Summer 2012 Reflective Essay

Brimming with affection, the woman offered me a kind, toothless grin and extended her hand.  When our palms touched, she clasped my fingers and squeezed, communicating so much to me without even uttering a word.

Suddenly, she turned around in her chair and reached down to the floor, lifting a white plastic bag filled with yarn into her lap.  After rummaging through it for a few moments, she presented me with her latest creation, a small, royal blue coaster decorated with gold stars along the edges.  I clenched it in between my fingers and thanked her profusely, attempting to conceal the lump forming in my throat with a lopsided smile.  My discomfort apparent, she lowered her gaze and adjusted the IV tube protruding from her inner elbow.

Expressing gratitude several more times, I excused myself and steadied my breath.  After almost eight weeks of volunteering in the oncology center at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, it pained me that the work continued to bombard me with emotional obstacles and distress.  Frustrated with myself, I stared down at the tiny, hand-woven craft and traced my fingers along its stitching. 

Moments later, the meal cart arrived from the basement, signaling the start of my next task.  Thankful for an opportunity to busy myself, I rummaged through the floor refrigerator and stocked the cart with juice boxes, sodas, cups of ice water, and Saltine crackers.  One by one, I poked my head into each cubicle and offered lunch to each patient and every accompanying family member.  Often, stoic families ate their soups and chicken salad sandwiches as tired patients looked on with nausea. 

After making my rounds, I headed downstairs for my own lunch break, the smell of the boxed lunches encompassing the entire cafeteria as workers, doctors, families, and children munched happily, thoroughly engrossed in their meals and seemingly unaware of the nightmare transpiring just a few doors away.

Most days, perhaps to assuage my conspicuous unease, the nurses requested that I file for them after lunch, a dull activity that, oddly enough, provided me with some peace.  Alone in the quiet storage rooms, I alphabetized each file and organized them based on last visit date, type of treatment, and importance.  Here, the work proved simple, unemotional, each document in my meticulous control.  When I finished one stack, another appeared, occupying my head in addition to my heart for seemingly endless hours.     

Other days, I performed more lively duties such as transporting patients to the other end of the hospital by wheelchair, collecting samples from the lab, assisting in the perioperative wing, and participating in the cancer center’s bi-weekly extracurricular activity, such as jewelry beading and meditation seminars.  As the weeks passed, I formed friendships with the other volunteers who, like me, applied for the internship position without any prior knowledge of the program or its responsibilities.  Most importantly, I bonded closely with several chemotherapy patients who greeted me every day with a cheerful smile and a story to share.  Their willingness to foster intimacy in a place dripping with eerie uncertainty bewildered me, entwined my feelings of despondency, grief, and emptiness with that of hope and comfort.

After completing one hundred service hours for the hospital, I gloomily relinquished my security badge.  On that final day, I recall staring quizzically at my identification photo, an image of the cheery, bright-eyed, overtly naïve optimist eight weeks before, a child-turned-adult who lacked any direct knowledge of human suffering, a girl now foreign to me.     

Upon my last shift in the oncology ward, I fought back the water works as I received genuine words of gratitude and appreciation from the patients for donating so much of my summer to them.  More than anything, I yearned to explain to them their impact on me and my sheltered, privileged existence of copious good fortune, limited struggle and plentiful health, yet my words failed to form coherently or logically, my throat hollow, my mouth dry.  

Whenever I recall my experience at the hospital, the faces of the patients appear in my mind, their smiles, their tales, their frail bodies, and their perennial warmth.  During personal instances of adversity or periods of fleeting darkness, I often cradle the royal blue coaster in my hands, remembering the strength of the gentle woman who bestowed it, yearning for one more chance to thank her, and wondering, my heart heavy, what became of her.     

