| Wrapped In Gray Chapter One |
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It's a new day, and I'm
headed for another swing shift. Thieves don't like to practice their
trade before noon, and preferably after dark. But that's fine by me;
I've never been much of an early riser. Being habitually late is a vice of mine; perhaps it reflects the fact that I'm deficient in planning skills. I'd like to be able to make excuses for my chronic tardiness at work, but when you don't have to be in until 3 p.m., it doesn't leave many options. So, as usual, I'm speeding towards the Sav-Mart. Any skill that I lack in planning is made up by my intimate knowledge of the local streets, and the traffic patterns of mid-afternoon, skills that allow me to downsize a twenty-minute trip into a ten-minute affair. And I know that it may be a bit hypocritical to speed or "break the law," given my chosen profession but hey, it's a victimless crime. The choicest time-slashing shortcut is through the park between my apartment and the store. Technically, you're not supposed to drive through it for this specific purpose, but during the late afternoon there's little traffic there, the kids aren't out of school yet, and the ancient, worn-round speed bumps are always kind; especially if you don't give a shit about your car. I drive a late seventies Datsun. I broke left onto Myrtle Street, which acts as the main promenade through the park. Unfortunately, I forgot that Mondays are field-trip day for a lot of daycares and schools. I wade cautiously through the throng of multi-colored and cartoon bedecked passenger vans and buses, there to deliver kids to the museum and whatnot. With the unpredictable mass of children milling about, I'm barely able to do five miles per hour, and now I've only got...eight minutes to get about fifteen more blocks, and that's after I get out of the park. Finally, I'm able to break free of the sea of youth, and give the Datsun a little wake-up call. This part of the park is just a heavily evergreen-flanked two lane road; I suppose a little pastoral excursion that some planner designated to set your spirits high before you leave the park and return to the reality of stoplights and carbon monoxide fumes. But at least there are no speed bumps, or parking lots for dazed park-goers to wander around, impeding traffic. By now I've got the car up to about forty-five miles per hour, which isn't too shabby under the circumstances. The evergreens are whipping past me like furry telephone poles, and I'm finally making up some time. I look in the rear-view mirror, then ahead again, and since there's no one around, I decide to kick it up to fifty. Since the road is designed for twenty miles per hour and low traffic, the bumps are giving me a difficult time. I've got a quarter of a mile to go, and still no one is in sight. So I nudge the speedometer up to fifty-five. Now the Datsun's just weaving and reeling like a construction worker on payday, but I've got the whole black-ribbon road to myself. For one last instant. Now comes the time when all things of animal importance slow to the point of mental constipation. I don't know how a mind that can't even follow a slow-pitch softball can freeze the senses to the point of witnessing the most particularly agonizing fuck-up of my life. Dead ahead, a child runs playfully into the road, looking over his shoulder and laughing, ignorant of the danger, at his mother; her face contorts, her eyes agonizingly darting to my car, back to her everything, to me in the driver's seat, and amazingly I witness the whole thing in shockingly sharp detail, practically forcing the brake pedal through the floorboard, and suddenly the child looks around to me and realizes that he isn't the center of the universe or how could this be happening to him, and I'm screeching closer, too slowly in my mind, and he glances off the front right fender, and flies--swear-to-God--fifty feet in the opposite direction, practically right back into his mother's bosom. And now I'm sitting in the car, sideways in the middle of that dark forest, wet hands barely touching the wheel now; limp sweat. I turn around, and see the mother bending over, sobbing, refusing to let go of her foolish son's life, and suddenly it's face up or fly, so I try to start the car, but it's in shock and only whines contempt. Finally it complies and I peer into the rear-view mirror, and the mother sees that I am fleeing, and gives me a look of: "What is the world coming to, my only hope, responsible for this whole horrible twist of fate, and he's not helping, but actually leaving?" I can't believe it either, but in the course of three seconds my day-my life-had gone from pedestrian to mortally monumental. Like a punch in the nose, the accident demanded immediate reaction, and instead of facing the emotional assault, I just force the car into gear, and away I go, shaking pale fright and slowly fleeing the scene, and I hope that the mother's crying too hard to read my plates, and miraculously there's still nobody but the three of us in sight. I come to the stoplight at the exit of the park, and find that I can't even get my foot to move to the brake. Fortunately, the red turns green at the last instant, so I just keep heading straight through, and I don't know where the fuck I'm going, I just know I'm going, not stopping, not turning around, not pulling into the convenience store parking lot at the other side of the intersection to call 911, just going, almost too slowly now, and I scan the rear view mirror again, paranoia, but there's no sign of anybody following me. Slowly, I'm regaining control of my body, and I decide to try and lose myself by making a ridiculous amount of turns, yet still consciously fleeing further and further from the nightmare, and trying to formulate some sort of plan--me, driving a hit and run vehicle with fresh pre-pubescent blood on the right, front fender, and I feel like I'm going to pass out. Now I'm coming upon a small park on my right, and although I'd rather see a smoldering landfill instead, I figure it's a good place to ditch my car, and fade into the scenery. I don't even read the sign at the entrance, but I know I've been here before, maybe last week, maybe years ago, all I know is that it's familiar, so I just keep driving deeper into the greenery, until finally I'm among some foliage again and I spot the perfect parking place between two more grotesquely long passenger vans. Fortunately there's no children or anyone around so I pull between and turn off the car. In the silence I begin to replay the whole nightmare in my scattered head, and feel my breakfast attempting to make it's way up my throat; my mouth and eyes are watering, so I get out, leaving the keys in the ignition, and start walking, the coagulating blood on the fender, right where kids will pass obliviously by it upon loading into the vans that will take them home to the infinite security of their parents. And I'm walking slowly, too slowly I realize, because now I've got the proverbial load in my pants it seems, so I try to look more natural, not like a potential killer. I'm just walking with my head down, not noticing anyone who passes by, at least pretending not to, at this point it's all I can do to keep the hot torture in my stomach from erupting. Finally, I come upon a restroom shack, and stumble inside; there's nobody there, and my eggs and bacon make their second appearance of the day. I finish the involuntary bodily function, splash cool water on my face, and walk, a bit calmer, out into the aggressively sunny day, wondering what my next move is. All I know is that I need to get far away from my death-machine, so I just start walking toward the exit of the park, down the residential sidewalk, and into urban anonymity. |
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