a short story
by:
Vincent A.
Palazzo
Thump!
I cannot get away from the
thump…thump…thumping of her basketball on the asphalt. I hear it in the house and it follows me on
those days when need and energy propel me outdoors to the market, to the dry
cleaners or to that bench by the pond where I used to enjoy an afternoon
read. You will be surprised how much a
woman thumping a melon or a car with a flat thumping its way to the curb reminds
me of the sounds of basketball. It is
worse at 5 A.M. when the rhythm of her running up and down my driveway
dribbling that damn ball drives me closest to madness. I have yet to sleep through it.
After breakfast, when I think of it,
and I think of it every day, I watch Ella run the length of the drive. She moves the ball in bizarre geometric
patterns. She defies nature, almost
stopping time as she takes her shot. I
watch her rise in the air and reach the perfect altitude before releasing the
ball. The ball follows its own, higher
arc as she gently floats to the ground. She watches the ball slip through the
hoop and come back to her – almost on command.
I am in awe of her skill. It is a
talent and commitment I never possessed.
From my window I can see my lawn and
part of the approaching street. My lawn
and gardens used to be impeccably kept.
My garage is littered with edge-trimmers and weed whackers, clippers and
claws, a wide variety of seeds and an even wider variety of chemicals, sprays
and powders to vanquish any weed or critter that dared to cross the
sidewalk. It was my Magheno Line. It was not enough.
At 5 A.M., when I answer the call of
the thumping basketball, I see more than my granddaughter. More than my pride and joy. More than a star athlete and high school
scholar awaiting her first prom. I am
able to look across my Home and Garden lawn and focus down the street. In the distance, I am able to see the car.
That day, the day of the car, I was in
the window. I saw Ella rise effortlessly
from the blacktop; she made her shot then moved three steps to the left for the
rebound. She caught the ball on one
bounce, pivoted, basketball extended in front of her towards the street, as if
to pass, and disappeared. In real time,
in the midst of that what-the-fuck
moment, I did not see the car. I saw her
there. I saw her gone. And then I saw her sitting, legs splayed against
our garbage cans, a river of red forming under her and flowing into the drain a
few feet from her Nikes. I did not see the car that came to rest in
our crippled azaleas. I did not see the
man who climbed out of the vehicle. I
did not watch him sit on a small patch of my manicured lawn. I did not see him drink from his bottle of
scotch or hear the sound of his laugh.
All that came later. All that
comes at 5 A.M.
From my vantage point in the window,
I can see the car, an insignificant, nothing special, rusting, older sedan make
its way towards my house. It weaves,
barely missing cars and signs and mailboxes on both sides of the road. It is, as the sun starts to rise and the air
starts to warm, proof-positive that God does not exist. If he did, the drunk would have totaled Tim Thackeray’s
brand new Mercedes or laid waste to Aggie Cooper’s soccer mom express. Instead, the car manages to avoid everyone’s
property, gaining speed inch by inch and frame by frame. I watch as the car does a crazy, lurching
dance over the curb and cuts two crooked paths across my perfect grass. In the glow of afterthought, I see Ella pivot,
ready for her next all-star move. I see
the grill reflected in her eyes. I see
recognition in her eyes. Through one
eye, I see her flying backwards towards my cans. Through the other eye, I see the car start to
spin on the asphalt, sliding sideways into the bushes. The ball finds its own path, bouncing down my
drive and then further downhill towards Walburton Avenue. It comes to rest somewhere; I never learned
where.
The final frames of the newsreel
follow the driver, a young man in his twenties, as he struggles from the
vehicle and weaves a new path towards the grass. He is clearly drunk but conscious enough to
remember his bottle. He sits on my
grass, his legs spread in a pose reminiscent of my granddaughter and drinks
heartily. Huge gulps of scotch pass his
gullet. His laugh, whenever the bottle leaves
his lips, is boisterous. It is as if he
has just gotten off a thrill ride at the local Six Flags and is…I am not sure
what he is but the word happy keeps
popping into my mind.
It is here that I turn away from the
window. There is a gathering of people
and then a gathering of bright and blinking lights but I don’t want to see any
of it. I am drawn to something else; every
time that I turn, I see Ella’s lime green prom dress, the one I thought was too
sexy for a seventeen year old when she tried it on, hanging on the closet
door. Every time I see that dress, the
anger explodes.
☼
The lawyer Perry Finn is a fat, unkempt
man who reminds me of Charles Laughton -
or maybe Orson Welles when Welles played Clarence Darrow – but there is nothing
lawyerly or eloquent about this advocate.
He wears a wrinkled suit and an old white shirt frayed at the collar. I have no doubt that, undisguised by his
jacket, his shirt would be stained by sweat – and maybe lunch. He is a blue collar brawler comfortable with
close quarter combat; whatever meat the prosecution offers the jury, he tears it
apart.
Perry Finn stands before the jury. He makes his opening statement. Two short
sentences, nothing more: “The defendant
was not drunk at the time of the accident.
The State will not prove otherwise.”
Period. Perry Finn was assigned
to defend Eddie Plumb, the twenty-six year old driver of an old rust bucket
with five alcohol related arrests on his record and the blood of my seventeen
year old granddaughter on his hands. He
was assigned to defend a young man
known as Party Boy. He did his dirty work well.
I sit in the gallery - every day - listening to the District Attorney ask
hundreds of questions, virtually dragging the jurors word by word towards the
anticipated guilty verdict. This is a slam dunk! It is a painstaking process. By the end, the jury is tired and I am running
on empty – emotionally and physically.
