Streetlights

Hitchhiker ’ s Nightmare

Stephen Benz

It’ s the hitchhiker ’ s worst nightmare: waiting on the shoulder for a ride when the Law comes skidding. Geta move onpal, your kindain ’ twantedhere. So on you go, trudging toward the outskirts. But the cop comes back before you get a mile down the road. Guessyou didn ’ tgetthe message, pal. You hardofhearing orjustthickin the head? If it’ s one thing you ’ ve learned, there ’ s nothing a hitcher can do when the Law wants to bust your ass. Next thing you know you ’ re spread-eagled against the cold metal of the cruiser, teeth smashed into the hood. One swift kick sends you down into a snow-filled ditch.

Middle of the night and you ’ re still walking the lost highway, too cold to bed down. Stupor and chill, stupor and chill— you feel it in brain and bones. When headlamps crop up, you crouch in tallgrass, you slink behind signposts. Night owls watch from darkened trees. But in Hassle County you can only get so far. You know what’ s coming over the horizon: Can ’t evade it, pal, can ’t dodge it, can ’t get away, not this time, not ever. Sure enough, here ’ s the wailing siren, the spinning blue and red lights, the highway patrol on the prowl for someone answering your description. The searchlight flares, and he ’ s got you dead to rights.

The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

Streetlights

Mary Anna Scenga Kruch

My sister Linda had the run of the neighborhood in Detroit -- could come skipping home at twilight after games of freeze tag or red-light green light with friends across Shoemaker or French Road. No rush. She knew every crack in the sidewalk every crack in the road so streetlights meant nothing to her.

But suburbia was all new concrete and brick and the kids --- forget the kids who were all pipsqueaks hopscotching and jump roping to stupid songs like Bubblegum bubblegum in a dish How manypieces doyou wish? Heck, they ’d miss at three jumps when she knew she could have made ten but would not have minded if they asked her to hold the rope or join in. But they never did.

She was getting used to staying solo indoors when her old Detroit neighbors were set to visit so she was up early thinking about street games waiting on the porch a good three hours her eyes boring down the street like a tunnel staring down the rails for a train. Finally, she checked with her mom who was only slightly apologetic: Oh, that’ s right. Mrs. S . calledto say “Nottoday.

The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism