Poor Places

It was a typical day out on the road selling aluminum siding. The temperature for the last couple of days had been hovering at 100 degrees and I was beat. What was atypical was that I found myself in my old neighborhood about twenty feet from the house I grew up in. I hadn't been back there for almost twenty-five years so the whole situation was pretty unnerving.

I ran into a old man who I recognized immediately as one of Dad's friends from a long time ago. I hadn't seen this guy since I was little, and although I recognized him there was no way he could have known who I was. This old man looks right at me and says, "You're a good man, you know that?" I took this as just something this guy says to everybody but then he looked me right in the eyes, took a few steps toward me until we were just about a foot apart, and said quietly, "You really are a good man, you know that right?" I kind of nodded and shambled away feeling sick.

The heat was making me dizzy and a minute or so later I was walking down a small road where I used to ride my bike when I was little. As I walked I wiped the sweat out of my eyes I looked toward the end of the road and saw a kid riding his bike right towards me. I kept walking and as he met me he rode a few circles around me, not saying a word. Watching him I had the feeling I knew him from somewhere. He was about seven with blond hair and a big smile on his face. He didn't say anything but kept riding his bike in bigger circles around me until he started heading back toward the main road away from me.

As he rode away I realized I did know this kid. My head was swimming and I could barely see from the sweat in my eyes but I knew he was riding away and wasn't coming back. I wanted to tell him something. Anything. I started to run but there was no catching this kid. I needed to say something to him so he wouldn't spend the rest of his life beating himself up over things that weren't his fault. As he rode farther away I said under my breath, "Don't be so hard on yourself." That's it. That's all I could come up with. I don't think he heard me, and I really don't think it would've mattered if he had. He was seven and it was Summer and he had a bike to ride. What did he care what some grown-up had to say?