The Day They Came to America

This is going to be a bit of a stranger theme than before, but perhaps you will still enjoy it. The inspiration comes from the Circ song “Destroy She Said.” Not the whole thing, just the one line actually. Still, here it is.

It was Labor Day, the last day of summer – and what a gorgeous day it was. Dad was in the front yard, trimming the hedges; mom was in the kitchen, preparing hamburgers and salads of various kinds – I always went for the macaroni salad – and trying to keep Mallie entertained in her high-chair.

Mr. Sievers’ red Taurus drove by, and dad waved a gloved hand as he passed. Mr. Sievers lived just three houses down from us – in fact, it was his trimmers dad was using now. Mr. Sievers, I knew from Mr. Malkin, didn’t lend his tools to just anyone. But everyone in the neighborhood knew those trimmers would be returned before nightfall.

Speaking of Mr. Malkin, I could hear him cutting his grass next door, and I could catch sight of him every time he rounded the corner near our driveway. I could close my eyes and hear the brrrrrr of the mower fade, warble a little, begin to grow louder, then open my eyes just as the noise exploded from behind our garage and Mr. Malkin would come into view. After ten summers, it was just one of those things you became accustomed to.

Faintly, far down the road, another customary noise cut through the noise of the lawn mower: Pop! Goes the Weasel was jangling, but only every couple notes – the really loud, high ones – would actually make it through the din of the mower. It didn’t matter: I could fill in the other notes by memory. I felt a little old now, to be chasing after ice cream trucks, but I could imagine every kid in the neighborhood scampering to their parents for a dollar or two.

Soon, the truck was supplying all the notes as it rounded the turn down the road. It came slowly, not wanting to run over any kid who was perhaps a little over-eager. Dad paused and looked up, then back at the house with a smile. I’m sure he was remembering the days I would burst out of the door and come running to him. I could certainly remember the days of him scooping me up, carrying me the last yards to the road, bouncing me on his shoulder as he asked what I wanted, and reminding me not to tell mom when he gave me his.

Then I saw the kids; they streamed from front doors almost simultaneously, tearing across front yards and ducking through hedges and pounding around the little low wooden gates some of our neighbors had put in their yards.

The truck stopped at an angle so that in my line of sight it was just beyond Mr. Malkin’s yard. I thought I saw the driver: but something was wrong. I knew it was supposed to be Stephanie. She complained to me last week that it was the only job she could find, even though summer was over and she might only make two or three trips. But the person I thought I saw was a man.

Just then, Mr. Malkin’s mower roared from behind the garage. He stopped, watching the crowd of kids flocking to the side window. Dad paused to watch too, and it seemed the entire neighborhood waited as their children clamored for ice cream.

The truck went up in smoke and flames, and little bodies were ripped and thrown back the way they came in lifeless acrobatics. Windows shattered; cars were flipped over; Mr. Malkin disappeared in the smoke of the blast. My dad was screaming in the front yard; the shears had taken off his arm.

I tried to gasp, but I couldn’t breathe. The window in front of me was gone. Mr. Malkin’s mower blade was in my chest. The room tipped over, and as I gazed at the ceiling fan I heard my mother scream.



Why, you ask? The opening of the song says: "Like towers falling down/Like a bomb blast in your town." My mind began thinking about the explosiveness, the suddenness of bomb blasts. Originally, my thinking was tending toward someone watching her town get bombed in a war-time situation. But when I woke up this morning, the scene had shifted in my head into something much more sudden and unexpected -- more like what I envisioned when the words of the song first hit me. I think it's the thing that makes terrorism appealing to the terrorist, because it is so shocking that we can't fathom living in a place where such things occur. In order to not live in such a place, we conform to the terrorists' ideal for life, so they stop bombing us. Hopefully that shock and suddenness came through in this story. See you tomorrow.