September 22nd, 1961
Dear Richard,
Happy Birthday. I know I said I'd come home this year for Christmas, but I don't think we're going to make it, unless something out of the blue happens. We're supposed to get a new boy in December. His parents are sending him to board with us, all the way from Maine. Zach's blind, and we need to get the house ready for him, learn Braille somehow, I don't even know. Stacy and Sam will help him feel welcome, I know. They're really such good kids. They've come so far in this last year. Frankie...well...we love Frankie.
If everything goes smooth, we might be able to take a day trip to come down for Hope's birthday on New Years. But it would just be a weekend at the most.
Did I tell you you're old? Because you are. Thirty two. God. You're so old.
Lee
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Kelly Rossi, October 30th, 1961, Salem, Oregon
3:33 pm
The radio is spewing out that song again. I'm already tired of it. Who wants to listen to a song about surfing?
What I wish was playing was another recap of the Series. Man. Man. That was something. Maris hit the shit out of that ball. Fuck. Sixty one home runs in one season? That man has balls all right. Makes me want to get my bat out and...
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A tricycle shoots out from a sidewalk, a little girl falls backwards and hits her head on the sidewalk, too shocked to start crying. But her trusty silver steed speeds into traffic, riderless, a blur, plastic rainbow streamers like banners erupting from the ends of the handlebars.
Kelly Fergal Rossi spins the wheel, and in his panic, sure he's going to run over a child, accidentally presses the accelerator hard to the floor. The car slams into a telephone pole with a resounding, reverberating crunch of metal and broken glass.
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Fuck. Fuck. I can feel the blood dripping down my forehead. I can't see. I can't think. I try to feel my legs, my arms. I can move my head side to side, so that's a good sign.
Fuck. Did I kill that kid? Fuck. Oh my god. I can't...fuck.
I push hard, hard against the door, somehow lifting the latch, my eyes seeing a blurry spider web of glass that once was my windshield.
I open the door.
I open the door.
I open the door.
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The door to my apartment in San Francisco, hearing my dad splashing water on his face in the bathroom.
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The door to Uncle Yuji's bedroom, rubbing my tired eyes, ready for some lunch after my nap.
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The door to my elementary school classroom, miserable, the teacher glaring at me from her desk.
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The door to the kitchen in my grandfather's house, hoping my aunts left me some coffee.
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The door to Lao Andy's store. I help him inside, and then go wait on the curb, the sound of sirens wailing. The man on the sidewalk, clutching his arm, screaming.
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The door to Sea Dorm, a shivering little red head on one side of me, a blank faced boy on the other.
YOU ARE READING
Under Lock and Key
Historical FictionIt's 1946, San Francisco. A year after the end of World War II. Kelly Rossi does something dumb. No surprise there. Just one of a million dumb things. But this one's a doozy. He's shipped north and east to barren Modoc County in California...
