Hellhound on My Trail (previously from www.achildsbook.com)

Cars lined up for a solid block as I pinballed my way out of the pocket of the restaurant’s drive-thru to the open road. I slammed on my breaks, trying to avoid hitting the car immediately in front of me. I had just come from Popeye’s on MLK and had to get home before the day proved to be a total loss—papers to grade and parent phone calls to make. My forays into fast foodland had spilled over from my monthly haircuts at Terrell Brandon’s Barbershop on Alberta to wherever, or more precisely whenever. Whenever I didn’t feel like eating the soup that was probably a better bet for my expanding autumnal waistline, I tramped through the city’s streets. So, I tacked hard to the right and parked in front of the cue (flash—red car—SUV—minivan—white car), then I saw him. For an instant, he reminded me of my grandfather old Zach Thomas, an old brown man kissing the pavement after too much cheap liquor—Night Train, Ripple, Peppermint Schnapps. I thought he had just gotten hit. My heavy foot wanted to accelerate to the open field—to Alberta then I-5 South to 405 South to the 26 to the 217 to Walker to home (touchdown)—but my hand inched to the handle to open the door. Something submerged in me said, “Help him dammit! Help him and you’ll help you.”

“Are you alright, Pops?” My voice dinged against the honking cars, reverberating too loudly in my own ears. I lifted the man to his feet. He teetered once more, almost falling again against the now useless shopping cart, bashed in on its left side, that once supported his weight.

“I’se ar’…ok, Ah guess. Where’s you goin’ man?”

That slurred question that met my question thrust me back to a man I barely knew. Yet, another relative who taught me vicariously about losing control and creeping despair.

“Can you gib’me a ride hom’?”

I looked south down MLK noticing the stares of the passerbys, trying to gauge my own reactions in their lancing stares. My moment of truth had arrived at last. The other cars, road, and the world dissolved to a timeout. Twenty-three years after Zachariah Thomas had die; I finally had a chance to dialogue with one of hellhounds that drives me, the son of the son of an ex-sharecropper, still.

Finally, I said, “Yeah man, I’ll take you home.”

I don’t remember all of the details of that ride, attempting to find his house while looking for North or Northeast Fremont; he couldn’t be entirely sure. Neither place seemed familiar to him, limp memories gouged by a long time inebriate’s faulty wires. He told me he was once a boxer once. He told me about a girl he used to love. He told me about everything it seems except what I wanted to hear.

I listened hard for the fight still left in him. He pissed in my car getting out.

I said, “That’s ok man. It’s ok. Really.” An old baseball jersey from my over thirty league team was martyred for his sake, their sake. BBB, which stood for Birmingham Black Barons, my grandfather’s boyhood colored team, embroidered across the chest. I left him to keen across Williams Avenue, away from where he told me that he wanted to go.

The boxer took me on a ride that I was never to forget, even though it was hard to hear exactly what he said to me. But as usual, I make it up. Creating the words for him, echoing

I think he said, “Son? I’m proud of you, boy. Damn proud to know you.”

Foot on the pedal, back to my own house now, soiled jersey in back near the spare tires of my new used car, barreling down field, looking for daylight.

© 2000 by Brian W. Thomas