you just can’t keep track of the turns in the road

　

The man with the beard down to his heart roams the hallways of Pine Meadow Elementary School as an Indian leg wrestling tournament takes place in the gymnasium.

Several reporters mill about the school grounds, awaiting the outcome of their human interest story, smoking Pall Malls and hitting from flasks filled with Kentucky bourbon.

A frail, elderly woman, walking with a cane, enters the building, muttering something about Medicare, her children in Cleveland, and her estranged husband, who’s an Atheist and a registered Communist.

A boy and girl in the first grade have one of the most in-depth conversations of their lives:

“You get inside a teacup, and it spins you round and round,” the girl says.

“Is it fun?” the boy says.

“Yessss! I loved it!”

“I wanna go!”

“Ask your mommy and daddy to take you… it only costs about seventy or eighty dollars…”

A teenager, dressed to unimpress, listens to Ozzy on an iPod, sings off-key about a crazy train, and wishes he could play the guitar like Randy Rhodes. At the same time, an underachieving car salesman sits in his car in the parking lot of the school, reminiscing about his childhood and inhaling a baloney and American cheese sandwich with spicy mustard and Miracle Whip on Wonder bread, just as he did thirty years ago.

The reporters extinguish their cigarettes by grinding them into the grass with their feet.

“What did the NASDAQ close at yesterday?” one asks.

“Don’t follow it,” someone answers.

Meanwhile, the children in the gymnasium cheer wildly as their peers engage in what one teacher sarcastically describes as “a real team-building experience.”

But the children don’t understand sarcasm yet. They know nothing of irony or the walls we write on or the lines we read between. Their minds are fresh, unfettered, clown-like in their depth.

The elderly woman with the cane enters the administrative office, requesting to pick up her grandson, who attends school in Cleveland.

“Could you please page him for me?” she asks the school secretary.

“What’s his name?”

The elderly woman thinks for a minute. “I can’t remember. Are we in Cleveland…?”

“No, ma’am. Connecticut…"

“Oh, lord. I’ve done it again…”

Outside, the quixotic car salesman motions for the teenager listening to Ozzy to come over to his car.

“Do you remember the laughter?” says the salesman.

The teenager laughs and lights a Marlboro Light. “Dude, you’re wasted,” he says, walking away.

“What happened to me?” says the car salesman.

The teenager twists  and says, “You gave up on yourself, brah…”

Inside, the Indian leg wrestling champ of Pine Meadow Elementary School is jumping up and down, wildly waving his hands.

“THE WORLD IS MY OYSTER!” he shouts.

He’s presented with a gold-plated medal engraved with the inscription:

1973 Indian Leg Wrestling Champion

Pine Meadow Elementary School

As instructed by his gym teacher, the challenger shakes the champ’s hand and is awarded a silver-plated medal engraved with the runner-up inscription. The gym teacher pats the challenger on the butt and says, “Way to go! Good job, kid! Way to go!”

The two boys stand awkwardly, joining opposing hands, raising them above their tiny heads like miniature presidential candidates.

Outside, the car salesman sheds a tear, cranks the ignition, and drives back to work. The elderly woman passes the man with the beard down to his heart and says, “Have you seen my grandson?”

He looks at her and says, “Nana?”