Free When It Rains: The Umbrella Collection by Prudence Hayes Page A

nod and preceded to the check out.
    I was stunned and completely grossed out that he looked at me like that. I stood wondering what I should do. Thoughts of a confrontation ran through my mind and immediately were pushed out and the only thing I could bring myself to do was to leave. I stormed out of the store and onto the sidewalk outside, desperately trying to rid myself of the hate that was flowing through my veins. I hated him, of course, for what he had done and that it seems like he has gone on with his life and repeating the same mistakes. I hated myself, too. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t bring myself to utter a word to him or to even hit him with a bag of potato chips. That was my chance and I let it float by without a fight. I walked around in circles outside the front door of the store and still in disbelief.   I  was about to take a step and begin my walk back home when something stopped me in my tracks, something I had seen on only one other car. It was a “Honk if you love Pussy cats ” bumper sticker. Thoughts of the courtroom riddled my mind; how the prosecutor repeated that phrase over and over again and pictures of the crushed up cars. One was a close-up shot of that bumper sticker with a hue of canary yellow as a border.
    “This has to be hi s car.” I thought to myself.  Then my instincts kicked in and before I knew it I had bent down and my fingers were wrapped around a rock that was simply lying there as decoration inside of a planter’s box that was around a small tree. I took aim of the car, drew back my arm and launched the rock into the back windshield. Smash!
    “This is for my M om,” I said and threw it through the passenger side window. Unfortunately, for the car there was more than one rock in the box. I walked around to the other side of the car.
    “My Dad! ”; through the driver’s side window
    “Pops!”; the back driver’s side window
    “And this is for my fucking childhood!” and the front windshield crumbled to pieces.
    This all happened relatively quickly. No other thoughts ran through my mind other than destroying that piece of shit’s car. As the final piece of glass fell, my head became clearer and I glanced around at the scene of destruction that I caused. Everyone that was driving on the road stopped and watched and the people on the sidewalk halted probably out of fear that they would step into my line of fire. One of which just happened to be Mr. Garrison and I am sure I gave him enough material today to fill up his arsenal of gossip to spew around the neighborhood to anyone that will listen. Just my luck.
    There was also this 20 something year old man running towards me from the mart with his arms outstretched looking like he wanted to strangle me. I could have sworn I saw steam coming from his ears as he approached me.
    His mouth was moving and I heard sounds coming from it, but his voice was too high pitched and loud for me to comprehend exactly what he was saying. Something to the effect of “What the hell…you stupid…I’m gonna…Why?...MY CAR…” is all I could piece together.
    So, apparently it wasn’t Darren’s car. Oops. I was still in a daze and coming down off my high of anger so all I could say was “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”  I looked up towards the door to Marty’s and Mr. Jones had his face to the window watching what was happening.  To the left of him, the front glass doors opened and exiting would be none other than Darren carrying his booze, glancing at my mess, and climbing into the driver’s side door of a shiny new maroon Sports Utility Vehicle that was parked only one car away.
    “Shit ,” I mumbled
    “Why did you do that to my car?!” the man screamed in my face while placing his hands on my shoulders to shake me.
    “I’m sorry,” I said lowly.  My mind wasn’t on the disaster it was still attached to the SUV that was living the scene of my crime.
    “Sorry? That’s all you can say to me?” he stated as he