Tag: life changes

Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

I think I better understand the expression, “Mind the gaps.” Although originating with trains and subways and the gaps between train and platform, or between cars, it’s found other life as an expression. For me, minding the gaps is about recognizing the gaps left by change. Like, a friend is gone, and suddenly, there’s a gap shaped like them in your life. Gaps emerge from favorite things being discontinued — television shows, products, foods.

If those gaps get too large or too many, we can just start falling right through them.

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Her Life

Her life. She had such a life. All centered on her children. Now. Had been different. Career. Charity work. Volunteering at the Guild and the Food Bank, delivering meals to shut-ins, meeting with the garden club and the book club.

All gone with her macular degeneration. Reducing her life to her children. No, her grandchildren. She and her daughter ‘did not get along’. Saw politics differently. Education. Fashion. Manners. Daughter blamed her for – “Whatever,” she usually explained, too limp to delve deeper into words and emotions, too worn to extricate and untangle the relationship to the satisfaction of anyone outside of it.

The grandchildren, though – twins. He, dyslexic. Energetic. Masculine but wary. She, in the forefront. Quick-minded, always watching, pausing to see. Cowboy boots – red – and sparkling tutus. She, ordering him on what to do, when to do it. How. Correcting him. He, obeying, sometimes with frustration, which the girl child – they were only eight, miniature people, perfect little unblemished slender human replicas – soothed with whispers and touches. She could not see their future. That worried her.

Then him. His life. No life. Writing. Living to write. Brooding, apparently writing in his head. Reading. Walking around, sipping coffee, staring at walls, floors, windows, always there but never there. Her son. She could no longer connect with him at all. He was a house that couldn’t be entered. Curtains on the windows. No doors in nor out.

Phone rang with an old-fashioned tinny sound reminding her of the happy times at her grandmother’s home. Her daughter was calling. She didn’t want to answer. Probably about money. Usually was, when she called. She put a smile into her voice. Shook off her weariness. Must not upset the princess lest she cut off access to the grandchildren. But she would not do that, would she?

Not a chance to be taken. “Hello, honey,” she said, fake happiness in her voice, pressing forward with her life.

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The Bike

He remembered his bike, and his best friend. His best friend’s name was Mike. The bike was a red three-speed English racer. It was a Christmas present from his mother.

Man, he loved that bike. It was an upgrade from the used, heavy bike he’d previously ridden. He rode it everywhere he could, but often pedaled back to see his best friend. He’d moved away from Wilkinsburg to Penn Hills two years before, but still visited. The two remained close, doing the silly things that twelve year old boys did in America in the sixties. Six miles away, he loved those rides and the visits, looking forward to both.

During one visit, his bike turned up with a flat tire. Unable to fix it, he called his mother and requested a pick-up. She complied, but was angry. It interfered with her plans. Still, he was her son. She came to get him. She couldn’t take the bike, though, declaring it too big for the trunk and herself incapable of helping him. Forced to leave the bike, he locked it with its chain. His friend promised to look after it.

Getting back to get fix it proved problematic. The weather had turned. His mother didn’t want him walking back there, or hitch-hiking, but she wouldn’t give him a ride, either. He finally made it, to discover the bike had been stolen.

“I was going to call you,” his best friend said. “They left a note. They said they were the Blue Globe.”

None of that made any sense. Shit, it sounded like a lie. He made the accusation. An argument ensued. His best friend’s older brother, Donnie, came in.

“I took your fucking bike, and sold it. I needed the fucking money.”

He was speechless. “You had no right,” he finally said.

“Fuck you. It was just sitting there. You should have come and got it. It’s your own fault.”

“My fault. I trusted you guys,” he finally said.

Donnie laughed. “Serves you fucking right, then, doesn’t it?”

“I want my bike,” he said.

“Too fucking bad.”

“I want my bike.”

“Too fucking bad, it’s not here. What are you going to do about it?”

Balling his fists, he attacked.

They crashed across the small kitchen, knocking over the tables and chairs, and moving the refrigerator with the force of their fight. Donnie was older, taller, and weighed more, but he hammered Donnie’s skinny body. Finally throwing him back, Donnie fumbled in his pockets and drew out a switch-blade.

Click. “You better fucking go,” Donnie said, “or I’m going to fucking cut you.”

Ready to be cut, his best friend stepped in, stopping him and yelling at his brother. “Came on, man,” Mike said. “You’re bleeding. You’re all bloody.”

He didn’t want to go anywhere with his best friend. He didn’t want to see or hear him, but he went into the bathroom and washed up his bloody face. Cleaned up, done, he gave Mike a final look and began the walk home. The incident had changed him. He’d lost his bike, but worse, he’d lost his best friend and his sense of trust.

Yes, it changed him. He withdrew. People could no longer be trusted.

Not even if they were your best friend.

 

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