MOVING IN STEREO

BLOOM

"In the morning when I wake

And the sun is coming through

Oh, you fill my lungs with sweetness

And you fill my head with you

Shall I write it in a letter?

Shall I try to get it down?

Oh you fill my head with pieces

Of a song I can't get out.

Can I be close to you?"

Bloom

The Paper Kites

It was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and I had picked up an afternoon shift at the radio station. I didn't mind. I had nowhere else to be, and I was trying to make a little extra money. That shift had run into another as a fellow employee had phoned in to see if I could cover his shift as well, and of course, I obliged. It was board operating and the occasional news and traffic report. It was the holiday, and like I said, outside of maybe a couple of beers at the bar nearby the apartment, I had nowhere to be.

Atlanta was dead as it usually was on holidays, with the non-native people emptying the city and returning to wherever they were from. I did not mind that either, not at all, but it had been a long day as the hours crept by. I did not leave the station until after eleven pm, nearly a twelve-hour day. I was pooped. Driving down the cool, wet streets back to the apartment, I found it hard to keep my eyes open, and I was hungry, scratch that, starving. The snack machine food at the station was hardly enough to tide me over.

I made a right turn past the Fox theater and was only a few blocks south when I had to stop suddenly as a car in the far right lane darted over quickly and cut me off. I barely had time to react, but as I resumed, I noticed the reason for the erratic maneuver, a car was broken down in the far right lane, and the driver, a girl looking helplessly at her car. Not the place to be for a girl, holiday or not. I quickly U-turned and pulled behind the disabled vehicle. I could see what the woman was inspecting, a flat tire. Shouldn't be too big of a deal.

By the time I got out, the woman had re-entered her car but had rolled her window down. I smiled when she looked up at me. She was pretty, real pretty, I thought but wore too much make-up. I was instantly nervous too.

"I think it's flat," she said.

I walked to the curbside of the car and inspected it.

"I'll say, maybe a little more than flat. I want to get you off the road, at least out of the lane, but I don't think it's a good idea to move it."

I squatted down to see the tire entirely off the rim and the wheel itself resting at an odd angle. It was flat all right, flat and then some.

"Did you hit something?"

I shouted.

"No, well, a hole back there."

I stood back up and looked down the block finding the culprit.

Driving on Atlanta City streets had become akin to driving an obstacle course. She had hit no pothole but a hole created by one of the litanies of storm drains at the edge of the sidewalks. Every time the city paved the streets, they added another layer of asphalt, leaving the grated metal drains to serve as tire traps for those unfortunate enough not to dodge them. Navigating them was difficult during the day and nearly impossible at night, and in a small car, successful navigation was a must. This pretty girl hadn't been so lucky.