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Show Blue Run/45 Dee's front yard, the water colors running off the page onto my thighs. And the policemen got me into the car and I could hear the radio chatter, and they asked me questions about who I was and who I knew and why was I here, and where on earth the daddy was. I knew that this was how it'd been for Buddy, his child taken, the cops on fire for answers. I don't know how, but my life caught up to me then, that Tuesday afternoon at MacArthur Park, just outside the little boy mummy's room. From the moment Buddy'd lied about the Arizona ghost girl and I'd bought the story, everything since then was my fault altogether. And the guilt would have killed me, would have just consumed me right then, had it not been for the beautiful brown-faced woman in the flower dress, standing in Dee's front yard with Joey in her arms. He was peaceful, already forgetting about the mummy and how I'd lied my head off that his daddy was dead. She gave him back, said "Lord, what a pretty boy, this one here " And that was that. Joey'd simply gotten out of the museum unseen, and walked the blocks back to Dee's. He'd crossed intersections, passed strangers and winos, had walked right up to this woman and reached out for her and hand and she'd taken hold, just like he was a relative. Why not? Why shouldn't there be sweetness in this world That very week I met O.W. He was driving a Wonder Bread truck then, making a delivery at Tabor's Grocery on Thayer Street in a uniform. The name was written right there on the chest of his size nineteen long shirt. He smiled and nodded, stacking loaves on top shelves. I smiled back, lingering between aisles "Looks fresh." "Better believe it." He muscled another rack off his dolly, then stood up to his full height, six-two or so, the |
