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The Rolling of Tires
The other night,
I woke, sitting straight up in bed as awake as if I had been injected
with a double espresso. I reached for my dream as if I was clutching a
rope that was slipping through my hands, and my grip was helpless to
stop it. My mind could do nothing to prevent this slipping away of
whatever the images were that had brought me upright in bed, and the
harder I struggled with this task the fainter the images became. They
were gone and all that was left was a faint feeling that I had been
there, but where. It was an anxious feeling that made my heart beat as
if I had been running hard for a long time, and I was damp all over
with perspiration. Then I could hear the foot steps and heavy labored
breathing. They were close, and getting closer, but I still could see
nothing. I could smell something distinct, something familiar. The odor
was dark and shadowy like night time rolling down a steep tree lined
street. That was it. It all came back in one curling wave that washed
over me gently stilling my pounding heart and bringing about a warm
comfortable feeling. The comfort was not so much in the memory, but in
the fact that I had remembered. It seemed like memories out of a past
life, faint and a little out of focus at first, but they got stronger
and more defined as I sat there shivering in my dark room.
It all started
with a movie. The three of us had gone to a movie. I remember that I
sat in the middle between Dennis and Mike, and the movie was about the
Civil War. We had gone to the first of two evening showings and we
watched the cartoon a second time and then left to roam around the dark
streets of our small town like boys in their early teens will often do.
We walked up the steep three blocks of High Street that led to our
neighborhood, and we were nearly to the top when we saw it lying on the
edge of Mr. Walter's driveway. It was a tire, wheel and all, probably
off his red and white Chevy Impala. It seemed to glow gently there in
the shadows of the still night, as we walked by reminiscing about the
movie. I can't remember who's idea it was first, but we all agreed that
it would be a fine sight to see it rolling down the steep hill toward
town. We quickly snatched it up, rolled it quietly to the crest of the
hill, and without any ceremony launched it with a hard push straight
down the middle of the steep street. It went smoothly at first and then
as it picked up speed and rolled over a few small rocks in the street,
it began to bounce. Faster and faster it went, but it never veered from
the middle of the road. At the half way point it was bouncing wildly,
maybe three or four feet at a bound and traveling as fast as if it were
attached to a car with the gas peddle to the floor. At the second cross
street it passed just a few feet behind a car whose driver never new
how lucky he was. The tire shot through another intersection like an
unguided missile and headed for the traffic on Main Street. It was only
then that we considered the inevitable. It seems funny now that it
never dawned on us that this seemingly benign tire would do anything
but finally come to rest quietly on it's side like we found it, but
that was not to be. Main Street came too quickly, and the taxi cab
sitting at a red light was paralyzed. The driver saw it coming all
right, but he could do nothing. The tire, wheel and all, hit the cab in
the rear door right behind the driver, caving in the door and
protruding well into the back seat where it stuck fast.
"Wow! That was
cool", is all we could say as we stood there frozen by the sight of
what had just transpired. The driver of the taxi reacted quickly, made
a right turn with the light still red and headed up the hill in our
direction about as fast as the tire had gone down. Without a word we
split up and headed in three different directions down side streets and
alleys with our hearts pounding like snare drums. As I headed down the
side street I could hear the taxi's engine loose Rpm's as the driver
shifted into second gear. I could also hear the sound of metal scraping
where the fender had been pushed into the rear tire from the impact,
and I could only hope that this might slow him up a bit. I looked back
just in time to see the taxi turn the corner onto the side street that
I had headed down. I suddenly felt all alone with only my adrenaline
for company. As the car closed in on me I knew that the street was no
place to be, so I turned off and scrambled across someone's front yard
and into their driveway. The taxi pulled up with a screech. The tire
that had stuck in it's side was gone, perhaps rolling back down High
Street toward town. The driver jumped out with a yell for me to stop.
With out any hesitation I ran between the small garage and the house
and into the back yard. The yard was small and heavily planted, and the
darkness made it impossible to pick a good route. I just ran stumbling
for the back end of the yard and hoped for an opening. The driver was
close, I could hear him breathing, I could almost feel him breathing.
There was a sound of breaking branches and then the sound of a thud and
a muffled grunt as he hit the ground behind me. That might be it, the
time I needed. Then I hit the fence. It didn't give much, but neither
did I. I jumped as high as I could and scrambled like a cat on a screen
door for the top. I could hear the taxi driver muttering as he got up
from the ground and sprang for the fence. I reached the top and tried
to swing myself over when I felt a tug on my pant leg. It wasn't much,
but it was just enough to throw me off balance, and losing my grip I
went down. I found myself on the opposite side of the fence, but the
driver was all ready half way up the other side. I ran at the fence as
hard as I could, hitting it with my shoulder right where he was
climbing. It worked, he lost his grip and fell back into the yard with
a curse. He jumped back up and re-mounted the fence with even more
perseverance than before. My body block to the fence had knocked me off
my feet as well, and as I scrambled back up, my hands suddenly grasped
a stick about three feet long and an inch or so in diameter. Without
even a thought I shoved the stick through the fence, catching the taxi
driver in the stomach. He let out a sound that was more air than
anything and collapsed back into a large honeysuckle bush with a crunch
of braking branches and one last curse. I didn't even look back, I just
ran across the narrow alley and into the adjoining back yard, through
to the front, across the next street and into another yard. As I
reached the side of the house I finally looked back to a quiet empty
street with one lone house cat poised like a statue near one edge
wondering what had run by in such a hurry. I disappeared around the
back of the house and made my way through several side yards until I
felt I had put enough distance between myself and the taxi driver, and
then I collapsed under a very large shrub and listened as the pounding
of my heart slowly subsided to where I could once again hear the soft
sound of the quiet evening.
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