Collateral Damage
Nick lifted his hands and slowly rubbed his face. He stretched his legs and unlocked his phone.
6:46 AM
He shut his eyes, took in a slow, deep breath, let it out, and did it again.
And again.
And again.
After flipping the sheet, he dropped his legs off the bed.
He rubbed the crust out of the corners of his eyes.
He wasn’t surprised.
The wind had been heavy with pollen the last few days, and he could feel it in his chest as he ran on the track after his workout at the gym.
“Make sure you wake me up,” his daughter had said before they went to bed.
The cold floor gave him goosebumps as he walked out of the bedroom.
He peeked into his daughter’s room at her lifeless body.
Her mouth was open.
“Catching flies,” he thought.
Minutes before he got out of bed, he had heard her snoring, which made him smile.
Growing up, his father snored on the recliner.
He, too, was a fly catcher.
Some nights, the snoring would be so loud that he would wake himself up.
“What’s going on? Did you say something? I thought I heard something.”
“It was you. You were snoring. You woke yourself up.”
“I did?”
Since high school, his parents had slept in separate beds.
A few years before the divorce, Nick had wanted separate rooms for two reasons.
She snored, and the smell of vodka permeated the room.
It woke Nick up every hour.
“Married couples don’t sleep in separate beds,” she had said, during a conversation that turned into an argument.
After the Divorce, most nights he slept like a baby.
He shook his daughter’s shoulder.
“Hey, get up.”
Eyes closed, she rolled over the other way.
He shook her again.
“Get up.”
She blinked several times.
“What time is it?”
“It’s almost seven.”
“What time are we leaving?”
“Soon.”
“Like 20 minutes?”
“Roughly. If you get up quick, we can hit Dunkin.”
“Yay,” she said.
Twenty minutes later, she dropped her lacrosse bag into the back seat of the car, put her stick across the floor, and hopped into the front seat.
“I laughed when you scored the goal the other night.”
“Why?”
“It was funny. You missed a pass, lollygagged to go get it. U-turned. Ran around the girl and shot it into the goal, and just jogged back to your position. It reminded me of a walk-off homer in baseball.”
“What’s that?”
He explained to her what it was as they drove past the lake.
Up ahead, a car crossed in front of them as they turned into Dunkin.
“What did you want?”
“Two vanilla creams with frosting.”
Upon ordering, the voice said they were out of Vanilla Cream.
“That’s weird,” he said. “How are they out of them so early?”
Nick had noticed lately that the fast-food chains seemed to be out of something every time, or they were only taking exact cash. Before COVID, everything was normal. After COVID, there was a steady decline in workers’ value.
The confusion on their face as they counted change was odd.
A few weeks back, when Nick handed the kid 21.46 on a bill that was 10.46, the kid stared at the register while holding the money. Wanting a ten back, the kid had given him 5 ones and a five-dollar bill.
After he paid for his coffee, Nick pulled away and headed for another Dunkin that was on the way.
“Can I put the bang-bangs in the cup?”
“Sure.”
She started popping the little red firecrackers out of the tin capsules and putting them into the plastic cup in the cupholder, mixing them with the white poppers that looked like tiny, little ice cream cones.
The poppers, she knew, were for sidewalk walkers.
The Chinatown bang-bangs, as her father called them, were for scaring the shit out of people.
A few months back, his girlfriend had asked, “When did this popper thing originate? Like, how long have you been doing it?”
“Like my whole life. I don’t leave home without ‘em.”
Throwing things from cars had been a hobby.
Water balloons during high school.
And citrus fruit.
Oranges when it was above 60 degrees
Grapefruits were above 80.
Tangerines all year.
One night, when he was a kid, he had grabbed a couple of his father’s grapefruits after an argument. After missing a street sign, the grapefruit had rolled down the street and exploded.
Throughout college, oranges were his citrus of choice, but it was the tangerine that became his favorite. Tangerines, to Nick, were like snipers to the Military. They snuck up on unsuspecting pedestrians and exploded at their feet.
It left the sticky pedestrian dazed and confused.
And unaware of what had just happened.
After pulling out of another dunkin, his daughter starting eating one of the donuts.
“After the lacrosse tournament, we’re going to stop at the car wash and clean this car.”
“Ok.”
The parking at the field was already packed.
Nick wasn’t surprised.
Some parents treated their kids sports as a tailgate which Nick thought was odd. Growing up, parents dropped off and ran errands. Now, parents and grandparents clogged the parking lots to watch their kids or grandkids play sports.
“When I started coaching soccer twenty years ago,” his friend had said the week before. “Parents were so far away at practice, they needed binoculars. Now, they’re right on the field. At every practice. At every game.”
“Teaching a coaching are two things I’d stay away from these days,” Nick said.
“Agreed.”
His daughter reached into the backseat and grabbed her backpack and put the donut inside.
“I’m going to save that for later.”
“Ok.”
She opened the door and got out.
“I’m going now.”
“Ok. I’ll be here for a bit and come out when the game is starting.”
“Ok.”
Thirty minutes later, he got out of the car and walked past all the cars that lined the dirt road that led to the fields. He looked around to see which field she was on. After he found her, he watched for a little bit and when she wasn’t on the field playing, he walked around.
Every few minutes, the door of the sani-cans banged shut and a woman came out while another one went in.
While his daughter was off the field, Nick casually walked back to his car and pulled out the little bag he ordered on amazon. He went into the brick building and took a leak. Then he went into the stall and sprinkled the white powder on the toilet paper.
During the second game he scanned the pockets of small crowds.
It wasn’t until the third game that he saw a man adjusting his shorts every few minutes. Then walking off and disappearing and then coming back.
And adjusting them again.
And again.
Hours later, Nick’s father asked, “Did you ever get that stuff you were talking about?”
“The itching powder?”
“Ya.”
“Did it work?”
“Yup.”
His hands still itched a little bit, despite washing them several times. It was a small price to pay.
Collateral damage, he said to himself.
Note to self.
Next time, use gloves.