No Ordinary Men – Part II
See that tree fort?
That tree fort rules. It. Rules.
It has a trap door in the floor, a trap door to the roof, a hammock, and (I’m not making this up) a canon.
Me and my boys built it last summer. It has been slept in, fought over, cussed in, lied about, and ground zero for No Girls Allowed (unless you’re mom ‘because mom’s not a girl in the gross way,’ and, yes, that’s a direct quote.) That photo is taken from the roof of our home.
Now put that on the back burner for just a moment.
I work out. A lot. I say ‘work out’ because it’s more common vernacular than what it is I actually do, which is ‘train.’ And by ‘train’ I mean I come within an inch of my life every time I enter the gym with my buddy, Ryan. And (and I promise I am not making this up) ex-Marines have come up to us and asked us why in the name of all that is holy are we putting ourselves through the things we put ourselves though?
And I totally mean to brag about that. But not for the reason you might think. Yes, it’s very cool that an ex-Marine looks at us and shakes his head in disbelief at what we do. But that’s not the best part about it. The best part about it is why I do it at all. It’s not to garner the compliments of ex-Marines.
It’s so that Cute Redhead can’t kick my butt.
So one day Alpha and Beta Male come charging down the stairs and into my studio with enough yelling, and racket and What In The HELL Are You Two Doi–??! (which got cut off right away before I had to puzzle out any more of the mystery).
Because Cute Redhead was marching—marching—right behind them, letting them try and get to me first and make their case. Fools. I invented Divide and Conquer. Dream on, nutjobs.
I glance the Parent Glance (takes, on average, .00087 seconds to send and receive) at Cute Redhead, and immediately know the Spawn are up to no good. Because Cute Redhead was taking no chances with Male Limbic Brain being all…well, Male Limbic Brain, and threatened me silently mouthed the words, “You. Will. Support. Me. In. This.”
Me: “Okay, STOP.” *points to Alpha Male* You. Go.”
Alpha Male: “Dad! Can we get on the roof??”
Beta Male: “Yeah! The roof! Can we get on the roof??”
Male Limbic Brain: “All forces stand down. Repeat: stand down. This is a no-brainer. Resume Distraction by Something Shiny.”
Me: “What?! What do you mean ‘can we get on the roof?’”
AlphaBeta: “Dad! C’mon!! Please! Mom won’t let us and we just want to get on the roof!! C’mon!!”
Cute Redhead: *silence. *arms crossed.
Okay, I was born for this moment.
I looked at them and all the hope and dreams and promise and ABSOLUTE IDIOCY leaking out of every inch of their little punk bodies. And I let a few seconds of Brooding Thoughtful Dad Silence descend over the room. I shook my head very slightly as much as to say, “…my little, little men. How young. How naive.”
I stand up, walk over to Cute Redhead, Partner For Life, Joint Chief of Staff, The Woman God Gave Me, She Who Will Be Reckoned With…put my arms around her and hugged her from behind and smiled at them, dashing all their well-laid plans to do God-knows-what-on-the roof.
I said, “Boys…let me make something painfully clear to both of you. You come charging into my studio like you’re on fire and knock down my door with a request like that? You try and run ahead of your mom thinking you can get me to give you a green light when I KNOW she’s told you no? Boys. Please. This is me, your Dad. And this is your Mother.” And she actually softened into me, Her Man. Her Protector. Her Stud Bull.
And then two things happened at exactly the same moment: I hugged her tighter than I’ve ever hugged her in my whole life and said, “Yes. Go get on the roof.”
Okay…ever hear of those big, fat, giant molecular colliders that they’ve been building for decades? The ones that are this big giant circle of all this energy racing around a fifty-mile wide radius beyond the speed of light—all in order to collide ON. PURPOSE. just to see what would happen? Okay, that’s a billion times less the amount of energy Cute Redhead recruited in her Tiny Redhead body when she realized I gave the Spawn the Official Go Get ‘Em, Boys and held her so hard she couldn’t stop them.
Which would have been a futile effort anyway. Because the whooping and hollering and clanging (from the ladder) had already produced a din rivaling a stadium full of crazed Super Bowl fans hopped on Red Bull. And Mountain Dew. And cocaine. And then set on fire. But it was good they were out of ear shot. Because sweet innocent babes should not
SHOULD NOT EVER
have to hear, let alone witness, the Hell I had just unleashed.
Well. Almost unleashed.
She grew talons.
She grew horns.
She grew scales.
She breathed fire.
Her eyes turned red.
Sparks danced on her fingernails.
In those brief moments, I understood fully what power lifters work to control, lest the bar come down and send their asses into next week. And I knew, too, that until I knew that I knew that I knew I was safe in full control of her emotions, there was no way I was going to release my grip.
Cute Redhead: “You. Are. A. Dead. Man.”
Me: “I love you too, pumpkin *big kiss*”
Except that’s not at all what the exchange went like. The actual exchange is a string of threats and obscenities and histrionics that to this day are still getting confused for space debris knocking meteors out of orbit. And they all came from Cute Redhead.
As far as she was concerned I was in Direct Violation of enough to allow her to cut my body into different parts and mail them separately to the Taliban. Because that all by itself would have stopped the War on Terror dead in its tracks. Because they would have seen a small glimpse of the Power That Is Mom and fallen on their own swords. And I’m not kidding.
To say she sorta read me the riot act is like saying I sorta like still have radiation burns from the tongue lashing.
But I took it like a man.
That is, I took it like a dad. Their dad. She demanded I stop them. NOW.
I looked at her, smiled, crossed my arms, smiled some more, and said, “No.”
And there was never before, or since, a more critically clear distinction of How Absolutely Good and Right and Necessary—and Very Dangerous—it was to, right in front of God and everybody, defy Mom and let the boys risk life and limb.
I’ll chance explaining how and why in the next post, comrades.
[...] Still, I knew it had already been articulated better than I could myself, so, chancing a few steps within striking distance, set down in front of Cute Redhead the quotes already in Part I and in Part II. [...]