Foster Trecost

Man On the Run

They allowed an hour for lunch, more than enough most days but that afternoon I needed every minute, plus a few. When I got back, I tried to glide by my boss’s door but he caught me mid-frame. He noted the time and scolded my tardiness, then asked if I’d seen the accident. Of course I’d seen it, but couldn’t talk about it, not so soon after. So I mimicked remembrance and voiced a response that consisted of just one word, employing the verbal economy I use with everyone. He wanted details but he wouldn’t get them–tragic is all I said. It would’ve been too risky to say more.            

Here’s what happened: Force flung the driver to a crumpled mound in the street, but no one seemed to notice. The car, that’s where we looked. On fire, yes, but was it screaming? We wished it had been, but it wasn’t the car. Then the screams stopped. And there I stood on the corner, scoffing at my attackers. I knew they were close and I knew they’d try something. Emotions can be so predictable.

After work I set out in the general direction of my apartment, but before long fatigue suggested I rest. Nearly dark and no one around, I found a park and sat center-bench. And never saw them coming. Another attack, this time an ambush. My only hope was to hide in a memory, so I jumped inside the safest I could find–I was a kid and from bricks and board, fashioned a ramp. With eyes squeezed to slits, I felt a thump when my bike hit the incline, then nothing but beautiful silence. But deeper than just the absence of sound, it was the absence of everything. Time stood still. Until I hit ground and found all the bad thoughts waiting for me. Even safe memories have an edge.

Later that night my grandmother called. She’d heard about the accident and it stoked her memory, so she called to stoke mine. She said it wasn’t my fault, but she was talking about a different accident. For my tenth birthday I asked for a model train, but the kind that pulled boxcars, not people. When my parents presented me with an Amtrak-styled passenger version, my disappointment sent them after an exchange. And I never saw them again. It wasn’t their fault and it wasn’t the other driver who killed them. It was me. They found a new train in the trunk, but they left me something that would last a lot longer.

“Nobody blames you.”  

Except the one talking. And the one listening. And that’s when she stopped being my grandmother. She became resentful and bitter, someone who’d come to place blame, but I’d been blamed enough, mostly by me but not always, so I changed the subject, asked if she had plans for the weekend. And let her ease back to my grandmother.

“There’s the game on Sunday, I guess I’ll watch it.”

That’s all she said, but it was enough. An ambush disguised as a lonely lady using sports to resurrect my long-gone grandfather. My emotions, they’re getting clever and this time they got the best of me. Sometimes I win, sometimes they win. It was easier on my bike, time stood still. Now, at best, it just slows down.

Foster Trecost writes stories that are mostly made up. They tend to follow his attention span: sometimes short, sometimes very short. Recent work appears in Harpy Backchannels Journal, Right Hand Pointing, and BigCityLit. He lives near New Orleans with his wife and dog.