We Could Have Done Something, but We Didn't

           It was two in the afternoon as we walked along the city sidewalk, heading home with the food in our hands. Bums and the homeless lined the streets, some standing, eyes expectant, whole body hopeful and wanting. Others sat and didn’t care for any particular thing at the moment. Maybe they had just gotten paid and found their high somewhere.

            Across the street a man stumbled close to the road. He had a red beanie on, an acid washed jean jacket and was stumbling drunk at 2pm on a Wednesday. We stopped and watched him because he was edging closer and closer to the road, where the cars drove past without much care for pedestrians or drunks.

            Eventually he fell and his head bounced off the road but there were no cars around to run him over. She reached out from a few hundred feet away, as if some telekinetic power would save him. He got back to his feet and stumbled along again, seemingly with nowhere to go.

            He fell a second time and then a third. The third time his head landed perfectly as a dirty, yellow taxi drove by. I’m sure the front wheel killed him, but the back wheel made his head explode. The cabbie slammed his breaks and leaned his head out the window. “Jesus Christ.” He yelled. There was blood all over his taxi and the sidewalk around him.

            We could have done something, helped him along to a bench or into the grass so he could sleep it off, but we didn’t. A few cops came, checked the dead man’s pockets for ID, but they just found change and lint. An ambulance came, took the body away and we went home with our food, ate it and watched a movie until bed time.

The Piano Player

As a piano player he was good not great, as a person he was bad but not evil.

“I was having my piano lesson, I think I was about ten. My teacher was this old man with skeleton fingers. He was pretty good but boring as hell.  He didn’t know how to teach so he gave me the book and we went over a section and then he sent me home and told me to go over and over and over the same section.

“That day he was really sweating, but it was Florida so I never thought about it, plus I was ten. He said to keep practicing he was going to lie down for a little bit. So, I practiced for about fifteen more minutes then went and played some video games. A half hour goes by and my mom shows up and tells me to keep playing video games everything is fine. But, I could tell something had happened.

“So, here I am playing Nintendo and then I see some ambulance people go down the hallway. My mom told me to stay put so I didn’t move. About fifteen minutes later the ambulance people come back through and there’s Mr. Santelli in a body bag with just his face showing. He was pale and his mouth was wide open but his eyes closed.

“After they left mom took me to get some ice cream and the next week I had a different piano teacher, a much younger woman. She said I was pretty good and I don’t think she really wanted to teach piano, so I would play a little while and then do whatever I wanted for the rest of the hour. But when mom showed up, I was sitting at the piano.”

Options Options Options

He was a little drunk and had hit her with his car. He saw the little light blinking but wasn’t quite sure what it was in the dark. By the time he saw her green night bike riding uniform he didn’t have enough time to swerve away. She flew over the car, bike and all, and he slammed on the brakes.

She had a helmet on but the way she had landed broke her neck. She lie there with her tongue hanging out like a dead cow’s, her eyes wide open and her head over her left shoulder.

Quickly he picked her up and put her in the backseat, her head hanging limp from her detached neck. After he got her in the back seat and the bike, mangled, in the trunk he got in the driver’s seat and started driving, constantly looking in the rearview for any sign of headlights or blinking blue and red.

A few times as he drove he puked in his seat as he thought about her dangling head. If he admitted it all, told them he had a few beers and a few scotches at the bar after work, he would go to jail. The law had no patience for drunkards. Involuntary manslaughter, leaving the scene of the crime, it was all too late now. If he called the police immediately maybe he would only do 10 years. This was his third DUI though, they probably would try to get him to do 25.

There was a bridge ahead and not many options. Turn himself in and go through America’s penal system or the bridge and all the serenity that death brings. He sped up, got in the far right lane and then burst across traffic, plowing through the concrete, hitting the water below.

Subsisting in the Modern Age

When he slept he couldn't stretch his legs out or they would hit the end of the wall so he slept on his side with his knees curled up. The room was only wide enough to fit two small people side by side laying down. There were continual leaks that dripped into metal bowls he had to walk down the hallway and empty every four or five hours. Really though, he only spent five or si hours in his little apartment every day, the rest were spent working.

They kept him too tired with work and just docile enough with a television so he never made much noise about his situation. He could never imagine a thousand miles away people had bathtubs bigger than his entire home. Or that, not only did they have their own bathroom but they had three or four. He was happy enough. He had food with a little spice and a television. Plus, he was good at his job and his manager was thankful for that.

