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Show THE ZEPHYR/FEBRUARY-MARCH THE HAUNTING By Keith Moore Ever since Wilfrid ran over and killed the little girl his life was a living hell. Wilfrid often used to think, We never know what a day will bring, what's going to happen when we first set foot out of bed in the morning--between then and getting back in for the night. He heard of, read of, mere days that destroyed people, their whole worlds collapsing in a mere trice on some given day. © It was a Thursday--Thursdays can be so routine--yet so awful. He was in a hurry to get to his VA Hospital appointment at eight o'clock that slightly rainy morning. It was the damn annual eye exam, when you had to be there at eight and wait your turn and if you missed it or were too late they wouldn’t “see” you again for a year--they’d also chew you out, and Wilfrid hated that even worse. He’d need to hustle. 2008 of the whirl and nightmare of the building manager and the police and the ambulance following--it was a worst nightmare--but real. Real. How it sickened Wilfrid that it was real. Sickened, literally. Wilfrid sat in the police car, parked akimbo in the lot, blocking it, giving information as a bland officer, a man, and another less bland one, a young but very officious and accusative woman, scribbled notes on legal pads, whipped out nasty, officious forms for filling in. Then he was told to park his truck and go in and get whatever he'd need, the male cop went up with him, he’d be going with them for the day, downtown to headquarters. And it was a dark day. The rain had stopped, but the day stayed dark and cold. When the ambulance workers carried Sami over to their truck on the litter he told himself, Don’t look. Don’t look at that child’s face--and then he did. He couldn’t help himself. He had to look. And he got a good look, too. It sickened him. He also would never forget the looks on the faces of the two women, grandmother and great-grandmother. Even more haunting. The building manager was something of a bitch, to make matters worse-Cherry Jacklin--and he thought of how difficult--impossible?--it was now going to be to face her, and she'd thrown him a filthy look, to be sure. a Ever since Wilfrid ran over and killed the little girl his life was a living hell. During the whole five years he’d lived at that apartment building he’d fretted about someone being so stupid as to be behind his car when he backed out. And this was the day. It had to be a child. He’d worried for years he might hit one of the other old, doddering and thoughtless men or women who came and went there, sometimes thoughtlessly-age does crappy things to the senses--to awareness--to caring about awareness. And now age came upon Wilfrid in a split second. After the accident he aged a decade. It was a two-year-old. Great-granddaughter of some woman there in the building whom he didn’t even know--fifty or so old people had apartments there--Wilfrid was a nodding acquaintance with about five. The child’s grandmother stepped back into the building to get a casserole dish she forgot. Annalise Potter was her name, and she’d called on her mother, Evelyn O'Brian, who lived on the street floor directly under Wilfrid by one unit off-kilter, and Wilfrid may have seen Evelyn O'Brian a time or two but didn’t know her, couldn’t really pass a test on “knowing” her. Annalise Potter that morning had rushed in on her way to work to deliver a gift to her mother, and then when she got out to the parking-lot with Sami, being taken to the day-care center by her grandmother, she remembered she hadn’t brought the casserole dish. Annalise had taken her mother a cheese-and-escalloped-potatoes casserole the week before. It was a big dish and she wanted to take it back--use it again--so she said “Wait here” to Sami and hustled back in. Her mother’s door was only three away from the entry--on the ground floor--very simple. Wilfrid had fretted for years about backing out. At the same time he felt rather secure, comfortable. In that time he saw that no old person, a tenant, had been stupid enough to be in the way of his dark-green Mitsubishi Mighty Max (though they could be pretty stupid, he knew), so he felt okay, turned the ignition, glanced at the seat to his right to make sure he had the papers for the appointment--yes, he did--and would have to get moving if he wasn’t to be late. Wilfrid didn’t get to the VA appointment at all, of course, and Annalise Potter was fit to be tied, and it goes without saying that Evelyn O’Brian was near death, and the hour It wasn’t any longer the Great Falls of the Yellowstone. Why? ‘What? What was — it? Wilfrid spilled the coffee again, the cup fell right to the floor. Now there was a mess to clean up. He almost had a spasm... He didn’t sleep when he got back in bed that night. They allowed him after quite a few hours downtown to go back home--they drove him home--and “go about your normal life as usual”--those were the chief’s words--and await trial. Arraignment would be in six days, Wednesday, and the trial later in the month. For a week Wilfrid's existence was not “normal.” He went through a strange series of emotional and physical stages he’d never known--that first day, that gray Thursday, just Man must feel the earth to know himself and recognize @ his values... canoe company Lc. WE RENT CANOES! 1371 Charles A. Lindbergh eM BEem (Sel n North Highway 191 Moab UT 84532 — mee AARC la aN cleoe ee) i1) Nancy Jacques...www.ravenseyepress.com meen hen ess: redrivercanoe.com 800.753.8216 IRE LOOK FOR THE A-FRAME JUST NORTH OF TOWN. |
