The blue binder on our kitchen table still has the grocery list from last Tuesday tucked right inside the front cover, written in Arthur’s shaky, looping hand. Arthur never did learn how to write straight across unlined paper. He always insisted on using whatever scrap was closest, usually an old bank envelope or the back of a junk mail flyer. When we headed down to the square that morning, the sky was that pale, washed-out blue that usually means the wind is going to kick up off the flats by noon.
We had to pick up a new washer for the kitchen faucet and some heavy twine for the tomato stakes out back. Arthur insisted on driving the Buick even though the bus goes right past the hardware store every forty minutes. He likes to pretend we are twenty-two again and still own the world, which is funny considering he has to use the cane with the rubber tip so he does not slip on the gravel. We parked right in front of Miller’s Feed and Seed, just like we have done every Tuesday for the past forty years.
When we came back out onto the sidewalk carrying our little brown paper bag, the sun was hitting the brick storefronts just right, making everything look a little sharper than it had an hour before. That was when I saw him standing by the rear fender of our car with his little black leather book flipped open.
He had that stiff, ramrod posture they must teach them at the academy down in Lincoln, shoulders squared off like he was expecting an inspection from the governor.
Arthur stopped dead in his tracks, his sensible walking shoes squeaking slightly on the hot concrete. He looked at the uniform, then down at the yellow slip of paper fluttering in the officer’s hand. His eyes got that particular crinkle at the corners that always meant he was up to something foolish. I reached out to touch his sleeve, but he was already moving toward the back of the Buick before I could get my fingers around the wool of his jacket.
“Come on man,” Arthur said, leaning his weight into his cane with a little theatrical sigh. “How about giving a senior citizen a break?”
The young man did not even look up from his little black book. He had a pencil behind his ear and a tight line to his jaw that looked like he had been sucking on a sour lemon since breakfast.
He just kept licking the tip of his thumb and scribbling down our license plate number with an angry scratch that you could hear over the traffic on Commerce Street.
“State law requires twelve inches from the curb,” the officer said, his voice flat and bored like he was reading a grocery list to a deaf mule. “You’re sitting at eight.”
Arthur didn’t skip a beat. He leaned in a little closer, squinting at the man’s name tag which read Henderson in crooked plastic letters. “Eight inches is plenty of room for a funeral procession, son. Unless you’re planning on parking a combine through here later.”
Officer Henderson’s pencil stopped moving. He didn’t turn around, but his neck went stiff as a poker. I could see the muscle jumping right beneath his ear where the short hairs met his collar. Arthur looked back at me with a grin that showed his bottom teeth just a little crooked, the way they have been since he took a line drive to the jaw back in nineteen-seventy-two.
“Arthur, leave the boy alone,” I said, though I didn’t mean it with any real weight. My feet were already starting to ache in my good walking shoes, and the sun was baking the top of my head right through my straw hat.
“I’m just trying to have a conversation, Clara,” Arthur said, turning back to the officer with that innocent look he puts on whenever he’s about to cost us twenty dollars we hadn’t budgeted for. “A young fella like this must get tired just standing here watching all the dust blow down Main Street.”
“Sir, I am performing an official duty,” Henderson muttered, pressing down so hard on the carbon paper that the second sheet made a sharp ripping sound.
“Well, you’re doing a bang-up job of it,” Arthur said, loud enough for Mrs. Gable to hear clear across the street from the dry goods window. “Real hero work. Saving the county from eight inches of clearance.”
That was when Henderson finished the first ticket, tore it off with a sharp snap of his wrist, and tucked it neatly beneath our wiper blade. He didn’t look at us. He just licked his thumb again, flipped the page to a clean sheet, and started writing something new with long, jagged strokes.
“He’s a regular bulldog, isn’t he Clara?” Arthur whispered, loud enough to rattle the glass in the bakery window. “Just a regular little bulldog guarding his bone.”
“A butthead,” I said before I even realized the word had come out of my mouth. Sometimes retirement makes you forget your manners because you spend so much time talking only to each other and the dog.
