Imperfect Spiral (7 page)

“Jeez.”

“Yeah.”

He doesn't immediately say anything more. From the look on his face—half horrified, half incredibly sympathetic—I sort of expect him to walk away, to go back to the basketball court. He doesn't, though. He leans against the picnic table, hesitates, and then pushes himself up to sit on top, like I am.

“I'm really sorry,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“So you were his babysitter.”

I nod.

“I'm really so sorry.”

“Me, too.”

“His name was Humphrey, right?”

“Or Humpty,” I say.

“Humpty?”

“Sometimes that's what I called him. Or Humpty Dumpty. Short for Humphrey,” I say.

“That's quite a name,” he says.

“I think it was a family name. Someone in Mr. Danker's family—like his father or grandfather or something. The point is, it wasn't for Humphrey Bogart.”

He thinks about this for a moment. “But I wouldn't say Humpty is short for Humphrey,” he says. “You know? Humpty. Humphrey. Two syllables, either way.”

“I never really thought about it,” I say in a voice that I hope is cold. Who asked him to count syllables? “It was a nickname.”

“Sorry. That was stupid.” He sounds embarrassed. “I didn't mean anything by it.”

I wave the apology away.

“Did Humphrey like the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme or something?”

“Or something,” I say. As if Humphrey would stoop to nursery rhymes. Could this conversation be stupider?

“So you were with him. When he. You know.”

“Yup,” I say. “I was.”

“Jeez.”

“Yup.”

“Man.”

“Yup.”

We sit there for a few minutes without talking.

“Do you … do you go to Western?” he asks. Smooth transition.

“Yup.”

He gives me a kind of look, I assume because I've now said “yup” four times in a row. If he were Thomas R. Danker, he would inform me that this was an inappropriate means of expressing the affirmative. But he's not Thomas R. Danker.

“Do you know …?”

He names a bunch of people I don't know.

“How about …?”

Now come the names of Western's mini-celebrities, including a few hockey players.

“I don't
know-them
know them,” I say. “But I know who they are. Partly because my brother used to play hockey, so I used to go to all the games.”

“Why'd you stop?”

“Because I was at the end of my sentence.”

He laughs. “No, why'd you stop going to hockey games?”

I deflect the question. “You don't go to Western, though, do you?” I ask.

“No. MacArthur. I'll be a junior.”

“So you don't even live around here,” I say.

He laughs again. “I live close enough. Why? Is there a geographic limit on who can use the basketball court?”

“No. Just who can sit on the picnic tables.”

“I see,” he says.

“Okay.”

“I play hockey. Not well, but I play. And not for MacArthur, just for the rec league.”

“Good for you.”

“Does that give me any more of a right to be on this picnic table?”

He has a snorty laugh, but a good smile, very white teeth set off against skin that I suppose I should call “olive,” except I don't like the greenish suggestion that goes with “olive.” Anyway, with the dark eyes, it's a pleasing combination. He's tall, too—taller than me.

“We play basketball here, my friends and me, because the court is always open,” he says.

“Because it's such a dumpy park,” I say.

“I like it,” he says.

“Well,” I say. “Thanks for the fascinating conversation.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” he says.

He turns to walk back toward the court; I get up and head toward Quarry Road.

“Hey!” he calls after me.

I turn.

“That was cool of you to try to teach the kid to play football. I shouldn't have said the thing about using the wrong size ball.”

“That's okay,” I say. “I wasn't teaching him to play football. Just to throw a perfect spiral.”

He grimaces. “Oh, man,” he says. “
So
much easier with a smaller ball.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” I say, and continue walking to Quarry Road.

At the library, I find all of the depressing books I'm supposed to read and check them out on my card. On the walk back, I stop at the mall. The high-end toy store doesn't have footballs, not in any size. The cheapo toy store has an entire basket of them—all PeeWee size. I buy two, one for Humphrey, one for me, and when I pass the roadside memorial on Quarry Road again, I stop to clear away some of the stupid stuffed bears and in their place I put his football, approved for league play, featuring the patented Ultimate Grip cover, and aerodynamically designed to spiral in flight.

TRAGEDY REKINDLES SAFETY DEBATE

by Diana Tang

Observer
reporter

A tragic accident on Quarry Road in the Franklin Grove neighborhood has revived an old debate about pedestrian safety along that busy thoroughfare.

On July 31, Humphrey T. Danker was struck by a car when he darted into traffic while walking home from a nearby park with his teenage babysitter. Humphrey, who was five years old, died shortly afterward. The driver of the car that hit Humphrey, Eugene Guzman, has not been cited for a motor vehicle violation
or charged with a crime. Police are still investigating the cause of the accident.

