Huffing, Puffing, and Coughing
All of it is fenced
in by a two or three inch, black pipe fence. Parallel to it is a wide path, with a line of gray green benches, facing towards the
boulder. It was on one of those benches that we sat so long ago, after after
that cigar fiasco, smoking, sharing a large bottle of soda, and a bag of
Twizzlers.
I was running as fast
as I could, and as I reached one hundred and fiftieth street, there was a
tremendous,
“Kabooooooom!”
I could see it didn’t
land on the brownstones, and I could see the smoke rising beyond them, and 149th street.
The Cessna crashed in the park, on the boulder. By the time I got to the corner, I could see a horde of people
running into the park, there was an ambulance trying to get in, and cops were all over
the place. I managed to walk far enough in, to see the plane sprawled out over
the boulder. One of its wings had been sheared, and flung out about twenty
yards into the field, two of the passengers were on the boulder, and there was
another one the field. They were dead, it was a most gruesome sight, it turned
my stomach, and since there wasn’t anything I could do to help I left.
I was still huffing
and puffing from all the running, but I lit up a smoke, and as I walked over to Pat’s, I wondered if those folks died from the
crash or did they perhaps suffer a heart attack before the plane hit the
boulder. I was huffing and puffing and coughing as I took one drag after the
other, and I remember wiping a tear from my eye...it was a heart breaking
sight. Pat was at the far end of the bar when I walked in, and before he came over, I called out:
“Hey Pat, gimme a
double Dewars, man.”
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