Finn, by contrast, moves slowly and
talks softly – you have to focus to hear him – but he never asks more than two
or three questions of any witness:
“Are you aware
that the Defendant was seen drinking after the accident? There are a dozen witnesses.”
A reluctant yes.
“Would consuming
large amounts of scotch at the accident scene AFTER an accident affect blood
alcohol results?
A furtive glance at the D.A. An almost whispered yes.
I am aware that Finn keeps referring
to my lawn as an “accident scene”. The
District Attorney called it a “crime scene”.
“How
do you know that this young man was driving drunk?
The Police said so. They wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true.
Indeed. Sarcasm.
Thank you Mrs. Birnbaum.
I keep noticing that Finn refers to
Party Boy as a young man – as if finding him guilty would rob this young man of a future. I feel the irony. The jury does not.
“If
you hit and killed a young girl wouldn’t you need a drink?”
A sheepish shrug. It is reluctant but true is true. Another neighbor owns that moment.
The jury acquitted on the top shelf
counts but found Eddie Plumb, a.k.a. Party Boy, guilty on a relatively minor
open container charge. The judge hands
down a six month sentence then suspends the sentence. Eddie Plumb, poor young man that he is,
couldn’t afford bail. He served his
time, awaiting trial, in jail.
The
Defendant is free to go.
The gavel is final.
The clap of the hammer pushes the
thumping sound of the basketball to the back of my mind.
The clap of the hammer sounds like a
gun.
☼
Buying a gun,
even in a State like New York, is not difficult. I simply walked past ladies lingerie, men’s
boxer briefs, you-assemble-furniture and the toy department and asked some
eighteen year old clerk in Sporting Goods for a shotgun. She put a couple of suggestions on the
counter and let me get a feel for them.
She prattled on about the weapon’s various features – in a few years
she’d be making real money selling used cars – while I clumsily turned the gun
in my hands. It really didn’t matter
which gun I choose. She never bothered
to ask why I wanted a shotgun. The sign
above my head said hunting season was over.
Why would have been a logical
question – at least for me – but it never came up. She explained the legal requirements, helped
with the paperwork and, in the course of time, got me my gun.
I have lived my entire life in the
Adirondacks and I have never owned a gun.
I have never shot a gun…until now.
☼
I have a camp on some acres about
fifty miles north of town. My friends
have used it to go hunting; I have never felt the urge to join them, not even
for the beer. Now, bizarrely, I have
spent three days, alone, turning watermelon flesh into viscous, red goo,
exploding cantaloupe, peppering smoked hams and attempting to hit baseballs mounted
on broomsticks. I’ve gotten good with
the edibles. There is nothing
recognizable in the yards and the cupboards are virtually empty. The baseballs are a different story. Mostly I
miss or hit the sticks. I do not know if
I should consider that a wound shot but it is
not what I want. Presumably I
will rip the horsehide off them before I head home.
☼
The phone call came in while I was
still at the cabin. I do not get cell
phone service up there but the phone spoke about halfway down the
mountain. You have one voicemail. I
heard my daughter Karen’s voice but the message was garbled. Individual words and phrases – him, no report yet, can’t believe it. It
wasn’t much.
☼
My nephew Richie, my sister’s son,
was sitting on my porch when I pulled into the drive. As I got out of the car he stood up.
“Tell me you were out of town.”
“I was.”
“I know you were at the cabin. Tell me you didn’t come down yesterday for anything – liquor, beer,
milk, ice cream, anything!”
“I was there for nearly a week.”
“Thank God. I don’t know how you could have done it, but
thank God!”
Richie flew off the porch and
smothered me in a powerful embrace. I
dropped my bag as he held me. I could
feel the big man shaking and could swear he was crying.
“Party Boy is dead!” he whispered in
my ear. When he stepped back, his face
was streaked and pale and exultant. I
like to think exultant, anyway. It is
how I felt.
☼
I am reminded of the farmer who
thanks God for a bountiful harvest.
Eddie Plumb was good for one more traffic accident and it took his
life. From what I learned from the media
and what little else the authorities would offer, he was traveling west at
speeds the exceeded the speed limit – but only slightly. At a curve overlooking Pine Lake he executed
an impossible maneuver; Party Boy drifted right onto the shoulder and somehow
threaded his latest rust bucket between the steel barrier on the left and a
large granite outcropping on the right, through an opening the engineers would
never have considered possible. No paint
transfer was discovered on the railing or the boulder. The car then hit a patch of wet, marshy ground,
slid away from the road and pointed directly down a steep embankment. Plumb – or his car – navigated around and
over rocks, roots and ruts, rocking wildly from side to side, as both headed
straight for the water. He gained speed
all the way, reaching the bottom with enough momentum to propel the sedan a
good fifteen feet into the lake. The
water was deep enough to submerge the car and despite hand cranked windows,
Eddie Plumb could not extricate himself from the vehicle. He drowned behind the wheel. Post-mortem testing showed that he was
completely sober at the time.
I disavowed the existence of the
Almighty when Ella died. Party Boy’s
demise – I like to think of it as an execution – allowed me to let God back
into my life. The impossibility of the accident allowed me to embrace the
concept and rediscover religion. I am still angry with him - there are still a
few people who deserve a little divine
intervention - but I am willing give him a little time. A man has to be
fair – and have faith. Besides, if I don’t
hear back, there is always Plan B.
Melon is still in season.
