Still Life

The short thin man running down the avenue was holding a tire iron in one hand and a purse in the other. He was in his early 20's, wearing a lined jean jacket and a black knit cap. He had an auburn beard and mustache and his blue eyes were wide and wild as he sailed along the sidewalk, his work boots churning in the air.

The woman was in her late 70's, on her knees. She was holding a purse strap and nothing more and her glasses were several feet away on the ground. She wasn't talking, just breathing heavily and holding one hand against her cheek.

He hadn't hit her, he had only held the tire iron above his head when she  resisted. The weapon wasn't for her anyway. It was for anyone looking to be play hero--a temptation that would be answered by a 13-year-old boy.

The boy's mother drove along the avenue in silence, angry once more over her son's insolence, worn out from arguing. The boy turned his head and glared out the passenger window cursing under his breath. Another day, another bitter exchange. She wondered if it was just a phase, he wondered why she never trusted him.

That's when he saw the assault.  It was a Hollywood film come to life, gritty street theater, too removed from ordinary existence to seem real. But there it was. A crime in process.

He didn't point it out to his mom, though he wanted to. He was well aware of the wall between them and chose to leave it in place. With his mind alert, his senses heightened, he watched in silent awe, wondering if he was seeing what he was seeing. And as his mother drove down the avenue, oblivious, the man with the purse ran parallel to their car, legs and arms pumping.

This would have been the end of the story if the pair's destination were farther down the road. But the dry cleaners was right there, just two blocks from the crime scene. The still visibly annoyed mother steered the car into the cleaners' parking lot and pulled over. The boy, looking back up the avenue, saw the thief coming toward them. No one was pursuing the man but that wasn't slowing him.

As the mother exited the car and disappeared into the dry cleaners, the thief caught up to the vehicle, passed it and turned sharply into the adjacent lot, rushing toward an old blue pick-up truck, which he climbed into before ducking below the driver's side window.

The boy had held a front row seat for the whole show. Nothing this exciting had ever happened to him before. For the first time now he felt the true weight of what he was witnessing, and felt the sudden need to tell his mother everything. But she was inside the cleaners and he was too frightened to leave the car.

That's when he noticed the fireman.

He probably wouldn't have felt at ease reporting the crime to just anyone, but a fireman in uniform seemed enough like a cop for a sense of security. He boldly rolled down his window and yelled as the fireman walked towards the hook and ladder, groceries in hand.

"Sir, come here please, ...Sir, could you please come over here....Excuse me."

The fireman turned and strolled over and the boy breathlessly relayed what he had seen. After asking the boy to repeat portions of his story, the fireman set his groceries down, pulled his radio from his belt and called on a nearby police squad.

The whole thing was over a little more than 15 minutes later. The cops arrived, the pick-up was identified, the thief was found crouching below the dash and the purse was retrieved from under the seat.

The mother emerged from the dry cleaners, with three plastic wrapped dresses and a winter coat, unsure of what to make of the scene before her. Her son was seated in one squad car and a man in handcuffs was seated in another. The fireman was talking to her boy through an open window, holding a brown leather purse.

Two blocks away an old woman was being examined by paramedics. The fireman was preparing to walk down there and return her stolen property.

The fight between the mother and son was now forgotten. Bigger things had swept it away. The old woman would hand the fireman thirty dollars and ask that he deliver it to the boy. The boy's father, who lived in another city, would learn all about it by phone at supper time. That night the boy would lie awake in bed for over an hour thinking about his afternoon. His mother would spend a good part of that time lying along side him, apologizing for the day's argument, telling him how proud she was of him. The boy would apologize too, and then begin to cry.

And that would be the moment the mother would think about, more than any other, for years to come. Within 48 hours of that trip to the dry cleaners her son would be hit by a car, on his bicycle, four blocks from home, crossing an intersection against a red light. He would survive, in a coma, for six days, and then pass away when his breathing tubes were disconnected.

A letter would arrive in the mail two days after the funeral. It would be from the old woman whose purse had been returned. She would write that she found the family name in the news article about the boy, and tracked down the address.

"Thank you," the letter would read, "for raising such a fine son. He did more for me than you know. I am so terribly sorry for your loss. I know how painful this is for you. I too lost a son. He was killed in Viet Nam. He was only 19. In my purse was the last photograph ever taken of him. It was from the day he died. In the photo he is smiling, with his arm around the shoulder of his sergeant. He is squinting into the sunshine with one eye closed, the way he always did in photographs taken at the lake, when he was younger.

"Your son got that picture back to me. I didn't care about much else in that old purse of mine, but I could not be without my boy's photo."

The 13-year-old's mother would save the letter, keeping it together with the newspaper article written about her son's role in the apprehension of the purse snatcher. That article would include a photo of her boy, smiling for the news photographer in the bright sunshine of their front yard. It would be taken 6 hours before he would steer his mountain bike out into the intersection and in front of an oncoming car.