Middle of Nowhere

Middle of Nowhere — page 1 — For Joan and Graham Sweeney

Middle of Nowhere — page 2 — 1 I HEARD A SIREN in my sleep I thought it was Artie but the sound came closer and got louder Then just outside our apartment building it stopped But not before it woke Artie who picked up exactly where the siren left off Wa-wa-wa Artie went A light swept through the room then again painting the walls red each time The police Not exactly who I wanted to see I stared at the lights hoping they weren’t for us while Artie wailed on and on He can be hard to stop Then I remembered the PNE and the giant beam that shines out of the fairground and circles the whole sky at night Look at that light I told Artie Do you remember the Exhibition last summer He stopped wailing just like the siren and sat up staring at the red swirls Is there a ferris wheel outside Let’s look I said We got out of bed and opened the curtains the rest of the way It wasn’t the police

Middle of Nowhere — page 3 — Artie climbed onto the back of the couch and perched there with his bare feet on the windowsill He watched what was happening across the street like it was on TV An ambulance Look They’re coming out of that house The old lady’s house across the street They were carrying her out on a stretcher sliding her into the back of the ambulance slamming the door Artie sang along as the ambulance drove away Wa-wa-wa Wa-wa-wa THE NEXT MORNING I looked out the window again The drapes were closed in the house across the street like it was asleep It was a little house one story and covered with stucco that had bits of broken glass mixed in I felt sorry for it because there were apartments all around it now It was the only house on the block that hadn’t gone extinct But I didn’t really feel sorry for the old lady who lived there who never said hi even though Artie and I walked past her house every single school day One Saturday the old lady was out watering her garden She was the only person in the neighborhood who grew flowers We walked by with Mom and the lady made a sound like a grunt as we passed I don’t know what she was

Middle of Nowhere — page 4 — trying to say but it didn’t sound very nice Today was the last day I thought we could get away with the I-forgot-my-lunch excuse On the way to school I told Artie to use it one more time But I didn’t forget my lunch he said You didn’t make remember anything Suddenly he remembered the night before Is that why the ambulance came Exactly Except when the first-aid guys got to the door I couldn’t remember why I called them so I sent them away me one Tell her I forgot then You didn’t though You’re talking about it now Artie is five and a half and what you’d call literal He didn’t understand that we were running out of food If you forgot your lunch Mrs Gill would ask everybody in the class to contribute something But if it happened too often or more than twice in a row she’d get suspicious and phone to find out if anything was wrong at home I knew this for a fact because Artie’s teacher Mrs Gill was my kindergarten teacher too six years ago Artie I said as we walked past the house of the old lady they took away in the ambulance Let’s pretend Let’s pretend I have amnesia What’s that It’s when you get knocked on the head and you can’t

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