Page 71 - WTP Vol. X #5

You kept zipping down that Bike Lane, getting closer. Catching up to the retreating tail end of the parade. You pumped so hard your legs ached and the ache felt good. Chasing the whole Class of 2020 like Death finally does chase down Prince P. But no one cared that the Prince died—not the way your mom would care if you did. Even though lately, you felt she could hardly stand to look at you. Would it be a relief to her, not to have to see you?
The blue lights of the police cars kept flashing, urging you on. But you didn’t want to be trailing alongside the parade, in the damn Bike Lane. You wanted to be in the parade.
Zig-zaggedy fast—like you’d pictured doing all Spring—you veered out of the Bike Lane, into the lane of cars that had resumed rumbling down Mass Ave.
“HEY,” A mad-mom voice yelled behind you, brakes screeching like a scream. Her horn blared: a big No! Your bike wobbled in its sound waves. What a dumb idea, to chase the parade; to veer onto Mass Ave, trapped now in the traffic. Too Dumb to Live!
“You’re OUTA LANE,” the mad-mom hollered. No shit, Sherlock. She pounded her horn again, this time staccato style. Out, out, out—Like your pulse when you lay awake at night lately, wishing for sleep that would never end.
Your head dizzy, you tightened your sweaty hold on your handlebars. Did the dumb deserve to die? Did you? Your heart pumped in your chest like it wanted out out out. Should you just veer over that final line, the solid yellow one, smashing straight into oncoming cars?
You braced your body, daring yourself to do it— wrench the handlebars, cross the line—when you felt a ping. A tiny silent explosion. Your iPhone, vibrat- ing? Mom? Or —somehow you sensed this—not Mom. Someone else? Grandad? you actually thought as you slowed your bike, slowed it too fast. But you had to check your texts! Your last clear thought be- fore the Mom car behind you rammed your rear tire, jarring your bike and body. The mom and her brakes screamed. You screamed too through your mask: jolt- ing forward, losing hold.
You pitched over your handlebars: your bike falling away behind you, your body swept off on a wave without water. Headfirst, you catapulted into an SUV bumper: curved like a giant pillow. Your helmeted head thunked its metal. A blast of pain like light; a dark inner tornado sucking you under. Crack—black.
~
Then a man carrying you. You stared up at a man crouched beside you on the sidewalk where he’d laid you down. Grandad with a weird beard and a police- man’s hat? His face going freaky-fuzzy like Grandad’s did that final FaceTime time. Then you blacked out again.
Maybe you should end your story there, like you’d died. That way, you could skip the hospital part. Lying for days in a jail-railed hospital bed, trapped in itchy stitches and bandages. It sucked. And everyone kept saying how lucky you were, are. Your femur frac- tured, which hurt the worst. But, Mom kept repeat- ing, it could’ve been way worse. You managed a nod, the lower half of your face bandaged so you could barely talk. Or you pretended you could barely talk. Severe abrasions, the doctor explained, ordering you not to scratch under your bandages.
But it itched like Hell. Sometimes you wondered if really you had died, had landed in some kind of Hos- pital Hell like poor Grandad at the end, only without the ventilator. But no: your mom sat at your bedside the way she couldn’t sit at his, chattering on about her drinking-buddy fellow-divorcee dermatologist. How she would use silicon sheets to ‘flatten’ your scar. The real doctor told you and your mom that scraped-off skin can heal but cannot ‘regenerate—’
Your mom nodded but she wasn’t listening. But then, your mom still believed her ‘damn President’ that Covid would disappear soon. Mom told you so as she drove you home, driving you crazy as she settled you into your bed, saying again how your scarred face could be made smooth again. You pretended to agree just to make her stop talking. She beamed her best Mom smile at you and shut your bedroom door softly. Shit, you felt so much older than your mom.
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