One Ring

“Dad? Did you ever do anything dumb as a kid?”

We had just picked Teddy up from school early because he had, in fact, done something done.

“Hah!” My wife scoffs from the seat next to me. I know she wants to chime in with all the dumb things I’ve done that day or that week or since we’ve been married. But I don’t think that’s what our 8-year-old needs to hear about right now.

“Yeah, Teddy,” I reply calmly, “of course I have. We all make bad decisions sometimes.”

“I didn’t make a bad decision,” Teddy insists from the back seat, arms crossed over his chest while he glares out the window. “Margot did.”

“I don’t disagree that Margot made a bad decision, but you made one, too,” I said. We always got on this revolving door of a conversation and Sarah and I never quite knew how to get out of it with Teddy actually understanding things.

“But she made me do it,” Teddy whines.

“No,” Sarah interjects quickly, impatiently. “No one can force you to do things. You control your own choices. You are the one who kicked Margot. It doesn’t matter that she first shoved Mal, you didn’t have to kick her.”

He never learns this lesson. No matter how many times, how many different ways we explain it, it never sinks in. I decide to try a different approach this time.

“Do you want to hear about a time I did something dumb as a kid?” I ask, trying to have a bit of thrill in my voice to entice him in. The truth is, I’m telling this story weather or not Teddy wants to hear it. 

“I guess.” I can practically hear the shrug in Teddy’s voice.

“I was a little older than you, I think about 12,” I start, thinking back to that time, remembering it so clearly. “I was waiting for your Uncle Greg in the parking lot behind Doozy’s - that was the grocery store in our neighborhood. Greg was 14 but he knew a couple of kids who worked at the store from his baseball team. He told me they were going to ‘hook him up’.”

“Hook him up?” Teddy asked. I’d already reeled him in!

“Yeah,” I paused for dramatic effect. “With cigarettes.”

“Eeewww! Dad! That is a dumb thing.”

I had a feeling Teddy would react this way. “I know. Super dumb. But that wasn’t even the dumb part.”

“Wait, what? You did something more dumb than that?”

“Way dumber. Let me tell you…”

—-

Greg finally came out of Doozy’s from a door I hadn’t even noticed. It was an exit only, no way to get back into the store. With the sun just starting the set, the door was perfectly hidden in a corner.

Greg had a big grin on his face, his hands crammed into his pockets. He walked straight over to me and pulled the pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

“Did you at least pay for them?” I asked. I felt terrible about this. All of it. Everything we had planned for that night.

“Of course I did, dummy.” Greg’s affectionate nickname for me was surprisingly appropriate for the occasion.

Greg peeled open the pack and slid a cigarette out for himself, then another out for me. I held it awkwardly in my hand, not wanting to put it in my mouth, but also wanting to prove to my brother I was just as cool as he was. Even though I knew he’d never smoked a cigarette either.

We both stared at each other for a minute. I finally said, “Uh, don’t we have to light them?”

Greg literally slapped his forehead. “I forgot to bring a lighter.”

My entire body relaxed, relieved that we didn’t actually have to go through with this. The smoking part was so ridiculous anyway. 

“Man!” Greg was really upset about it though. 

“It’s no big thing, Greg. We can still do everything else.”

“Yeah, yeah I guess,” Greg said, dropping his cigarette to the ground and crushing it under his shoe. “I just… You always see in the movies how guys smoke before they go out on a big adventure, you know?”

“I mean, sometimes? I think?” I really couldn’t think of a time I had seen this in a movie. Maybe Greg had watched some old movie I hadn’t seen.

“Alright. Ok. You’re right. We can still do this.” Greg psyched himself back up. Got back into the spirit of things. “I think now, though, maybe we should call it a quest. That feels more like it’s noble and not like we’re tough guys on an adventure. Right?”

I nodded, not really caring what we call it. Just excited to get on with things. “Yeah, sure. A quest,” I said.

——

“You went on a quest?” Teddy asked, really into it now.

“Yep, me and Uncle Greg.”

“Mom? Did he really?”

Sarah nodded and looked back at Teddy. “He really did. This was a big thing for your dad. Really changed things for him. We always knew we’d tell you about this one day.” Sarah smiled at me then. “I guess today is that day.”

“So what was the quest?” Teddy was totally intrigued.

“You know that book The Hobbit? And then we’ve watched those Lord of the Rings movies?”

“Yeah?” Teddy wasn’t quite following yet. Those hadn’t been his favorites but they were so important. I had forced him to read the book with me and sit through the movies. They were definitely beyond his understanding. I think the battle scenes are about all that kept him even the slightest bit interested.

“The ring? The one that Frodo carries. Do you remember?”

“Kind of… it makes him invisible, right? But also sometimes it makes him crazy.”

“Right.” I paused, again for dramatic effect. “It’s real.”

“No way. It’s not real. Mom? Is it real?”

“It’s real,” Sarah said, always the voice of truth and reason in our family.

“No way. It can’t be. That was just a movie. Plus Hobbits aren’t real. Neither are dwarfs or elves.”

“Are you sure?” I prodded.

“I’ve never seen any of them.”

“Have you ever seen the President?” Sarah asked. I nodded at her. Good one!

“Well, no, but he’s real. I know he is.”

“Well, your mom and I know that the ring is real. The movie was based on the real thing.”

“So you saw the ring? On your quest?” Teddy wanted to badly to believe it.

“Better.” I said, giving one last dramatic pause. “We found it. I have it.”

Teddy crossed his arms again, but still looked ahead towards us. “No way.” He said quietly.

We were all quiet for the final minutes of our drive home. Then I unbuckled, reached into my pocket and pulled out a dark blue pouch. I pulled it open and poured a gold ring out onto my hand.

Teddy’s eyes went wide. He looked from the ring, to my face to his mom’s.

“Put it on, Dad,” he whispered.

I did. And I disappeared.