34 years later and counting

34 years later and counting—

A bonfire, 1987, homecoming

night. I'm there tonight, with a bottle of wine.

That night, the number had been owned by

this really popular wavy haired blonde kid 

who drove a chevy truck before

country was cool

and who’d made 

a name for himself in blue and gold.

A recent graduate, playing college ball—

up in Orono as they used to say.

He’d heard I’d chosen the number he’d worn and spotted

me.

“You think you can live up to that number,” the voice asked, 

dead serious, out of the dark and the heat of the burning pallets

that warmed the faces 

of the people sipping whiskey

poured into coke cans. 

I looked up and saw him. 

Six two. 200 pounds and good looking.

“Yeah. Hi. It was my father’s number too,” I said, feeling 

pathetic.

I was 14 years old.

He smiled.

“Well, I hope you have a good season,” he said, 

and disappeared towards the coaches,

the high school principal, and a few booster

people on the far side of the fire.   

And as the seasons rolled along, I wondered if I was

living up to that number, the one I’d seen on the uniform of  

of my 17 year-old father in the black and white photo 

that sat on the bureau in his bedroom.

It was divisible by 3 and 7 and 1 and I divided my mind

hit after hit on fields and sitting with it on 

long bus rides to far-away places like Livermore Falls 

and Dexter 100s of miles away—

watching my height and weight increase 

from season to season

from 120 to 145, 170, 180,

and always placing these 

impossible benchmarks in the context

of my father’s approval 

“When I was your age,” I can still hear my father saying when I 

was at a measly 145. “I weighed 165. That’s a good weight for a corner back

but 180 would be ideal for a halfback.” 

On the last game my senior year

we lost 7-6. 

I dropped the ball on the 1

and had my jersey torn off my back.

I weighed around 175 then. 

It occurs to me, 34 years later,

over 19 months into the pandemic—

and all those numbers of people who have died

that I've kept track of daily—

that I never answered the good looking kid's question.