An Exercise in Time, part 2

"Clark's hood whipped back and forth in the wind, sounding like the standard of a ship raised high into the sky and crackling under the force of the zephyr that buffeted it." 
Carson Witte, An Exercise in Time


Clark was yelling at that  point, trying to impress upon us all the futility and utter pointlessness of standing out here in the gale to look at a pickup truck that didn't work. I only caught snippets of what he was saying, because the wind was so loud. "This is pointless" ... "don't care" ... "go cry in a" ... "home" ... "dead just like Tucker". And so I got the general jist of the point he was trying to make. 


Watching that hood being tossed about brought me back to an old memory, of me and Tucker as young boys in the swimming pool with our dads, being tossed up in the  air and caught by strong arms coming back down again. We were laughing so hard we could well have passed out for lack of air. And then I remembered the time when Tucker and I played a prank on Mrs. Judy, his crabby nextdoor neighbor. We laughed so hard that by the time we were done, she had already finished being mad at us for the prank and was now grumping at us to get off her lawn. And in turn I remembered the soccer field where Tucker and I scored the greatest goal ever to grace the Midwest - a textbook corner kick to a perfect header by me, which bounced off the crossbar and Tucker finished it off with a diving header. We ran all over the field doing victory dances - airplanes, shoe shines, eagles, cartwheels, everything. 
And now, I remember that Tucker is dead.


The hood went back and forth and back and forth, each time cracking like a lion tamer's whip as it was brought to a screeching halt and pulled back again. Each time it broke the sound barrier, dust flew off the tip in little showers, dust that must have been accumulated over centuries in Clark's dresser. It floated gently  down to the ground, where it was indistinguishable amongst all the other dirt and debris that littered the road.