The 3-year old boy who'd grow up to be a 48-year old software engineer cried by the side of the street. Thirty, forty -- perhaps fifty neighbors stood on the grass, watching the tow truck pull the light blue 1964 Bel Air wagon out of the driveway, where it'd crashed into the stone wall. The boy sobbed and moaned. When Dad pulled him out of the driver's seat, he'd fallen onto the pebbled driveway as the car went by him, careening down the hill. Daddy was painting the garage and when the boy had released the brake, he let out a hollar heard all the way from Earlwood Road down to Hathaway Court. The boy cried because the burns from the pebbles hurt.
Daddy stood with his head in his hands, complaining about how much it would cost to have the Bel Air towed to A.Z. Chevrolet. Where was Mommy? The boy wanted his mother, but she was doing something with Jeff and Gary. But all the kids and all the adults in the neighborhood stood by, gawking. There was Jarilyn McCartney with her long red hair, Missy Andrews with her dark brown ponytails, even Eric Schramm had wandered over from Spring Grove Road.
Mrs. Rinn picked the boy up. "Come with me, Jimmy Wood. I'll wash you up and put a bandage on that knee. Everything's going to be okay."
I remember Mrs. Rinn, her long red bobbed hair, a nice smile, a wandering eye. They got a divorce not long after that, I remember. He got the Chevrolet Suburban and she got the kids and college educations to pay for. I grew up, or more accurately, my body grew up. The mind is still stuck somewhere between 7 and 85. I never know where. People don't know that about me, that I think of myself as a child at the same time I think of myself as a wise old sage. People also don't know that after I finish writing "Grace Notes for Agnes Limerick," I'm going to write my memoir, volume one: my life as a curious klutz growing up in suburban Pittsburgh. People also don't know that even though I'm a very, very happy person, I'm also a very, very unhappy person.
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