J-Patt's Blog

“The road?” They sit in the passenger seat of a car heading east to a boardwalk in New Jersey. It drizzles outside. Their parents are talking about the economy and how drivers on the highway talk on their cell-phones when changing lanes. Jason looks to his brother and breathes in through his nose, smiling. He exhales.

“No,” Jason taps his index finger on his forehead twice, “think again.” Robby looks around the car and inspects the fine grooves of the doors’ lining. He checks his shirt and sneakers and the portions of the dashboard that he can see from the backseat.

“The volume knob?” Robby thinks it looks gray enough. “No,” Jason exaggerates a yawn. Robby looks outside again. They are driving over the Ben Franklin Bridge and he knows they are half-way to Playland’s Castaway Theme Park where he and his big brother can see who is better at shooting a target with a water pistol until a balloon filling above bursts. He checks the lining of the seats, and then looks at the ceiling.

“The door handle?” Robby guesses with an impatient urgency. Their parents move onto discussing healthcare and how yesterday a café manager with asthma was beaten so badly in a train station that he could not manage to get his inhaler and died before paramedics arrived. Robby hopes he is tall enough to ride the roller coaster this year.

“Nope,” Jason elongates the ‘n’ and pops the ‘p’ as a show of confidence. Robby crosses his arms and bunches his brow. The manager closed late that night and waited for the R5 to take him home. Three men waited with him. One bet to the others that he could knock out the manager with the first hit. It is raining harder now and he hopes that the park will still be open.

“The clouds?” The first hit was not enough, so they continued. “No, do you give up?” Robby sighs and nods. He figures he can get payback when it is his turn to pick a colored object or later at the water pistol game. They pass the toll booth and continue eastward. A policeman was on the other side of the tracks and called the paramedics, but was too far away to stop them. “I spy with my little eyes your gray eyes.” The café did not open today.