In The Still Of The Night

Sitting on wooden bleachers in the summertime dusk, I have one eye on Brendon in the Allstar game and another on my rambling two.

The air is dryer than it has been for a while and a chill begins to set in as the sun simmers down along the tree line. The field lights flicker on to brighten the field where boys are adjusting their little protection cups, flicking away the bugs flying around their baseball cap visors and watching their coach give them encrypted hand signals for what to do next.

I can't think of a better night than that. When all is right in the still of the night. The boys are excited and attentive. The siblings who came along are all in another deserted baseball field clustered in a haze of cartwheels, running, tackling, inspecting something in the grass, starting their own clutzy game of baseball.

Jeff is umpiring in the field...I guess at first base. Another mom and I talk about how ignorant we are of terminology, rules, and basic knowledge of just about every sport. But we intently watch the game clapping when we think someone made a good play or scored a point. Oh...right...a run.

Jeff walked to the fence to give me a baseball-like hand signal: the pointer finger held out with one hand while the other pointer finger points to it.

I walk over to the dugout where Brendon is trying to guess whether a baseball is being hidden under the glove of another teammate. He guessed that it was and that it wasn't, thereby covering all of the bases.

His friend B, who wasn't playing in this particular game but whose father was assistant coach, was sitting on the other side of Brendon saying he thought there was a ball under the glove.

I took the test kit out of his baseball bag and began the assembly of the kit.

"What's that?", his teammate asks.

"That's for his diabetes", says B. "I had it done to me yesterday when I was at his house."

The boy watched intently as I pricked Brendon's finger, squeezing out the drop of blood and jerking my head to the side as Brendon yelled near my ear for his teammate on the field to "RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN!!!!!"

"What's that black thing?", another teammate asks as he notices what I'm doing and walks over to inspect.

"That's blood!!", says B.

"Why do you need blood?", asks the newest observer.

"It's for the sugar in my blood", says Brendon.

"Is that like a shot?", says Houdini, with the ball under his baseball glove.

"No", says B. "It doesn't even hurt! I had it done yesterday and it didn't hurt at all."

I was relieved to see he was at 116. He was safe.

I returned to the bleachers and sat to watch the rest of the game.

They lost by one point...or score??...10 to 11. It was a great, fun game though.

Brendon's coach walked over as I was testing Brendon yet again on a different set of bleachers as he ate his after-game hotdog, and told him how impressed he was to see him as catcher.

"Way to stop the ball, Brendon. Way to stop it. I liked the way you worked. You were real good out there. I want to make sure you get more catching time."

I looked at Brendon who was looking upward at his coach with a smile on his face, one hand in mine getting poked with a lancet, and a hot dog in the other hand waiting to be eaten.

All was right in the still of the night.

P.S. The game ended at 10:30 p.m.!!!!!