It has been less than a week since I started this bad boy, promising myself that I would compose something new every day. Now, I find myself lying on the floor searching for better wi-fi at 1:30 in the morning. It's not happening today. If it were going to happen it would have looked something like this: I made my daily trip to Target today and ended up at the register with several rolls of film and several CDs all by musicians who are either grandparents or died before they got to be. The girl at the checkout counter looked at me like I had just stepped out of a time machine. I could hear her thinking, "You know we sell digital cameras and iTunes gift cards, right?" Instead, she took my money and said, "Have a nice day, ye olde farte." OK, so she didn't say that last part, but I'm sure she thought it. Then, I had Chinese food for dinner, and my fortune cookie read: "A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking." IF I had written something today, it would have been about the relationship between those two experiences, and the advent of "new media" and it's effects on the way we gather and distribute information (insert circumspect, self-deprecating blog joke here). But, I didn't.
In lieu of a real entry, I'll post a short, short story that I revamped for consideration to be read publicly next month. That's what I was working on instead of blogging. OK, that and having a beer with an old friend. Sue me.
The Angel
Steam is pouring out from the side of the car’s hood that isn’t pinned against the pavement, and a hubcap spins in smaller and smaller concentric circles before it finally rattles to a stop. The street is quiet besides the hiss of the radiator. The summer sun is still low in the sky when Bobby’s bicycle rolls up to the car. It’s a dark green station wagon just like the one Mrs. Whitman drives, except Bobby has never seen hers on its side, so he can’t be sure.
Bobby swings his leg over the back tire of his bike and walks it to the side of the road opposite the car, waiting for someone to walk out of their front door. There is no click of a latch leaving a door jam. Just the slow, regular, thp…thp…thp of baseball cards in the spokes of his tires. He’s only two blocks from his own house, where he could use the telephone, but who would he call? What would he tell them? He’s just a few houses from Helen’s, but he knows there is no one there. She won’t be home from swimming lessons for another hour, at least. All of the grownups are at work. All of the other kids are at summer camp, or swim lessons, or on vacation with their parents. Bobby’s parents can’t afford any of those things, so they bought him a bike. He’s had the neighborhood streets to himself all summer. It’s quiet, but not lonely.
“Are you all right?” Bobby calls tentatively across the road.
No one answers.
“Are you all right?” he asks the car with a little more confidence.
Still. No answer. Maybe the car is empty. Maybe whoever was driving climbed out the door right after the car slid to a stop. Maybe they are in the Stevenson’s house across the street right now, calling a wrecker. Mrs. Stevenson would have fixed them a glass of iced tea and offered to mend any of the clothes that would undoubtedly have been ripped in the crash. After all, Bobby didn’t actually see the wreck. He rode up and found the car already overturned, capsized like a skiff in choppy water. The windshield was cracked pretty badly, so he couldn’t see inside. Now, the undercarriage of the car was staring across the street at him, so he really had no idea if there was anyone inside or not. Surely, if there were some inside the car, they would be calling for help, wouldn’t they? But they weren’t. Bobby stood, holding his bike by the handlebars, certain that no one was calling for help.
There wasn’t a second car. There never had been, as far as Bobby knew. When he arrived on the scene, there had not been a car driving away in the direction he was going, and he had not passed anyone since he left the house. To Bobby, this sounds like a question for the police. Yes, the police. They would be able to look at the street and the skid marks and tell whether or not someone was responsible for this overturned automobile, or if it was just an accident. Bobby had seen it on television. After he and Helen had watched a Cubs game or a Cardinals game, they sometimes watched shows about the police and how they could tell things from looking at other things that most people thought were just other things. If the Cubs or the Cardinals were not on television, they would look through his baseball cards and try to determine their value. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire were obviously his two most valuable. Bobby admitted to Helen that the McGwire card was probably more valuable because it is a rookie card, but not because he was going to win the home run race. Helen’s favorite was a Cal Ripken, Jr. card. It was a photo of him jogging around the warning track of Camden Yards in the middle of the fifth inning when he had officially broken Lou Gherig’s record of consecutive games played. Bobby likes that card, too, but really just because Helen likes it. He remembers the night Ripken broke the record. His father had let him stay up late to watch it, but he fell asleep on the floor in front of the television. His dad woke him up to send him to bed when Ripken broke the record. He had never seen anyone so excited as the people in the stands were that night. For a long time after, he wasn’t sure if he had even woken up, or if it was just a dream, but, then Sammy started hitting home runs – 20 in the month of May, alone – and he knew what it felt like to be that excited about baseball.
Yes, this is a job for the police, Bobby decides. He lets his bike fall gingerly to the grass between the street and the sidewalk, and walks up to the Steinman’s house. He rings the bell, but there is no answer. He rings it again, but there is no one there to answer.
more please!!!
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