Controlled Scribbling

Nothing to Worry About

Arriving home in a freezing mist under cold November skies, Calvin saw the newspaper boy ride past on his early-morning route. The boy's bright red hair bounced energetically up and down in counterpoint to his high-paced pedaling. Ah, to be young again. Calvin wasn't young or energetic this morning, after being up all the day and night before he looked forward to a good day's sleep. His head pounded as he dragged himself from his beat-up '74 Nova. His dark brown hair hung dead against his gaunt face, he looked as optimistic as the bitter Tuesday morning he trudged through. Small, white clouds puffed out of his mouth with every step. His mouth was full of cotton and stale with the taste of whiskey and cigarettes of the recent past. Out of habit, he picked up the newspaper off his stoop and brought it inside with him.

Calvin dropped his flight bag on the ceramic tile entryway and heeled off his shoes. Walking to the kitchen table, he groped his overcoat for his cigarettes. He tossed the paper on the table with barely a glance and lit up. He took a couple of long, steady drags and rubbed his eyes with his palms. He reflected on how much he hated flying and all the bullshit that goes along with it and went to the kitchen window and stared out. He stared out and thought how dead everything looked: dead trees, dead sky, dead grass, dead ... Suddenly, the picture on the front page of the newspaper popped into his head - it was a familiar sight. Calvin went back to the table and picked up the paper. There, a color picture of a familiar street loomed up at him. A calm and peaceful main street of a calm and peaceful small town. Next to the picture in bold half-inch-tall letters it read, "TEN KILLED IN FIRE - ARSON SUSPECTED." Calvin rubbed his eyes again; his lit cigarette, still in his left hand, singed his bangs. He realized for the first time the thing missing in the photo was the building he worked in. It was the street he had been driving down for the past three years to go to work. Now, according to this photo, there was just black, charred earth where he used to enter a solid brick, three-story building - solid brick, all four sides were brick. A three-story, brick building over seventy years old reduced to flat, black earth and they print, "ARSON SUSPECTED."

"With its church spires, two-lane streets and lack of buildings taller than three stories, downtown Batavia resembles a quaint New England town."

After reading the opening sentence of the article, he threw the paper down and headed towards the kitchen phone. Ten dead out of a company of twelve employees left only him and one other person. Calvin began calling his co-workers randomly and hanging up on their machines until the sixth call.

Billy's wife sobbed into the phone as Calvin lit another cigarette.