Something which remains resolutely and stubbornly unfannish.
The ice cream cart guy does pushups when no one is looking. He also wears a cowboy hat, even on days like this, days so stickywarm that it's impossible to tell if you're still breathing. The hat is worn and stained and incongruous on summer afternoons, even this one, wrapped in the smell of dying leaves and moldering grass.
Maybe he was a rancher's son, a soldier, something else. Everyone he is-was-could be hidden in layers of years.
When the high school kids wander off, before the bell rings and after the buses leave, he drops his hands to the cooler behind the stand, head hanging between sunburned shoulders, parallel to the ground. He uses the cart as a footrest. He counts one-and-two-and-three-and-four, pauses, counts again, each count a smooth drop and a snap up, back straight and hands apart. Textbook perfect.
Sixteen, twenty-four, thirty-two, forty. Over and over. If you catch him at it, spin around the corner unexpectedly, glance over and wonder, he startles and falters. The person he may have been tenses upward and uncurls, climbs inside the surly man in the strange hat and scuffed sandals. Whoever he is, whoever he was, it's not for anyone else to see.
Maybe he was a rancher's son, a soldier, something else. Everyone he is-was-could be hidden in layers of years.
When the high school kids wander off, before the bell rings and after the buses leave, he drops his hands to the cooler behind the stand, head hanging between sunburned shoulders, parallel to the ground. He uses the cart as a footrest. He counts one-and-two-and-three-and-four, pauses, counts again, each count a smooth drop and a snap up, back straight and hands apart. Textbook perfect.
Sixteen, twenty-four, thirty-two, forty. Over and over. If you catch him at it, spin around the corner unexpectedly, glance over and wonder, he startles and falters. The person he may have been tenses upward and uncurls, climbs inside the surly man in the strange hat and scuffed sandals. Whoever he is, whoever he was, it's not for anyone else to see.