I've been working on this story for the past few days. Its a rough draft, but I'm more or less satisfied with it for now. It's dedicated to my father, who passed away 2 years ago this evening. I hope you like it.

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If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons. - James Baldwin


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Back Already
written by Matthew Ryan McKibben on January 27-28, 2005

dedicated to James Joseph McKibben 5/14/47 - 1/28/03

The smell of fast-food hamburgers and fries fill the car with an assault of aroma, made worse by the lack of functioning air conditioning. A cooked hamburger with onion and mustard smells so awful, it’s a wonder that it tastes as good as it does. A large 32 ounce plastic cup filled with Iced Tea and nestled between Timothy's thighs, gathers condensation on its side and spreads across his brand new work trousers in a puddle like formation.

Feeling his phone vibrating in his pocket, he pulls out his cell phone and checks the display on the front. It was work calling.

"This is Timothy."

"Yes, Timothy. This is Drake from work. Lydia wanted me to call you to verify that you *are* taking the rest of the day off today."

"Yeah. I have some errands I have to run today."

"Okay man. Just checkin' in with ya."

"Thanks again for covering for me today. I'll make it up to you somehow."

"Don't worry about it, man. These things equal themselves out in the end," says Drake.

Timothy smiles in agreement. "They always do. Thanks again," Timothy says. He closes his phone and places it on the passenger seat next to the brown paper fast food bag.

Timothy taps the steering wheel with the ends of his fingers, and very badly sings along to "The Animals" song on the radio. Or was it "The Rolling Stones?" He often had a hard time knowing the difference between bands from the sixties since they all sounded the same to his ears. Whichever band sang "We Gotta Get Out of this Place," that's who he was singing. His dad would know which band it was. His dad knew everything, especially everything about the fifties and sixties, and what he didn't know; he made up well enough that no one ever thought twice about it.

Coming up on Torrey Pines Park, Timothy pulls into a parking spot marked by lines fading with age and years of neglect. Grabbing his food, drink and wool fedora, he exits the car and makes his way to the furthest away park bench he can find. Luckily, it’s under the shade of one of the many tall oak trees that are randomly scattered throughout the park. He sits down and begins eating his food in silence. And although he's a vegetarian, that first taste of his father's favorite brand of hamburger brings a smile to his face.

Torrey Pines Park was designed around the same time as the suburbs that surround it. Despite real estate developers paving over every field of lush Houston grass in the neighborhood and placing a home in its place, the park is still surrounded by hundreds of yards of untouched grass. Before his neighborhood was overran with progress, Timothy can remember when there were more fields than houses and when the park's grass stretched further than you could ever hope to hit a baseball. Marking the edge of the park, a slab of concrete that was once a basketball court sits benign; its foul lines and three point arcs long since washed away by neglect and erosion. A rimless backboard and goal post serve as its only marker of what its purpose once was. They have a new neighborhood park now. Timothy saw it on the way into the subdivision. It has all the bells and whistles that new parks have; long tube slides, chain-link jungle gyms, and more bark mulch than one can imagine. Out with the old, in with the newer. Such is life.

Finishing up his hamburger and fries, Timothy looks around at the quiet park. Easy breezes blow the overgrown grass and empty swings with identical emphasis. Timothy leans back longwise onto the bench and pulls his father's fedora over his face. Although sure it's just his imagination, Timothy swears to his wife Nicole that he can still smell his father's aftershave in the wool fabric of the hat. He hardly believes it's already been 5 years to the day since his happy family accelerated down tragedy highway. Timothy always tells himself that there's nothing particularly tragic about someone eating unhealthy foods to the point that it makes them fatally sick. That is less a tragedy and more a preventable misfortune. Timothy bites back down into his hamburger.

Just having his dad's favorite hat with him always reminds Timothy of his father and all the great times they had together; many of them in this very park. Memories are like shagging fly balls. Sometimes they come right to you, sometimes you have to track them down, and sometimes they get lost in the glare of the sun. Today, he was Willie Mays and nothing was out of reach. As he drifted off to sleep under the protection of the thirty year old hat, he fondly remembered all the times his father would take his mom and his brothers with him to the park for Saturday afternoon picnics. And that memory naturally progressed to the countless Fourth of July nights spent on quilts only a grandparent is capable of making, watching the warm Houston sky light up under the magnificence of a brilliantly planned fireworks show. Timothy is almost asleep when he remembers the time his father was setting off fireworks at the family lake house, and one firework string got loose and nearly blew the family to bits. Timothy laughed quietly under the hat.

Under the weight of a warmer than it seems 80 degree day, and a fully unloaded hamburger digesting in his stomach, Timothy fell asleep quickly and dreamt the dreams that naturally came to him when he reminisced right before falling asleep. If he remembered painful memories, his dreams were calm and naturally flowing from place to place. When he remembered happier times, his dreams were disjointed, full of jagged edges, leaving him broken when he awoke. It's been 5 years since he's had a decent night's sleep.

*Wake up, Timothy! Wake up! Wake up, son!*

Timothy awakens to the sound of muffled footsteps running across the tall grass towards his bench. Looking to his peripheral, he spots two pairs of tiny feet a foot or so from the bench. The children giggle. From somewhere in the distance, a man, speaking a language Timothy didn't understand, motions for his kids to leave the sleeping man alone. The sounds of footsteps resume and diminish until the point that they're replaced by the sound of rusty swings moving back and forth.