Henderson stopped his pencil mid-stroke. He turned his head slowly, his face going dark around the edges like a bruised peach. He glared right at me, his eyes small and hard behind his wire-rimmed glasses. Without saying a single word, he began writing a second ticket, his hand moving so fast the graphite practically hissed against the yellow paper.
“Worn tread on the front left,” Henderson snapped, his voice tight with something very close to real fury. “That’s another fifty dollars for unsafe equipment.”
Arthur threw his head back and let out a dry, rattling laugh that always comes on when he finds something genuinely ridiculous. “Look at that, Clara! He found our tires. I bet he checks under beds for dust bunnies when he’s off duty too.”
“A real jerk,” I said, crossing my arms over my cardigan because the wind was starting to carry that cool edge from the river. “Just a regular jerk with a badge and a pencil.”
Henderson finished the second ticket, jammed it under the wiper right on top of the first one, and didn’t even wait for us to move. He took two steps back, licked his thumb once more with a look of pure, unadulterated venom, and started a third page. The sun was right overhead now, beating down on the blacktop until the tar smelled like warm licorice and old grease.
People were starting to slow down as they walked past the hardware store, pretending to look at the garden hoses in the window while they watched the three of us standing by the rear bumper of our old Buick. Mrs. Gable stayed by the bakery door with her apron clutched in her hands, her mouth hanging open just enough to let you know she was taking notes for the afternoon card club.
“You know, Arthur,” I said, leaning against his shoulder because my left knee was starting to give that dull throb it always does when I stand too long on concrete. “We’re going to be eating oatmeal for a month if he keeps this up.”
“Let him write,” Arthur muttered, his voice dropping into that stubborn gear he used to use when the bank manager told him the tractor loan wasn’t coming through. “A man’s got to have a hobby. Looks to me like Henderson found his.”
Henderson didn’t look up once during the next five minutes. He just kept scribbling, tearing off yellow slips, and layering them under the wiper until there was a little fan of bright neon paper fluttering in the breeze off the square. Every time he finished one, he started another, his face getting redder and his jaw set tighter until he looked like he might actually burst a blood vessel right there beside our front tire.
We stood there and watched him do it, neither of us moving an inch. It was quiet except for the scratch of his pencil and the distant rattling of the grain elevator down by the tracks. I don’t know why we didn’t just walk away. I suppose when you get to be our age, you realize that most things people get worked up about don’t amount to a hill of beans anyway, and sometimes watching a grown man lose his temper over an old couple on Main Street is the most entertaining thing that’s happened in town since the grain dryer caught fire back in ninety-eight.
Finally, Henderson reached the end of his third book or his patience, whichever came first. He ripped the last ticket off with a vicious jerk, slammed it down right on top of the messy pile on our windshield, and sneered at us with his upper lip curled back like an old hound dog.
“Have a nice afternoon,” he spat, turning on his heel so fast his holster creaked in the quiet air. He walked away down toward the depot without looking back once, his boots hitting the pavement with a heavy, rhythmic thud that sounded like a small parade going off in the wrong direction.
Arthur watched him go until he turned the corner by the feed store. Then he looked down at the windshield, which was covered in little yellow flags snapping in the midday wind like laundry on a line. He reached out with the rubber tip of his cane and tapped the glass once, twice, right where the papers were piled.
Just then, the yellow town bus came wheezing around the corner by the Methodist church, its old diesel engine coughing out a cloud of blue smoke that smelled just like the Buick’s exhaust on a cold January morning. The driver hit the brakes with a long, metallic screech, and the side door swung open with its familiar pneumatic hiss.
“Come on, Clara,” Arthur said, taking my elbow with a hand that felt dry and warm through my sleeve. “Our ride’s here.”
We climbed up the two high steps into the cool, dark interior of the bus, Henderson’s tickets still fluttering behind us on the glass like a handful of yellow dandelions caught in a gale. The driver didn’t say anything as we dropped our four quarters into the iron box, just pulled the gearshift down with a heavy clank and pulled back out into the middle of the street. As we rattled past the corner, I looked back through the dirty rear window and saw the little pile of yellow paper still sitting there on the Buick, catching the sun every time the wind shifted. Arthur reached over and took my hand in his, his fingers dry and rough against my palm, and we didn’t say a word all the way home.
