Middleborn is not the Captain America type.
But if you need a techy little contrarian to pull some shady moves so you can overthrow tyrants, he’s your guy.
A side-effect of Middleborn’s unorthodoxy is that, though destined for apocalyptic greatness, the kid is a magnet for daily consternation.
My daily consternation.
“Just WHAT did you do to my blender?” I squawked one day over the ruins of a Fruit Ninja.
Middleborn sighed. “I’ll put it back together, of COURSE.”
“But why did you take it APART?” I asked.
“It was making funny sounds,” he said mildly, as he inspected a tiny gear.
I slapped my forehead, turned on my heel and went inside to scrub some dishes with excessive force.
So when The Husband decided that all six of us should go to an outdoor concert series in Colorado, I figured there would be quarreling the whole ride down there.
And there was.
A stickler for uniform terminology, Middleborn railed at his brothers for deploying Gen-Alpha terms like “skibidi” and “sigma.”
“MAKE SENSE OR DON’T TALK,” yelled Middleborn, who likes reading dystopian books and curbing the totalitarians’ plot to dumb us all down with their mass amusement campaigns.
“What the skibidi?” questioned the little, feisty twin.
“Yeah, that’s so Ohio,” added Firstborn, who has a flair for driving Middleborn into a frenzy.
Middleborn glowered under his ball cap, which he wouldn’t doff for the president even IF he revered authority.
I twisted in my seat and explained to Middleborn, across the minivan’s Twizzler-cluttered expanse, that not everything is serious. That my other three kids are just being kids. That society doesn’t hinge upon our ability to disable wireless routers and use understandable English.
My words fell on deaf ears, or at least, ears shrouded with cascading, ginger-colored hair that no one has been allowed to cut for a year.
Middleborn shook his head, sighed at the universe and watched it flit past his window.
It was a long drive.
Once we got to the outdoor concert series, the skies were pure sunshine.
“I’m bringing my umbrella,” said Middleborn, who was also zipping himself into a black hoodie and descending into full Batman mode – in anticipation of the untrammeled, unwieldy, teeming fleshy masses of human beings he expected to dodge at the venue.
“You don’t need your umbrella,” said The Husband, wearily. “There’s not even one cloud in the sky.”
“That’s why I’m bringing it,” answered Middleborn.
Once we arranged our lawn chairs and bought giant cherry lemonades, Middleborn hunkered under his umbrella, a man apart from the sunshine and the dull, culture-crazed masses.
Whatever, I thought to myself. Let the kid be pale and eccentric. It’ll pass… someday.
Maybe.
Between concerts, a gastric magnetism pulled us to the food trucks.
The Husband and the twins went for the Philly cheese steaks.
Firstborn lined up for a gyro.
I bought a giant crepe.
We lost sight of Middleborn, who was probably scouring the field’s fringes for a decent corn dog.
Being a compulsive eater, I watched with single-minded focus as the crepe-makers crafted my meal.
I didn’t notice clouds gathering overhead.
Raindrops fell, then shot, then pelted. I stood firm. No one was going to distract me from a third square meal. I narrowed my eyes in the mist, watching a silent teen shred cheese onto the hot patty.
The rain turned to hail, and the hail multiplied.
Food-obsessed, I still didn’t notice.
Middleborn noticed.
From the nether reaches of his corn dog hunting grounds, Middleborn materialized at a full sprint, umbrella first.
He pushed me toward the back side of the crepe food truck, popped open his umbrella, pressed close to me and held the black shield over us both.
The hail grew violent. It pelted my legs at an angle on the driving wind, and I winced.
Other people – young girls and older women, noticed the umbrella and rushed to us. They smashed their bodies against us, crying and wailing as the hateful sky fired golf-ball-sized projectiles.
Amazingly, Middleborn’s umbrella didn’t break.
“Mom,” he murmured. “People are touching me.”
Nothing repulses Middleborn like the touch of a stranger. But there was no helping it.
“I know, honey,” I said. “But they need you.”
Middleborn shut his eyes and gripped his umbrella. He wrapped his other hand around my neck, to shield it from the hail.
When the storm ebbed, people inspected their welts and bruises. Some of them were bleeding.
The crowd broke apart. And we spent a few desperate minutes searching for The Husband and the other children, whom we found hiding in the mud under a food truck.
I told the family how Middleborn had saved me and about five complete strangers from the hail.
The Husband gaped. So too did Firstborn, the usual gatherer of brownie points.
I looked at Middleborn and cried tears of joy – knowing, that within my techy contrarian is a hero. A knight who thought of himself last when the sky attacked all those culture-crazed, slang-speaking strangers.
It was a revelation that I’ll cherish until I die.
When he saw my tears, Middleborn realized that he’d done a good thing. Not just a controversial and unappreciated good thing, but the kind of good thing other people laud.
“Yeah,” he said, brightening under his hat, “I SAVED all those people.”
“That’s right, honey, you sure did,” I said, stroking his gingery hair with one hand.
“I mean, like, EIGHT people, at least,” said Middleborn.
Well, only five. But it probably felt like eight people to a boy who recoils from crowd contact.
“Actually, a THOUSAND,” I said with a smile.
Middleborn grinned. “A MILLION.”
The Husband and the other boys scratched their heads and eyed Middleborn with fresh regard.
We dragged our weary, bruised and muddy selves into a nearby Starbucks.
The teen barista was shocked. “Wow, um. Did you get caught in the hail?” the barista asked.
“Yeah, but they’re fine,” chirped Middleborn. “I brought my black umbrella.”
