Retribution by Mike Ramon
Retribution
Mike Ramon
© 2014 M. Ramon
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1
The first thing that Paul noticed was that the park was curiously empty for a summer Sunday afternoon. He had thought the park would be filled with kids and their parents enjoying the day. Instead he found the park empty; the swings looked abandoned, the slide looked forlorn. Sam, on the other hand, thought it was great. To Samantha, an empty park just meant that there was more room for her to run around without bumping into anybody.
Paul sat on a bench and read the opening story in a collection of sci-fi short stories that he had bought from Deb’s Used Books over in Bloomsdale. He had always liked that little book store, but he didn’t know how much longer Deb Jacobsen would be able to keep it open in the age of Amazon and e-books.
He read while Sam climbed over the jungle gym, her hair flailing in the light breeze as she flitted here and there. Even without any other kids to play with, she seemed to have a great time, her laughter filling the warm afternoon air. She slid down the big red slide three times in a row, squealing with delight as she picked up speed near the bottom. In truth the red slide had always worried Paul; he thought that kids came sliding off the bottom a bit too quick, but his five year-old daughter loved it.
When Sam moved to the monkey bars he put the book down on the bench and watched as she tried to cross from one end of the bars to the other. She made it halfway across before she lost her grip and fell to the ground. She stood up quickly and wiped the dirt from the knees of her pants, staring up at the bars above her.
“Almost made it,” Paul said as he stood up. “I was always terrible on the monkey bars.”
He walked over to where she stood, leaned down and gave her a kiss on the top of her head.
“You all right, little monkey?” he asked.
Sam laughed.
“If I was a monkey I would have a tail,” she said.
She bent her upper body around so that she could see her backside.
“Nope, no tail,” she said with a giggle.
“Of course you don’t have a tail,” Paul said. “We had the doctor remove it before we brought you home from the hospital.”
She gave him a look that he was familiar with, a look that said, Dad, you’re crazy.
“Will you push me on the swings, Daddy?” she asked.
“Sure thing, chicken wing.”
Paul followed his daughter over to the swings, and she climbed up on one of them as he moved behind her.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
“Mm-hmm,” she sounded, nodding her head vigorously.
Paul placed both of his hand in the small of her back (right where he tail used to be, he thought to himself with an inner smile) and pushed her forward. He stepped out of the way as gravity brought her back, and then gave her another push. After a few more pushes, after she had built up a little steam, he stopped pushing.
“Try to keep yourself going,” he said.
Sam still had trouble swinging herself, and it was a source of frustration for a girl who liked to think that she could do anything.
“Remember to bring your legs in when you’re coming back, and to kick them out as you start to go forward.”
At first she struggled to follow his instructions, and she started to lose momentum. Then she fell into the rhythm of it, and she was successfully swinging under her own power for the first time in her young life.
“I’m doing it, Daddy! I’m swinging!”
Paul laughed as he watched her.
“I see, darling. You’re doing great.”
She continued swinging, her face lit up with happiness at what to her must have seemed a terrific triumph. Paul was happy for her.
Later, while Sam was still swinging back and forth madly, the day started to grow dark as clouds rolled in from the west. Paul could smell rain in the air.
“I think we should get going, honey,” he told his daughter.
“Just a little while longer, Daddy.”
“It’s gonna rain soon, and your mom’s not going to like me keeping you out while it’s pouring.”
“Just five more minutes. Please?”
Paul took another look at the darkening sky.
“Just five minutes, and then we go.”
Sam squealed with delight.
Paul’s cell buzzed in his pocket. It was the buzz he got whenever he received a text. He took it out and looked at the message. It was from Sarah, his wife.
Get a gallon of milk on ur way home.
Paul put the phone back in his pocket. He looked across the street, at the Quick Shop. Two letters had fallen off the sign, so that it read Q ick S op. A gallon of milk would cost him a dollar more at the convenience store than he would have to pay at the grocery store two blocks away from his house. On the other hand, the parking lot of the store near his house was a bitch; it seemed to take him forever to find a spot to park whenever he went there. So it came down to this: save a dollar, or save the time and frustration of having to find a parking spot. The choice was an easy one.
When Sam’s five minute reprieve was up, and in spite of her protests that it had only been two minutes and not five, Paul told her that it was time to head home. She made a face, but got down from the swing. As they headed to the car Paul picked his book up from the bench where he had left it. They walked together to the small parking lot on the east side of the park.
Two spots over from the spot where Paul had parked his old Subaru there was a dark blue 90’s era Ford Taurus. The hood was popped, and a man was peering under it with a confused look on his face. Paul felt sorry for the guy; if the Taurus had broken down on him he was going to get caught out in the rain.
“Before we leave we’re gonna have to run across the street and get some milk for Mommy,” Paul said as he opened the driver’s side door of the Subaru and tossed his book onto the seat.
Sam shook her head.
“Yes. Mom says we need milk.”
“But Dad, couldn’t I swing just a little longer while you get the milk?”
“It’ll just take me a minute, Sam. You’ll only get to swing back and forth like five times.”
She smiled.
“Five times is a lot of times,” she said. “Please, please, pleaaaase?”
She pouted out her lower lip, the cute way she had of showing that she would be sad if you told her no.
“Oh, how could I resist that lip? All right. But if it starts raining while I’m across the street, I want you to get in the car. Deal?”
“Deal.”
She took his hand and shook it, a serious look on her face letting him know that her word was her bond.
As she turned away Paul had an urge to tell her to wait one second so that he could plant a kiss on one rosy check. Instead he let her go. He turned away from the park and headed for the Quick Shop, passing the man who was still trying to puzzle out what was wrong under the hood of his Taurus.
“Better call for a tow truck if you down want to get caught in a downpour,” Paul said as he passed the man.
The man looked up at him briefly.
“With my luck, the tow truck would blow a tire on the way out here,” he said.
The man went back to inspecting the engine compartment of his car as Paul crossed the street and slipped into the Quick Shop. He picked
There was a line of three people in front of Paul, and as luck would have it (and didn’t people only think of luck when it was bad?), the lady at the front of the line thought she had hit the winning numbers on a lotto ticket she had bought a few days before. The olive-skinned man behind the counter scanned the ticket three times, and each time the machine said that the ticket was a loser. The woman wasn’t satisfied with this.
A crackle of thunder boomed, and Paul turned to see what was happening outside. The rain had started coming down; it wasn’t coming down too hard yet, but he thought it would start to before long. From where he stood in line he couldn’t see the parking lot across the street, but he could see most of the park itself, including the swings. Sam was nowhere to be seen.
Good girl, he thought. You did like I told you and got out of the rain.
The woman with the lotto ticket finally gave up the fight, leaving the line and walking out of the store while calling back to the cashier that she was going to report him to the authorities for lotto fraud, which was a charge that Paul wasn’t sure existed. The line moved quickly then, and when Paul was paying for the milk he threw in a package of Skittles for Sam. She had never liked chocolate much; she preferred fruity candies, and Skittles were her favorite.
After paying for his purchases (and waving away the receipt), Paul had time to wish that he was wearing a jacket with a hood before he stepped out of the