by Michael C. Roberts
Mr. Benson looked at me down the dinner table with a face, not like I had ever gotten before. I knew the look was different. It was not a look adults give to kids. Not a corrective look like from my third-grade teacher, peering over her glasses, when I talked without raising my hand; not bemused censuring from my father when I farted in church causing my older brother to snicker; not proud like my mother when I recited memorized poetry; not the tearfully sad look when they said grandpa had died.
The man had moved across the street with his family and the dinner was my parents’ welcome to the neighborhood. With that look, I didn’t feel that welcome and it was my house. A few days later, I was riding my bike up and down the street, with a gratifying ratta-tatta of a folded baseball card clipped by a clothespin to the wheel strut. I saw Mr. Benson driving home from work. He stopped when he saw me, got out, and walked to his house, leaving his car door open and the engine running. Dad came out and pulled the car into their garage.
The Benson daughters were okay, for girls. The younger one was my age and played with a collection of plastic horses she kept in her backpack, the older one read thick books like my brother did. While riding the school bus, the daughters told me their father had bad nightmares, screaming them awake at night. Sometimes, they said, he’d look out the front window and cry when he’d see me across the street. Why did they tell me that? It didn’t clear anything up. I wasn’t afraid so much as confused, no adult had ever acted that way about me; I was a good enough kid, even likeable, I thought.
Dad walked around the neighborhood with Mr. Benson almost every night. Seems like months later, but probably only a few weeks, Dad got the basketball and walked me up to the park, which he never did before. Alternating shooting with me, he said that when Mr. Benson had been driving across country, the setting sun blinded the man and there was nothing he could do when a boy riding a bike swerved into the highway from a county road. His car killed the boy.
Dad told me that I was about the same age as the dead boy and had the same color hair. The boy’s bike had even been dark blue like mine is. Seeing me made him sad, like when I saw a cocker spaniel and remembered when our dog died. He said I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I thought then I was a ghost to him, and he was haunted by me. That explained a lot. The family moved away at the end of the school year.
Michael C. Roberts
Michael C. Roberts is a mostly retired pediatric psychologist and professor. After publishing professional articles, chapters, and books, he now seeks to be differently creative. He painted rocks during the pandemic and dropped them around the neighborhood as inspiration and motivation. Devoid of artistry, they may not have been very inspirational. He turned to photography and creative writing. His images have been published in literary magazines and on journal covers. Written works have appeared in Harmony Magazine and The Human Touch. A photographic book with essays is available on Amazon: Imaging the World with Plastic Cameras: Diana and Holga.
JC Alfier
JC Alfier’s (they/them) artistic directions are informed by photo-artists Toshiko Okanoue, Deborah Turbeville, Francesca Woodman, and especially Katrien De Blauwer. Their most recent poetry book, The Shadow Field, was published by Louisiana Literature Press (2020). Journal credits include The Brooklyn Review, Faultline, Notre Dame Review, Penn Review, River Styx, and Vassar Review.