West 5

West 5

I felt like I was ready to die in that robe. Not only because of the humidity and sweat it gathered, but it absolutely reeked of yesterday. Lately I'd worn the thing more often than I didn't. With its heavy, soft plush and gorge-like pockets, it weighed me down towards the ground and provided a nurturing hole for all of my pains and fears, those knots in my fingers when others spoke towards me. So, I bought myself two new and cheap outfits and threw away that cloak of cowardice. Now I was clothed in tomorrow, and tomorrow liked blue jeans and white T-shirts and leather sandals.
I stopped for a late lunch at a Walmart. Strolling up and down the aisles, scanning the long ingredients on the produce, I heard a father and his child between the shelves. They were discussing the quality of the food they had picked out.
"'Dis, howevuh," the urban guardian argued intelligently with the boy about the ingredients and benefits of his own choice. I grinned at the boxes of cereal separating us, joking with myself that I would've been not nearly as patient with my child. I grabbed something worth less than 3 dollars and left.
The thought of Maximus caused my chest to cave in a little more every time he occurred to me. My dead end at the adoption center left me feeling more astray than free, and the difference between the two was painful. At least when I felt free I was happy with not knowing where I was going. Now, I had no idea where to find my son, and it terrified me. For some reason driving and moving felt more comforting, so I did that. I drove and I moved and I walked and I sat and I thought and I feared until the sun dripped below the concrete horizon. When everything was darker than before, doubt crept from the alleyways and from behind the streetlights and houses, doubt consumed me like night slowly consumed the city. The only glittering lightbulb that I could find, however, was the overconfidence and assurance that I would see my son again.
It was several very long hours before I felt the need to sleep. I was aiming toward one of my friends' houses, but before I could even turn a corner, a speeding pair of headlights nearly ran me off the road. My eyes dazzled, I cautiously continued. That's when I came upon the accident. Just before the bridge that overpasses the canal, I saw two bodies among some twisted metal fencing. My heart started running as I rushed to put the car in park and produce my cell phone, which was dead. By the time I was standing by the injured men, that running pace in my ribcage had become a sprint.
"CAAAAN!!" One of the bodies screamed so loud it hurt my ears to hear how it hurt his throat. He was smaller than the other man, so younger as well, and covered in filthy canal water that sprouted a rotten waste smell. The prone corpse that he so painfully clung to couldn't answer just as much as I couldn't.
"Are you ok?" was the only thing I could manage. The crying and panting and sniveling didn't stop. Sirens wailed somewhere in the city. I squatted on the dewy grass to meet the soul. "Honey, what happened?"
"He can't be dead," the boy whispered. "Can....please, man. Please...." His voice crumbled, and tears won control.
By the time the ambulance arrived, I was cradling his shaking and bony form, and I could feel him cracking in every use of the word. I cried for him, and then I followed the ambulance to the hospital.