One night as he slept he felt a little drop on his head. The leak was growing but he didn’t want to complain so he just moved a bowl under the drip and slept at the bottom half of his bed. Another hour passed and there was a small rainstorm in his little apartment. He wasn’t sure who to tell because he didn’t know who owned the building. Finally, the ceiling and all that was above it, came down and crushed him and his tiny existence.

His manager’s water heater had been leaking for months and finally the floor had had enough. They cleaned out the mess, replaced the water heater and after a week it was an apartment again.

When she slept she was the perfect size.

We Kill Everything

I gently opened the door with the barrel of my gun. The light was low and dust floated lazy in the afternoon air. With my rifle pressed to my shoulder I scanned the room looking for anything that moved.

In the corner behind a low table sat a small girl holding a baby lamb. Her eyes were big and brown and she pet the small lamb from the back of his neck to his tail to calm him. The lamb made little, cooing noises and arched its back.

I lowered my gun a little, “Where are your parents?” She didn’t understand. I pointed at her and letting my rifle sling over my shoulder, I moved my hand, palm down, upwards to indicate a taller person. She shook her head and held the lamb closer. Probably dead. I checked around the rest of the house and found nothing suspicious. As I was leaving the lamb let out a loud bleat. The girl started to sing to him in a small child’s voice that had just started to understand the world and knew all the lonely nights ahead and who only knew love before.

I pulled a protein bar out of my jacket. It was chocolate and peanut butter flavored so maybe she would like it. I unwrapped it and handed it over to her and she took it in her tiny, soft hand. Immediately she took a big bite and started chewing. Her eyes lit up and for the moment it was her and the bar and the taste and the world was not terrible. I got up to leave.

Another soldier burst in, saw the girl and the lamb, shot them both in the head. “We kill everything.” He said and moved on.

We killed everything I remembered.

Silent, easy

The ground was hard from the cold, so the two men digging took a break. The moon was halfway up and waxing full, the night air silent, easy.

“Stop biting your nails.” The one man said.

“What’s it matter if I bite my nails? I like to bite my nails.” Said the other.

“It’s just disgusting. For one, we’re digging in the ground, who knows what animals came along and took a piss right there.” He pointed with his shovel at the other man’s foot. “Plus, you wipe your ass with your hand don’t ya? You don’t imagine any gets stuck under your nails?”

“Well, I’ll just bite the nails on my other hand then. That make you happy?”

“I don’t care what you do, just don’t do it in front of me.” He leaned on his shovel and stared up at the moon. “Did you bring the sandwiches?”

“I brought’em. Turkey for me and peanut butter and banana for you, since you eat like a kid.”

“Who doesn’t like peanut butter and banana? You know that was Elvis’s favorite sandwich? He would go in a restaurant and get a peanut butter and banana sandwich. Guy like that, have anything he wanted and he ate that.”

They ate in silence and watched the black and grey clouds move in and cover up the moon.

“Rain is coming in. Probably be here in 45 minutes or so. Maybe if we each dig in the same hole it’ll go faster.”

“No, you dig yours and I’ll dig mine. If we dig the same one our digging might overlap, waste time you know?”

Light drops started to fall but they had finished. Unceremoniously they each kicked the body that had been lying beside the now dug graves, then piled the dirt back on.

Money, Self, God and Repeat

Brick duplexes boarded up all along the street. The gas station at the corner closed up with an anachronistic price for gasoline still up. Cars up on blocks and as we drove along the few people that were left peeked anxiously out their windows.

“Last time I was here people were walking the sidewalks, people on roofs listening to music.”

“That was the last time you were here, like 3 years ago. It’s all changed now. The only people who stayed were the ones that kept their jobs and the small gangs that robbed them.”

The sun and blue sky seemed out of place here. It should all be gray with a light mist continually falling, reminding everyone of their plight. But, the world is prosaic and the sun shines wherever it wants to.

“I guess I didn’t realize it was hitting the cities this hard.” A lone child with a sad, brown paper bag walked along carrying a folder in her hand. “Are the schools still open?”

“Only a few privately funded ones. Some of the teachers got together and bought a warehouse and some desks and they let anyone who wants to learn come and learn. But, there’s about a dozen teachers and hundreds and hundreds of kids. I went to help out a couple of times but it’s too dangerous. Half of the kids are older and there to sell drugs. Teachers mostly ignore them and try to reach the younger ones before they get into that stuff.”

“It’s hell here.”

“Yeah. Mostly.”

Between two crumbling two story houses there was a garden with a sign that read “Brickland Community Garden”. A woman with a red scarf around her neck worked at the weeds. When we passed she gave us a glance then got back to it.