Keisha and The Bull

Walking down Broadway with her mother, Keisha saw him for the second time in her short life. The first time had been the winter before when he had defied the snow, and icicles hung from his opened mouth like fangs. They said he had been there, in that same spot, on Broadway, near Wall Street, since before she was born. He had not moved, not one inch, since they put him there. But his body was a mass of movement.

His muscles flexed, and his throat was full of an unspoken roar. Keisha let go of her mother's hand and ran to him as the tall and thin mother, who was called Josephine, laughed. The giant bronze bull, who was known by most people as the Wall Street Bull, stood shining like a horned god in the summer sun.

At eight-years-old, the bull towered over Keisha. She hugged his giant leg, smiling like sunshine. Josephine had tied her long dreadlocks into a pony-tail, taken out her phone and snapped pictures of her little girl and the giant bull she had made a pet out of. Keisha called him Harry.

Tourists came and also took pictures with Harry as Keisha petted him. She looked at them resentfully, as though they should have asked her for permission first. Before they left to catch the train back to their little apartment in the projects, out in the Bronx, Keisha fed Harry a few potato chips from her crumpled bag. She put the chips inside of the bull's opened mouth that was already full of an unspoken roar, and smiled at her mother, who was smiling back and shaking her head at the little girl's vivid imagination.

The next morning was when the news reporter said the bull was missing. Not vandalized or spray painted with graffiti, as had been before, but missing. Missing.

Nobody had seen a thing. On one of the busiest streets in America, with security cameras everywhere, a seven thousand pound bronze bull had just disappeared. None of the security cameras showed the crime. The police lieutenant that was interviewed on the news said that cameras showed the bull right there in the same place where it had lived since it first appeared, after being brought there in the middle of another night long ago. But it was gone.

In its place there were hoof marks that were dug deep into the sidewalk, and trailed down Broadway street itself, before getting more and more shallow, and finally disappearing, making it look as if Harry had simply walked away.

In the days after Harry the bull went missing, some people said it was a terrorist attack. They said a new 9/11 attack would be coming soon. Others said it was a sign from God.

The end is near, they said.

Over the years, a lot of people had criticized the statue. They said it was a symbol of American greed and the great wealth disparity between the rich and the poor. Monument to a bull market, when the rich get richer, and the poor get to watch it on the evening news.

For more than three weeks they looked for that bull, and no one could find a thing. They looked all over the city, and even sent police out to Jersey to see if anyone had it stashed in a warehouse or something. City leaders talked of commissioning Arturo Di Modica, the artist who had created the Charging Bull statue, to make a new one, but he had refused before they ever even had the chance to ask.

Little Keisha was worried sick, and asked her mother and father everyday if Harry was back yet. She had asked her parents to take her to search the streets of Manhattan for the missing bull, but they had both only laughed. Pleading with her father one day after he got home from his second job washing cars at a dealership in Queens, she said Harry would come back if she called to him.

Her father said that Harry had probably found himself a cow and gone to live with her in the country. Somewhere upstate, where a big old bull like him could have room to run around.

He's probably happier now than he was having people crawl all over him in the city. A bull needs to be able to be a bull.

He rested his thick fingers on her shoulder, kissed Keisha's head gently, and went off to shower. It rained that night, hard rain, like when the drops hurt your skin, threatening to leave marks. Lightening made the night look like day. Thunder seemed to shake the whole building. The rain cooled the temperatures so that the window fan actually blew cool air into the apartment for once. The power flashed off a couple of times, but only for a few seconds.

In the morning Josephine made a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs and white rice. Wade, her husband, had left in the night to work the graveyard shift at his security guard job. It was still cool because the sun was just waking up, and she could still smell the freshness of last night's rain in the air.

Hurry up brushing your teeth, Keisha! You're going to make me late for work.

Keisha and Josephine walked out into the new morning when it was still half dark, the mother holding the daughter's hand for safe keeping. And when they left their building and walked out into the courtyard with small steps, hoping to avoid the puddles left by the storm, standing there in the projects, rain dancing on his bronze skin, was Harry the bull.

Josephine let go of Keisha and covered her opened mouth with her own hand. Keisha ran through the rain puddles, splashing everywhere, and wrapped her little arms around Harry's wet leg. She screamed with joy!

How? Josephine whispered, falling to her knees.

Keisha continued to laugh and laugh until neighbors started to look out into the courtyard through carefully parted curtains. And soon the half dressed workers, mothers and fathers and sleepy eyed kids, started to appear in the courtyard, scratching their heads, praising their gods.

Some people were afraid to go near him. But Keisha, the little brown skinned girl who loved him so, hugged and kissed Harry like an old friend. And just as it had been when Harry had gone missing more than three weeks before, there was no sign of how he had gotten there. There were only giant hoof prints dug deep into the cracked sidewalk and trailing out into the street before fading away. And inside the opened mouth of the giant bronze bull were two half eaten potato chips.