Akting Out

We have a tradition. It is not to be taken lightly, nor is it to be ignored. Refusing to honor what we have worked so hard to set up was disrespectful, and meant that we’d probably kick your ass later.

Today, I’m wondering if the ass-whopping might be the better option. I have to travel the furthest, coming all the way from San Leandro to meet the others. It is not a good day for traveling; the skies are a rumbling, gray, ticking time bomb threatening to burst at any moment, and there is no special unit to avert what’s coming. I peer at the rolling clouds from my second story window; thunder and sheet lightning mark the countdown to the inevitable. When it gets here, it’s going to be big.

But we have a tradition, and traditions cannot be ignored.
And so I gather my heavy black duffel bag, packed with a day’s worth of clothes–I’m going to need it–and rouse my son. It doesn’t take much, he’s been psyched about this all week. He’s only four, but every bit the little badass I was as a child. If I had left without him, he probably would’ve swam across the Bay to catch up. This is his first time on the train, and his first time taking part in the tradition.

It takes him less than fifteen minutes to dutifully make his bed, which consists of a sheet and a worn, thin comforter adorned with race cars. He has a little, brightly-colored backpack of his own that holds two days worth of clothes. I expect him to get much dirtier than I will.

It’s about a mile between our house to the train station, and we have to walk. In his zeal, he barely adheres to the rules of the road, haphazardly crossing the street. I struggle to keep my eyes on him while cautiously watching the sky. Thunder and lightning burst with more frequency, the clouds tumble over each other and illuminate with nature’s madness. We don’t have much time.

Blessedly, we get to the train station dryly. He insists, jumping and reaching for my wallet, that he buys his own ticket, like a big boy. I relent. I’m more concerned with his catching cold anyways. Why did I think it was a good idea to dress him in short sleeves?
He spots the hot dog vendor at the entrance to the gates, and the immigrant looks as though he has better things to do. I explain to my son why hot dogs are bad at seven in the morning. I’m a hypocrite; if he wasn’t there, I would’ve ordered two.

He will not sit down on the train, and luckily, the car is vacant enough to allow him to run around freely. When the train starts and stops suddenly, he loses his balance suddenly, and I have to stifle a laugh. It must happen twenty times between San Leandro and San Francisco. It never fazes him. He may as well be at a toy store, going through the empty seats like a maze and trying to identify evey location on the map, which is bright enough to glow in the dark.

Only when we depart from 12th Street, and descend underwater, does he finally settle down. We’ve descended into the tunnel that runs beneath the Bay, only the tubes along the wall provide any illumination. It’s unsettling to him, and suddenly, he wants to get off the train now.

Luckily, the darkness doesn’t last long. By the time we arrive at Powell Street, I’m only ten minutes late. Not enough to warrant a violation of our tradition.
The station rumbles as though caught in the grip of an Earthquake, and I hear what sounds like Heaven’s army speed-marching on the ground above us as thunder heralds their arrival. The storm is here.

We have a tradition, and it cannot be ignored.
I take a brief moment to secure my young son’s raincoat while wishing I had brought one. We make our way up the stairs where Fernando, who is also bound to this tradition, awaits. Large, muscular, and light-skinned for a Latino, he looks as though he was growing impatient. “Nando” was never late to anything in his life. We joke that he set an appointment for his own birth.

My son and I pile into his Escalade, which is pristine white and two months old. We make small talk, filling each other in on the details of our work week and talking about the upcoming event. My son takes to him immediately. I become the bad guy when I refuse to let my son sit in Nando’s lap and take control of the Escalade.

At twenty-three years, I have never seen rain like this. It moves horizontally, pressed by the wind. Nando’s windshield wipers squeak annoyingly as they fly back and forth across the windshield, doing their job and keeping us alive. The only way we know someone’s head of us is by watching the red of their rear-lights. Nando has a pretty good sense of direction; he’ll get us to where we need to go, even if the Armageddon hits. Considering the storm we’re in, that may have been a bad analogy. But I don’t say antyhing.

We arrive at Golden Gate Park right on time. Jake, the smallest of us, awaits with Mike, the most wiry. Of all of us, Mike had the best shot of going pro. A knee injury had killed any aspirations of a pro career, and although I didn’t know it at the time, a much road lay ahead of me. But that’s for another day.

Neither the soft-spoken, pale Jake nor the dark-skinned, comical Mike have ever met my son, who wastes no time introducing himself. My son is perpetually happy; he’s immediately a hit. But enough talk; he wants to play. Luckily, Mike’s girlfriend came with him, and she brought her godson with her. Poor Travis has no idea what he’s in for.

In the meantime, the tradition must be honored.
Nando and I partner up. Mike gets Jake. It’s strength vs. speed.
Nando produces the well-worn football, the one that is slowly coming apart at the seams. It will be put to the test today.
Jake and Mike win the coin toss. Surprisingly, Nando and I will start with the ball.

The game is unimportant (but we won, I feel a need to say that). We discovered quickly that passing was impossible; the ball was barely visible through the rain. Limited to running plays, the game was more of a fistfight, and not one of us left the game intact. Best friends inflicted bruises, hard knocks, cheap shots, and low blows in their quest to win the weekend game. In the end, strength won out.

My son was unrecognizable, caked in mud by the time we were done. As always, we went back to Nando’s house, where we cleaned up, ordered pizza, and watched the Niner’s game. As the night went on, more people showed up, and one person made the mistake of disparaging the niners with my son present. My son proceeded to promptly step on his foot before storming off to the bathroom. We all got a kick out of it.

The following morning, injuries and all, we said our goodbyes. My son and I returned to the West Bay Area and better weather than when we had left; blue skies had returned to California.  My son had barely gotten in before he let loose with his new memories, embellishing and treating them as a new toy as he relayed the weekend to his mother. That following week, I returned to work.

The weekend would be there soon enough. We would soon be back in Golden Gate park.

Although we had all agreed to never stray from the tradition, we had never said that it couldn’t be added to. My son had become apart of our tradition, and never again would I travel across the Bay without him again.

For now, more than ever, this tradition could not be ignored.

(c) Avery K. Tingle for Akting Out LLC

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