Baby Breath revised, John Andrew Durler Sr. [best short books to read txt] 📗

eyes thinking he'd have to cut his bangs later. He kissed him on his forehead and whispered, "Sonny, are you sleeping?" Sonny didn't answer. Alex put his hand under Sonny's woven belt he had made for Sonny from balls of wool from his mother's sewing basket. It was an authentic Navajo design he copied from a library book. He couldn't do the animals in the middle, but the borders were beautiful with their vivid green, yellow white, black and red designs.

"It's a Navajo chief's belt, Sonny." He said when he gave it to him. Sonny never took it off, even when in the bathtub.

Alex yawned, clutched the belt and then put his other arm over Sonny knowing he would be yelled at if he fell asleep and Sonny got away from him. His eyes roved over the room--the locked door , the latch sideways, and the skeleton key in his pocket, the closed window. Sonny couldn't open it, and even if he managed to, he wasn't strong enough to raise it enough to climb out.

An hour later, Alex woke from drenched sleep. His focus drilled on his brother's presence missing from his side. He hopped from the bed, "Please, please, please?" He unlocked the bedroom door and fled barefoot across pine floors through the kitchen to the back door. No Sonny. He flew over the porch around the house and turned to the sound of farm machinery in the hay field. He screamed. "Stop! Stop!" His shouts died in the roar of the engine. Alex ran toward the truck. Flo Ann lifted Sonny up to the running board, giving him a boost. Sonny reached up and pulled the door handle down. His hand slipped from the rounded chrome handle. Alex ran as fast as his eight-year-old legs could carry him, jumping over piles of hay. Flo Ann lost her grip on Sonny and fell back from Sonny's falling body. Sonny banged off the running board onto the rear wheel well and slid down between it and the running board. The truck's rear wheel rolled over his head.

Alex froze, screaming. Harry jumped down from the cab, ran to Sonny, and gently lifted him up in his arms. Beth appeared from the other side of the truck not knowing what was happening, ran and brought Flo Ann to Alex, slapped him and cried, "What's the matter with you? You're supposed to watch her! Where's Sonny?"

"Beth!" William screamed, taking Sonny from Harry, rushing to his Ford pickup. Harry overtook him, hopped in the cab and opened the passenger door. William yelled "Bring me a blanket, he's bleeding.

Beth yelled. "What happened? Whose hurt?"

"He'll be all right. Beth!" William shouted, "stay with the kids!"

Alex ran onto the porch, pulled a dry blanket from a laundry basket, ran to the moving pickup as fast as he could, chanting "Please, please, please," balled it and threw it into the cab. Beth moaned. Flo Ann held her house dress, crying as Alex ran back to his mother. "Take your sister into the house." Alex stood still, stunned, watching the pickup speed away. "Now!"


He took Flo Ann by the hand and walked back toward the house.
"We wanted to ride. We just wanted a ride," Flo Ann sobbed.

Alex lifted her in his arms and ran to the porch. They watched their mother stagger to the truck. Pete grabbed her to steady her and said, "Mrs. Sinclair, we didn't see. We didn't know. Oh God, I wish it was me."

"Let me look, Pete. Where did it happen?"

"Mrs. Sinclair, Please, don't?"

She stared at the back of the truck. "Oh God! There's so much blood. Oh my god!" Alex watched his mother collapse in Pete's arms as he sat on the stoop. His arms around Flo Ann. He thought, how was the window open? I was always careful about safety. We'd nap in afternoons, our legs and arms entwined. Flo finally said, "Sonny pestered me about riding on the truck. I thought daddy was driving. I was going to boost Sonny up and then climb up myself. I thought you wouldn't let us, and you would make me watch Sonny while you got a ride."

"Why did you do it Flo?"

"Because you are always first. I heard you ask Daddy if you could ride in the truck, and he told you to wait awhile. You never told me, and I wanted to be first, that's why I opened the window, woke sonny, climbed out the window, lifted him out, and ran to the truck."

"Jesus Flo." Alex wanted to smack her, punch her, and choke her. Instead he sat there; "It's my fault. If I didn't fall asleep it wouldn't have happened."

The night before Sonny was buried, his father said, "Alex, come on, no one else wants to see Sonny the way he is. Tomorrow the coffin will be sealed. Now is he only time we can say good-bye." Alex went with him, but stayed at the back of the funeral parlor, sobbing. He remembered how Sonny's laugh lit up his face when he boosted him up to a tree to reach out to a robin's egg. Sonny knew without being told not to touch its frail shell. He saw his eyes question the pale blue shell, the mother's red breast. And the time he watched Sonny run from a hissing, honking goose, then turn with a stick, defiant at being embarrassed, and chased it back to the barnyard in zigzag pursuit, then stopped to cry, throwing the stick down, walking back to the house, ineffectively punching and kicking Alex sobbing "I was scared. I was scared." Alex laughed at him then, and soothed him as they walked back and locked the pen.

