Straining, squinting, craning his neck forward…none of it seemed to help. Hal simply could not see the face of the girl who had just waved at him from across the park. As she disappeared behind the row of bushes which lined the grassy commons, he said to his brother, Sal, “Man, I need my Superman x-ray vision glasses.”

Sal peered at him with a quizzical look and said, “Dude, you don’t need x-ray vision glasses. Like I keep telling you, you just need glasses glasses.”

Hal slapped at Sal’s upper arm and responded, “I do not!”

“Yeah?” queried Sal. “OK, so who was that PYT who just waved at you?”

“Right…like you could see her,” answered Hal.

“Sure could,” said Sal. “Plain as day.”

“Nuh uh,” replied Hal. “No way you could make out her face from clear across the park.”

“Could to,” answered Sal. “Wanna know who it was?” he asked.

Sheepishly, Hal looked at his little brother and said, in a much less argumentative voice, (more…)

Hal sat under the cool shade of his favorite Weeping Willow. He looked out upon the park’s small, but well-kept pond. A mother duck was leading her six ducklings across the serene water, gliding along almost effortlessly. (At least, it appeared effortless on top of the water, but he knew those little duck feet were churning away like mad under the surface.)

As he watched them sail across this tiny “sea,” he heard his little inner voice wondering about his recent mishap and thinking, “I feel so alone, so left out.”

He looked down at his still-throbbing right ankle, now wrapped in gauze and guarded by a black plastic contraption that looked like the back half of a black cowboy boot. (Well, sorta.) He could see, in his mind’s eye, the twist it took and the odd shape into which it formed when he had fallen. It had been an ugly sight and he shivered just thinking about it. It wasn’t broken, but it was a really bad sprain. He’d be out for weeks.

Now his basketball buddies were off at the regionals playing for a shot at the state title while he sat here, looking at ducks. He had fallen that morning, just messing around with his brother, Sal, playing a little one-on-one in their driveway. Unfortunately, that was also the morning they were leaving for the tournament. He was still in the emergency room when the team took off. He wondered, “Why did this have to happen?” Now the team was off to the tourney and he wasn’t. He felt so very alone. (more…)

Hal’s mom walked up behind him as he sat at the kitchen table, thumbing through some old photos on her iPad. She noticed he was looking at all the “Water Baby” photos, as she called them, from when he was an infant. “Don’t think I gave you permission to swipe my iPad from my bedroom, mister,” she said with her obviously phony stern mom voice.

Hal didn’t even turn around as he knew she was just teasing. “Yeah, ‘Swiper, no swiping,’ I know, Dora,” Hal joked.

“I’ve told you a million times, my hairstyle is not copied from Dora the Explorer!” Hal’s mom quipped. “Joseph at the salon says it is super chic and highlights my sensuous features.” She struck a profile view pose with her nose just slightly tipped up.

Hal chuckled, “Yeah, you’re the ‘chic-est’ mom in the South Side, Dora.” (more…)

“Come on, baby…poppa needs a new pair of Nikes!” yelled Hal as he rolled the dice in a grudge match against his old pal, Frank.

No, it wasn’t a game of craps they were playing; it was the final in a long series of matches of old school Yahtzee, the kind with real dice, paper scoring pads, and pencils for scoring. Hal and Frank had long ago deemed the digital version as a mere shadow of the boxed set version.

Hal rolled the five dice onto the kitchen table and crossed his fingers. This was his final set of dice rolls and he knew he needed to make a full Yahtzee in order to beat Frank. Frank knew it, too, and he held his breath in anticipation.

Four threes and a two. Hal whooped with delight, sensing at least a real chance at besting Frank…finally! Frank had won every series they had every played, going back nearly three full years. Oh, sure, Hal had won plenty of games during that time, but he had never been able to gain the top total score when they played their “Dead Man’s Matches,” as they called them. (These were weekend-long matches that typically involved several sittings and usually twenty rounds.) Hal grouped the dice with threes showing and pulled the remaining die into the cup to roll again.

Frank said, “Dude, there’s no way you’ll roll this last three. No way! You have about as much chance of getting it as I have of catching polio.”

“Strange comparison, Frankie,” (more…)

When he turned the corner into the living room, Hal almost fell out on the floor in full blown laugh mode. His little brother, Sal, was dancing – or his fairly poor version thereof – to Hal’s old fetal ultrasound video.

Years ago, Hal’s mom had decided to digitize all of her old VCR tapes. For some strange reason that Hal never fully understood, when she got to his old fetal ultrasound recording, she decided to add a music track. The song was by one of those ancient groups she loved from back in the “disco era”: the Cee Bees…or the Bee Gees…or something like that. Anyway, the beat of the song matched perfectly with the beat of Hal’s little unborn heart in the video and his mom said she just couldn’t resist turning out this “music video.” (Thankfully, this was both her first and her last such effort.)

