Friday Night Lights

Friday night lights,

Small town,

High school football game,

The place to be.

All the big fish

Swimming in a tiny pond

Are there.

A raven haired girl on the dance team

Shakes her shiny pom poms,

Flashes a killer smile,

It’s her sweet sixteen birthday.

She is pretty and popular.

Life is good.

She prances in front of

An adoring crowd with

Her select pack of friends.

Fellow mean girls.

Everyone thinks it’s cool

To be a pom pom girl,

Not everyone makes the cut.

Another boy,

A lowly freshman,

Sits on hard, cold bleachers,

With his newly made, 

Wallflower friends

Excited to be there,

Though jealous of those playing,

The bigwig football studs,

Kings of the universe.

Showing his own school spirit,

Trying to be part of the team,

Shouting raucous cheers,

Munching buttery popcorn,

Slurping soda,

Googling at giggly girls.

He is the sweet sixteen, pom pom girl’s cousin,

Maybe she will introduce him to her friends?

Enter their two fathers,

One father,

Newly divorced,

An angry, bitter man.

He told his ex-wife

Many years ago,

She was his safety net,

He couldn’t live without her.

When that net stretches to its breaking point.

He begs and pleads

In a last ditch effort

To save the marriage.

Repeating,

He can’t live without her,

He doesn’t know what to do.

How can he go on from here?

She is always there

To catch him when he falls,

And he falls often,

Bruised and bleeding,

Spitting fire as he tumbles down,

Nothing is ever right in his world.

I don’t want to be your 

Safety net any more,

She says,

Much to his surprise.

Wives aren’t supposed

To talk that way.

Not his wife,

Especially not her.

The other father,

The first man’s ex brother-in-law,

Somewhat bitter himself,

Having just lost his job,

Been let go, “downsized,”

He is just trying

To escape his troubles

To be buoyed

By the cheers of the crowd,

To spy on his newbie teenaged son,

Trying so manfully to fit into his fledgling world.

His son, who still has a chance at life,

Even if he is not,

And never will be,

A star.

The ex brother-in-law is 

Rough around the edges himself,

Somewhat of a ne'er do well,

Prodigal son,

Always welcomed by his family,

Feted for his smallest accomplishment,

Which sometimes made his little sister,

The ex-wife of the first man,

Jealous,

A long standing sibling rivalry,

No matter their age.

Normal in a lot of families.

Not really a surprise

That he lost his job,

Life seems to fall that way for him.

His family,

Even his now middle aged sister,

Always there to support him,

To pick up the pieces,

To catch him when he falls.

After all,

He is family.

The bonds of blood

Thicker than water.

The sign of that ex brother-in-law,

The ne'er do well,

Enrages the first man,

Father to the Sweet sixteen year old,

Queen bee, pom pom girl,

He knows just how strong

Their bonds are.

Those bonds that

Once held onto him,

Now broken,

No longer apply.

He is not blood.

The family to which

He once belonged.

No longer his.

The ex brother-in-law,

The face of that safety net

That was suddenly whisked away from him,

Resulting in his own, painful fall.

The ne’er do well brother-in-law,

That Friday night,

With the stadium lights shining,

Represents the whole family.

The hated ex wife,

Who dropped him like small change,

And her father,

The ultimate safety net.

A Daddy Warbucks,

Who funds her divorce,

Stands by her side,

Throughout it all,

Daddy Warbucks hired 

A cut throat, she devil,

Divorce lawyer,

For his only daughter.

Naturally,

The ex husband can’t let his

Bitterness and anger

Pass through him, unspent.

His rage is a dollar,

Burning a hole in his pocket,

He just needs to slap that 

Hard earned money down.

He approaches the ex brother-in-law,

Gets in his grill,

Utters a few choice words,

Tells him exactly what he 

Thinks of the entire family.

He is

An angry, scary man,

Who used to cause his wife

To tremble,

Bite her lip till it bled

When he flew into one of his

Snapping turtle rages.

Getting into her face,

Spewing venom at her,

Raising his fists,

She always backed away in fear,

Tried to put furniture and space 

Between them,

Anything to separate herself

From him.

Never sure when he would strike,

The divorce represents

Her first real attempt

To stand up to him,

Not to just back timidly away.

He can’t accept her revolt,

She is not supposed to fight back,

Although he knows she often

Tried to flee,

But he could always catch her,

Make her pay.

He fails to realize that,

You gotta watch those quiet ones,

Even they have a breaking point,

With no other recourse,

He gets in his ex brother-in-law’s face In much the same way,

The brother-in-law,

Though surprised,

Doesn’t back up

Doesn't flee.

That’s not what men

And testosterone do.

Especially not under

Friday night lights,

In a hard fought game,

Fight or flight,

Not even a question.

The dumped, scary man

Gives his ex brother-in-law

A hard shove,

The brother-in-law raises his fists,

A defensive,

Stand your ground posture,

Echoes of George Foreman, Muhammad Ali, 

Or maybe Copacabana.

“There is blood and a single gunshot,”

(Or fistpunch, as the case may be)

“But just who shot who?”

The Barney Fife,

Mayberry RFD high school security guards

Separate the two men with their own hard shoves,

Outstretched arms,

Stern voices.

They forcibly eject the two sparring opponents from the premises,

Wondering all the while,

What kind of example

These deadbeat dads are setting

For impressionable young people?

A mortified fourteen year old boy,

Trying so hard to fit in with his

Pimply faced peers,

Looks helplessly on,

Praying that no one discovers

That’s his Dad,

Being dragged away

By the men in blue,

Normally the security guards just busy

Busting kids smoking in the washroom.

Dad's aren't supposed to

Act this way.

His girl cousin,

Facing the other way,

Obliviously dances on,

Waving her sparkling pom poms in the air,

“Go team, go!”

“Happy birthday to me!"

She turns to her friends,

“Are you coming to my party later?”

No party ever comes to be.

At least not that night.

Under the same Friday night lights,

Each father explains to his child,

His version of the events.

What really transpired.

Two vastly different stories,

Each man,

Of course,

Blames the other.

Neither one, the bad guy.

But like in any situation,

The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.

50 shades of gray.

The kids worry

The whole town probably saw,

Friday night lights are bright.

Tongues will be a’waggin’,

But nobody will even remember

Who won the game that day.

And will it really even matter?

A sweet sixteen, 

Friday Nights Lights showdown.

Nobody is the winner.