Cannon In Ursa Major

We were fifth graders
romping home from school
on a perfect September day
when we stopped
at Phelans’ house with
Paul and Michael
their eldest boys
two of eight children
named for saints.
Mrs. Phelan
(St. Catherine, I believe)
announced
that the family car
had been stolen
an hour before our arrival
and the police
come and gone
were statewide looking
for two daring perpetrators
who made off
with the failing
Ford Galaxy
muted gold
crumbs on vinyl seats.
Wildly excited by this
improbable disturbance
in Dublin’s
coveted solace
we burst into the yard
eager for clues.
Instantly we caught sight
of car tracks
in grass
in the backyard
and a broken rope
frayed at one end
limply connected
to the house
at the other.
St. Paul shouted,
“They must have cut
the clothesline before
they took the car!”
With Sherlock Holmes' tenacity
we followed the car-prints
as they led down
a sloping lawn toward
the overgrown meadow
at the far edge of the lot.
Without a word
we were off
sprinting
intent on
catching crooks
who had the misfortune
of driving a stolen car
into brambles
which would be
no smart get-away.
Our hopes for a speedy arrest
were soon dashed
so too our quest for reward
when the tracks
were lost and the car
undiscovered,
sleuths thwarted
in making headlines.
“Look!” yelled St. Michael.
“That way!” chimed St. Mary.
They spotted our egregious error:
we had been too hasty.
The car had not
continued straight;
its tracks made a slippery
wheel-spinning arc
through the yard.
It had not merely rolled
through a meadow
the victim of careless
gear engagement
mere neutrality
it had peeled out
of the drive
willfully;
it had raced across the lawn
ripped down the clothesline
fish-tailed in panic
around blind bushes
and scrub trees
(the only witnesses)
and zoomed back
up the drive
burning rubber
due west toward
freedom.
There was a jealous silence:
we all wanted to fish-tail.

Later
the bad guys would be caught
near Vermont
two fugitives with a gun
(a hand-cannon, as dad called it)
the car returned
no worse
though surely charmed
in our eyes.
For days and days
we’d sit in that parked
car and recall
dashing youth
hunting for clues
just out of reach
as a police car
lights ablaze
sirens calling
chases two young men
fleeing across
tempestuous stars
shooting comets
laughing
fish-tailing
in a stolen Galaxy.

©Bill Gnade 1998/2006 - All Rights Reserved.