ALL HAMMERS NOW

     Clyde’s driveway sloped up to the garage, met at a low point in the middle where a vertical crack was, then sloped back up to where the driveway met the street. Whenever it rained, the water collected in the center like a strange, unnecessary mote. It hadn’t rained in weeks, but when he rode his BMX bike into the driveway, it was completely full of red, red water. From the red mote, Clyde’s eyes trained up to the garage, where his father was hosing down its concrete floor. He was in another one of those moods, Clyde was sure of it.
     "Clyde," his father shouted, "put that thing up and give me a hand over here."
     Clyde stared back down at the red mote.
     "Now!" his father screamed.
     Clyde jumped at the sound of his father’s voice and quickly steered his bike around the water in the driveway, placing the bike against the garage wall next to a row of sharpened sickles that hung from it. From a distance, and without his glasses, Clyde had failed to notice that his father was decked out in his usual Saturday outfit: plaid polyester pants, lime-green polo and white shoes. But on this particular Saturday, they were covered in blood. The floor of the garage was awash with the same red water that flooded the driveway.
     His father handed him the hose. "Take this," he said, brusquely. "Point it down there. Get all of it."
     Clyde did as he was told, walking around a bit with the hose, spraying the far corners of the garage. So much blood, he thought.
     "Life is about seeing things through, Clyde. Remember that. Somebody gives you an opportunity, you gotta’ make something out of it, you understand? There’s no room in this world for people with no follow-through. Take the ball, run with it. And if somebody ever knocks you down, you dust yourself off and deck ‘um harder than they hit you to begin with. You missed a spot! No, no! There! Over there! Jesus, where was I? I was somewhere else. Somewhere . . . else. This life can be a ball-peen hammer sometimes, Clyde. And you can’t just sit around and be another nail in the box. Me and your uncles, we were all nails at one time or another, driven through the wood. But we’re all hammers now, Clyde. You hear me? We’re all hammers now!"
     Clyde’s father suddenly pulled the hose away from him.
     "Goddammit, if you’re not gonna’ do this right, don’t do it at all! Jesus! Just go inside. I’ve got a surprise for you in there."
     Clyde turned away and headed around the front of the house to the door. He stopped and looked back to his father who was still spraying down the garage.
     "Go on," his father said, smiling. "You’re not gonna’ believe what I’ve done. Nobody’s gonna’ believe what I’ve done."
     Clyde’s hand went to the doorknob and turned it. This is where he always wakes up. He’s never gotten inside that house and he hopes he never does.




-SLL