeper-who’s name is FISHBITS-that
he’s FIT TO SMASH ICE.
I drop the ball behind me to a ONE who’s cutting right.
She taps it into the space I’m running on to. I drop it back
to her, then cut across the center. We don’t plan this, we
don’t talk about it ahead of time, it just happens.
Effortlessly.
Fozzy calls that player FOXY ROXY, for the record.
The game ends.
Already?
That was an hour?
It flew by.
Fozzy comes over to me.
You will play with us again?
I’m honored.
I nod Yes. I hold up my index finger and do a talking
motion with my hand.
Fozzy shakes her head. I have no idea what you’re trying
to tell me.
I put my hand next to my jaw and do the talking motion.
Still have no clue, SILENCIO.
A player named Arastou laughs.
I think he’s saying he’ll be able to talk soon.
Yes, that’s it.
Fozzy considers this.
Well, you get match fit and start talking and you can be on
my team any day.
I hug her.
I would not have done this in a thousand laps in my old
life.
Old life?
I don’t know what came over me.
It happened so fast.
She’s surprised.
Well, Silencio, that’s a first. You are a sweaty speechless
mess, but you have a good heart.
I put my hands on this heart she speaks of.
I go full Dill Tudd on her with a little bow.
I walk to the other end of the pitch and lay down and look
up at the sky.
I am so gassed.
Is this possible? To play almost every day and then stop
playing for twenty or twenty-five laps and then start
playing again?
I hear the other players leave.
It’s quiet, laying out on this pitch in this former river bed.
I remember when Sir Pong had us lay out in that field on
our backs.
Clouds pass overhead.
I remember that game with my parents where we’d name
the shapes of the clouds.
I’m aware of the gravitational pull of Firdus on my body.
A bird flies overhead.
The pace of that game.
We were like a flock of birds, all over the pitch, swooping,
soaring, moving in unison. Way less analyzing and
planning, way more feeling and relating.
What is Firdus doing to me?
That game, right there.
It’s all in that game.
That’s what Firdus is doing to me.
Piddle, piddle, piddle.
No way.
Here?
Now?
He found me?
I roll my head over to the left.
He did.
Dill Tudd.
On the pitch.
He lays down about ten feet away.
Greetings, Silencio. Why do they call him Silencio?
BECAUSE HE LET’S HIS GAME DO THE TALKIN’!
He says the word TALKIN’ with a little twang, like he’s in a
bar somewhere telling stories about BACK IN THE DAY.
Of course he’s also Silencio because he can’t speak due
to the violent nature of facial injuries he sustained in the
heroic rescue of a young boy from the jaws of the wild.
I motion for him to continue.
Who knew Heen Who Grows Bears can also play the
beautiful game? We continue to learn about this
mysterious man who has recently appeared in our midst.
That sends a jolt through me.
I sit up.
Why does he say this?
What does he know?
He sits up as well.
I shrug my shoulders like I want him to follow that up.
He points to his bag.
I have a gift for you.
He pulls out a flat brown paper package and hands it to
me.
I hold it on my lap.
I try to remember the last time someone gave me a gift.
I can’t.
This makes me sad.
But now, this.
I open the package.
It’s black, and it’s made of cloth.
I hold it up.
It’s a jacket.
It’s got pockets on the front, a collar, buttons.
There is a thin white stripe on each sleeve.
That’s called piping he says.
The back feels stiff.
I turn it around.
A giant red lightning bolt.
Stitched in to the fabric.
The lightning bolt is so thick it gives the entire jacket a
heft and density.
I put the jacket on.
It fits perfectly.
I stand up and walk in a circle around Dill Tudd.
You’re speechless, aren’t you?
I am.
For a number of reasons.
There is a lump in my throat.
This man who unsettles and irritates me like no other
human ever has also managed to work his way into my
heart, a heart that feels like it’s beating again after a long,
long time.
Check out the inside he says.
I open the left side.
On the inside is a pocket.
On the pocket are stitched three words:
PIDDLE, PIDDLE, PIDDLE.
I run my hand down the front of the jacket.
I point to him.
He understands what I’m asking.
Yes, I made it.
My eyes go big.
I point to the sleeve, then the side, then the hem-it fits
perfectly.
It does, doesn’t it?
He gives a satisfied grunt. Like he does this all the time.
Well, I must be going. Miles to go before I sleep.
He bows.
And then walks off the pitch.
I watch him go.
With that lump still in my throat.
*
I wake up.
It’s early, early morning.
Still dark.
An hour until I leave for work.
My sheets are soaked.
I was dreaming.
