TheBanyanTree: Thirty Seconds on Hill Street

[Mike Pingleton]

"BECAUSE HE'S GOT A FLAT TIRE!" she said in throaty, pack-a-day voice, and I, 
lugging my sad machine with the lumpishly elliptical back wheel, turned to 
look.  Un-schwinned, I was hoofing it home, having failed in negotiating a 
sparkling green field of glass in the Christian Scientist parking lot.  
Unnerved by her loud, sudden voice behind me, I stopped in the sidewalk and 
watched them, taking them in as they rode past me.

He must be hard of hearing, I thought sometime in the next second or two.  She 
was shouting at him about me.    Just then he mumbled something back over his 
shoulder to her.  He was wearing those striped overalls you see in old time 
pictures of railroad men, complete with the cap, and a red kerchief stuffed 
halfway in a back pocket, and riding a very large bicycle, with huge wheels - 
where do you get a bicycle like that?  It was not new, but it was no piece of 
junk either.  He was lanky, with a long neck, grey hair spilling out from 
under the back of that railroad cap, a cigarette knuckled in his fist.  
Brogans, brogues we called them when I was a kid, those cheap leather work 
shoes, pedaling slowly as they wobbled up the cobbled street.

"YEAH!" she exclaims in response to his mumble.  Going to white, her blond 
hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her chin prominent, her eyes dark and 
clear amid crows feet.  Silver hoop earrings, pink sweats and white deck 
shoes, dragging on a long cigarette, she turns and gives me a nod and wink.  
Damned if she wasn't a stunner in her day, I can't help but think.  Speaks to 
her husband in nothing but loud, explosive tones, him deaf from the railroad 
or some factory or whatnot.  He mumbles in low tones, thinking he's speaking 
prefectly well, and hearing her shouts as normal speech.

Her smaller bike is basketed, with bags from the market, and she pulls up 
alongside him, both dragging on their cigarettes as they float up Hill Street 
together, towards some small house beyond guessing.  She'll have a glass of 
scotch while she fries up a couple hamburgers and maybe some hash browns and 
a can of corn, while he reads the Gazette.  Both will have another cigarette.