matchbook

he runs fast, so fast that when a black Dodge Challenger with tinted windows and custom hubcaps comes barreling down 69^th Drive, when the driver blasts his horn over the pounding bass that rocks the whole street, she doesn’t stop to jog in place at the intersection, knees up high to keep momentum. She doesn’t turn onto Jewel. She keeps going. Straight. Takes her chances. This 30-something woman, her dark pony-tail drenched, her odd half smile, places one Nike in front of the other, left then right then left, a blur, bending, blending, as if she has one shoe one sock one foot at one ankle leading up to one long, sweaty leg, a living optical illusion. And when she crosses, when she steps off the curb and onto the asphalt, just resurfaced last month, when she leaves the others at the corner, waiting safely, patiently, under the thick shade of the massive oak —the mustached man in navy pinstripes, the stick-thin woman and her Burberry-collared dog, the three teens in basketball shorts and jerseys—they all inhale at once, taking one breath, holding it, holding it, holding. The pounding of their hearts, one muscle red and pulsing, their eyes wide, one deep pool of color. Their pink mouths open, screaming one scream, one huge, human cry, echoing the screech of slamming brakes, the angry thunder of metal snapping bone, slicing flesh, the sharp scent of burning rubber beneath an indifferent, senseless sky. They hold it. All. Today they hold it as one. And they carry it—and her. This running woman. This reckless soul who bet against the odds.