A Streetcar Named Desire: The Feminist Approach

On November 30, 1947, four days before A Streetcar Named Desire premiered on the New York stage, The New York Times published an essay by Tennessee Williams entitled On a Streetcar Named Success.  In it, Williams admits that “[i]t is only in his work that an artist can find reality and satisfaction.”  Perhaps he pursued this fulfillment to escape the societal malice often inflicted upon him due to his sexual orientation.  Williams’s homosexuality led him “to possess a deep understanding of feminine psychology and a special sympathy for his heroines,” who constantly encounter hardship and brutality in his works (Adler 77).  In A Streetcar Named Desire especially, Williams imposes adversity upon the female characters by means of male oppression, a theme prevalent throughout his own life.  Criticizing stereotypical gender roles and expectations, Williams condemns society’s stigmatization of women not only through the flawed females in A Streetcar Named Desire, but also via their male counterparts.

Seeking refuge from a dismal past, Blanche arrives in Elysian Fields and immediately concocts an intricate web of lies to conceal her true identity from potential defamation.  Garbed head-to-toe in white “cocktail” attire, Blanche’s external appearance symbolizes purity and traditionalism; yet, her actions indicate otherwise (15).  As she settles into the dingy, crowded, one-bedroom apartment, Blanche uncovers the couple’s liquor stash and proceeds to “pour a half tumbler of whiskey [that] she tosses down,” (19).  When Stella returns from her outing, Blanche assures her that “[her] sister hasn’t turned into a drunkard” and asks for a drink, feigning ignorance to the liquor’s whereabouts (19).  Blanche and Stella engage in awkward small talk as the former blatantly criticizes her sister’s home, noting “never in [her] worst dreams could [she] picture…these conditions” despite her own crumbling financial situation (18).  Concealing the loss of her job with a voluntary “leave of absence,” Blanche withholds the details of her illicit sexual affair with a student that ultimately ruined her career and her reputation (21).  Blanche’s insecurities drive her to “cling to romantic illusions to sustain her self-image,” which she interprets as the key to male affection and, consequently, happiness (Avinger).  This idea causes Blanche “to moderate her life so that her individuality is compatible with the individuality of others, [which] stands in testament to a…mid-twentieth century view of heroism” (Berkman). Unable to conform to her predetermined role as a female, Blanche resorts to grandiose fabrications to mask her true self from a society that will surely reject her.  

Due to Stella’s lack of assertiveness and her willingness to submit to an abusive husband, society views her as virtuous and thus rewards her, rather than Blanche, with its approval.  As Blanche’s foil character, Stella “is more realistic…accepting Stanley and his working-class conditions rather than trying to recreate the life of privilege that has long since vanished for the DuBois family” (Avinger).  Fearing her sister’s reaction to her brutish, working-class husband, Stella describes him as “[a] different species” and cautions that “there were things to adjust [herself] to” as their relationship progressed (24).  When Stanley beats Stella following a drunken binge, Blanche springs into action and hurries Stella out of the house.  However, Stella’s sexual attraction to her husband surpasses her fear of him, and she eagerly returns to their home that same night.  Outraged by her sister’s behavior and Stanley’s mistreatment of her, Blanche condemns the marriage as “lunacy, absolute lunacy,” yet the couple’s friends instruct her “[not to] take it serious[ly]” (61).  Blinded by sexual attraction and reluctant to jeopardize the “economic and emotional security she has achieved as [Stanley’s] woman” (Lant), Stella “willingly consents to being a womb to be impregnated” and tolerates the abuse (Adler 78).  As a result, “society idealizes and sanctifies [her], the virginal woman for man’s use in marriage” (Adler 78).  By condoning the couple’s dysfunctional relationship, Stella and Stanley’s contemporaries symbolize society’s support of male dominance as well as “wifely submissiveness” (Adler 78).  Stella’s lack of power in her marriage ultimately contributes to Blanche’s final breakdown, for “Stanley…is not checked in any way by the family structure that should provide some protection and support for Blanche” (Woolway).

