Lala recently picked up a Mega Bloks castle at a yard sale and lugged it home for the kids to play with. Inside a box the size of a convection oven, a plastic sword and shield rested atop a pile of oversized bricks. London was immediately drawn to the inherent dramatic potential in those two molded pieces of plastic.
While Lala and I aren't in love with war toys, even those without night scopes and gun clips, we understand that London has to live in this world. In America today, boys are still taught to wrestle, eat meat, watch football and then shoot each other. There's no getting around it. When I spied the silver sword, it reminded me of my first weapon of medieval destruction. I was a little older than London, and my grandmother Mildred and her boyfriend "Uncle" Bill took us to the Ringling Brothers Circus in Madison Square Garden. After the dizzying show, Uncle Bill said he would buy us one souvenir each. My brother chose a black bear with a rhinestone collar on a leather leash, which was rather telling given his future relationships with species both animal and female in nature. I selected a jewel-encrusted sword encased in a plastic gold sheath. As soon as we got back to my grandmother's high rise in Queens, I went to her bedroom and began my private swashbuckling career. I ripped my trusty weapon from its housing and waved it around like Errol Flynn. I jumped from Mildred's firm bed to her spare dresser, slaying invisible villains who'd stormed Bayside to steal valuable cans of Aquanet hair spray. Then, in one final parlay, I whacked the sword down on the bed, shattering it and my dueling dreams into a dozen pieces. Uncle Bill glued the shaft together, but it didn't matter. Holding my crooked piece in my hands made me feel like poor John Wayne Bobbitt, post-op.
So when London handed me the yellow linesman's flag to use as a makeshift sword, I felt an odd surge of youth soar through my tired body. While he stood in a classic pose with his shield in his left hand and the hollow gray sword in his right, I whipped the flag back and forth like a highway worker overdosing on Red Bull and gas station coffee. I leapt from couch to loveseat, replaying the scene from my grandmother's bedroom, cocking my eyes like handsome Errol and grunting what I believed to be authentic fencing grunts. This was a game I could actually get into, I thought. Thomas the Tank had grown cold for me; I could no longer give a vermin's buttocks if Skarloey was a useful engine or if Gordon was really the fastest train on that loathsome Island of Sodor.
The flag on my rapier added a new flourish to my old moves. If I waved the pennant side to side while twirling the handle, I could dazzle my opponent into a hypnotic state before disemboweling him with the tightly wrapped spear. I covered London's face with the flag, briefly blinding him, before spinning to his backside in an elaborate surprise attack.
"Yah!" I cried, and flicked my wrist in a way that must have seemed far too flamboyant, even for a boy who can wear high heels with the best of his sister's homegirls.
London looked down the hall for someone to save him. "I think I need a break, Dad."
"Why? We were just getting started."
"Um." I knew from firsthand experience that expressing shame for one's father is not so easy to articulate, especially if you can barely spell your own name. "You don't really know how to play this game," London said, laying down his arms. He padded over to me and removed the flag from my steamy grip. He shot me a wink and patted me on my sweaty back. "Why don't you go play with my trains for a while?"
