A Fond Memory of Lovingkindness
He had been sitting on the steps of their building, duplex, forced out of the house by his mother because a child his age was supposed to breathe fresh air.
He remembered watching the children playing on the street. He remembered the screeching, the loud bang, the way that kid had flown through the air, dropped out of sight between two parked cars.
He remembered seizing the moment, darting from the steps to find a good hiding place. He could still hear the sound of a dozen rough-and-tumble boys crying like babies, the high-pitched wailing of each mother as she came out onto the street, the guttural expletives of a few men, the boom-boom-boom of his own mother thundering down the interior staircase, the "oh my fucking Christ" when she burst out onto the front steps. He could still see the way her eyes searched frantically for him, and he recalled the wonderful feeling that warmed him when she became wild, flying from the steps, pushing, plowing through the crowd of people, children, with her magnificent, heavy-set form.
He remembered his own shrill voice, calling out to her from his hiding place. And he remembered the way she had looked up at him from between the two parked cars, blood on her dress, love in her eyes.
"A Fond Memory of Lovingkindness" first appeared in NFG
Copyright by Antonios Maltezos
