City Kid. Mary MacCracken

      I’d gone too far. I was sure of it. I was getting much too close to Falls City now. Damn, damn! Turn the car around. You’ll recognize the spot from this side.

      I drove back up the hill slowly, slowly searching the side of the road for the same place I’d pulled off with Luke. If I could find that spot, I thought I could cut back to the path. Things are easier to remember on foot.

      Luke! I’d almost missed him. I slammed on the brakes and backed up. Luke stood up and came out from behind a small bush. I jammed the car into some low evergreens and took the paper bag of sandwiches and soda back to where Luke waited. Luke cared! He’d even come to help. Remember the days in school, the doughnuts, the lipstick tube. Don’t sell him short.

      “That path’s hard to see when you don’t know it,” Luke said, forgiving me.

      “Yes,” I said. “Thank you.”

      Four-thirty now. Time was running out. The sun turned molten red and began to descend into the city. The sky above the sunset changed from blue to gray.

      Luke ate two sandwiches without speaking, washing down mouthfuls with gulps of soda. Then unexpectedly, he said, “Sometimes, after my dad was finished … underneath, he’d put out the fire and then come up on the platform and sit with me. And sometimes he would stay awake awhile and when the stars came out, he’d tell me their names.” Luke had his arms wrapped around his knees so he had to turn his whole body to look at me. “He knew all the names. Big Dipper. Little Dipper. Orion. Cassy Pee’s Chair.” There was pride in Luke’s small voice.

      I concentrated on the sky, trying to remain objective, to remember the textbook, to realize what a small percentage of success socially maladjusted kids had, but my heart was thump-thumping for some undefined reason. I watched a small cloud form above the sun, an odd shape, reminiscent of something.

      “Luke, look,” I said. “See that cloud? It looks like an amoeba.”