Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Angels on the Water

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Left to right: Nico and Christopher boating life 

*One swear word

November 7th, 2012


It was time to break out the boat from the punishment of its solitary confinement after I banished it to the corner of the driveway. I decided to finally take her out for a cruise on the water. She had been left ignored so she could think about what occurred the day my son was hurt in the grips of her boat winch.

His finger being fed into her teeth launched me overboard with guilt. I thought in that moment his finger was lost forever. The pain and sorrow that gripped me because I knew I would have to live with that guilt forever overwhelmed me. It would seep out through my tears of culpability as I ripped off my shirt to comfort his hand by shielding him from the sight that made my own stomach sick. My own pain only surpassed by my sons tears as he struggled in my arms to hold his composure through the immense pain that must have been throbbing through his torn and mangled skin.

After that unremarkable event, I sent my boat off to the shop to have some work done to her so that the accident that occurred to Nico won’t happen again. The boat winch that pulls the boat onto the trailer has been totally enclosed so that now the only thing that will be fed into her will be the long tether that clips on to the hull of the boat to pull her up from the depths of the water.

The cast came off of Nico’s left arm about a week ago and only 4 weeks after his accident. He never flenched when he saw the boat sitting there on the trailer day after day when we would come home, the boat isolated, from the friendly confines of our family. In fact, he called to her, "boat, boat" every time we would park the car in the drive way. You have to fall in love with a child's resiliency. 

Being a cop you see a lot of tragic things. But you never truly see it all. Most days are dictated by what you think is the worst thing you have ever seen, but that only lasts until the next day, when you find yourself repeating that same statement again trumped by another event unfolding before your very eyes.

I have been in some personal tragic situations over the last 7 years. Things that I do not wish on anyone. My sons accident is up there in the top things of horrific events that have happen to me, us, in that time frame. I lived through my sons pain because the bond of a parent to a child forces you to emotionally feel their misery and discomfort the moment they shed their first tear. To live with the burden of your child's pain, that you feel  that you are at fault somehow, stays with you. And not even a wash in the most fragrance of smells can ever wipe the stench away from your soul as you drown in self-pity and heartache.

You can only feel those emotions for a child if you ever held your own in your arms for the first time. And I knew in that moment, that I held their life in my arms, that nothing else mattered in this world but their comfort and success in life. For me and every other parent, it is to be better then I ever was, when they become men themselves.

I was an utterly fucking mess. I was only as useful as my boisterous voice that could only shout for someone, anyone to, call 9-1-1. It was something that I found myself doing months prior for my wife and I wasn’t prepared to do it again in this lifetime. Life can be so cruel.

So here it is today, I decided I would take the boys out on the boat after I picked them up from school. The weather was glorious as the sun shined down upon us from the heavens as if angels themselves were falling from the sky, turning our world into gold, as they drenched our bodies with their light of life.

There is freedom in the feeling of being uninhibited that frees you from the restraint of the rest of the world. The boat ride was our salvation to be one with nature and God and leave life behind on the docks of self importance and world of distrust. In this moment we had forgiven the boat for the tragic incident of yesterday and we were enjoying life on the water as the angels from up above guided us down the quite calm of the water that seemed to be placed on earth just for us.












Creative Commons License

The Adventures of Captain Imperfecto/Born Again by Christopher P. Fusaro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at christopherfusaro.blogspot.com.


Monday, November 5, 2012

Mentally, Physically, Technologically Speaking

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November 5, 2012

I was never one to feel like my age. My body could take a beating and continue forward after the initial barrage of punches. But now I find that my fatigue sets in faster and it takes days if not weeks for my body to recover. Finally, my muscles, body tissue and bones, are showing the age that I thought I could elude until I reached well into my 40’s.

My invincibility staying with me even passed my teen years, until the strain of life on my body mass broke me. My bones creak like an old house settling on its foundation, my youth draining away as the cracks begin to break through the tough exterior. It’s cruel to watch and I can’t even close my eyes to hide fact that I am slowly withering away. Time is truly cruel and usual punishment.

I stare at my face, in a mirror, and trace the fine lines that are now my battle scars. My exterior serving as notice that my interior has been damaged and not even make-up or a happy face can mask the pain of a lifetime of trials and tribulations. My green eyes telling a tale that can be read by simply gazing into them, but if you read deeper into the depths of me, and get past the pain of the past, you can still see the beauty that lies within me in the present.

The aches and pains in my joints bubbling up to the surface coming through my skin in the form of bruises detailing the battle scars that are left behind from a whirlwind of physical activity. The deep blue and purple discoloration of my top layer of skin lasting longer then it use to because my healing is not like it once was and it’s something that I’ll never have again.

The will to win is still in me and when I see the object of my desire I do what I have to get it by ignoring the pain that jolts my body that isn’t swayed by my enthusiasm to catch a bad guy that may have caused someone some harm in someway. Mentally, I have good intentions to capture him. Physically my body is beginning to have other ideas. 

“Police units be on the look out of a hispanic male in the area. He is under 18 and he was warrants for his arrest. One being a gun charge,” the dispatcher announces on the radio.

I’m in the immediate area of where he is and mentally I take my senses up a notch. I reach down and unlatch my seat belt, quickly sitting up in my seat. I lean forward slightly, leaning my weight on the steering wheel. I start to search my eyes scanning left to right. 

“He ain’t around here,” I think to myself.

As I drive my patrol car down the road I can see off in the distance the object of my desire. The suspect on his bike less then a half-a-mile a way from me. My car’s momentum didn’t allow me enough time to announce on the police radio that I had him in my sights. I pull my car behind the rear tire of his bike. He slows the bike down to a stop and looks over his shoulder at me. 

I step out of my car, “ Get off the bike now!” I announce.

There is a pause...

I take one step around my open car door. Then one step forward. As soon as my left foot touched the hot asphalt ground, my suspect pushes hard on his bikes pedal’s and quickly scurries away.

“Palm’s West I got him his running west bound,” I shout into the radio.

I jump back in the driver’s seat of my car and place the car in drive. As the car jolts forward my car door slams shut and the car quickly catches up to his manual machine. 

Knowing his bicycle is no match for my 8 cylinder car he ditches the bike. He begins to run out pacing the bike as it crashes hard into the ground. The handle bars digging a trench into the ground. I stop my car suddenly, practically pushing the brake pedal into the floor board and slam the transmission into park.

I begin to chase him through the backyards of the houses. I have my eyes on him focused on what I wanted. Mentally. I was ready for him. I knew he was mine. He reached a 6 foot fence and with his 16 year old body leaped it like a gazelle. 

Mentally, I wasn't giving up. Physically, my feet grind into the ground and my pace continues me forward slamming me into the fence. I peer through the criss cross metal fence and could only watch him disappear. 

My mentality was to climb this fence and get my guy, physically, I had no chance against a 16 year old in a foot chase.

“Palm’s West to all units he is running west bound,” I humbly say on the radio.

Mentally, I have great intentions, physically, I may have limitations. But now technologically let’s see if you can out run the radio. 

I’ll get you one way or another, mentally speaking.











Creative Commons License

The Adventures of Captain Imperfecto/Born Again by Christopher P. Fusaro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at christopherfusaro.blogspot.com.