fall

the other day my brother in law was walking down the steps from his back porch. it’s one of those tall porches into a sloping yard, stairs down fifteen feet or so, wooden. he was taking food down to the dogs, probably, walking out there quickly in the rain. when he stepped onto the first step he didn’t notice the slickness of rainy wood and then that second or third step just jumped right up at him. and he fell. not just a little. he fell all the way down, sliding step by step to the bottom, putting a bruise on a new part of himself with each missed step.

when he got to the bottom, he lay there a moment, trying to figure out how hurt he was, whether he should go to a hospital. he heard a sound while he lay there on the
rainy cement and the bottom of the stairs and he looked up. gliding down the stairs he saw an angel with gentle eyes and flowing hair. he must have been scared for a minute, thinking himself dead and getting ready to be taken up. the angel bent over him and opened her mouth to speak. i know he expected to hear a voice like a spring rain or like the laughter of children as she welcomed him to his eternal reward.

but as she got closer the voice that came out was familiar, a mix of laughter and worry but mostly what he heard was too stern for the amount of pain he was now realizing he could feel. “alan!” my sister yelled down at her broken husband through what i will now assume was laughter, “that is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done!”

now, imagine you are my dear brother in law. it is plenty bad enough to have your precious bride critique your suffering, but it is another thing altogether to know she will be on the phone to every doctor in town to tell her version of your fall. and then the next day, back at work, as you stop by each office, each doctor will greet you in one of those hearty booming voices midwestern doctors have. each doctor will slap you on a different tender and bruised part of your back and ask how you are doing.