Slowing to a crawl

We raced our bikes through the neighborhood and down to the grassy area at the pond.  I didn't win the race but was happy for the soft landing, as we all sort of crashed together and went sprawling.

Larry had the bread in his saddlebags and we quickly divided it up and each picked out a spot along the edge of the pond.  I pulled off a little piece and tossed it out onto the water.  It landed gently and made almost no ripples.  I plucked another piece from the loaf and tried to toss it a little farther out.  The movement of my arm startled a small frog, who had apparently been watching me.  He jumped into the pond and swam down to the safety of the bottom.

The frog's ripples caused the floating bread to bounce and rock with the surface of the water.  As I watched the first piece bobbing up and down it suddenly disappeared.

"Over here!" I yelled to my pals, who were scattered around the edges of the pond hoping to be the one to spot the fish first.  Some of them came running, others stood their ground, thinking their location would turn out better than the one I had picked.  Then the second piece of bread quickly went under; snatched by that same monster fish no doubt.

For all the times we'd been feeding it throughout the summer, it had most likely grown much too big for this small pond.  It wouldn't surprise me if the top of the old fish didn't start showing above the water.  Larry said I was nuts.  He said, "When was the last time you ever saw a sunburned fish?"  I guess he was right, I never had.

It wasn't long before everyone was crowded around my spot, tossing chunks of bread and waiting for them to be eaten by the great Fish.  Every now and then we'd see a turtle swim up and snag a piece of bread, then disappear back down to the bottom.

After all our bread was gone we decided to head over to Tommy's house.  We untangled our bikes and as we headed back out through the neighborhood I took one last look back at the pond, just to see if the top of that fish was sticking above the water.  I suppose if I hadn't looked back I might have seen that lady's car zipping down the road and if I had seen it, maybe I could have yelled or something.

I just couldn't believe it.  Everything happened so fast, the screeching tires, the sounds of everyone screaming and yelling.  Larry's bike was all twisted and jammed up under the lady's car.  Larry wasn't moving.  I wanted to rush over to see if he was ok but I knew he wasn't. I couldn't bring myself to move.  As I looked over at the lady behind the wheel - all I could see was the terrified look on her face.  I watched as she scrunched her eyes closed, hoping when she opened them none of this would have happened.  It was at that point I leaned over my handlebars and threw up.

The rest of that summer seemed to pass in a quiet fog.  None of us ever got over that day; we just sort of went through the motions.  We never saw Larry's parents again, not until the trial in December.  The prosecuting attorney had called all of us in as witnesses.  I don't think any of us wanted any part of it.  We had struggled so hard to push it out of our minds, to forget about the nightmares we had for weeks after.  Now it was going to be brought back in agonizing detail, with color photographs projected up onto large screens.

As the courtroom filled up, the lot of us sat quietly in the back row.  We could see the backs of the defense attorneys with the lady driver sitting at their table.  She looked different somehow.  I was thinking it wasn’t her but then realized she had colored her hair.  It looked very different and the way she had it combed looked different as well.  The prosecutor was quite large.  In fact, he could have played Santa Claus with no trouble at all.  He did not, however, look jolly.  There were two younger men at his table, maybe legal associates or something; junior lawyers perhaps.

Sitting behind the prosecutor’s table were Larry’s parents.  They weren’t moving or talking, not even fidgeting.  They were just sitting, waiting.  I couldn’t see their faces but the angle of their heads suggested they were both staring down at the floor.  I began to feel queasy.  It was warm in the courtroom and the slow-moving ceiling fans weren’t doing much to improve things.

Tommy, sitting in the aisle seat of our row whispered something and Sam, next to him, quickly covered his mouth to muffle his laugh.  I didn’t look over.  I didn’t want to know what he had said.  Nothing about any of this was funny and I didn’t want to be here. The bailiff kept looking at his watch and then up at the courtroom wall clock.  He looked antsy, like he wanted to go see what was keeping the judge but was afraid to leave his post.

The prosecutor leaned over and said something to the assistant sitting next to him.  The assistant got up and went over to the far wall and pushed the window open a little, letting in some cool air.  Half way back to his table the bailiff stood up and, quite loudly said, “All rise.”  We all stood up, the assistant stopped in his tracks as the judge walked in from the far door.  The judge looked across the crowded room and then said, “Be seated.”  The assistant scurried back to his chair and sat down as we all did.

My tendency to daydream seemed to kick in at that point.  I was hearing the voices of those who were speaking but it was like they were muffled, background noises and not really anything I needed to hear.  As I watched the large prosecutor walking back and forth in front of everyone - I was seeing him as the very large fish that swam in our neighborhood pond.  The sunlight through the window was striking his back, just like it would light up the back of the fish if it were sticking above the pond water.  His puffy cheeks moved as he spoke.  He looked like he could have been trying to snag bits of bread that were floating on the very ripples he was making by walking back and forth.

Suddenly the prosecutor stopped talking and turned, looking back at Larry’s parents who were now standing up and making their way to the aisle.  They were leaving; walking out.  I could see her crying and his arm was around her as they left.  The judge announced a short recess and asked all attorneys to his chambers.  I was wishing now I had been paying attention to what the prosecutor had been saying.  I glanced down the row towards Sam and Tommy.  Their expressions didn’t give me any clues as to what had just happened.  I suddenly became aware of the hardness of the wooden benches we were sitting on.  They were the same as the pews in church, rock hard and designed to survive years of use, not comfort.  I looked back up at the ceiling fans.  They seemed to be slowing to a crawl, and this was only day one.