A Symbol of a Life That’s Come Full Circle

When we were kids, we used to drill the insides out of nickels, then pound the edges flat to make rings that quickly turned our fingers green, usually overnight.

“Wanna wear my ring’?” we’d ask skinny neighbor girls who’d watched us murder the nickels through the basement window.

“Will it turn my finger green?” the girls would ask.

“Only if you sweat,” we’d say, and they’d wear the ring for a week or less, until they got a better offer from a better guy. Like an ID bracelet or a stick of gum. But as rings went, it was a good investment. In time, the green went away.

The next time I put on a ring was in a little Lutheran church in south Florida, on a steamy day in May, with 100 people in attendance, some of whom I actually knew.

“Wanna wear my ring?” I asked the skinny girl who was by my side that day.

“Sure,” she said.

She slipped the ring on her finger and handed me one too.

“Wanna wear my ring?” the skinny girl asked.

“Sure,” I said.

It was a nice ring, flat and functional, a simple gold band not much fancier than the nickel rings we used to pound out in our fathers’ workshops. But it felt strange, this ring. Like a blister or a fresh scar. Something funny to the touch.

“Where’s your ring?” my wife would often ask through our first years of marriage.

Back then, I’d take the ring off, then forget to put it back on. It would get lost amid the spare change on the dresser. Or fall into some drawer, where it would pop up later.

“Hey, my ring,” I’d say excitedly when it would turn up in the bottom of a sock. And my wife would shake her head and ask me why I didn’t wear the ring more often.

“I’ll get used to it,” I’d promise.

For years, I tried to get used to the ring. When I’d sit idly, I would twist the ring on my finger. Sometimes, I’d slip it off and flip it in the air like a coin, trying to make the ring fun, trying to make a game of it.

Once, while heading down an escalator, I flipped the ring in the air, then took my eye off of it at the last second. It was a play I’d made a million times before. This time, the ring got away from me.

The ring pinged down the escalator--six, eight, a dozen times--singing high and clear each time it hit one of the metal steps. Ping. Ping. Ping.

For miles, you could hear it singing down the escalator. After a while, the singing stopped.

“Uh-oh,” I said, or some equivalent--whatever a husband says when he sees his whole wife flash before his very eyes.

“What’s wrong,” someone asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “I just died, that’s all.”

I went to the bottom of the escalator, hoping for a miracle. Most marriages have at least one or two miracles embedded in them, waiting for the right moment. This was my moment. The wedding band was lying just past the bottom of the escalator, 40 feet from where it first fell.

“Whew, that was close,” I said, before flipping the ring in the air and slipping it back on my finger.

Then came the span of four or five years when I hardly wore the ring at all. I was working long hours renovating our first house, slinging circular saws and pipe wrenches.

“Where’s your ring?” my wife would ask.

And I’d tell her how guys don’t like to wear rings around power tools, because the ring can snag a board or the tool itself, causing serious injury. Not only could I lose the ring but the finger too. And then how would I ever count to 10?

Besides, at any given moment, most men are married to more than one thing. They’re married to their wives. They’re married to their jobs. They’re married to their golf games. For five years, I was married to this house, a giant Victorian that had withstood hurricanes and termites and years of neglect. And now me, trying to make it well again.

“Where’s your ring?” my wife would ask.

Eventually, we moved on, leaving behind the old house and the power tools.

I started wearing the ring again. I twisted it and flipped it in the air and caught it every time, even on escalators. In time, it felt more comfortable. Sort of like a marriage. In time, I was wearing it every day, slipping it off only at night.

It’s a little snug now, this ring. So far, it has not turned my finger green. So far, it has been a good investment.

One day, I suspect, I will slip it on and not be able to get it off, having finally grown into this ring I’ve had for 16 years.

Someday, the grandchildren will climb in my lap, then twist the ring and try to pry if off my fat finger. Only it won’t come off. It’ll finally be part of my hand.

“Give me your ring,” they’ll say as we roughhouse on the couch.

“Can’t,” I’ll say. “It’s on there for good.”

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Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays in Southern California Living. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.