With Her Broken Arm

With Her Broken Arm The girl in the General Dollar Store pulls her toddler thru the toy section; runs her thin fingers thru his fine blond hair. Two circles of black, like tire skid marks, rim her bloodshot eyes. "Was anyone else hurt?" the clerk asks tentatively. "Yes," she mumbles, shaking her head and biting her lower lip, "It was a bad wreck, real bad." The words drop to tlie floor and roll under the counter— bruised pennies no human can retrieve. No others follow. Trinkets paid for, they leave, a furtive look following them into the street. "It weren't no accident that made her such— it's that damn Jimmy Payne that's wrecked her life. A man like that's too mean to have a wife," she says, mosdy to herself, and heads down the Close Out aisle with her duster her head wobbling forth and back and forth, like a slowly spinning coin about to fall silent. —Bob Henry Baber 70 ...