Threatened by Blanche’s presence in his home, Stanley antagonizes his sister-in-law to such an extent that he too eventually serves as a catalyst to her downfall.  Once Blanche witnesses the magnitude of Stanley’s violence directed toward her sister, she urges Stella to flee the town with her, labeling her brother-in-law with offensive words including “ape,” “brute,” and a “survivor of the stone age” (72).  After Stanley overhears her tirade, he seeks to uncover the secrets of her past to avenge her critique, and even purchases a one-way ticket for her to her hometown.  Highlighting Blanche’s “imaginative energy” (Lant), Williams “made [Stanley her] complete opposite—angry, animalistic, and reliant on his basest instincts” (Galens 286).  Blanche’s refined disposition contrasts sharply to Stanley’s bellicose tendencies, and as a result, he victimizes her; since “a male is to confirm the biological superiority that is stereotypically attributed to him, he needs a weaker inferior whom he can dominate and manipulate” (Adler 78).  According to the feminist approach, this explains Stanley’s abuse of Stella and his eventual rape of Blanche in Act II, as “male power requires assertion through physical means” (Adler 78).  To Stanley, Blanche’s visit disturbs the routine of his daily life and endangers his alpha-male status in the home.  This leads him to “grasp at whatever power he can find in order to assert his place in the family and society around him” once again (Galens 286).  Conforming to his gender’s stereotypical norm, Stanley “view[s] women by and large to be used for [his] own gratification and self-affirmation” (Adler 78).

A similar stereotype accounts for Mitch’s eventual rejection of Blanche, symbolizing society’s faulty perception of the ideal woman.  When Blanche first encounters Mitch, she immediately notices an attraction between them, considering him “superior to the others” and “sensitive” (49).  Seeking intimacy, which, according to Williams, “humankind finds most glorious and must always pursue,” Blanche naturally gravitates toward Mitch because she considers him suitable for marriage (Berkman).  This pursuit of a husband depends “specifically [on] the intermingling of sex with compassion; for sex without compassion she cannot accept” (Berkman).  To Blanche, marrying Mitch “can restore her to grace” and counteract the prejudices asserted by society against her promiscuous nature (Berkman).  Fearful of Mitch and humanity’s response to her indecency, Blanche secretes her sexual history by asserting her virginity, yearning to “give [magic] to people…[by] tell[ing] what ought to be the truth” rather than the actual truth (117).  However, once Mitch becomes privy to the secrets of her past, including her history of prostitution, he “condemns her” and “does not embrace her tenderly again; he calls her dirty and demands his sexual due” (Berkman).  Mitch’s attempted rape of Blanche and his reaction to her former lifestyle “draw attention to the discrepancy between how women really behaved and what type of behavior was publicly expected of them by society” (Galens 288).  His violent reaction further illuminates “how male views of female behavior were so idealized that that if a man discovered any deviation from accepted norms…his reaction would be extreme” (Galens 287).  No longer viewed by Mitch as “clean enough to bring home to [his] mother” (121), Blanche painfully acknowledges that her lifelong “struggle for intimacy has come to its end” (Berkman).  Society’s expectations of feminine chastity and purity justify Mitch’s discarding of Blanche, for she “must exist in a male world on male terms” and fails to “pleasure and placate those in whose hands her destiny rests” (Lant).  Mitch’s rejection of Blanche represents “the narrow roles open to females during this period,” as well as both male and female’s struggle to adhere to “the expectations of Southern society” (Galens 288).

