english fourfourteen

He walks briskly toward the corner as I take the first step from the porch of this dilapidated edifice. Its walls are crumbling and its floors are not sound, yet they make music when the weight of the world walks upon them. His hands are in the pockets of his dark jeans and he stares at the concrete, expressionless. I imagine his trodden stride would strain the wooden strings of the house, an instrument at best.

I have managed to leave on time for work this morning. Usually I am late, and then get scorned for being late, but only sometimes do I actually feel guilty. I wonder where this boy is going. He is the only other person I can see starting his day right now. I am surprised that my day is even starting right now—on time, that is—because there is so much alcohol in my system. I do not even remember last night, but it was probably like most other nights. Should I even bother going to work? What have I got to look forward to? My life has been falling apart ever since it was constructed, just like this house, nothing like a home.

Truth is, I only work because the law requires that I send Lucy’s mother money every month. Lucy is seventeen now. Her life is mostly a blur to me, but that is certainly my fault. I am not allowed to see her too often, and even though there are these restrictions already, she wants to see me even less. See me… she will never see me, in fact. When Lucy was three years old she fell and crashed into a table that had empty beer bottles on it—my empty bottles. One of them tumbled down and shattered, blinding her for the rest of her life. I was passed out upstairs.

That is how I woke up this morning, passed out in the upstairs of this place. I doubt anyone lives here. Only druggies and hookers make up the life of this house. You would think waking up across the room from an eighteen-year-old strung out on the latest drug would actually wake me up. Well, I did wake up from his jittering, but I mean wake up. I am thirty-some years old—half of the way through my life, half of the way to my death.

My watch beeps as my sluggish feet plunk plunk onto the next step. One step at a time, maybe that is how I need to do things.

I smell like death, and I bet I look the same. Maybe my first step should be to have some pride in my appearance. I have half an hour to get to work. Where the hell am I? I squint to read the street signs on the corner. Fourth and… Prospect? Really? This could be a sign, right? I mean it is a sign, maybe I should take it as a sign. Prospect, I like that. Or maybe it is just ironic for this decaying house to be here.

No. This is my sign. I am three blocks from home. I have enough time to get there and clean myself up before heading to work. Clomp clomp. I land on the last step.

I hear a screeching of tires a few streets away. Someone else must be excited to start his new day too. Maybe things don’t have to be so bad. I can do this. I still have half a lifetime to get things right.

This boy is just standing on the corner now. He doesn’t look any older than Lucy. I watch as he pulls a piece of paper from his bag. His vacant face shifts and swells quickly with tears. I feel very uncomfortable, but I am frozen on this last step. He walks to the middle of the street and gazes. I turn my head to see what he is looking at, but there is nothing. I see a calm, plowed street and trees blanketed in snow.

I hear the screeching again from the car a few streets away and it interrupts my attention to the boy. Whoever that is should really get that fixed. It sounds louder this time, though. The car is probably heading in this direction; maybe I'll get a look at the state of the car. Maybe it does not have the prospect of improvement.

My attention is once again on the boy as he lifts the paper in his hand to eye-level. His view is of whatever is on the sheet, not the street. I take my last stride and land on the concrete. I begin walking down the sidewalk. If the boy has moved the paper away from his face, I am surely in his view now. I turn around to see if this is the case, but it is not.

The pat pat of my feet on the pavement loses itself in the screeching of that car. It has turned down this street and is heading in the opposite of my direction—it is heading toward the boy. The car is going all too fast. I turn around again only to see the car strike the boy, but this time I hear no screeching of the car’s brakes. I run to the child who is face down now. Blood is everywhere. I turn him over and on his chest lies that paper. “Remember your father always” is written in what I assume is his mother’s handwriting. I turn it over and see that it is a photo of this very street… almost identical to this day. But it has become stained from the blue dye of his jeans mixing with the slush from the street. And from the top of the photo his blood begins to soak toward the center and become one with the scene as his life is ebbing away.

I hold the boy as he takes his last breath. Who was that sign for?

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Posted by colleeny at April 23, 2008 10:39 PM

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Posted by: thyliasm at April 27, 2008 09:54 PM