THE GLOVE Text copyright © Wilbur L Ochiltree 2012 All Rights Reserved Cover Art and Design by Ognen Petrovski The glove was a dark knit, frayed and torn. Someone had cut the fingertips out. The last time I saw the glove she was wearing it at the corner I passed every day. She was always there. I knew her only as the girl with the knit finger-less gloves with a green spray bottle and dirty rag who washed windshields for dollar tips. She always wore a yellow knit hat pulled down tight to protect her ears against the bitter cold. Her dirty blonde hair spilled out and fell to just past her shoulders. She could not have been older than fourteen. Her black leggings had several holes. Her dark coat was bulky and several sizes too large. She kept shoving her sleeves up as she quickly worked to clean the windshields before the red light changed. Her nose was always runny and red tinged from the cold. She wiped it on the back of her coat sleeve. Sometimes a driver would speed away not paying her. Her shoulders would droop a little, but she always stayed with it. She would go to the next car when the light changed again and asked if she could wash their windshield. I recalled the last time she washed my windshield. I gave her a twenty and told her to keep the change. She had the sweetest smile, and it came naturally. “Thank you, sir!” Her eyes were bright and full of life despite her situation. She was a slender girl with very thin legs. I wondered if she went hungry often. She was always there at that corner when I passed by, that is, until this morning. This morning she was not there. I missed her. How strange. How many places had she gone missing before? Or was this the first time? Of course, it was not the first time. She had to be missing from her home first before coming here, right? These thoughts rushed through my mind. Was she OK? Had she decided to move on? Was there anyone who knew, or even cared? I wish that I had her wash my windshield every time I saw her now. It was two blocks away when I caught a glimpse of the glove. The glove lay at the mouth of an alley to my right. It reminded me of her so much that I circled the block to find a parking spot for my Porsche. I glanced at my Rolex. I was going to be late. I got out and called my investment firm on my smart phone. I strolled down the sidewalk through the busy morning press of faceless humanity and uncaring eyes. I entered and squatted down by that glove. It sure looks like one of her gloves. I did not touch it. I was not sure if I should. I called the police, and they placed me on hold. While I was waiting, I strolled down the alley seeing what I would find. At the very back of the alley, I found her. Her hair matted with blood, and bruises marked her slender angelic face. Someone had yanked her leggings and panties off and tossed them beside her in a pile. Her over sized coat cut open and flung out to either side of her; like a pair of dark wings. Streaks of blood stained the pale flesh of her inner thighs. Her eyes were open and void of that spark of life. I turned and fell to all fours, vomiting. If I had said a kind word to her, tried to help her, perhaps she would be alive now. I scrambled for my phone and heard a voice on the other end. I told the police what happened. My words stumbled over each other, but I finally made them understand. The desk sergeant told me to stay put and wait for the police and detectives to arrive. Desensitize is a word we hear a lot. I have learned that we are. I will rephrase that. Most of us are. From this point onward, I will do my best to avoid being insensitive to others. I will make it a point to help whenever I can. I cannot bring her back but I can make a difference in the life of someone else who needs help. The police have not caught who raped and killed her, but I did learn her name. Susan Blackwell. I also learned that she was not a run away. The company her parents worked for had laid both of them off. Their savings and unemployment had run out. They lost their home. Their family of four was homeless for the last two years. Susan washed windows at the corner for tips to help feed them. She had a little brother age ten. Chris Blackwell. Her family faced the grief of losing her and the horror of how it happened. Her parents also faced trouble with our laws regarding children, though they had no other choice and did their best in the situation they found themselves. My firm is helping the Blackwell family now, and we are setting up a program to help more homeless families. I paid for Susan’s funeral. I felt it was the least I could do. The car radio reports, “The ‘Alleyway’ serial killer/rapist has struck again. The police found the thirty-ninth victim in the downtown district...” My nightmares never stop. They seem so real. I wake up in a cold sweat. The nightmare is always about a woman raped and murdered, and my view throughout the whole ordeal is from the rapist/killers eyes. I hear a voice in my head laughing…it is laughing at me. It tells me that I will never know how many or why. It assures me that I need not be concerned about the nightmares. It promises me the ‘others’ will help protect me. The voice entices me, and I let it. I went to Susan’s funeral and I cried. The End
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 18:03:43 +0000