The Crossing Guard
by Steven Hurd
 

He stood so much taller than I. His bright yellow vest painted with words I could not yet read. Mama said they spelled "CAUTION__CHILDREN CROSSING." I always thought he was trying to tell me something.

On sunny days he wore a powder-blue, short-sleeve shirt with bright colored shorts "to make me stand out more, boy." And there was that bright yellow vest always hanging off his shoulders like pretty blonde hair down a young girl's back. It once had an emblem on the face. Maybe a Marine or policeman or something grand like that. And, of course there was that bright blue vest always hanging off his shoulders like pretty blonde hair down a young girl's back.

He was about my grandpapa's age. He had wrinkles on top of wrinkles. My mother would say, "He's seen a lot of life, Stevie." It looked as if life had looked back at him more than once. He always took the hands of the girls whenever crossing the stree. Boys were to stay close but were on their own. I once sneaked mine in by "sorta" accident to see what it felt like. It was odd. I wasn't crossing the street for a minute there. I was thinking of things I knew nothing about. When I let go, he didn't. He looked down my way and whispered, "You watch over them little girls, boy. They got things you need." He let go. I never stopped looking after them.

In the winter of 1956, the great floods hit the Chattanooga Valley. No school for almost two months. Each day, Mr.Morrison, the crossing guard, rode by the houses still standing. Perched atop his red bicycle, chiming the big silver ice cream man's bell attached to the handlebars, he passed every kid with a ring and a wave. We waved back until he was over the hill that saved our homes from death. Of course, he always wore that bright yellow vest hanging off his shoulders like pretty blonde hair down a young girls back.

When school started up again my mother took me to the street he watched over. He was standing there big as ever. Twenty, maybe a hunderd, kids waited for him to come callin on our side of the road. He took only a few at a time "for safety's sake." Every kid brought him something. There was candy and flowers and cookies and colored pictures and pretty rocks and a carved stick or two and strings made into necklaces. I brought my prized cat's eye marble. He held it up to the sun, "Fine quality, boy." A wickered smile greeted every offering.

At the end of the first day of school after the great floods of 1956, my feet ran me to the cross walk. All the kids were hurrying home behind me. I was the fastest kid in the whole world. I had a crow-shoot to go to and my daddy would be home for the weekend from the coal mines in Virginia. At the street corner a policeman directed traffic around a mass of people hovering over a figure on the ground. All manner of people were pushing and pulling and shoving. A man was being dragged from a broken car that sat in a pile in a ditch next to the road. Later they said he was drunk, but he looked fine to me.

I climbed a tree to see what the old people didn't want me to see. I recognized the sheriff and Mr.Cornstall from the store where my mother bought our flour and meal. I saw my mother and she saw me. A frown came on her like a cloud crossing the face of the moon. She motioned me down. I pretended not to see. Her eyes called me to task. I jumped down, images of the switch hanging on the backyard gate calmed my fear of the fall. She grabbed my hand hard and hurried me across the street. Through the people, through the arms and legs, through the yellin and bumpin I saw little pieces of candy and flowers and cookies and colored pictures and pretty rocks and carved sticks and strings made into necklaces lying on the street as if hanging on for dear life.

Someone bumped me from my mother's grasp. I was there. They were there. The noise and dumps and whistles. No one cared. I fell on the curb. I saw his face on the ground. Never saw blood like that before. Someone was holding his hand. Another was doing this or that to a place on his body I could not see. My stomach was screaming like that time I stepped on that Cottonmouth and almost got ate up. I ...

I was in the air, held close by magic. Big arms around me. Pushin through the masses.

"Look out!"

"Watch out!"

"Move over!"

I was movin, eyes closed, holding my breath, thinking everything and nothing.

"You still with me, boy?" A wrinkled face met mine. "Boy?"

Finding my mother wasn't to hard. Everybody knows everybody. Mr.Morrison held my hand and directed me her way. I pulled away cause I didn't need to be held by anyone. Mr.Morrison smiled at me. I think I smiled back. My mother held me like a pillow when the thunder calls.

I looked over her shoulder. He was walking away still wearing that bright yellow vest hanging off his shoulders like pretty blonde hair down a young girl's back.