Cider

There were six of us sitting on the porch last night drinking a fancy bottle of English cider or some such drink that Beth had brought down. The weeds growing in the second story rain gutter across the street caught my attention and led me into a series of day dreams about birds and great fields of wheat. When I snapped to again, the people on the porch were going on and on about work and politics and themselves. I took a sip of cider and looked back to the weeds in the gutter. From behind the bushes leapt Hayden, a neighbor's six year old son. Hayden is the only child I know and I only get a glimpse of him twice a month when his dad gets him for the weekend. He was like a mad man, throwing balls, rolling around in the grass, screaming for attention, declaring grand epiphanies and discovery almost every moment.

"Matt, play Frisbee with me. Mike look at this. Nicole why are you smoking? Daddy measure me. Beth will you play Frisbee?"

We all were too tired or too lazy, or to grown up to even get off the porch and play catch. After repeated pleas for me to play catch I got up and played catch left handed for a while but not even close to as long as Hayden intended the game to go on. I went back up on the porch to have another go with the cider where I watched in amazement as Hayden tore around on our shaggy sun-baked lawn.

Mike's phone rang and he disappeared only to reappear a few minutes later all flustered and stressed out. "Beth, I've got to go. They want me there at sixteen hundred tomorrow." Mike got called up to go fight the wildfires in Oregon. Beth freaked, "Oh Michael!" and they both looked panic stricken. Everyone else on the porch got silent, bummer. I looked over at Hayden, he was swinging his Frisbee at the stalks of grass and humming. I saw him look up with a bright expression that recognized the change of mood in the people on the porch. He ran up the porch stairs, "Beth play soccer with me! Play soccer with me!" "Not now Hayden!" Beth snapped. "Why?" he wanted to know. Mike chimed in, irritated, "We are in the middle of an emergency Hayden, not now." "Hayden was still in hyperactive play mode and seemed to be completely unphased but aware of all this weirdness. "Daddy, what is an emergency." "Mike and Beth have to go fight fires in Oregon Hayden." "How far is Oregon?" "If we left here at breakfast time we would be in Oregon by lunch time," his dad calmly explained. "Dad, look at this," he was already focused again on playing. I sipped my cider. Mike and Beth burst apart at the seems like a shack in a hurricane...like a dry tree trunk swallowed alive by wildfire. Suddenly I wanted nothing to do with adulthood.