“A tragedy along this stretch of road was bound to happen,” said Doris Raskin, who lives near the site of the accident. “No streetlights or stoplights. No sidewalk. And the only crosswalk is a long hike from here.” The accident occurred near the intersection of Quarry Road and Franklin Avenue, a street that leads into the residential area. The closest crosswalk is three-quarters of a mile away at Quarry and Vance Street, but, as Raskin also pointed out, even that crosswalk lacks a crossing signal.

Area residents have been advocating for improvements to Quarry Road for years, according to another neighbor, Donald Stashower. Stashower was on the scene of last week's accident.

“We almost had tragedy on top of tragedy here,” he said. “There was a group of children ready to surge into the street at the intersection of Quarry and Franklin. I had to tell them to stay on the side of the road. Kids don't think anything can happen to them. We need a sidewalk so people can be safe when walking along Quarry Road. A line painted on the side of the road just isn't cutting it.”

The accident is also causing some neighbors, as well as people who live elsewhere, to think about how
prepared teenagers are to work as caregivers for active young children. The Red Cross offers classes to train middle school and high school students to work as babysitters.

“Our courses emphasize safety,” said Chloe Greely, local spokesperson for the organization. “They're free and a great idea for any young person who wants to babysit.”

Another neighbor, who asked that her name be withheld, said, “I'm not saying teenagers shouldn't babysit. But they should be prepared to react when things get out of hand.”

Britney Schaeffer, 14, is a graduate of the Red Cross babysitting program. “It taught me a lot,” said the rising Western High School freshman. “I learned basic life-saving skills, but also things about how little kids behave and how you have to expect the unexpected.”

Humphrey Danker's babysitter had not taken the Red Cross classes.

My phone buzzes; a text from Becca.

How r u?

A-OK.

Danny!

I'm fine.

R u seeing the shrink?

Yes. Kind of a waste. But not awful.

Bonne idee. I'm glad you are.

You think I'm crazy?

No! I think it must be really hard for you. You went through a traumatic experience. So it's good to talk about it.

I suppose so.

Maybe you'll also talk about that other problem?

I don't respond. She tries again.

That problem that shall not be named?

Oh, that.

The problem that, if I did not have it, I would have had the
courage it takes to be a CIT. That problem that, if I did not have it, I would have been at camp this summer, Humphrey would have had a different babysitter, and he would not be in the newspaper.

When I was thirteen, I had a Bat Mitzvah, just like most of my Jewish friends. Becca and I shared the Bat Mitzvah, even though her birthday is months earlier than mine. Most kids had shared Bat Mitzvahs and Bar Mitzvahs, because there were so many of us, and not enough Saturday mornings for us to all have singles.

There I was, up on the bimah—the stage—of our synagogue. I had already led the congregation in a few prayers, and just finished a responsive reading. (I say a line/you say a line/I say a line/you say a line, etc.) It was time for the highlight of the morning, in which I would chant from the Torah in Hebrew and then give a little speech sharing my wisdom about the meaning of what I just chanted. As I stepped up to the table on which the Torah lay, rolled open to the section I was to read, it happened.

“It” was not, I am sorry to say, a powerful and uplifting spiritual experience. It was, absolutely, a powerful experience. But it was more crushing than uplifting. As for spiritual, I suppose if by “spiritual” we also mean the Jewish concept of a dybbuk, a spirit that enters your body and controls it and is
altogether terrifying, then sure, it was spiritual. I was hit by a huge wave, and it knocked me over, sweeping away my voice, my ability to think, to fully control my hands and feet. It felt absolutely lethal. You could call it panic. I think that's too gentle a word.

I did manage to remain standing, in a frozen sort of way. And when the rabbi pointed to the section I was to chant, I did manage to open my mouth. Some words came out. They were Hebrew words, and they were from my Torah portion, but I stumbled on the ones I said, and totally skipped others. I didn't chant them in the special way I'd been practicing for an entire year. Nor did I say them in a manner that allowed anyone beyond the first two rows of seats to hear them. In short, I totally blew my Bat Mitzvah.

And I wasn't finished. After the Torah reading, it was time for my speech, which I'd also been working on for nearly a year. I was proud of the insights I'd come up with about my Torah portion, which is the part in the Bible where Jacob knows he's dying and he gives this kind of awkward blessing to his son Joseph's two sons. But the wave was way too strong for me, and it swept me off the stage and down the short hallway that connects to the rabbi's study, where I tumbled into a chair and hyperventilated.

My mother soon appeared. I told her I couldn't give my speech. At first she told me I could, but then she took in what a complete wreck I was—shaking and sweating—and she gave it
up. After a while I decided that I could make it back out there, but only if I didn't have to sit up on the bimah, and only if I didn't have to utter another word, which is
not
how Bat Mitzvahs are conducted.