It Was An Accident
Sometimes Aunt Beth wonders where she misplaced her memory. Such were her thoughts last night, as she laid out her medications for the week. She placed the orange pill bottles next to the box, with its slots for morning, noon, and night of each day of the week. Metformin for her diabetes, check. Lovastatin to lower her cholesterol, check. Calcium each day, to keep osteoporosis at bay, check. But where was the Cardizem for her blood pressure? Hadn’t she picked it up from the pharmacy just yesterday? Could she have forgotten to check?
A call to the pharmacy confirmed that they still had it. With half an hour to closing time, Aunt Beth took the back road, the dimly lighted one that winds along steep hills. Aunt Beth always says that she has young eyes, that her night vision is still as sharp as it ever was. She swerved past the Catholic abbey, past the motorcycle bar.
Aunt Beth likes the motorcycle bar. It reminds her of how she used to ride behind Cussin’ Jim, her arms wrapped around his waist, and her hair flying in the wind. Cussin’ Jim abandoned his motorcycle and Aunt Beth, in the end, to find himself at an ashram in India. But Aunt Beth still grins every time she tells the story of her favorite motorcycle rides with him.
Perhaps it was the memory of Cussin’ Jim, or perhaps the canopy of trees under which she drove, but Aunt Beth felt better, calmer, by the time she reached the pharmacy. She stood two yards back from the counter, a spot marked to allow for customer privacy, and glanced around. In front of her, a bald and red-faced man addressed the pharmacist on duty, Fatima Tehrani, brusquely. To his left, a young woman browsed the pregnancy tests. Aunt Beth wondered whether she hoped for a positive result, or feared one. A little behind her hung a chart to help in selecting reading glasses, and directly to her right stood a large picture of an elderly woman on a motorized wheelchair, posed as if racing in the Indianapolis 500 of motorized wheelchairs.
The red-faced man stalked off with his purchases. Aunt Beth approached the counter. She smiled at Fatima, asked after her family, gave her last name, though surely Fatima remembered it.
But as Fatima started to turn toward the bags with the filled orders, a young man pushed up to the counter. Aunt Beth heard a squeak from the young woman browsing the pregnancy tests. She turned and saw the glint of a handgun.
“Freeze,” said the young man to Aunt Beth, and then, to Fatima, “Give me all your cash.”
Aunt Beth could see pregnancy test woman take a couple of slow steps backward, her eyes wide with fear. Fatima remained calm. She walked to the cash register, removed money, and handed it to the man. The man placed his gun on the counter and then reached to take the money. Aunt Beth dashed in and grabbed the gun.
“Stop,” Aunt Beth said, “I’ve got his gun.”
Aunt Beth had never touched a gun before. She held the gun awkwardly, and stared at it. How do I unload this damn thing, she thought. She backed away from the counter a few steps.
The young man turned, and stepped toward her. He reached for the gun.
“Stop,” said Aunt Beth, “Don’t come any closer.”
Her hand shook as she aimed the gun slightly over his shoulder. He continued to approach, as Aunt Beth continued to back away. He knew she would never use the gun. Aunt Beth knew she would never use the gun – right up until the moment she heard it go off.
Pregnancy test woman screamed. The young man fell. Fatima picked up a phone. Only now, as Aunt Beth stared at the fallen man, did she notice just how young he looked, surely not as old as twenty, and how his hair was long and dirty blond like the hair of Cussin’ Jim.
Now it’s the day after. I came to stay with Aunt Beth as soon as she called, and have taken the day off work to fend off the media. I’ve unplugged her landline, and taken charge of her cell phone. I allow her old college roommate through, and tell reporters she’s not available. Then I play a game of solitaire on my own cell phone while Aunt Beth paces the apartment. On the top of the trash can sits the morning’s local paper. Its headline tells of a feisty old woman who fought off a robber. Aunt Beth took one look at it, and tossed it.
“Great,” she said, “Now I’m the new Bernard Goetz.”
Aunt Beth, in times of stress, will straighten and clean. I’ve seen her do this often. When grandfather had his fourth heart attack, Aunt Beth threw herself into the task of dusting his bookshelves and arranging the stacks of books on top of the shelves so that their corners perfectly aligned.
Now she goes to her stove. She takes a spray bottle that holds a cleaning formula she’s made herself, green, earth friendly, of baking soda and vinegar. She sprays the top of the stove, and attacks a grease spot. She attacks it with a sponge. She attacks it with an old toothbrush. She attacks it with a bristly pad. The spot is maybe half an inch in diameter, but in Aunt Beth’s eyes it looms large. She scrubs and scrubs.
Damn. Will that spot never come out?