By the time Adam steps into the elementary school gym (even though his kid is a middle schooler, so why the fuck are they playing here?), he’s in no mood. Actually, fuck that: that expression makes no sense. He is most definitely in a mood, and the mood is pissed.

He sees the little rinky dink scoreboard settled wobbily over the crack of a foldable lunch table, sees it’s well into the first quarter (or first half? Do they have quarters in 7th grade basketball?), sees the time left: six minutes and 42 seconds and counting.

His phone vibrates in his pocket and he fishes the damn thing out, liberating one of his gloves onto the sopping grimy white-tiled floor:

r u coming

It’s from Rachel, his ex-, mother to his son, a full-grown woman who apparently can’t be bothered to spell out words or add a question mark.

(And don’t get him started on cell phones, please and thank you. He’d heard on the radio that in some places you could now text 9-1-1, because apparently even when your loved one is lying near-dead on the floor, people can’t be bothered to call and talk to a human voice.)

Adam is tempted to answer her question out loud for Rachel and the whole gym to hear. After all, she’s right there, no more than ten yards away, sitting on one of the folding chairs that line the gym.

“Yes, I am coming,” he’d tell her. “In fact, I’m here. But thanks for checking up on me. I would have been here sooner if the whole state hadn’t forgotten how to drive since last winter—not to mention parallel park. If people hadn’t left half a car between them all up and down the road, I wouldn’t have had to park six blocks away after circling the neighborhood for twenty minutes.”

He also wouldn’t have had to hear all about the recent run on cars—teenagers hotwiring them left and right, bashing in the back windows and going for joy rides, ditching them only once they’d gotten their jollies or beat the holy Hell out of them. It wasn’t just the kids’ fucking criminality that got Adam going; it was the BS excuses that adults made with what sounded on the radio like straight fucking faces. “Social media phenomenon,” one of them said, as if one dipshit putting a how-to video on the internet meant a whole generation was obligated to follow the instructions, and all the rest of us could do was to apologize for the miscreants after the fact. Raising them up to be something other than lowlife thugs was out of the question. One expert of something actually said the increased crime rate was an illusion since it was only one brand of car that was being stolen, and that was “only” because the brand hadn’t put in the proper protections, abrafuckingcadabra. Yes, Adam had thought back in his own car, jamming his thumb against the radio to turn it off, what is a kid supposed to do if a car doesn’t have its deflector shields up—who could possibly blame him for taking a crow bar or whatever blunt object is in vogue these days to a side window and making a mess of its dashboard circuitry? Honestly, could these weasels even hear themselves talk?

r u ok

Maybe you had to know Rachel to decipher her passive aggression. Maybe one of the moms sitting next to her, if they spotted her message out of the corner of their eye, wouldn’t realize she was speaking in code. Luckily for him, though, Adam speaks fluent Battleaxe. He most definitely does know her, Biblically and in every other way. And you better believe he knows she doesn’t give two craps about his whereabouts or well-being; she just wants to make him feel guilty about being a bad dad, as if it’s his fault she’d kicked him out for yelling too loudly at the TV. Look, he’s not saying he’s proud about the nick the remote left on the wall, not by a long shot, but for chrissakes, it wasn’t a hole—no, not even metaphorically, Rach, but nice try. You can believe whatever you want, but their son, to quote her exact words, “for some reason still cares more about what you think of him.” The implication is that Adam is somehow poisoning the well, turning Nick against her on those oh so rare occasions that he graces his son with his presence, but that she, being so mature and selfless, is willing to sacrifice herself for the sake of her child getting what he needs, even if what he needs is, inexplicably, an unreliable deadbeat failure of a father.

You know the real reason Nick likes him better? Adam may not be around enough; he’ll gladly grant the premise if not take the blame. But when he is able to cut through the red tape and see his one and only son, he actually pays attention to him. Mind-blowing concept, sure, but believe it or not it works. Take right now, for instance. His ex- is busy staring daggers into her phone, waiting for a reply, and to be fair, she isn’t alone: just about everyone sitting in those damn chairs has their gadgets out, totally oblivious to their little dears screeching their sneakers all over the floor.

