Worthy Witness

1.  The flagpole at Southeast School was my nemesis on dark summer nights when I crossed the river and ran through an open field  past the school, collapsing in Grandma Torsiello’s yard, minutes from my own.  I lay on top of freshly mowed grass and covered my ears while catching my breath.  The wind, my friend in any other circumstance, caught the metal at the bottom of the pole and slammed it hard, metal against metal, rhythmic, haunting; voices of the past.  It was the year I fell in love with mysteries, a year before I discovered boys.

2.  Dad was in the kitchen getting his tools for our turkey dinner.  Mom was in the hospital, and I had cooked dinner.  The boys, having found my cooling rolls when my back was turned, were outside, hitting with the bat, those perfect, misshapen mounds of dough resilient even to oak.  Dad had a serving fork and carving knife in either hand, running one over the other, metal against metal.

3.  I was 13 and Tommie was 15. To my brother Larry, I was his Nemesis, and I did everything to provoke his ire.  That day, his Nash Rambler was parked in the driveway; washing it before he caught the game at the nearby field.  Watching  him hang the keys under the porch on a rusted nail, I had an idea to start the car and move it closer to the garage.  Tommie thought it was a bad one and stood  outside the car while I turned the key.  I took my foot off the clutch, the way I had seen Dad do it, and the Rambler lurched forward, its wheels turning without my trying.  Front wheels went over the bank, and the front fender hit our burn barrel, metal against metal when the car stalled.  The ball team came running to see what had happened, and before I could think, Tommy pulled me out of the car and sat in himself.   Larry suspected that it was me, but it was Tommy who took the rap.