Cherry Icees

You just never know.

      It was a rather benign day to that point. I’d gotten off of work a bit after five and was leaving with my usual compliment of annoyance and aggravation, courtesy of my dimwitted boss, Jake. Jake outperformed himself that day, he'd gone above and beyond the call of duty and was far beyond his usual clueless self. So I stopped at our local convenience store to get myself an Icee; that cool cherry wave always seemed to wash away the troubles from even the most exasperating of days. The problem was that I forgot to get a second Icee. You see, my five-year-old daughter Stephanie loved Icees too. She espescialy loved getting them there at Lewis Brothers Store, where she got to draw her own Icee. But I was a block from home when I realized my blunder; there was no going back now. I would just take my medicine like a man. The inquisition began as soon as I hit the door.

 

     “Daddy?” She asked in an accusatory tone. “Did you have an Icee?”

 

     “No honey, I just got out of work”

 

     “Than why is your tongue red?”

 

     Busted! There were no appeals to be heard, no clemency hearing, I was just flat out guilty. I was no match for my daughters ‘hairy eyeball’. I’d been wrapped around her little finger since the day she was born, and we both knew it. The days after her birth were at the same time, the best days and the worst days of my life. I’d been blessed with this wonderful little girl, but her mother and the love of my life, Jenna, died as a result of uncontrollable bleeding during childbirth. On top of that, Stephie almost died as well, something about her lungs hadn’t been right. She teetered between life and death for several weeks, but in his infinite mercy, on March 23, God allowed me to take my daughter home and I have clung to her and loved her with all of my being since that day.

 

     But on this day, I was guilty as charged, and my only redemption was at the Lewis Brothers Store. So Stephie marched me out to the car and we started the seven-mile drive to salvation. About halfway there, we hit the light at the corner of Main and Elm just as it changed from red to green. I was so absorbed in my discussion with Stephie, that I damned near slammed into the car in front of me that was still sitting at the intersection even though the light was now green. I managed to snap back to awareness just in time to jam the brake pedal to the floorboard and avert a collision. The driver in the other car was a black kid, maybe 19 or 20. He wore his baseball cap sideways on his head like the gang kids do and the music that he bopped his head to, was loud and anchored by an offensive base beat. As I slammed on the brakes I mashed my palm onto the horn, but the bellowing of the horn had no apparent effect on him. He very slowly and deliberately turned and looked at us through his rear window with that a stupid grin and waved. I wanted to curse him but Stephie was in the car so I kept my head and held my tongue. I simply put the car in gear and began to pull out around him, but as I did he jerked his car to the left, effectively cutting me off again. When the light turned red he took off and went through the red light. Why you little b*****d! I thought, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

 

     As we neared the store, the flashing lights of emergency vehicles swirled above the parking lot. A fire engine, an ambulance and a police car sat in front of the store where the pickup truck has smashed through the front of the store. We pulled up to the intersection in front of the store where an officer waved us to turn left and around the store. As I passed the officer I rolled down the window to get the scoop.

 

     “What happened?”

 

     “Old man ran his pickup into the store. We think he had a stroke.”

 

     “That’s terrible, was anyone else hurt?”

 

     “The clerk has a broken arm. The truck slammed into the damned Icee machine and knocked it across the store. She managed to get mostly out of the way but it landed on her arm and broke it.”

 

     I pulled ahead and over to the shoulder and sat in stunned disbelief. My daughter had come within minutes of being killed. She would have been standing dead in front of that Icee machine if that punk hadn’t blocked our way. Just then he passed us again, this time without the music. He slowed to a near crawl as he passed but he wasn’t ogling the storefront like everyone else, he was looking away from the excitement and at us. He smiled, waved and drove on.

 

     Later that night, I sat in the living room, in my favorite chair staring blankly at the television. I was thinking about the fellow that had cut us off and how he'd slowed us down. There was no question those few minutes had saved Stephie's life. I was so deep in thought, that I never even heard Stephie walk up behind me.

 

     “I couldn't remember where I saw that man before but now I remember Daddy." She explained. "That man in the car ... he was with me in the hospital when I was sick. You know … when I was a baby.”

Reviews

[hyancynthstofeedthysoul]

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." (Hebrews 13:2).

[Norma M Sutton]

Jerry,
I hadn't read this one before. Love it! I'm adding it to my "collection".
Norma

[Sheryl Torr-Brown]

We know it when it happens. And then we find reasons to dismiss the miracle of it. But still, we know it when it happens.
Great story.

[Siobhan MacIntyre]

Good twist. I have had those kinds of things happen in my life, where I would be dead if it were not for a strange little incident.

Now...we must speak of your twisted little affair with commas. Or maybe it's a non-affair, since you tend to avoid them! The story would reach much smoother with some properly placed commas.

And I could really have fun with this line: �Old man ran his into the store.� Ummm...his what?

;-)