But Adam? Nope and no thank you. There is one empty chair on the sideline, but he slides right past it and keeps on weaving his way to the corner of the gym, where he can remain standing. Maybe not the best view of the goings-on of the game, but out of the way enough for Rachel to wonder if he’s been there the whole time and on his own enough that neither Nick nor Rachel can fail to spot him after he shouts, “Let’s go, Nick!”

Sure enough, his son, hunched over at the block, waiting for some other kid to chuck a free throw, straightens up, swivels his head. Adam knows Rachel is likely doing the same, but he keeps his eyes fixed on his kid, who smiles just a tad—a curl of the lips, not overdoing it but enough to grant his pops a dignity that no one’s saying he’s earned but that maybe the old man above decreed for all fathers just trying to catch a damn break—and… what the fuck? Why does his son have a giant welt under his eye? The mark looks raw—red and puffy enough to squint his eye. Did this happen today? Just now? During the game?

Should he ask Rachel? No, if he does that, she’ll know he just arrived; besides, it’s not as if she’d have anything to add—her son could have been mugged right there on the court and she and her phone would have missed the whole thing.

Actually, mugging is dead fucking on. Free throws over, the boys aren’t so much running up and down the court as pouncing on each other. They’re clumped together, elbows flailing. If Nick took one of those elbows to the face, it’s no fucking wonder. He’s a full head and shoulders taller than most of the others—Adam got the same early growth spurt, then never got another—so when he holds the basketball over his head, the other team (and even one of his own teammates) resorts to thrashing and jumping and swiping, anything to get their grubby hands on the ball.

Jesus fucking Christ. Is anyone seeing this? Anyone at all? Has the ref swallowed his whistle? Adam spots a teenager with hockey hair lollygagging up the court, keeping his distance from the bloodbath. He doesn’t have a striped shirt but there’s a whistle dangling uselessly from the corner of his mouth. It isn’t just his hair that’s flopping, either; he’s literally wearing, no shit, flip flops as he shuffles up the court.

Adam looks to the coaches, and it doesn’t take a genius to deduce they won’t be any help. Are they both teenagers too? What they definitely are is bored out of their gourds. Forget standing up, pacing, thwacking a white board against a knee: these dipshits can barely manage to sit there without oozing onto the floor. One of them is resting his pimpled face on his hand; if he didn’t, his whole head would likely topple. Wait . . . did he just say something? It’s soft enough that Adam hears it almost as an afterthought: “Good hustle.”

Good hustle? These little fuckers are mauling each other, and their own coach can’t be bothered to give the ref an earful or at least suggest running a goddam play? It’s a good thing their bones are still mostly made of rubber; adult bones would have shattered by now.

“Spread out!”

It takes Adam a second to realize he’s the one who said that, and that he’s not finished:

“Quit reaching!”

But the middle school mob doesn’t do either. It’s like Lord of the Flies out there, except at least in that book all the adults were nowhere to be found.

“Spacing, boys!” he says. “Give each other some space!”

Sure, the proper place for some of these hoodlums is where you put people for assault and battery, with no hope of parole. But then again, they are 7th grade boys—of course they’re little animals. And even if they weren’t, even if they wanted to make a backdoor cut or do a screen and roll, they couldn’t, because this court is apparently as slippery as the streets that are currently freezing over outside. The creeps are slipping all over themselves with every step. Is it dust—is that the problem? Judging by the length and pitch of some of their screeches, at least a couple of them wore the same sneakers on the walk from the bus that they’re wearing right now. Under the far basket, a couple of tiles gleam with what look like actual puddles—of sweat? Of . . . Dear Lord in Heaven, is that a boot print?

That’s when Nick corrals the ball, attempts to dribble, and trips (over one of the 18 feet in his way? over the goddamn boot print?).