Similarly, Stanley’s rape of Blanche not only underscores humanity’s tolerance of sexual abuse and domestic violence toward women, but also further denounces the patriarchal society.  As Blanche prepares to flee the town with a man of her own imaginings, Stanley appears and reacts by “unmasking her pretensions and her lies, by physically unclothing and raping her” (Lant).  Driven mad by her life’s disappointments, culminating with her failure to woo and marry Mitch, Blanche “is…[forced] beyond her ability to cope with the wholly male world” and then, subsequently, penalized for her wrongdoings (Lant).  However, Blanche’s rape “does not only come about because of her actions, but because of the flaws of society itself” (Galens 286), which sanctifies her exploitation “as the punishment for fallen women” (Woolway).  Since each female character in A Streetcar Named Desire encounters sexual or domestic abuse, critics often contend that the play “paints a grim picture” of the stereotypical woman, who “accept[s] and perhaps even welcome[s] sexual violence as part of life” (Galens 294).  Yet, Williams simply sought to “record, rationalize, and criticize the use of the penis as a weapon,” as well as “the misogyny which colors the play” (Lant).  Sympathetic to the limited “route of superiority open to [a woman that is] largely denied to her…by most men,” Williams critiques the unjust society that precipitates Blanche’s tragedy (Adler 79).   

A Streetcar Named Desire reflects Williams’s condemnation of the patriarchal society for its unjust denigration of females and, arguably, homosexuals such as himself.  Exemplified most notably through his portrayal of Blanche, a character “wholly female [and] driven beyond her ability to cope with the wholly male world,” Williams’s censure reproaches “the chauvinism that thrived in the 1940’s” that ultimately led to Blanche’s downward plummet into madness (Lant).  Williams, who “admitted to finding much of himself in Blanche and, conversely, much of Blanche in him,” sought to illustrate the adversities of feminism in a work of literature “more amendable than virtually any other classic American drama to such an approach” (Adler 77).   

Works Cited

Adler, Thomas P. A Streetcar Named Desire: The Moth and the Lantern. Boston: Twayne, 1990.                                          

           Print.  

Avinger, Charles.  “A Streetcar Named Desire.”  Cylclopedia of Literary Characters, Revised Third Edition(1998): 1.  Literary Reference Center Plus.  Web.  20 Mar 2013. 

Berkman, Leonard. "The Tragic Downfall of Blanche duBois." Modern Drama 10.2 (Dec. 1967): 249-257. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jean C. Stine and Daniel G. Marowski. Vol. 30. Detroit: Gale Research, 1984. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Apr. 2013.

Galens, David. Drama for Students. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Print.

Lant, Kathleen Margaret. "A Streetcar Named Misogyny." Violence in Drama. Ed. James Redmond. Cambridge University Press, 1991. 225-238. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism Select. Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Mar. 2013.     

Woolway, Joanne. "An overview of A Streetcar named Desire." Drama for Students. Detroit: Gale. Literature Resource Center. Web. 3 Apr. 2013.

Remember When

“Are you sure this is the right decision?” my husband inquired for the fourth time.

                “It’s what she wanted,” I replied evenly.  I fought to blink back tears.  I wanted him there with me more than anything.   

                “Ok.  Call me afterwards.  I love you,” he said quietly.  We hung up. 

                I glanced at the rear-view mirror and quickly reviewed each of my children’s faces.  Jane, the oldest, sat groggily in the very back of the mini-van, face pressed against the glass.  Susie, her little sister, anxiously clicked her tongue with loud, smacking clucks and watched with maternal affection as Anna, the 35-week-old infant, slept soundly.  Tommy, three years Susie’s junior, bounced excitedly in his car seat, chattering endlessly to fill the deafening silence. 

                Finally, the nursing home entrance appeared in the distance.  Butterflies angrily consumed the walls of my stomach while my heartbeat slowed.  Maybe they really weren’t ready for this. 

                “We’re here!” Tommy cried with glee.  “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, can I unbuckle yet?”

                I felt myself smile at Tommy’s eagerness to see his grandparents, to free himself from the bondage of the car seat and to run at full speed through the halls into their arms. 

                “Not until the car stops moving,” Jane answered coolly.  Tommy stuck his tongue out at her and she playfully ruffled his hair. 

                I parked near the entrance and turned off the engine.  This was it. 

