I Get Knocked Down, But I Get Up Again

I don't know. Maybe it is time for me to make my own jump, on my own ground and in my own time.
It starts with a short phone call made this morning.
"Morning! Frank? This is Bigg." I wait.
"Hey, Bigg! 'Lo, how you doin,' man?" He is happy to hear from me, no doubt or hesitation. "Heard you weren't feelin' so good these days. How are you, are ya up and around much?"
"I do okay. I have the boys to look after me."
He chuckles. "Yeah, yeah, so you do. Been makin' a bit of name for yourself in certain circles."
"I don't hear you complaining."
"No, no, your boy Robbie there is stout, man. You gotta good soldier under you there, Bigg."
"Don't I know it." There is a warm, friendly pause. "You still having your little get-togethers out there in the back forty?"
"Sure am. Havin' one tomorrow night, y'know." Slightly less comfortable pause. "You and your boys thinking about comin' out my way?"
"If you'd have us, perhaps." I am hoping that my dry smile will carry through the tone of my voice. "Do you boys still do that fire jump thing?"
I can hear his grin even if he can't hear mine. "Sure do. You thinkin' about it? Sure you're up to it?"
"I'll worry about it when the time comes," I answer briskly. "Hopefully see you there."
Aaron is waiting when I hang up.
"Hey, Amber's here, her and HB are waiting downstairs for you." He has my sweatpants and T-shirt - both boys' medium size so they actually fit me - and watches unabashedly as I change. "You sure you wanna do this?"
I give him a hard grin and poke a cigarette into the upturned corner of my mouth. "Why, ya getting cold feet?"
"No... no. I just don't.... know if you're up to it. You don't have to, y'know." He won't look directly at me.
"Just get down there."
Amber and HB are indeed waiting for me, along with just about every one of my boys not currently in work or school, plus Jack and David. I think briefly that J will be sorry he missed this, but then I see Ricky's palmcorder on his lap and briefly plead with deities in which I don't believe to keep this from getting posted to Youtube.
We adjourn to the back yard without much comment; the silence is tense, expectant. The sunlight is bright but without warmth. Leaves are beginning to fall, still green, like sparse confetti. The boys form a loose circle, Ricky standing back to get a good focus for the camera. I am in my bare feet, and Aaron objects to this briefly, since he's wearing sneakers.
"Take 'em off, then." I shrug indifferently and begin bouncing up and down on my toes, rolling my head on my neck. I don't really think this helps me, but David always told me that it's intimidating so I do it. I see him nodding encouragingly at me over Aaron's shoulder.
"You guys ready?" Amber asks in a loud official tone.
I take my place at the center of the circle. Aaron is still halfheartedly protesting, but someone pushes him rudely into the circle with me.
"Okay," he says, obviously reluctant. "Let's do this, I guess."
I am slow and stiff. I make him circle, but he still lands some very good hits right away, including a direct blow to the temple that makes my vision flash on that side and my eye water and sting. The boys hiss and boo. Aaron feints, not wanting to hit me again, and Amber yells at him not to be a pussy and just hit me already. He shrugs and telegraphs his punch so obviously that I have time to think - bend from the waist! - and then my spine curves fluidly back and his exaggerated hook passes inches in front and above my chin. My spine snaps back and my shoulder and arm move smoothly together, remembering what to do without prompting: I catch Aaron overhand, square in the chest, top of the breastbone, and he thuds down on his ass with an involuntary huff that sounds like a bark.
"Jesus, Aaron!" I bend over him. I think he's got the wind knocked out of him. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry, honey, let me-"
"M'okay," he gasps. "Gimme air."
I am not satisfied that he's going to be alright, but Amber stiff arms me back into the ring.
"C'mon, Pops. He's fine. You ain't getting out of it that easy." As if to remind me that she will be stiffer competition, she aims a very nice haymaker at my chin. I duck right, but her knuckles still skate up my jawline and biff my ear, sending a shock of pain through my head. The boys ooh and gasp. I skip backward and she's hard after me, arms swinging, giving me no quarter. I take several inconsequential blows to the arms and shoulders - I'll probably have bruises tomorrow, though - and then a serious one in the side. It hurts, bad.
"Aaw, diddums get a boo-boo?" she taunts, and I smack her hard, loose-fisted, in the side of the head. She claps both hands over that ear and I swing my leg up and spin. I'm too skinny and dizzy to pull off that move convincingly, but I still land a very square kick somewhere just above her left hip, and it hurts. I draw back and let her get her feet under her, but she won't have it and pursues me.
