Trolley Kids

Jayten’s body is several blocks behind Raymond and the woman now, his torso ending in a red smear streaked into black skid marks on a long stretch of city highway. So is her unscathed vehicle: emergency lights blinking, just a handbrake’s pull past the scene.

He can’t get it out of his head as he walks the bland, unextraordinary woman down the middle of a street, twisting her arm behind her back.

He has to understand. 

*

Raymond had coached Jayten all summer, walking different neighborhoods, pointing out what to look for. “See that big car with eight kids? AI will let it flatten you, straight up. The couple over there in that Mini, though? It won’t mind knocking them around a bit to keep you from a sprained ankle.”

It was a humid day. They walked the rest of the block in silence, following the wind as it was funneled between the tenements.

* 

He has a vivid memory of Jayten grinning, then darting forward to leap on his board. Had Jayten made a joke? Or had he been trying to impress the girls on the stoop they’d just passed? Cars edged away and slowed in anticipation of braking, but then the kid quickly swerved into a slide, stopping just short of the intersection. The cars resumed average speed, and the two carried on; laughing at the scene as if they’d subtly disturbed a school of fish.

*

Raymond had picked the spot: a line of orange-and-white traffic drums ending near a slight bend in the highway as it curved away from the city. If Jayten could gain the far side of the lane, the car would have to turn right, slamming into the concrete barricade at an acute angle.

He had watched with a twinge of nostalgia as the kid vaulted the waist-high barricade and ducked behind the drum.

He missed diving himself: The animal part of you screaming it was suicide as you willed your feet to leave the ground, then quieting in surrender; the rider’s life weighing against yours while you hung there, in the air; then the vibration of the crash washing over you, and filling you with visceral affirmation.

Your life matters.

You are loved.

*

He had laughed at first. Jayten’s dive was pathetic, all height and no distance. Hopefully he slapped down well enough to cushion his landing. The vehicle would veer left slightly, and wholly avoid him.

*

He keeps expecting that in his memory.

But every time, it’s a small, sad thump—followed by a screech.

*

When Raymond looked up from Jayten’s body, he saw her, standing at the open left-front door. Her hand moved to her mouth, then to a heart-shaped pendant hanging from her neck. She seemed to deflate as she touched it, her shoulders sagging with acceptance.

He made his way toward her slowly, passing under street lamp after street lamp, into and out of each makeshift spotlight. It took nearly two minutes to reach the end of the trail of smeared blood and rubber, where she looked back at the pulped remains that had once been a living human being.

Stopping when he reached the car, he stared numbly at her for a few moments. She took no notice of him.

Until he spoke.

“Why was your life worth more than his?”

She looked at him, wet-eyed. “I’m so sorry,” she replied. “I never wanted this.”

“Your car didn’t even veer. Just a foot to the left…”

He stepped forward, and she bolted. By the time he reached her and grabbed her arm, she had already jumped to the other side of the barricade. She tore away, pulling his center of gravity off-kilter. 

Regaining his balance, he climbed up onto the barricade. “How can your life be worth so much more than his!”

She gave no answer, walking briskly away toward a crowded sidewalk. 

He dropped down to follow.

She turned to check his progress and then started to run.

A chase suited him just fine.

It would give him another chance to understand.

So, he ran after her for half a block. 

Both slowed as they reached the crowd waiting at the intersection.

She cried for help.

The crowd turned toward him, some of the men looking like they might intervene.

“She killed a kid,” Raymond said, taking out his phone and starting to film. He cautiously walked toward her, the streaming device splitting the crowd like a prow.

She also fumbled with her phone, swiping furiously.

Ignoring him.

“He was a special kid,” Raymond pressed. “I was teaching him how to make the system work for him. He was gonna be somebody.”

She stepped to the curb, looking expectantly down the street, at her escape: an empty car, making its way toward them. 

It couldn’t end like that. He put his phone away.

As the car arrived, he lunged and shoved her in its path.

At such a slow speed, it should have been a minor accident: It would brake hard; she’d only be hit with half a car length of travel or less. A concussion. A broken arm at most. 

Instead, it veered hard right—and plowed right into the crowd. The bumper took a few startled pedestrians to the ground, then rolled over them, crushing bones before coming to a stop.

After the push, she had to take a few long steps to get her feet under her. When she recovered, she found herself standing in the inner lane of eastbound traffic. 

The lights were bright inside the oncoming vehicle. 

The kids in the backseat had been playing some kind of game, clapping and then pressing their palms together, then clapping again. Obviously singing. 

Raymond watched from the sidewalk as the interior lights flashed red and knew that an alarm was blaring inside the vehicle—a split-second of surprise terror for the occupants before they were steered into oncoming traffic.

Nothing had come within fourteen feet of her.

She spun away from the crash to find herself facing a wailing crowd.

Then turned to the crash and was met with the sight of a young girl holding her broken arm, red strobe lighting a crying face.

“I never wanted this!” she raged. “I never wanted their money! I left them behind! Everything I’ve done, I’ve done on my own!”

It clicked.

“You kept the locket,” Raymond said.

That had to be it. Maybe there was a disavowed trust fund somewhere gathering dust between its ones and zeroes, but whenever something went horribly wrong, she still had that device signaling to the system that she was one of them, that she was still worth more than other people. Raymond knew how empowering that could be. It’s what he’d wanted for Jayten: the feeling of knowing with absolute certainty that someone out there was there to keep you safe—because you were worth it. 

Raymond looked into her eyes and smiled.

“Let’s find out how much daddy still loves you.”

She turned and ran.

*

She can’t be worth more than the ambulance that’s racing, Raymond knows, desperately toward the carnage they’ve left behind. He’d caught up with her easily after she fled him from the second accident. Now traffic is frozen in all directions, but he can see the cars slowly making room for the emergency vehicle, audibly closing in.

“You have to learn what choice you made when you put on that locket.” He walks her into the shadow of a free-standing bodega near the street.

She struggles against him. “I’m not the one killing people, you freak.” 

He holds on tight, pressing her against the wall.

Flashing red light reflects on a car stopped in front of them.

He takes a deep breath—then runs them forward.

A little early, but he holds steady; there still won’t be enough time to brake. 

She doesn’t struggle as the ambulance bears down on them.

Just rips off the locket.

Stunned, he lets go.

She pushes away from him, stumbling toward the bodega as he steps back into a stopped car. There will be room for the ambulance to miss, after all.

One of them, at least.

He braces himself, experiencing one last time that eternal moment when the scales are balanced, when his life is weighed. 

And as the sound of the crash washes over him, he falls to his knees, tears streaming in release, and curls up into a fetal position, waiting for the police to take him away.

Cradled in the loving arms of the system.