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| Image (sans UFO) by Lewis Hines, no copyright, public domain |
It was the most terrifying moment of his life, at least that’s how Grandpa used to tell it. He was ten, and he worked at the Dunningham Mill, ducking under the looms to grab fallen bobbins and loose threads. That always sounded terrifying to me; the thunder of the chain-driven machinery, the spools moving so fast that they seemed to blur. “Touch one and it’d split your hand open,” he’d lisp around his denture.
“Tell me more about great-gran,” I’d beg, “and how she cooked over a fireplace. And how you ate bread and lard every day for a year.”
“There was this one lady, got her hand caught. Machine dragged her all the way up to the ceiling. All the boys were trying to get a look at her bloomers,” he winked.
“Was she,” I gulped a swallow, “okay?”
“I don’t imagine she ever used that hand again.”
“The other boys, did you play with them after work? What kind of games did you play?” I tapped my notebook with my pen. There was no way I was turning in an essay about child labor and industrial accidents, not for an assignment titled Nostalgia.
“No. They lived in different tennies. Ours was a three-floor brownstone, old-style. The bedroom was pitch black. Smelled like cabbage.”
“And did you sleep there? In the bedroom?”
“All eight of us in one bed. In the summer Willie and I’d sneak up to the roof. You could get up there if you knew someone on the third floor. Pop-out their window. You had to know how to climb of course.
“One night Willie and I was up there under that great hot blanket of sky, we had nothin’ but matches to see by, and of course we’d make pretend cigarettes with scraps of thread and newspaper,” his eyes glazed over, “You should have seen how fast those would burn. Willie had no nose hair for a week. Anyhow, we started seeing lights. Back then you could see the stars, even in a city, and we thought it may be a shooting star, cause boy, was it moving good.”
“What did you wish for?”
“Well, Willie saw it first, so it was his. Never asked him what he wished for because that thing came straight at us. Willie was so scared, he jumped off the roof. He was in a cast for I don’t how long. Leg bone was poking straight through his skin. Got the TB from it too.”
I stood up.
“Sit down, you’re going to miss the good part,” he waved his cane in my direction.
I took a deep breath, “Grandpa, Tuberculosis is the disease where people cough up blood.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. You young ones know everything. Well, back in my day, people used to get the TB in their bones. Now you sit, and I’ll tell you something good.”
I sat, my lips clamped between my teeth.
“So there I was, on the roof of the tenement, this light coming straight at me,” he held up his hands in mock terror. “Just when I thought it would hit me, it stopped. I couldn’t see a thing, it was so bright. Then there was this sound. You know the sound you hear in carnival rides? The tut-tut-tut of compressed air? That’s what it sounded like.”
I nodded, worried that if I freed my lips they would tell him off.
“That was when I started to make out the shape of it. It was maybe about the size of your brother’s treehouse, but rounder, and flying in the air. I was terrified. I’ve seen some crazy things in my life; war, disease, squalor, and ruin. But the only thing that made me shake in my breeches was this thing. You see, I had no words for it, no way to explain it to myself or anyone else and that’s what made it so horrible. It was like the appearance of an angel in the Good Book, but he didn’t say, ‘Don’t be afraid.’”
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘You called me for a ride?’”
I waited for Grandpa to continue. When he didn’t, I prompted him, “Did you take the ride?” He snorted, his eyes closed. I poked him with my pen, “Grandpa.”
“Oh,” he jerked awake, “Where was I?”
“The other being asked you if you wanted a ride.”
“I said okay, like any red-blooded young colt would and then I just floated into the sky. Didn’t really realize I was in the aircar or what-have-you until the other being turned around, and said, ‘Where are you going?’
“And I didn’t know what to say, so I said, ‘The moon, if you please, Sir.’ There was this huge sense of pressure and everything blurred, and then I thought I was back on the roof, but below me, the city was gone, turned into dust by a giant’s rounded footprints.
“I could have stood there gawking until I was just bones, but the other being interrupted my thoughts with, ‘That will be a hundred dollars.’
“I turned out my pocket and took out my day’s wage. ‘This is all I have,’ I said, passing him the five shining quarters.
“‘What’d you think this is?’ he asked me, ‘A charity?’
“‘I don’t know what this is,’ I waved my hand at the rubble below, ‘Or why I’m paying you for it.’
“‘This is a taxi. You asked for a ride to the moon. Now pay, or get out!’ And he dashed the coins from my hand. The last thing I remember was seeing him put a placard up in its window that said For Hire.”
“Did you ever see him again?” I slid my pen into the spiral binding of my notebook.
“Well,” he gurgled, “that’s how I met your grandma.”
My antennae tingled, finally, we were getting somewhere.
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Cross Posted to 12 Short Stories
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