Anyway, as Hal started to howl with laughter, Sal stopped dancing. He turned with a sheepish grin and said, “What?…shut up (more…)

Hal answered the phone and immediately sneezed – right into the mouthpiece. His buddy, Paco, who was on the other end said, “Geez, thanks. Guess it’s pollen a’calling, eh, Hal?”

Hal wiped his nose on his sleeve (he regretted that as soon as he saw the rather gross trail it left) and replied, “Aw, sorry, Paco. It just came on outta nowhere. I been doin’ it all day. You’d think I have allergies or something.”

Paco chuckled and said, “It’s OK, Hal. I’ve heard worse things on the phone before. So, anywho, if you’ve been sneezing so much, maybe you do have allergies.”

“Naw,” retorted Hal, “my mom thought I did when I was little and she had the doc test me. Nada. Guess I’m just a natural sneezer or something.”

“Hey, man, maybe you’re like me,” said Paco.

Whaddya mean, bean? Wait…no…you got asthma. That’s not me, Paco,” quipped Hal. “I got no coughin’ or wheezin’ or nothin’. I’ve just been sneezing with this (more…)

Hal remembered the day so well. He was just a a kid, maybe three to four years old or so, when his mom told him, “Oh, looks like you have a little stomach bug.”

Of course, he was trying hard to stay balanced on the toilet as the loose stuff inside of him kept leaking out of his bottom and so he wasn’t really focused on what she was saying. Still, that phrase, “a stomach bug,” stuck in his brain. He remembered clearly the gross picture that came to his mind of creepy multi-legged insects crawling around inside of his belly. He remembered, too, how that image didn’t help with the queasy feeling he was having as he perched aloft the toilet trying hard not to fall in. (It was tough at that age because the toilet bowl seemed huge at the time; it was always a balancing act, but worse when he didn’t feel well.)

And, actually, thinking about it now didn’t really help the rumblings he was dealing with in his now older and bigger belly, even though he knew good and well that (more…)

Hal couldn’t believe his eyes. “Quarantine. Stay Out!” the sign read.

He had heard the word “quarantine” before; it had been one of his vocabulary words a few years back, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing it anywhere besides his schoolbooks. He wondered what in the heck had happened to his buddy, Frisco Fred. Why had he been locked away behind this ominous-looking sign? What was so horrible that he had to miss basketball try-outs?

After all, Fred was the round ball star. He could sink a thirty-footer with nothing but net. He could sail past almost any defender on his way to the most beautiful left-handed layup you ever saw. He even had a pretty reliable hook shot. He was going to be sorely missed in the Red Raiders All Stars if this quarantine thing didn’t go away.

Hal started to open the door, but decided maybe there was something about this “stay away” business, so he stopped himself just before turning the doorknob. He turned around and decided to call instead. He pulled his phone from his pocket and hit the “FF” speed dial button.

Fred’s mom answered. “Hello,” Hal heard.

“Um…Hi, Mrs. Franconi,” he stumbled. “It’s me, Hal. I was about to ring your doorbell to see if Fred was ready to shoot some hoops, I mean go to the basketball tryouts, but I saw the quarantine sign and thought maybe I’d better call first. Is he OK?”

Mrs. Franconi coughed a few very serious-sounding coughs before answering, (more…)

Hal kept twisting the knob forward and back, back and forward trying to get a clear view of the tiny little pneumonia germs. For some weird reason, he always enjoyed looking at the miniature world made large by the microscopes in science class. He didn’t really think of himself as a science guy – certainly not one of those brainiac nerds who lived and breathed the stuff. But he did always look forward to science class.

This week, Ms. LeClair had everyone looking at slides of germs. Today they were focusing on germs that cause infection in people. And, right now, they were examining bacteria, viruses, and fungi that commonly cause pneumonia.

On Hal’s slide at the moment, he was focusing on something that looked like little pairs of round balls. Sometimes the pairs hooked up with other pairs to form chains. According to the workbook, these were “diplococci” which meant – surprise, surprise – two round balls. These particular ones were “Streptococcus pneumoniae.” They are bacteria and can cause pneumonia in people.

Ms. LeClair stepped over to Hal’s lab bench and saw what he was reading. She said, “Hal, did you know that there’s nothing new about NEW-monia?” (She stressed the “new” sound.) (more…)

The surprising sound nearly knocked the breath out of Health Nut Hal. He couldn’t believe how wonderfully deep and rich it was.

“Wow, Mr. Lincoln, that’s amazing!” shouted Hal in order to be heard above the lustrous music. “I never thought you’d get all those messed up parts and pieces together…not together enough to make something that powerful.”

Alfred Lincoln’s dirty head appeared from behind the massive organ. He grinned at Hal as he played a few more chords from Bach’s famous “Organ Toccata.” It was breathtakingly beautiful as it filled the church with its robust tones. The organ’s pipes seemed to dance with their renewed life.

Alfred lingered on a final note and then let the wind from the pipes fade slowly away before he said, “Yeah, this old baby has a lot more life left in her.” He patted the front side of the organ’s keyboard, almost lovingly. His gaze upon the old organ was just as gentle.

Hal said, “It’s really awesome how you could take (more…)