checked his tire pressure with a hand squeeze and CJ followed suit, even with her training wheels which were plastic to the core. They headed out: Peter and CJ circled the slow surge of Herb’s motorized wheelchair like sheepdogs. Herb’s nerves were getting the best of him, with the worst-possible scenarios playing out in his head. They were good kids, great kids even, but still kids. If CJ had one of her excited lapses in judgment and ran into the street or something—his limitations as a chaperone made him shudder.
These feelings only escalated as the group made the right turn off Ranch, passed the pavilion, and headed to the exit. Beyond the hedges and gates separating Willow Creek Landing from the rest of the world, cars flashed by, zipping down the two-lane road at high speeds.
Peter pedaled ahead, then stopped his bike at the guard booth and waited. He didn’t like biking so slow, giving the sun ample opportunity to roast exposed areas of skin. He saw the queasy look on his uncle’s face as he approached.
“Maybe I should go by myself,” he said.
Selection seventeen on Peter’s “Sucks Rocks” list: Slocin Road. Peter had two recurring dreams since moving into the Creek, both involving balls. In one, he sat in his backyard minding his own business, when a sharp whistle would crack the air. He’d look up to see a small marshmallow, the ones found in instant hot chocolate packets, hurtling toward him through the sky. He’d hear a distant shout of “Fore!” but it was always a split-second after realizing the marshmallow was a golf ball that had just penetrated his eye socket with a sickening slurp. The rest of the dream usually consisted of Peter knocking into trees and lawn furniture, trying to acclimate himself to the life of a cyclops. In the other dream, he chased a rolling tennis ball. He was either on a tennis court or the elementary school in his old neighborhood where he and his friends played stickball. The second he lifted his eyes with the ball in hand, he was standing on the divider line in the middle of Slocin Road with a giant tractor trailer barreling down on him—the truck’s thick, steel grille the exact height off the road as Peter’s face.
Peter understood why the color drained from his uncle’s face; he felt the same way the first time he biked on Slocin.
“It’s not too bad,” Peter said as they reached the gates and silently contemplated the width of the road’s shoulder. He pointed to a side street fifty yards away. “We just have to make it to there, and then we can take the back roads to town.”
Herb studied the traffic pattern: two lanes in each direction with a steady flow of cars, and the nearest traffic light a half mile down the road. Cars would have no reason to drive under sixty miles per hour.
“Great,” Herb muttered to himself. All the consequences of his next decision circled like a carousel in his head. Turning around and going home would certainly disappoint the kids and maybe even set the tone for the rest of Herb’s stay. But going? He refused to let himself imagine the unimaginable. He was paralyzed enough.
So, Herb did what he always did when he felt himself at a crossroads. He lowered his head in prayer.
Cars slowed as they entered and exited Willow Creek Landing, lowering their sunglasses or phones to peer at the man in the wheelchair, his head bowed, and the two children on bikes huddled around him. One or two drivers came close to stopping and offering assistance, but then the boy would smile bashfully or wave, and the drivers would wave back and continue on their hurried way, relieved on several levels while still feeling a personal rush for reaching out enough to achieve Good Samaritan status in their own minds.
“Uncle Herb?” CJ asked, after several minutes of silence.
Peter stuck a finger to his lips to quiet her.
CJ leaned in closer to the wheelchair, shooing her brother.
“Uncle Herb,” she whispered, “don’t worry if you’re scared. I’ll protect you. I have my lasso. I’ll walk right next to you.”
Peter rolled his eyes and threw his hands in the air. “Like a lasso will do anything against a speeding car.”
“It will!”
The lasso discussion had little time to spiral into an argument. Herb’s head rose.
“Eddie,” he said. Ready.
They waited until there was a break in traffic and no vehicles could be seen as far as the nearest bend. This would give them at least five seconds of car-free travel. Herb motioned for Peter to go, warning him to stay completely to the outside of the shoulder. When Herb was praying, asking for help, a sign to lead him, it was CJ’s interruption that dictated his decision. By “protecting him,” she would remain on foot and on the inside of Herb, a barrier preventing her from getting any closer to the road. There would be no losing control of her bike or judgment. Caution was in Peter’s nature, and Herb felt confident as Peter hugged the grass outside the shoulder, pedaling straight and steady.
But then Herb heard the sound of approaching cars in the distance. He prayed with his eyes open for traveling mercies as he braced himself for the deafening roar and manufactured wind gusts.
“It’s okay, Uncle Herb,” CJ said in a soothing voice. She led her bicycle on foot in perfect stride with Herb’s wheelchair.
The deafening roar never did come. An elderly couple driving a hatchback economy car passed first, their eyes nowhere near the road but staring stupefied over at Herb and CJ and the parallel orange flags sagging lifelessly from their poles above them. The couple muttered declarations like, “in all the years” and “I never,” and unwittingly turned into the grand marshals of a parade of rubberneckers, filled with slow-moving floats of curiosity, amusement, or mild annoyance. Herb praised the good fortune.
* * *
The group reached Main Street, and Herb decided he had lived through enough adventure for one day. He parked next to a shaded bench and told Peter he could run to the drugstore on his own since he would be in sight the entire way. CJ had packed some picture books in the mesh storage unit underneath Herb’s chair, and she grabbed one and headed to the bench.
The sun’s glare washed out the colors of the bouquet shops and restaurants dotting both sides of Main Street, constructing an image resembling a collage of overexposed photographs.
“When is it going to rain, Uncle Herb?” CJ asked, peering to the sky.
“Ah-de-no.”
The picture book played music, and CJ hummed along with the song. Main Street buzzed with cars, and a periodic honk would produce a face and waving hand behind a window of a passing car.
“Wow, how does everyone see us over here? We’re not even on the sidewalks,” CJ wondered aloud.
Herb looked up at the obtrusively bright orange flags, but only smiled.
* * *
As Peter reached the plate glass window of Handley’s Drug Store, he braced himself before opening the door. He knew the magazine rack of Handley’s was a local hangout for some of his schoolmates until Mr. Handley would whisk them off for loitering. The store was air-conditioned—a reason to go anywhere these days. Peter was thankful for Uncle Herb’s suggestion to go solo. This way he could move stealthily. Just like his list of goals for the school year, the summer was more of the same: if Peter couldn’t fit in, he wanted to be invisible—entirely impossible if he, CJ, and Uncle Herb had all went to the drugstore. In Wonder Woman attire
