The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

56
Racing Dad
KIMBERLY J. BROWN
I tell Dad, “I bet I can beat you.” He looks older, bigger, slower.
How old am I? Around a time when I am too short to reach the mailbox. A time I play 52-card pickup (childme
eagerly agrees to his question: yes I want to play)! A time when I am his Kimmy Jo from Kokomo. A
time when, riding in a car, watching the road pass beneath the window, I believe I can jump out and run. A
conceivable feat. Easy. Just like this race.
Dad agrees to my challenge. We line up on an imaginary line at the edge of our property and our
neighbor’s backyard. Marshy-damp fresh-cut blades of grass squish between my toes. He gives me half a
field advantage, which I don’t think I’ll need. I imagine myself an Olympic runner. Definitely fast. And my
poor Dad: I’m going to beat him. Left foot forward, arms at my sides, poised to explode across this flat
earth.
“On your mark. Get set. Go!”
I run at breakneck speed. Wind tousles my hair.
This race will freeze in time—like other times—before I know of Dad as a famous, record-setting, Ring-of-
Honor-inducted Minnesota Viking. Times when I’ll fly my open palm over the flat terrain of Dad’s crew cut
like a glider on a breeze and I’ll delightedly say, It’s so soft, and his gruff reply, You’re a turkey!, his nickname
to tease everyone. Times he’ll brush my hand away, acting brashly annoyed but his big grin gives him away,
his cheeks rosy compared with the fairer skin of his head and neck. Times when he’ll say, “You’re such a
bully” and I’ll giggle, since, from a distance, his crew cut looks sharp—tough like him. But to touch is a
different experience… fine like a baby’s. Times when I rub and he lets me.
I am winning the race when I feel a presence. Dad gains on me. I don’t have to look. He wins easily. Aw, jeez.
Chuckling and grinning, he pretend-socks me in the arm. He says, “Thought you could beat the old man,
huh?” Dad scoops me up and I ride his arm toward the house. Did I wrap my arms around his neck? Surely
his scratchy chin mussed my cheek. Surely something holier than simple memory conjures such
sweetness.
THE UNDER REVIEW