“I don’t remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride,” was playing over the car radio as the light turned red. The song was a distraction for her, as was her thoughts. The young boy, extremely shy and peddling faster than a bike was meant to go, couldn’t care less what she was thinking about. It was over in an instant anyway. The chevy malibu crashed into the frame of the old mountain bike, and the boy, formerly known as Jacob Withers was dead. His favorite Giants cap had flown clear across to the sidewalk, twenty feet away.
She looked focused now...in a way. A dreamy way. The ambulance driver would later describe her as “being in shock.” Staring out the windshield which was amazingly still intact, Thelma T wore a glazed expression, with a slight twitching of her lips. A cry was forming....no, more of an anguished scream, though the scream never escaped. To see her this instant you would think she was nothing more than a stressed-out, tired mom, who wants to get home and have a glass of wine. The horror of what she had caused would not sink in until several minutes later.
Flashing lights and wailing sirens exploded into a full blown fiasco. A crowd of onlookers, ordinary people who walk this street everyday, gathered to catch a glimpse of the accident. Each one with their own theory of what had happened. The daylight was fading and the grayness of twilight was sneaking in. A scary time of day for some people. The in-between day and night time. A time of pacing, of not knowing, rhythmless and out of tune.
High above, much higher than the clouds or stars in the sky, Jacob Withers watched. His bike was history now. It was an old one from Wal-Mart anyway, so it didn’t bother him. He wondered why policemen don’t wear hats anymore. He liked the police hats with the shiny visors. He remembered those from the old movies his grandmother made him watch with her. This felt like a movie to him. An old silent movie, although he had already forgotten what part he was acting. Maybe he was the audience now. As the former Jacob Withers basked in the soft light, he knew everything was good. He had never felt so safe and realized his biggest fear was over. Relief at last and not one worry did he have. Then with perfect clarity he realized he wouldn’t have to give the dreaded oral report in class tomorrow.
Laughing he thought, “dang...death is good!”
Meanwhile, adding to the fiasco down below, just as Don Mclean finished the last refrain of “Bye, bye Miss American Pie. Drove my chevy to the levy, but the levy was ...” Thelma T let out a holler heard clear across the small town. It turned her face red and bespoke the devil, shocking and scaring the saddened crowd. The terror and the realization in her scream, making up for all the shy kids and unspoken oral reports everywhere.
The End.
