Dinky's Demise

Kelli Jae Baeli

They sat at the top of the hill, peering down the slope of pavement to the traffic light where cars and trucks swooshed by each other, perhaps too fast. The intersection was notoriously dangerous.
   Rainy and Dinky had frequently made wagers about how long it would take to witness a fender bender while they waited on the hill, slurping ice cream, or smoking stolen cigarettes.
   Emboldened and a little tipsy by the whiskey they had just enjoyed in the woods, Rainy said, "Let's ride our bikes through there and see if we can make it."
   Dinky stiffened with fear, but didn't dare let Rainy know. He would follow her into any danger, and often had. She looked at him, then. Challenging, mischief in her eyes. She was fearless and he wanted to be fearless. His eyes swept back to the slope, the traffic automated by the lights changing green yellow, red, and stopping to let the other side go. The cars were like mindless motorized metal ants.
   "You go first, and I'll be right behind you." Her grin widened, and she placed her foot on the pedal pumped once, then coasted toward the intersection, picking up speed.
   Dinky made himself follow without thinking, knowing he might chicken out if he didn't do it right away. It took only seconds for the bike to reach a perilous speed. He fought to control the handle bars above the bumping of the tires.
   Ahead of him, Rainy was looking left and right, anticipating when she would hit the intersection, and watching out for any truck that might squash her as she flew under the light. The light turned yellow, and she was through the intersection. Dinky zipped along right behind her, seeing the light go red just as he passed under it.
   An anxious Chevy slammed on its brakes and swerved to avoid the back fender of Dinky's bike. Safely though the intersection, the challenge now would be stopping. Another intersection loomed in front of them as they applied their brakes. Dinky smelled the burning of his tires as he continued to brake. A station wagon honked, and Dinky swerved around it, and felt himself veering too far toward the sidewalk.
   Ahead, Rainy had stopped her bike and turned to find Dinky. She was just in time to see him hit the curb and become airborne before crashing the front of his bike into a brick bank sign. He tumbled and fell limp in the grass, the back tire of his upside down bike spinning, the front wheel bent.
   She turned her bike around quickly and pumped over to him.
   He wasn't moving, and there was blood on his shirt and in his mouth. The liquor had made him sick again. Liquor always made him sick, but he drank it anyway, because he was a dork and would do whatever she told him to. "Wake up, Stupid."
   Rainy knew he had knocked himself out, so she picked his tiny body up in her arms, and carried him the mile or so to his house.
   She rang the bell and when his mother opened the door, she handed him to her. "Here, Dinky's fucked up again."
   His mother looked down at the blood on his shirt and mouth, and knew that he had been drinking again.
   "Oh, honey. . .Dinky. . .died. . ."
   "No. Please let me talk to him--"
   "Rainy, honey, he died. Dinky is dead." Her voice was flat and a little thick like she had a cold.
   His esophagus had been crushed when he hit the wall. He had been dead when she carried him to his mother's door, and dead when she handed him to his mother.
   Rainy hung up and stared at the phone for a long moment. Then she went into the kitchen and made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Two days later, she watched them bring the casket to the gravesite, and still she would not believe he was dead. When they began to throw dirt on the casket, she lunged at the shiny maroon box, screaming, "Dinky! Wake up! Get up!" She didn't want them to throw too much dirt on him before he had a chance to wake up and get out.
She was pulled away from the casket, and shrugged off the hands that reached to comfort her. Retreating to a spot yards away, she watched them cover him. She was there when they placed a nondescript marker into the fresh terra cotta dirt; like that which signifies a row of cabbage in a garden. She was there for the next three days, sitting beside him. Her other friends brought her liquor and cigarettes and pot and food, but she didn't eat the food.
She just stayed there next to Dinky's cabbage row marker and cried.

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