In the dream I was in that room in the LIBRARY in the
CENTER where that mustache man and woman
interviewed me but they weren’t there it was my parents
behind that table and they were angry so angry and my
mother was throwing things and stomping around the
room and talking actually talking using words and
sentences like you do and my dad was trying to calm her
down but they were both yelling at me which I don’t think
ever happened like maybe once when I knocked over a
plant when I was four or something and they keep telling
me what a disappointment I am and I’m crushed by these
words they are speaking but…
THEY’RE THE DISAPPOINTMENT that’s what I think and that’s what I want to say but I’ve never said that I’ve only in the dream thought it for the first time while I’m standing in front of a map of the universe exactly like the one that Ma’am Kirti had in her classroom in fact it is it’s the same map apparently I stole it and I keep pointing to all the planets I’ve been to all over the galaxies and I’m repeating the names of those planets FAHRI PINO MORCHIBA PUWA WOOHYUCK ZIKS YORCH HITESH PEGS over and over again louder each time as if that will quiet them but it doesn’t they yell all the louder and then I look down and I’m standing in brown water and my mother’s legs under the table are tree branches and my dad has horse hooves for hands and then I wake up.
That dream made me sweat?
That one?
*
I’m in front, rearranging the loaves on the shelf to make
room for more when a man rushes in, all flustered and
rushed.
I HAVE TO HAVE ANOTHER! he says.
He’s got a small white dog under his arm. The dog is
wearing a sweater. On the front of the sweater in big
letters it reads WHO’S TAKING WHO FOR A WALK?
That’s troubling enough, but there are a series of zippers
on this man’s shirt that run in diagonal lines across his
chest and appear to serve no purpose.
DO YOU HAVE ANY MORE?? He sounds desperate.
I just stand there, staring at the top of his head. He is
losing his hair on top, but it’s still growing on the sides. It
appears that he has let the hair on the sides grow quite
long and then he combs it over the top of his head to
make it look like he has a full head of hair. But he’s clearly
bothered about something and maybe he ran to the
bakery because he’s a little sweaty and that hair isn’t
staying down on top of his head, it’s starting to stand up,
like it’s tired of living the lie.
EXCUSE ME!!
He motions for me to listen to him. It’s just so hard with
his hair being like that.
Hello, how may I help you? Lan Zing rescues me. The man is relieved to see her.
This fella here just has no interest in helping me-it’s about
time someone showed up!
Lan Zing sizes him up. Well, Heen here is a valued member
of our team, and while he is a little slow-
She winks in my direction-
He more than makes up for it with his wonderful heart and
stellar work ethic. He’s also the creator and baker of our
latest specialty bread SOURDOUGH WITH ROSEMARY which we are thrilled to introduce to our most trusted
customers-
The man’s eyes light up.
THAT’S WHY I’M HERE!!!
He drops his dog he’s so excited.
The dog yelps, then pees on the floor.
The man is oblivious.
IT’S THE BEST BREAD I’VE EVER HAD. MY LADY
BARBARA BARABAR WON’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT.
SHE DEMANDED I COME DOWN HERE AND GET
ANOTHER LOAF. SHE SAID: JAVEEN WENDOR DON’T
YOU DARE COME BACK WITHOUT THAT BREAD!
This man is so amped up.
I’M JAVEEN WENDOR, I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE
SAID THAT EARLIER.
He’s way too loud and his dog just urinated and his hair-he’s a wreck. But he loves that bread.
PLEASE TELL ME YOU HAVE MORE!!!
He leans both elbows on the counter.
Lan Zing is so calm.
She leans both her elbows on the counter across from
him. What is it you like about the bread?
I didn’t see that coming.
The man didn’t either.
What do I like about it?
Something about this question throws him.
He looks so flustered.
Bobby Freelance shows up with a towel, gets down on
his knees and cleans up the mess the dog made. The
man doesn’t notice him, he’s so engrossed in this
question Lan Zing has asked him. Bobby Freelance stands
back up, gives me a smile and fist pump, blows a kiss to Lan Zing, and then heads to the back.
He’s grown on me, that Bobby Freelance.
I turn back to this hot mess of a man in front of us. I am
tempted to laugh at him for how this one question from
Lan Zing has him all locked up when I remember my
interview. How she asked me that one question What’s
your favorite bread? How I didn’t see that coming. How it
threw me. I find myself rooting for him.
Well, he says, BARBARA BARABAR and I don’t agree on
much of anything these days-
He sighs a thousand pound sigh.
But we agree on how good that bread is.
Oh. He’s in pain. They don’t get along like they used to.
THESE DAYS. So much ache there. Things used to be
better. And now they’re different. Did HE do something?
Did SHE change? What was it that caused them to drift
apart?
I didn’t used to pick up on things like this.
I am very good at noticing, obviously.
It’s the job.
But not this.
Not these.
Randy doesn’t care about things like these.
I take two loaves off the shelf behind me and hand them
to the man. I motion to Lan Zing. It’s on me.
The man looks at me, then her.
YOU HAVE IT! YOU HAVE THE BREAD!!! BARBARA
BARABAR WILL BE SO HAPPY!!!
He clutches the loaves in his non-dog arm.
He points to me.
What’s his deal?
Lan Zing puts her arm around me.
He doesn’t talk. But he bakes good bread. And the bread’s
on him.
He eyes me carefully.
He gets very still.
I will not forget this, young man.
I could swear he’s about my age.
But still.
I give him a full Dill Tudd hand on heart bow.
He heads for the door.
Lan Zing and I lean against the back counter, side by side,
watching him leave.
She turns to me. I did a little research on rosemary. You know what it’s good for?
I don’t.
Lots of things, but what jumped out to me is MEMORY.