*************
Forty years later, Alex still blamed himself for Sonny's death. He had a hole inside that would never be filled, and a wall that no one had ever broken through. The farm was vaguely remembered as a place he had once been. That was all it was to him after that day. He did go back to bring flowers to the grave, stop in Walton, pick up groceries, and bring it back his family, stay a few hours and leave. That was a long time ago.
Change o Tense

In Babylon village, on Long Island, New York, The 7-11 coffee was just kicking in. Alex put the container in its caddy and lit his sixth Winston light with a match which shot out a piece of sulfur that burned red hot just below his eye. "Son of a Bitch!" He swerved the car onto the shoulder. "You have to wear safety goggles with these matches." Alex talked to himself. You might as well know that now. His therapist told him there was nothing wrong with it. He adjusted the rear view mirror and saw the black chunk of burned sulfur still imbedded top of his cheek bone. "I must have hit a nerve." He spat on his finger, wiped it, rubbed his finger on the seat and saw a raw looking red blister starting to form. "Shit!"
He tapped it gently with more spit, leaving it there until the excess rolled down his cheek, then wiped it off. He ripped off a clean corner of the 7-11 napkin, pressed until the forming blister broke and left it pasted to his cheek, then sat there, finished his cigarette and the rest of the coffee. He checked his watch; nine-thirty Saturday morning. He'd been up forty five minutes. He turned to gauge the traffic flow and stared at a sign on a building directly across the street on Motor Parkway: "Baby's Breath Florist."

His mind flooded with thoughts of mountains and fields of his early years, pure air and the clarity and innocence of childhood. For the first time in almost three decades, he felt the world's movement as it was back then under his feet, the future stretching out. As he pulled out and passed the florist, lost dreams and failures rose up like a wave of death, mildew, and rot. For three hours he drove by parks and school yards trying to fill his lungs with fresh air. They felt on fire. He screeched to a stop at a yellow light turning red by Route 231 going west into Babylon Village. Automobile horns blared behind. He looked up at the green light he was sitting at, gunned the car and slammed the brakes to screeching halt when the green light turned yellow then red. Green again, he drove as if in a daze until he stopped at another light. He looked around. He was at Argyle Park. He saw the heavy woman sitting on a bench by the lake, her hand on a stroller. He watched couples walking with small children between them, arms stretched down, each holding a tiny hand. He hated Main Street with its 50 miles an hour traffic in a 20 mile an hour zone. He hated the intersection's longest traffic lights in the county, hated his Breath, stinking like an ashtray. Alex hated the whole ducking world and the fat woman with her stroller. He opened the manila folder Jake gave him and looked at the picture. It was her. She had another baby. His heart raced. He backed into the public parking area, ran across the street dodging cars and walked into the Post Office Cafe. He knew he was going to need a drink.

The interior fit his mood and he relaxed as he determinedly walked through the gloom to a heavy dark wood bar and ordered a Johnny Walker Black from the pony tailed bartender with a silver dollar hanging from a chain on his neck. He had to be six foot six, with blond hair, blue eyes and an open look that made Alex want to trust him.

"The bar opens in ten minutes Mister. I could get you something else until then."
Alex held up his hand with a ten dollar bill in it, flat, crisp and new, saw it shaking, put it on the bar and spoke firmly, still angry. "I really need a drink. I could go down the street and buy a bottle from Ferraro's liquor store but I don't have time."

The bartender looked at the clock at ten of 12 and said, "You don't have to go anywhere, you got it. You a local? I haven't seen you around."

"This used to be the Babylon Village Post Office." "Yep," he said as he poured a double.
"Back visiting?"

"No, just looking to find something, maybe myself, maybe someone else brand new."

"Divorced?"

"Yeah. Three years now."

"You still love her?"

"Love her? I never loved her. I thought I did. The night of our wedding she changed into another person."

"It must have been a battle."

"Nah. It was short and sweet. She took everything, my tools, baseball cards, H. O. trains, my self respect and my life, even the light bulbs--not even an explanation, although I guess she didn't really need to explain, but she could have left my things. I bet she sold them, the fat bitch."

"What happened? A boy friend? Girl friend?" He had become interested and leaned on the bar smoking a Cigarillo looking sympathetic.

Alex choked. His chest tightened. He waved for a refill and the glass was filled to the brim. Alex knocked it back, feeling the smooth caramel charcoal taste slide down his throat and spread out inside