Make Up a Story
Stories from Around the World
The Ballgame Car
Storytellers Husband, with His Wife,
Sun., 4 Dec 2016, 3:00-5:00P EST
One late summer night in Brooklyn, New York in the 1950s, Guy woke up, went outside, and the car was gone. Another night Guy woke up, went outside, and the car was there all by itself on the street in front of his home like it didn’t belong to anyone. It was an old tremendous, beautiful blue and white fancy car─old R&B singer’s car, Guy’s parents’ car, any family’s car to go to ballgames of New York Yankees or Brooklyn Dodgers. Whose ever car it was, no one was laughing for it being there.
That second time out, there were no people around nor anyone in the car. Yet, Guy heard people coming out of the car, and still no one was laughing. The people’s voices returned and drifted toward the car doors, which opened. Thy got in. Then Guy watched the car drive away. He stood there alone in his yard. He felt himself going with them because he wanted to go somewhere, too.
The car took them to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on a breezy, sunny day. Lots of people walked around, going in and out of every restaurant, bar, and restroom in the ballpark. At game time people do what they do─roar and shout.
After the game Guy hurried back to the car. Outside the stadium he looked up and saw thunder-looking, pretty clouds, big and puffy. He remembered good times as a boy with his aunts. They shuffled in the car between downtown, Brooklyn, and Queens. In Queens Guy especially liked the proud cars the elders drove. In those cars people just knew to get in them, drive, and not worry about being safe or not. You were just that─SAFE, a matter of being.
But now trying to get home from Yankee Stadium, Guy worried. Where was the car and the people, sort of, he rode with? He didn’t know who drove, trying to distinguish their voices let alone their faces. He was ear-shot next to them on the way over. Then it struck him that it didn’t matter anyway as if Guy was being slapped in the face for something misunderstood.
At a sharp turn in the parking lot, the car was there just by itself like when he first saw it. Guy slowed his pace and walked up to and around it. These cars were always doing something, if not doing anything at all, he thought.
The people’s voices didn’t come back. So Guy wondered, “Who else’s car was this?” He would have been glad to own it himself.
Guy noticed the window was down and looked inside. The keys were in the ignition. He smiled and got in quickly. He tried starting the car multiple time, but it didn’t catch. Guy knew it. The battery had died, and no one was laughing.
THE END
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