Free Prayers for the Living by Alan Cheuse Page B

and a big lake of milk spreading out underneath everything, fruit and fruit, like little stepping-stones in a lake of milk, and my little Manny picks himself up where he got knocked halfway across the street and he’s cut and he’s bleeding, not major just minor, but he’s lucky to be alive because the fire truck kept on rushing right past, bells clanging, to the fire in the east— BELLS BELLS BELLS bells bells bells —it trails away in Manny’s ears, and then he hears the screaming.
    â€œ Papa! ” he yells in a rush across the lake of milk that’s spread out from beneath the wreck of truck and cart. Stepping-stones of fruit trip him and he stumbles.
    And picks himself up.
    There is screaming.
    And he sees the gathering crowd, the mob.
    And he hears the screams rise higher and higher in pitch until
    Pap!
    a snap, a crack of a pistol. Birds scatter up all around and the horse sinks into a heap of itself.
    Oi, and then what he sees next!
    Oi, and then what he sees!
    No boy should have to see.
    No man should have to see.
    No one in the world should have to see.
    But he sees it. Him . His father lying stretched out in the pond of milk, fingers curled around half-moons of yellowish-brown sheaths from which the fruity pith has been squashed as flat as his chest. His eyes are open—looking directly upon Atlantis.
    What does his son do next? What would anyone do? He doesn’t know what to do. And as the crowd follows the sound of the moaning—before the horse’s, now his—he kneels on his father’s awful chest, and then reaches out into the mess of milk and muckand—I’m telling you, and afraid I’m telling—the blood that spilled there, too, and up comes his hand with a piece of six-pointed glass.
    â€œHere, give me another napkin, I’ll show you what.”
    â€œAnd this is how he lost his father?”

    â€œYes, so look.
    â€œWith the lipstick, it’s messy. But I’m glad I use lipstick so I could show you. Today they don’t use it—Sarah wouldn’t be caught dead wearing lipstick, and your grandchildren, besides your one the youth leader, the girls? Well, whatever. Here. Look. The star. The six points. And if you can believe that glass shatters in a design—and who can say it can’t because it did—then listen to what happened next.”

    T HE WAY A life breaks. The way life goes. The pieces. The pattern. What happens next.
    He’s now kneeling, my Manny, and now he’s crying, moaning, the shock has hit him, the shock is setting in. And around him he hears voices— oi , they will become so familiar!
    â€œHelp him up, you idiot!” A man’s big booming order.
    â€œPa, he won’t . . .”
    â€œHelp him, damn it!”
    â€œIt was the cabby’s fault, it was the cabby, the cabby,” he hears a woman jabbering alongside the raging of the men.
    â€œHelp him. Oh, you schmuck, here!”
    And a strong arm lifts under his and Manny is up on his feet, as loose-limbed as a puppet from a puppet show in his misery, his shock.
    â€œYour father?” the man asks.
    Manny looks up to see this balding man in a fine suit and overcoat, nose like a hawk, eyes like a fox, and the arm that holds Manny belongs to this man.
    â€œHis father, all right,” a taller, younger man, also balding, says.
    â€œHow are we doing here?” comes a cop along to say.
    And Manny, who has never stood so close to a policeman before, studies his uniform, such heavy blue cloth, shining gold buttons, and then becomes distracted by the approaching sound of
    bells bells BELLS BELLS BELLS
    as the ambulance roars in from the west.
    And the man takes him by the arm away from the crowd, the policeman accompanying them, and they ask where he lives and he gives them his address.
    And they open the door of the stalled taxi and help him into the back seat while they go on talking, talking outside.
    And he sits in