The Getaway
by Bunkong Tuon
My eight-month
old daughter and I wanted to get out of the house,
change the scene a bit, breathe in the fresh air
instead of the stale one of dirty diapers and
baby formula. Ever since my wife took the
position of Dean of Academic Affairs at the local
university, we had been left to our own devices.
I put my daughter on my shoulders and we played
airplane, running around laughing and screaming
in the living and family rooms; we watched “Little
Einsteins” on Netflix, then danced to Bowie
on Spotify. But things got boring after awhile,
even with Bowie singing “Fame” over and
over, though my daughter liked the repetition and
high notes in that song. I decided to leave the
house, have some fun, and maybe make a little bit
of money. With diapers, formula, toys, and
clothes, things added up. “Two birds with
one stone,” I winked at my daughter, whose
eyes lit up when she discovered something new and
exciting was about to happen. I gently maneuvered
her into the car seat, then placed the stroller
in the trunk, and jumped into the driver’s
seat. I drove out of the garage, took a right on
State Street, turned left after the Greek diner,
then slowed into a parking lot.
The pool hall
was in the basement of some old red brick
building, near an alley not far from 890. In the
cold dinky room everyone looked up at us, but I
didn’t care. I said to the young kid at the
table, who should be at school and not at some
pool hall in downtown Schenectady, “I got
next.” He smiled, “Okay, Pop,”
then winked at his buddies. Well, that did it. A
war had been declared. When it was my turn, I
missed a few shots on purpose, smiling and
shaking my head. The kid lit one of those e-cigarettes
that kids nowadays smoked, and he wasn’t far
from where my daughter was sitting in her
stroller. I leaned over the table, aimed the
stick at the bottom of the white ball, and pushed
the stick. The cue ball jumped and smacked the
kid in the face; the e-cigarette fell to the
floor. To everyone’s amazement, my daughter
unbuckled her belt and picked up the e-cigarette.
She looked at it, shook her head, took out her
pacifier, and said her first word, “Yuck!”
She then threw it at the kid’s feet, jumped
onto the table, and gave me a high-five. Cream’s
“The Sunshine of Your Love” came on; I
was feeling it. I made three hundred bucks that
morning, enough to cover my baby’s needs,
and it was almost noon now. I said to no one in
particular, “My baby needs to be changed and
fed. It’s been fun, guys, but I gotta go.”
I strapped my daughter in the car seat, footed
the gas pedal, and peeled out of the gravel lot.
My baby girl
in the back, eyes closed, sucking on her pacifier.
|
