Robert Tries to Cross the Road

The night was moist… Bob sat upon the curb like a dead pigeon, his mind in another world as he became hypnotized by the rolling spinners of the macked out Mustangs and Civics rolling by. “What rich lives they must live, those mack daddy’s.” he thought to himself. His eyes looked off to nowhere as he waited for the light to change.

“I wish there were a place I could go in the world where people could understand me.” he thinks to himself as he starts moving across the road as the light finally changed. His time was short on this part of 77^th Street and he knew it. He would never win a race without the lower half of his body, but if he could just get across a damn road without the light turning red on him two thirds of the way there he would be a happy partal-man.

Bob lost the lower half of his body in a heinous farm accident during a school field trip to a farm. It was a brand new industrial roto tiller that took his lower body, so it was. After it took half of Bob away, the owner of the tiller, one Reginald Mawfrey, never used the tiller again for fear of evil spirits inhabiting said tiller.

Half way across the street, Bob dragged his legless partial-self as best he could with the short, tiny stumps where his arms used to be through the slime and dirt of 77^th street. Then the light turned red. “Get off the damn road, ya friggin stump!” a motorist in a Mazda RX8 said through the din of his three thousand dollar car stereo system.

“Give me a minute, please sir…” Bob said as he did his best to get away from the Mazda and it’s loud and angry master. He continued to struggle along the road, now beginning to worry about the very real possibility of being unnoticed and being run over. A partial-man lying on the road was not as easy to notice as a full man, for reasons that of course should be obvious.

Throughout his 10 years of being a partial-man, Bob had tried many devices to replace his missing bits, most importantly is his legs. Bob missed his legs so very much. When he was younger, Bob used to win every race because Bob used to be a fast runner and loved to run everywhere. “That boy is a runnin’ fool!” the elderly used to remark to each other as Bob would speed past the barber shop on Sunday mornings on his way to some innocent childish adventure. But then Bob met that roto tiller, he knew that he would never win another race again. Because he had no legs and people without legs can’t run.

Then came the invention of the motorized cart. Usually only old people and fat people and lazy people on workers compensation were allowed to use them, but Bob was able to get one. That motorized cart was very influential in the life of Bob, for two very specific reasons; 1: not only was he able to finally go fast again across sidewalks and wilderness trails with the wind in his hair again, finally bringing joy and happiness to his life again, but 2: it was also it was responsible for the loss of Bob’s arms in another tragic and heinous accident involving a telephone pole, an elderly woman, a telephone, and a really steep hill. After the accident and the loss of Bob’s arms, Bob would never use a motorized cart again. He hated even the sight of them in fact. Plus he would not have been able to steer the thing anyway, what with having no arms or legs and all.

Wheelchairs? Fuck that. The Steven Hawking 2000? No, Bob couldn’t afford such a sweet ride as that. Fate had dealt out wriggling on the ground for Bob and so that was how Bob moved from place to place. By wriggling on the ground back and forth, like a worm. Or, more accurately, like a man with no arms or legs.

Death came slowly for Bob when the car struck his pathetic, limbless stump of a body. The agony in his chest was sublime and rending throughout his entire remainder of his body.

Then, Bob died.