                My husband’s voice entered my head.  Just be honest with them he had instructed.  When I turned to face them, six brown owl-eyes met mine with curious apprehension. 

                “We’re going to see Grammy today,” I heard myself say.  I bit my lip, unsure how to merge into the bitter truth.

                “Is she dying?” Jane asked suddenly.

                “No, she’s not dying!” Tommy giggled.  “She promised to get green Jell-O with me today with extra whipped cream!” He licked his lips and beamed, his smile stretching from ear to ear.  Inside, my heart rippled into a million shreds. 

                “Grammy isn’t feeling well today,” I said gently. 

                “Is today a bad day?” Jane probed.  I nodded.  Jane understood the difference between her Grammy’s good days and her bad days. 

                “What’s dying?” Susie questioned, sucking her thumb. 

                Jane’s hand shot up in the air.  Patiently, she waited for me to call on her, as she had been taught to do in school.  “Can I tell her, Mom?”  She asked with fervor. 

                I nodded.  “Dying’s when you leave earth and go to heaven,” She explained proudly.  “People die when they get sick or crash their cars and stuff like that.  Daddy’s job is to help sick people so that they don’t die before they need to.” 

                “Daddy’s a doctor,” Tommy said with conviction. 

                I unbuckled the seatbelt and stepped into the dark, sinister world.  I quickly wiped my eyes before lifting the baby out of the car seat and into my arms.  I hugged her a bit closer to myself than normal. 

                The five of us walked through the automatic doors and greeted the nurses at the front desk.  Tommy high-fived the security guards, who knew him by name.  We had become regulars there. 

                I breathed in the scent of carpet cleaner and hand sanitizer, an odor that reeked throughout the entire home.  In a strange way, I knew I would grow to miss it.  Our days left with the Shady Hook Manor community were dwindling rapidly. 

                Tommy excitedly skipped through the halls until we reached the seventh wing.  My father stood outside the room at the end of the hall and extended his arms.  Jane, Susie, and Tommy flew down the corridor, throwing themselves around his neck.  He closed his eyes and kissed them. 

                Once I reached them, he gently pressed his lips to baby Anna’s head and returned his attention to the others.  With slow steps, we led them inside. 

                My mother sat in the sun room next to Cora, her longtime nurse.  Vigorously, she twiddled her thumbs as Cora rose to greet the kids. 

                Cora pulled me aside.  “Holler if you need me.  I’ll let you have some time alone with her.”  She lightly patted Anna on the back and then squeezed my hand.  Her smooth, ebony skin sent shivers throughout mine.

                Jane looked at her siblings and then at me.  I nodded my head.

                She stepped forward.  “Hi, Grammy,” She said softly, pecking her on the cheek.  Susie followed after her, planting a quick kiss on her face and then running away to cower behind my legs. 

                “Hey, Ma.  I brought the kids to see you today, just like you wanted,” I said shakily, sitting down next to her. 

                “Daddy couldn’t come today.  He’s doing surgery at the hospital,” Jane explained to her. 

                “Surgery,” her Grammy repeated lifeless.  She stared blankly into space, inhaling and exhaling through the oxygen tube around her nose. 

                Suddenly, Tommy appeared from the other room and sprinted to Grammy’s side.  He plopped down onto her lap and hugged her with all his might. 

                “Is it Jell-O time yet?” He asked her.  She gazed at him in a quizzical stupor.  “Huh, Grammy?  Can we go now?”

                “Who are you?” she mumbled.                

                “Grammy!  It’s Tommy,” He giggled, pleased at the invention of a new game.  “I’m Tommy, you’re Grammy.”

                “Tommy?” she wondered in a slow grumble.  Her eyes met his.  He continued to gleam. 

                “Tommy, just stop it,” Jane pleaded, frustrated.  “She doesn’t know who you are.”