A whistle chirps. The word “travel” wriggles out of the hockey hair’d kid’s mouth.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Adam yells. “That’s what you’re going to call? After all the fucking tackle football you’ve allowed? At least he fucking tried to dribble! Every other kid has basically tucked the ball under their arm and took off for the fucking end zone without a peep from you!”

He keeps going—nothing can stop him. His half-awareness that the players have stopped playing—that the adults have stopped looking at their phones—that despite standing in the corner of the court, he is now the center of attention—that everyone is now looking at him—that he is making a scene and, it dimly dawns on him, there might be future court-ordered consequences for it—nothing, at this moment, can un-erupt his volcanic anger.

He certainly can’t reverse it himself.

“Dad.”

It’s as though he’s outside his body, his tirade reaching his ears as only a mumble, when he spots the broom, or brush, or mop, or whatever it’s called. That thing that’s specifically meant for sweeping this type of floor and that’s resting against the closed doors to an equipment room. Did the janitor leave it there? Why didn’t he use it? Why didn’t anyone use it?

“Dad!”

The boy, his boy, is talking to him, but he’s not looking at him, and Adam is doing the opposite: zoning in on his son, his mouth finally shut but his eyes wide open, pleading with them and whatever telepathic brain energy a father might have with his son please please please I’m on your side can’t you understand we’re on each other’s side.

You know what? Fuck it.

He storms out of the gym and down the hallway with the carpet that every school seems to have—the stuff that looked dirty when it was purchased so it’ll never look newly dirty, no matter how many muddy boots scamper across it–and now he’s through the nearest doors: the winter air, even in his heightened state, is noticeably sharper than it was just 10 minutes ago.

Adam shakes his head as he walks right down the middle of the ice-glazed street. He’s only a block or two from his car before he manages to scramble the image of his son’s turned face. In its place is the broom. The one by the equipment closet. Rather than cut and run, he tells himself, what he should have done is march straight across the court, giving Nick a fatherly tap on his head as he beelined past him. He should have let his son and every damn spectator watch him take the broom and matters into his own hands. Look, he could have said, possibly with his words but definitely with his deeds, take a good look because—

What the… Oh, you have got to be kidding. Of course. Of fucking course.

The guy is kneeling right there on the street, out in the open, jiggering with some poor sap’s car door. Adam can’t tell what he’s using exactly—a knife, a screwdriver, some other implement—but whatever it is, it’s occupying this punk’s full attention. His stocking-capped head is tilted toward his shoulder as he works, apparently oblivious to Adam’s approach.

“Hey!” Adam says. He means it to come out fierce, but his fear of whatever the guy’s wielding chokes off some of his stridency.

Still, he’s not about to back down now.

The guy looks up and over his shoulder just as Adam brings a fist forward. He’d intended to hammer down on the asshole’s shoulder, knock free whatever was in his hand, but he slips at the last instant and his knuckles land convincingly on the cranium, which, in turn, collides with the salt-blasted side of the Ford Taurus. The perpetrator slides limply between Adam’s legs.  Adrenaline still pounding, Adam scrambles for the thief’s left hand, opens the gloved fingers and…

No.

No.

No no no no no.

Shit.

No!

He glances at the man lying next to him. Boy—not man. Can’t be more than sixteen or seventeen. The kid looks as though he’s sleeping. The bruise on his temple barely a splotch, really. Adam tells himself that he sees his chest rise and fall, though the thick winter jacket makes it impossible to tell for sure. It’s seeing the boy’s blissful smile that causes the de-icer cannister to drop from his hand.

He thinks about calling 9-1-1.

He thinks about texting 9-1-1.

He looks around for something, anything to hold his attention. The car behind the Taurus has its windshield wipers sticking straight up. A true Minnesotan, there. When the temperature drops, and rain turns to ice, only the real ones remember to pull up their wipers so they don’t freeze to the windshield.

Except now, for some reason, the wipers remind him of arms, reaching for the air, reaching for…. They’re too spindly, of course. Too frail. He imagines being buried in an avalanche of snow, and those arms snapping right off when someone tries but fails to come to the rescue.