With You, Or Without You

Five Years Later

             Scars will never go away, but I look pretty cool with a sleeve of tattoos down my arm.  Wings of an angel for my best friend Harvey Mackenzie, she changed my life.  A cross for Melanie, for saving my life.  And many other ones.  Plus two for more my son and new baby girl.  Logan is my first son, me and Mel had him a year after we were married.  We were married six months after I proposed, to the day.  He's 4 today, born on my fathers birthday.  People say he looks like me, sure he's got the black hair and blue eyes, but defiantly his mother's facial structure.  He wears her smile, no doubt.  Hayley is only 4 months old, we had her in January.  She's got her mothers fine skin tone and green eyes with my black hair.  She's never allowed to date.  

            "Other way!!  Other way!!"  The crowd yells at the kid with his helmet on sideways. Today, I still run the little auto motives garage in town.  And coach T-ball.  It's fun to teach little kids how to play baseball.  But you have a lot of explaining to do to the parents when the kid runs all the way home.  Or they bring a base home in their bag because they stole it.  And funny when the kids are playing with their cups on the bench, filling them up with water or wearing them on the outside of their shorts.  I wouldn't change it for the world.  I no longer play in smokey bars, or drink till I tumble off the bar stool.  On Occasion I'll be asked to sing a song at the school picnics or town fair, I don't mind.  It's fun and gets people happy.  Been sober for 2 years now, it was slow and hard, but I did it.  Stopped doing illegal drugs too.  And Melanie got me to stop smoking, that was a kick in the balls hard.  But I'm happy.  

                   Miss Ally is still running like a steam train, I don't think that woman will ever slow down.  Sarah is going to school to become a nurse, She's real proud of herself.  So is everyone else, we all saw the little nurse in her behind all the punk attitudes she had.  Harvey is with a real nice guy now, she has a set of twins from her ex boyfriend.  I don't like him, kicked his ass when he hit her once.  But he helped produce a couple of good kids.  The guy she's with now, Billy, I really like him for her.  Maybe they'll get married.  

                        The cancers are gone.  Doctors and towns folk won't let me forget what a mircle it was.  Got a liver transplant and lung transplant, which was very expensive.  But the whole town pinched in, I have Miss Ally and Jim to thank for that.  My life, is now a life worth living. 

                         The game finishes with a score of 'EVERYONE WINS'. I run over to my team, we all put our hands in the middle of our mob and chant "Goooo beeeaaaarssss!!" and throw our hands up in the air.  All the kids run back to their parents.  My son jumps into my arms and kisses my cheek.  He takes off my hat and puts it on.  "Did you see me hit the ball all the way to the middle?"  He asks, not understanding that I am the coach and see everything they do.  

                             "Of course I did bub.  You did such a great job.  Show me the guns?"  He flexes his little arms and scrunches up his face.  Melanie holding Hayley comes over, she kisses my cheek.  We go home after the game.  I'll always be home when I'm with them.  That sounds cheesy, but it's a great feeling.