He removes the hat from his face and sits upright to see what's going on. Two Asian children swing in arcs that are matched only by the smiles on their parent's faces. The older of the two, a boy is using his feet to push off the ground in order to get as much height as his ten year old legs can muster. The young girl sitting next to him isn't swinging as much as she is sitting and kicking her legs in and out in a pumping fashion. She turns her head towards Timothy and stares at him for a second or two. Her eyes condense on themselves as she smiles. She's missing her top two teeth. A fleshy tongue pokes its head out of the space where her top two teeth would have been, had she not lost them some weeks prior. She continues to pump her legs.

Timothy stands up and stretches his arms into the air. He doesn't know how long he's been out, but the sun is considerably lower in the sky than it was when he started his lunch. Flies swarm in irregular patters in and out of the cardboard french-fry container, and pick up the tiny grains of salt that were left behind like fast food artifacts. One fly is resting its busy little body on top of the dipping ketchup smeared on top of the brown fast-food bag. Timothy puts his hat back on his head, and throws the trash into a trash receptacle near his bench.

The parents of the two children, sitting on a bench near the swing, see Timothy and wave to him. He waves back, and walks towards them.

"Good afternoon," Timothy says extending his hand.

The mother takes his hand first and shakes it gently.

"Good afternoon," she says.

He smiles at her and turns his attention to the father sitting on a bench behind the mother.

The father stands up and shakes Timothy's hand, a smile never leaving his face.

"You folks from around here?" Timothy asks.

"No, no. We're from Japan. Well my husband is anyways. I was born here," the mother answers. The father nods in agreement. "We're in America to visit my relatives," the mother goes on.

Timothy smiles and looks to the girl swinging. She looks back at Timothy, a large smile never leaving her small face.

"We were just driving to my aunt's house when the kids saw this park and begged us to pull over."

The boy jumps off his swing at its greatest height and lands on the sand with a thud. The dad walks over to the boy and picks him up by the arm and firmly speaks to the boy in Japanese while simultaneously brushing off the sand from the boy's backside.

The mother laughs quietly. "My parents don't care really, but he's so nervous that we're going to show up with dirty kids." She laughs a little more freely. Timothy smiles in return.

Not wanting to leave, but feeling he should, Timothy gets ready to speak when he feels a tug on his trouser leg. He looks down and sees the little girl standing by his right leg, looking up at Timothy with her nearly toothless grin beaming from ear to ear. She points to Timothy's head, then steps to her mom.

The girl says something to the mom in Japanese, and the mother looks horrified and verbally admonishes the child. The child begins crying uncontrollably, while the mother picks her up off the ground. She continues to speak in Japanese to the child and shakes her head at the girl.

"Is everything okay?" Timothy asks.

"Yes, yes," the mother answers. "My child really likes your hat and wants to have it for her own."

Timothy ceases smiling and nods in agreement.

"I'm sorry. She's very audacious," the mother goes on. The child continues to weep into her mother's shoulder.

"No, no. It's fine."

Timothy takes off the hat and holds it in his hands. The label inside the hat is worn to the point that it’s no longer necessary to exist anymore. Despite its vast gaping hole for his head, the hat seems to breathe and to give off heat. And for a second, he remembers the time that he struck out in the bottom of the ninth of his last high school baseball game, and his father was waiting for him behind the dugout. He had a smile on his face and his hat pushed towards the back of his head. As they embraced, Timothy wept into his father's chest. The tears didn't stop until he had taken off Timothy's ball cap, and put his fedora on his head in its place. Timothy moves the cap to his head and takes a deep breath. The smell of his father's aftershave is gone, and the smell of old wool enters his nose. The hat feels heavy.

Timothy steps to the girl; her cheeks looking red, and wet with tears. She wipes one of the tears away with the back of her hand. He reaches upward and places the hat on the top of the girl's head. It fits perfectly for a second, but soon falls down around the girl's ears. She smiles again, and Timothy can almost see her tears beginning to dry on her cheeks.

"Oh thank you. Thank you very much," the mother says. She smiles at Timothy and looks back to the girl in her arms. They exchange words and the girl smiles even larger. What they said, Timothy didn't mind not knowing.

The father and son stand to the side of the mother and daughter, and ask them what just happened.

"I hate to leave, but I really must be going," Timothy says, interrupting the conversation.

"My daughter thanks you so much. She says this is the greatest birthday gift she has ever received."

Timothy looks the daughter in the eye and smiles warmly at her. "You're welcome."

After exchanging farewells, Timothy walks slowly back towards his car. He gently knocks his knuckles on the metal playground slide as we walks by. The sound reverberates briefly and vanishes into the warm, Houston air.

Timothy makes it to his car and slowly gets into his seat. Before turning on the car, he hears his phone beep from the passenger seat. 4 missed calls, all from family. As he checks his voicemails, he looks out over the playground at the family he just left behind. His wife's voice comes over the voicemail. The little girl playfully runs from her mom, both of her tiny hands holding onto the side of her new hat.

"Hey Tim. This is Nic. Just wanted to call to make sure that everything was alright. I know this day is hard on you. Call me when you're on your way. I love you. Bye."

Timothy turns on the car and slowly drives away from the park. Yes, everything was alright, he thought to himself. Everything was just fine. He had gone to the park, and was back already.