BY JAMES MILLER
Copyright is held by the author.
“You can cross,” Steve says to the boy at the intersection.
He looks at the man quizzically. “There are cars.” He’s right. There are cars flying by in both directions.
“I would save you,” Steve says to the boy who is currently safe. The child glares at the adult like he’s a freak, and Steve, a little too late, can see his point. Steve breaks eye contact first, consoling himself that no one heard the conversation, so he could still plausibly deny it. It’s my word against his, Steve thinks.
Steve feels like he could save someone, though.
When the light changes, he crosses to the church, hosting a feverishly busy food pantry in its lot. Cars are lined up at the driveway, motors grumbling their impatience. Steve imagines that their owners, faceless behind the windshields, are anxious about being seen in this place. He feels good about helping them, about the difference between them. They will loop through the horseshoe-shaped parking lot, and volunteers will put shopping bags in the trunks. Someone will pray, close-eyed, for each one through the window and try to make them take a Bible so the pastor can announce proudly tomorrow morning that many people did.
The bananas are more brown than yellow and host a cloud of fruit flies like crows over an October corn field. Steve decides he wouldn’t eat them. He’s in good enough shape that he doesn’t need assistance, unlike these others.
As he hoists mid-weight cardboard boxes of beans and raisins and canned vegetables and bananas, he imagines that in the next car is Maggie and the kids. She has gotten desperate and is too embarrassed to call him for help, so she’s gone to this place, not realizing that he was exactly who she was going to find, as if God, inside the church, had orchestrated it. They would pull up and shout, “Dad!” and they would be surprised and happy. He would drop boxes in their car, extra boxes, and they would be thankful. They would say, “We miss you!” Maggie would sigh and tell Steve to call her.
“Did we get that car?”
The elderly guy next to Steve, another volunteer, points toward a 20-year-old Toyota whose paint was once a golden beige that they don’t make anymore, now scalded off in patches like a skin rash. It has already passed by, and the trunk is closed. Did I put a box in it?
“I think so.”
“Wait!” yells the older man over the engine rumble and through closed windows as he runs after it.
They open the trunk again and it’s empty. The older man gives Steve a look that he’s seen Maggie give.
There is a woman with blonde hair who is a returning volunteer, but Steve can’t remember her name. She smiles at everyone and at him.
“I’m sorry, I can’t remember your name.”
Her name is Mercedes. Steve slaps his palm to his forehead. He starts to talk, over-eager, and jokes that her name makes him think that they should give out bumper stickers that say “My Other Car is a Mercedes”. She looks away.
“My husband will be here in a bit,” she says.
Afterwards, Steve retraces his way back to the busy intersection. He’s carrying a box that they gave him, “So that it wouldn’t go to waste,” he had said, only because they had too many. He certainly didn’t need help. The cars are flying by in both directions.
“You can cross,” he says to himself. “I’ll save you.” So he steps off the curb.
***
James W. Miller is a teacher and writer living in the Los Angeles area. He
holds degrees from UC Berkeley and the U. of Edinburgh and has published in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Fiction on the Web. instagram.com/james.w.miller/.