                “Janey, she knows who he is,” her grandpa stated soothingly.  “Sometimes, she just doesn’t remember, that’s all.  But she loves you all very, very much.”  I gaped at him with awe, incredulous at his assuredness. 

                “Grandpa, why did she forget us?” Susie asked dejectedly. 

                He paused.  “Well, she’s just not feeling like herself today.  But she wanted to see you all again, just in case…well, just because she loves you so much,” he finished, his voice tired, heavy.

                “Can Daddy help her?” Susie pondered, tugging on my jacket sleeve.  I ran my hands through her hair, wondering how anyone could ever forget a face so pristine and angelic.

                “No, I don’t think he can, sweetie,” I said softly.  Anger filled my heart as a single tear rolled down her cheek.  “But, maybe he will be able to help other people like her one day.”

                The room echoed with silent thought.  Restless, Tommy shifted his weight back to his grandmother.

“Grammy, remember when you promised to get the cafeteria Jell-O with me?” Tommy inquired, full of hope.

                She skimmed the room, frightened at the presence of so many strangers.  “How did you get in here?” she asked fiercely.  “Who are you?  Why are you touching me like that?  I’ve never even seen you before!” She began to shake violently. 

                Alarmed, Anna awoke from her slumber and shrieked.  I realized then that she would never remember her Grammy.  And her Grammy would never remember her. 

                “Grammy…?” Tommy started.

                “Get him off of me!” she bellowed, and threw him off her lap.  “Get out!  Go!  Scram!”  She heaved harder and harder with every breath.

                “I hate you!” Tommy yelled back, and fled from the room.  A horror-stricken grandpa ran after him.   Petrified, I sat motionless as my mother rocked herself back and forth.

                Cora briskly walked into the sun room and helped my mother onto her feet.  “Alright, I think Grammy is a little tired today…I’m sorry, guys, but maybe Mommy will let you can come back soon?” She looked at me, offering a warm smile.  The girls stared at me with forlorn gazes that penetrated my very soul. 

“Of course,” I lied.  “They’ll be back soon.  Let’s go, kids.  Wave bye-bye to Grammy, now.”  Cora mouthed she was sorry to me before leading my weeping mother into her bedroom. 

As the girls fetched their jackets, I cooed Anna back to sleep.  Hot tears soaked my face, each drop as dense as a waterfall.  I shut the door to the apartment and went to find Tommy so I could lie again and reassure him that he would always be in his Grammy’s heart.  

4:15

After a long summer afternoon’s football practice, I excitedly plopped onto the faded grey couch in the living room and elevated my sore knee upon our lumpy, homemade, potato sack pillow.  Although the training session had ended almost a half an hour prior, I continued to feel my body bracing itself for another round of sprints, my muscles expanding and contracting with every slow, painful breath. 

Coach expected much more from me than from the other boys on the team.  Since I joined the varsity squad freshman year, he dedicated the whole of his career to molding me into a player qualified enough to impress a college scout.  Monetarily, I evidently stood out as the weakest link on the team.  However, Jesus blessed me with an arm equal to that of Unitas in his prime.  When Coach elected me starting quarterback three years ago at the meek, awkward age of fourteen, I resolved then and there to channel every last iota of strength and fervor to the game—the game I desperately needed to save me.

 Just as my eyes began to droop into a well-deserved rest, a slimy, frigid plastic bag filled with ice chips landed square on my throbbing kneecap.  I glanced up with a start only to find a black-eyed, angry-looking Coach staring me down. 

“Twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off.  You know the drill.”

I nodded my head and sighed.  The cold only seemed to worsen the pain.  I slowly shifted the bag as I stifled a moan. 

Coach slapped me hard and quick on the cheek with a swift, surreal motion of his palm. 

“If I had wanted a daughter, we would have adopted,” he growled. “Get yourself together or I’ll have you replaced in the blink of an eye.”

“Yes, sir,” I mumbled feebly. 

