Driving Blind

“You,” she said.

He took a step toward the grease spot.

Water which had gathered in the sink was jarred by his moves. It trickled down the Garburator’s throat, which gave off a gentle chuckling wet sound.

Tom did not look down as his shoe slipped on the grease.

“Tom.” Sunlight flickered on Grandma’s paring knife. “What can I do for you?”

The postman dropped six letters in the Barton mailbox and listened.

“There’s that lion again,” he said. “Here comes someone,” said the postman. “Singing.”

Footsteps neared the door. A voice sang:

“Fee fie foe fum,

I smell the blood of an Englishmun,

Be he alive or be he dead,

I’ll grr-innnd his bones to make my bread!”

The door flew wide.

“Morning!” cried Grandma, smiling.

The lion roared.

Driving Blind

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“Why, hell, look there!”

But the big six-passenger 1929 Studebaker was already gone.

One of the men standing in front of Fremley’s Hardware had stepped down off the curb to stare after the vehicle.

“That guy was driving with a hood over his head. Like a hangman’s hood, black, over his head, driving blind!”

“I saw it, I saw it!” said a boy standing, similarly riven, nearby. The boy was me, Thomas Quincy Riley, better known as Tom or Quint and mighty curious. I ran. “Hey, wait up! Gosh! Driving blind!”

I almost caught up with the blind driver at Main and Elm where the Studebaker turned off down Elm followed by a siren. A town policeman on his motorcycle, stunned with the traveling vision, was giving pursuit.

When I reached the car it was double-parked with the officer’s boot up on the running board and Willy Crenshaw, the officer, scowling in at the black Hood and someone under the Hood.

“Would you mind taking that thing off?” he said.

“No, but here’s my driver’s license,” said a muffled voice. A hand with the license sailed out the window.

“I want to see your face,” said Willy Crenshaw.

“It’s right there on the license.”

“I want to check and see if the two compare,” said Willy Crenshaw.