"C'mon, Pops." Her eyes are ablaze with pure happiness. This is one of the secrets to the bond between me and my children: it's hard for resentments to fester and grow when you get to smack each other around under controlled settings every so often. She peppers me with a fusillade of short jabs to the arms and ribs, not letting me hit her again. I respond by doing the limbo lean again, and she overbalances trying to follow me through the move. I fall back on both hands and hook her right knee with my left foot: If I'd been younger or healthier or better prepared, I'd have scrambled out of the way to keep her from landing on top of me. As it is she has only to rather ungracefully pounce and roll. Once she's sitting on my stomach she catches both of my hands and I'm pinned.
"Uncle," I give, and she lets me up - but I can see from her grin and only slightly elevated breathing that I didn't really press her hard, whereas I am trembling all over, my knees have turned to jello and my vision is doubling and trebling unpredictably. I put my arm out and catch HB, who immediately steps against me and holds me up. So what? I still win.
"You okay, Bigg?" he whispers to me, his lips covered by the fall of his hair over the side of my face. I know he didn't want me to do this.
"Yeah... okay," I gasp.
"Why don't you sit down now?" Amber suggests cheerfully. I nod and HB helps me stagger to the picnic bench to watch.
Now that she's warmed up, Amber takes on Aaron and puts him down literally in minutes. She tries to call out HB, who's sitting with his arm around me, but he refuses. She takes on Ricky instead, despite the fact that he's twice her size and can lift her over his head. Predictably, he wins... but she gives him a wicked fat bloody lip that people are gonna razz him over for days. Then it's Brad against Tom, and even though Tom's probably a little heavier Brad is definitely more muscular; they slam away at each other like giants made of stone for what seems like forever, and then finally Brad manages to knock him down and pin him. After that, Amber takes her second wind out on several of the smaller boys, Jeff and Curtis both getting handed their self-esteem back ladled over a serving of crow before Aaron rematches her and has the brilliant idea of catching her swing and twisting her arm behind her back. He even remembers to hook his ankle around hers... and even though he looks astonished as she falls and takes him down with her he lands on top and briefly pins her. Absolutely everyone cheers for that one, and I wonder vaguely through a growing headache if the neighbors will wonder what we're up to over here.
Now that everybody's suitably hurt, we all file back inside for lunch. I hurt in literally every part of my body, and my knees still feel pulpy and treacherous, as if I could just fold over like laundry and go down at any minute. My ear is on fire; my side tells me that it has suffered not a punch, but a stab wound. I hurt.
"Are you satisfied now?" HB murmurs to me as he helps me up to our bedroom.
"Mostly," I grunt. "Will you text Robbie and ask him-"
"I've got it right here. Get in bed." He has to help me up into the bed, and the way my joints crackle and snap as I lie back makes me - briefly, almost - question my own judgment. Almost.
"So," he says as he holds my neck up for me to swallow the pills, "now will you tell me what that was all about?"
I lie back against the pillows gratefully. He hands me the bowl and I take way too big a hit. "Well," I say in that odd breathless way that people do when they're holding in a lungful of smoke, "you 'member how good I felt right after I got out of jail?"
"Yeah."
I exhale mightily. "I figure that was because I pushed myself, my body and mind, right to the edge. Once I stepped away from the edge, I snapped back pretty fast. Y'know what I learned from that?"
"I'm dying to hear."
"I learned that when I thought I was at rock bottom I was wrong. Not even close. I've got backbone I haven't even been able to reach yet, if I can just get it together enough to really use it." I fold my hands on my chest and close my eyes. The warm pink place is starting to lap over me again, warm woolly waves of comfort. Better living through chemistry.
"I always knew you were tough, Bigg. Is this really the time to have to prove it like some teenage punk?"
I smile craftily. "Don't gotta. Not trying to prove it to them, HB. Gotta prove it to me." I lift my hands and let them thump down against my hollow-sounding breastbone. "Gotta push myself until I feel it right in here, so I know I can do it for real. S'all I know."
"Yeah." He doesn't seem disposed to argue. "You should get some rest now. I'm gonna go talk to Amber while she's here."
"You do that." I crack one eyelid. "Hey."
"What?"
"Love you."
"Yeah, yeah." He bends over me. His lips graze mine, then my cheek. His cascading hair tickles my forehead and throat. "Love you too, dummy."
I listen to his footsteps pattering away down the stairs and think to myself, you have all this when other people have nothing. Close your hands around it now or you'll lose all of it. Fact is, maybe I already have lost it, and it's all over but the shouting. Maybe fate or cancer or my own addictive stupidity is gonna kill me. Maybe.
But if I have any choice at all, then I can't let that happen. I just can't. I gotta try to get back up on my feet again. I gotta walk, I gotta run... I gotta make that jump.

Title lyric from "Tubthumping" by Chumbawamba.