Vergil’s Coffee

I live in a house with seven times zones and my ribs still hurt. Also, I did a bad thing in college and snuck out and saw a movie after curfew and I lied. And, I was the Resident Assistant responsible for enforcing the rules of the college with the guys in the house on Giddings Avenue. And, I don’t wear a watch anymore, but when I did, the watch was much like the one in the back of my classroom: a backwards clock. The hour numbers and the hands all run counterclockwise. I’ve had students tell me that they hate my clock because it represents time in the opposite direction. I hate being injured, though.

Fifteen  days ago, I was playing in one of those intramural basketball games and toward the end of the game I took a shot by somebody’s head or body part into my ribs. And I didn’t think much of it: I’ve played basketball for awhile and I’m used to be banged around (I think I even exaggerated my fall a bit to pick up the foul…I know: a bit pathetic). So got the foul and got back on my feet and the game was over fairly soon anyway. Then the pain and then the worst part: I couldn’t run. I’m into my spring training for spring marathons and it is really annoying that I can’t be training now and I think it’s something I truly hate: not doing something I’m used to doing for me.

It’s not as bad as the time Michael almost shot my eye out with a b-b gun nor the time Brad Frost and I challenged Geometry and Physics on a foggy Saturday morning. The garbage men were coming down our street and most of the houses on Washoe Court were still sleepy. I was the early riser in my family and fortunately my neighbor, Brad Frost was awake and we were trying out a jump that we fashioned from a long piece of plywood and a few two-by-fours that were left over from the shed that my brother made for our rats. So Brad went as fast as he could (I think starting beyond the Ramsey house) and hit the jump and woosh! I marked how far he cleared with some chalk. Then my turn and then his again. And I was thinking that I wanted to fly farther and told Brad to put another piece of wood under the board making a steeper angle. I figured the higher the jump and faster the speed would allow me a farther landing.

Not so. I cranked down hard with my right foot and hit the jump and my bike stop stopped in the wedge of the ramps angle and my body continued its motion forward over the hand bars and my chin met the pavement of Washoe Court.

I’m crying and cupping my chin with blood spilling over and burst into my mom’s room to wake her with my crying, my call for her, my blood on my hand and now on the floor of her room. She takes me to our doctor friend and he cleans things up and puts 10 stitches in my chin.

It took me awhile before I rode that bike again and what’s worse: a Saturday ruined.

I would get stitches again, in high school when I slid into a sprinkler head playing hot vox in Winnamucca, Nevada and having a doctor from Great Britain try to explain how he got stuck in Winnamucca, Nevada. A year later, during a game against Piner High School, I got undercut while going for a high pass and landed horizontal on the basketball court after connecting with the floor with side of my head. More stitches, but nothing broken (which I suppose was a good thing).

A year later, I would get undercut while practicing at the small college I went to in Grand Rapids, Michigan. No stitches this time, but something wacky happened to my back and I got introduced to the world of chiropractors. What a cool experience: fall asleep while they leave put that hot towel on your back whiles your face is in that doughnut-shapped thing. And then, to have someone create a wonderfully satisfying crack sound from your back. I got better and returned to practice two days later. And it’s the next year when my friend Kenton Kober thought it would be a good idea to see a movie (against the college rules), after curfew (against the college rules), with two friends of ours: Rhonda and Debbie (need I say more). But Kenton was insistent about the quality of the film and that it would be worth the several lies and broken rules. The film: Back to the Future and though I might have had some reservation walking into the theater (yes, probably glancing around to make sure that we didn’t get caught). Kenton was correct: a great film with a great soundtrack and we would spend many trips that year in his Ford Pinto listening to Huey Lewis and the News. I think he even got the thing airborne like Streets of San Francisco and Dukes of Hazard after he started all the way back by Franklin Ave and hit the sharp incline into the student parking lot.

The landing wasn’t beautiful, but I don’t think we injured anything.

Not like my ribs and I’m growing a bit impatient. I got the doctor-ordered CT scan and x-rays yesterday and I’m thinking that the results will have the treatment being: just rest a bit more. The treatment is as unsatisfying as the occasion of the injury: nothing huge happened. And yet, I’m am kept away from something I enjoy doing because of a fairly insignificant event. Perhaps injuries are supposed to be insignificant, but I’m refusing the cliche “Maybe it’ll help you slow down and get a new perspective on life.” I say that’s lousy advice and I think I’ll just retain my angry old man persona who scoffs at anyone who he sees running down his street, I don’t wish them ill or malice; I just mutter: “Stupid runner.” Sometimes I find that I’m also muttering about taxes and I wouldn’t be surprised if you see my in a beige leisure suit yelling “You kids…slow down you sons of bitches!” shaking my right hand for emphasis but then holding my right side with my left hand because my ribs still are sore. I’ll probably cough a few times and go inside for a nap.

I think the thing I’ll be most upset about is realizing that when there is that time when my ribs are no longer hurting and I am able to run again, I will have forgotten the pain and will have realized that I wasted a lot time thinking about not running because the pain served as a reminder of my temporary limitations. For to be unable to do what we once did so easily sometimes becomes self-made crisis. And with this little realization, I sometimes will focus on the many representations of time in our house.

For instance, before we left for piano lessons today, I checked all seven time zones: It’s 4:31 pm in our bedroom, 4:07 in the bathroom, 4:02 on the Palm Pilot that serves as our alarm clock, 3:54 in Colin’s room, 3:53 in Evan’s, 3:55 in the kitchen and 3:52 on the Oregon Scientific Atom Clock in the living room. I tried to pin the setting of clocks on Lori but she’s denying all of it. “Well, ” she says, she’ll be responsible for the bedroom clock. Evan chimes in to express his dissatisfaction with the time situation in our house of many time zones but she cuts him off” “It’s not your problem anyway,” she says.

And she’s probably right–about the time and the clocks. It’s all relative, isn’t it: time and pain?

And then I notice she’s wearing my orange watch that I occasionally wear on long runs. “Oh,” she says, “I still can’t find my watch…the thing didn’t keep good time anyway.”