May We Be Forgiven

throw up in front of the three of them. Ever since we arrived, I’ve been finishing their junk food, hot dogs, curly onion rings, chicken fingers, half-eaten ice creams.
    “That’s not good,” Nate says as I empty myself again and again into a trash can modeled to look like a dwarf. I try to vomit into the hole, the dwarfy gnome’s mouth—but it’s futile. I let loose all over his head, on the ground in front and in back. And then, suddenly, as though the bottom has come out from under, I can’t hold myself up. I am compelled to lie down—or fall down—at the curb of the yellow brick road, my head on a pile of their jackets.
    “I need a minute,” I say, wiping bitter spittle off my chin.
    Moments later, as though we’ve been spotted on some sort of central-office Webcam, the super-sized park nurse comes by in her extra-large golf cart and takes me to her office. The kids ride on the back. As we’re driving, she says, “Officially, and for no additional charge, I can give you smelling salts, ginger ale, a saltine, Bactine, and a Band-Aid, and we do have a defibrillator. I bought it at Staples and told them it was toner for the copy machine. Everyone should have one.” She pauses as we pull up outside the first-aid trailer. The kids follow me in. There are fiberglass boat-shaped cots—two of them—and a couple of chairs. The nurse goes on to tell me that for a hundred bucks she can hook me up to an IV bag of vitamins and minerals. A shot of B12 is another seventy-five. “Think about it,” she says, as the kids sit down. I stand, wondering if I should wait in the bathroom, claim my moment there.
    “Would you like a cookie?” she asks the children. “I have Thin Mints and Samoas. My daughter is a Girl Scout—I buy fifty boxes a year.” The kids each take a cookie. “It’s important to have something you can offer your guests, considering I get the lost kids as well—and whether it’s a skinned knee or separated from the pack, you need a little something to perk ’em up, josh them out of their pain. …”
    Just the smell of the Thin Mints and the sound of the kids crunching away makes me sick—I run for the bathroom.
    “Ice,” she says, “I can give you ice. I see a lot of heat-and food-related illness, also inner-ear issues—people who literally feel topsy-turvy.”
    With me in the bathroom, she directs her attention to the children, who are working their way through boxes of cookies. “Don’t worry, this happens to lots of older folks who aren’t used to having to keep up with the kids full-time, so I am well prepared.”
    I come out of the bathroom as she’s showing them her “crash cart,” a giant yellow plastic toolbox, like what you’d find at Home Depot, filled with supplies.
    Ashley gives me a piece of gum. “Your breath,” she says.
    “Thanks.”
    “So what’ll it be?” the nurse asks.
    “Have you got some Tums?” I ask.
    “Used the last one this morning for myself,” she says. “It’s on the list.” She taps a long, narrow shopping list on her desk. “What about a couple of boxes of cookies to go?”
    “Sure,” I say. I pull out twenty bucks, and the kids pick out cookies from her enormous supply cabinet. The nurse hands me a mini-can of ginger ale and a straw and tells me to take it with me and drink slowly.
    “We’re here all day and half the night, same as park hours,” she says. “So if you need us just call, or ask someone else to call—they know where to find me.”
    I reach out to shake her hand, but she demurs. “Can’t,” she says, pumping herself a giant handful of Purell and urging the rest of us to as well. We wash our hands, take our cookies, and bid the nurse adieu. At a roadside gas station I buy a large, out-of-date, overpriced bottle of Tums and pop them frequently. “Like Gummi Bears,” Ashley says.
    “Chalky bears,” I say.
    In the middle of the night, Nate wakes up with a stomachache and asks me to come into the bathroom with him, as he’s stinking up the place with explosive diarrhea.
    “Flush,” I say after he fires off a round, and he does. I am looking for matches to light, but apparently there are no more ashtrays or matchbooks in hotel rooms anymore.
    “There are some in my bag,” he says, “in the outside pocket.” I don’t even ask why; I light the whole pack up. A few minutes later, the phone rings. Nate picks up the receiver by the toilet and hands it to me.
    “Can I help you?”
    “We have a smoke