We agreed at the beginning of my first season on his high school team that during the football season, our relationship remained strictly professional at all times.  He only issued affection and praise after a well-executed play on the field.  At school, at home, on the field, I only knew him as Coach.  None of my teammates even knew that he had once played a major role in my conception.  For all they knew, I grew up fatherless. 

Mamma creaked open the screen door to the kitchen with a shallow pail of milk in one hand and two eggs in the other.  The animals on our farm acted especially peculiar that summer, only producing a meager amount daily, which hardly served to benefit our farm’s overall production.  Perhaps they failed to yield sufficient amounts of product that season due to the excessive heat known only to those of us here in the great state of Texas—a climate so stifling it caused the average man to lose enough sweat to fill an ocean.

Or, perhaps our farm animals just simply could not overcome the pressure we forced upon them to perform.  Perhaps an inverse correlation existed between my family’s desire to harvest and supply and the barn’s lack of success.

I looked long and hard at mamma.  Her wrinkled, beige apron was streaked with the dust and dirt of the fields.  She seemed dazed and disoriented, troubled and disturbed.

It’s amazing what the heat can do to people.

The next day, I fastened the chin strap on my helmet as I mentally prepared myself for the next and arguably most significant forty-eight minutes of my life.  Fans from all over town lined up around the block to witness our first game of the season, and as their applause reached a crescendo, I knew the time left to ponder in the locker room was ticking down at a rapid pace.  College scouts from Burleson University, UT, Austin, and Rice waited for my big debut somewhere in the stands.  My hands shook uncontrollably as I double-knotted the ties to my cleats.

Suddenly, Coach and his assistants appeared and commanded the team to rise for a brief prayer. 

“Our Father who art in Heaven,” he began as he placed his cap over his heart, “we ask that you give us the strength and focus needed to leave the stadium with a win tonight.  We also request that you watch over us and guide us into a game won not only with smart plays, but also with integrity and fairness.  Amen.”

“Amen,” we replied in unison.  And with that, we huddled for one last team cheer and headed into the illuminated, jam-packed stadium. 

The instant my cleats touched the familiar turf of the field I knew the opportunity of my wildest fantasies had arrived, staring me square in the face.  For three straight quarters I threw impeccable inside and outside run passes, meticulously executed screens, and even successfully implemented two separate quarterback sneaks.  The adrenaline pulsed through my veins with as much force as a deadly hurricane.  Every cell of my being generated energy, every ligament and organ committed to the purpose.  As our score continued to surge, I stole a few glances at Coach, waiting for a signal to pull back on the reins.  With a thirty-seven point lead, Coach could have even afforded to send in the second string offensive line. 

At the five minute mark in the fourth quarter, I looked around as fans from the other teams descended the steps of the bleachers and exited the arena.  I shot Coach a look from the field, urging him to send in the substitutes for the last few minutes.  Without a word, without a signal, without any recollection of the prayers he offered with mindfulness of integrity and fairness, Coach responded with a wide, cock-eyed, ear-to-ear grin. 

For the first time all summer, with 4:15 left on the clock, my father smiled in my direction. 

As the magnitude of his reply reached its peak in my mind, I stopped dead in my tracks.  I finally realized, in the boiling summer night’s heat, that I hated him.  I hated the game that meant everything to me, because he had single-handedly sucked all its joy away like the world’s most effective vacuum. 

With four minutes and fifteen seconds to go, as I received the snap, I ignored the routes established by the running back, the wide receivers, the safety.  I motioned to the opposing team’s linebacker and threw him a gentle underhand pass. 

“Run,” I heard myself say kindly. 

As the linebacker plummeted through the offense, I slowly unclipped my helmet and watched it fall to the ground.  I turned my back on the screams from the sidelines and anxiously scanned the puzzled crowd for a pair of large, lovely, lonely brown eyes. 

Mamma.

For the first time all summer, as I stepped off the field for the last time, Mamma smiled.