The Understory

By Rob McRay

Tonight, Nashville, we survived.

We couldn’t find a hole and spit blood everywhere. We screamed in our helmet, left the track and lost control, and could feel the fire that melted the stickers. And we think we’re smarter—but we survived.

We were a 3-legged stool…until the stroke, and the fall, and a 3-year coma. We had survived boyhood together—but he couldn’t survive this. And Adam delivered the eulogy for us, when we couldn’t face his second death.

At the young lawyers’ party, she claimed to be a teacher who didn’t know anybody, and a bill-paying stripper, and a boring lawyer…who can keep a secret. But the truth is, we escaped a night with a homicidal woman with a Xmas name!

He was the super-duper popular preacher’s son with a signature signature…and we were “mooed” in the hallway. Rocking around the Xmas tree led to a gift of a DC Talk tape. And we survived junior high with the help of our own Harry Potter.

All we could hear was Gangnam Style—all the time! We were living off chips and malt liquor, until one day we couldn’t get out of bed…and woke up in his truck. And if we had not heard Gangnam Style that night, we would not have survived.

The day started with a stomachache and was downhill, including a nervous nurse with a lethargic baby, an alcoholic with a destroyed liver, and a neighbor needing x-rays. It ended with a kidney stone that turned out to be a baby with no heartbeat. And we wish Momma was wrong about days like this.

The assaults and bullying led to depression and falling apart on the phone. In the car we suddenly knew what was about to happen. The squad cars arrived and then our uncle leaned in to hug, we heard Dad’s heartbreak from Texas, and spent the night at our grandmother’s. We kept apologizing, but she spent the night at our door. And the next day we began to heal.

We wanted to win an Oscar for liking camping. We stuck with another novice camper and ate the funky cantaloupe, and rowed around despite the nausea. And then our insides were on the outside. And thanks to a tree trunk, we missed the whole eclipse. But we’re good at surviving humiliation.

We donned the carefully packed chutes. It was “go-time” and we stood up, lined up, and hooked up. The jump master shouted “Go” and threw us out the door! And it didn’t look like it was supposed to! And we met hours of aggressive skepticism, but we’re proud of our wings.

And we survived the night, Nashville.