Ace Rivers leaned into the wind as he walked. He knew if he stood up straight, he would be blown backwards, his arms flailing wildly like a broken windmill, until he either steadied himself or fell hard on his behind. It would hurt; he knew it would hurt. All of his bones hurt these days—even without a fall—as if they were on fire from within. He imagined the pain would be intense with only his khaki pants separating his tailbone from the concrete. Yet that was not the part that bothered him. It was the embarrassment. People running from every direction to help him up, to assist the frail old man, all of them talking loudly with exaggerated enunciation, assuming his hearing diminished or—worse—his mind.
At the moment, pitching forward, weaving between dozens on the crowded sidewalk, he felt invisible, the way old men are among the young and the firm. If he fell, he would appear in full color, the poor old man, a heap of bones and fabric, maybe a trickle of blood running from an ancient orifice. He knew that everyone under forty-five viewed being old as a permanent state, perhaps bad luck, perhaps a reflection of character. Intellectually they knew that they, too, would age, but in practice, they thought people came into this world old or young. If people actually became old it was a result of bad behavior, something the old person had brought upon himself, perhaps by not exercising enough, not eating organic foods, or not drinking enough mineral water. None of them could look at his bird-like bones and believe he had once been young, like them, younger even, an athlete, a bicyclist.
Ace turned on Wabash and headed south. A teenager on a skate- board swerved around him—swishhhhh—in a graceful S. A woman yelled, “Off the sidewalk!” Ace agreed. The kid should not be on the sidewalk; still, Ace liked the roaring sound of the wheels as well as the elegance of the kid’s maneuver. Ace turned slightly to watch the teenager, skinny and white with dyed black hair, like a movie chimney sweep, disappear behind him into the wall of people.
Ace had always liked wheels. From the time he was a toddler and given his first toy dump trunk, he had loved watching them spin, loved any vehicle that traveled by things beneath it going round and round and round. He could still recollect the taciturn feel of shoving his miniature trucks and cars through the dirt that bordered his backyard and alley, creating roads in the grime. He knew the names of all the trucks—tow, garbage, dump, flatbed– before he could pee straight into a toilet. He had received his first bicycle in 1936, when he was five years old. A red Ranger Ace. He had never seen anything so beautiful. He had learned to ride it in one day. The bike was where he earned his nickname. That night when he had returned at sunset, his knees and elbows scrapped and stinging from multiple falls— falls that felt good, proof of his triumphs—his father had looked up from the evening paper (evening, they had a morning and an evening then) and said, “Well, if it isn’t Ace?” The nickname had stuck. He became a bicycle messenger in Chicago before the war—swissshhhhh, cutting through the air, flying, up on curbs, down into gutters, between cars, flying, flying, flying.
He had been flying ever since he was five, anything on wheels, a bike in the city, a jeep in the army, and a series of cars—until last week when his children had taken away his keys.
His children. His car. His keys.
How was that possible? He stood still and braced himself against a sudden gust. These side streets that ran east and west off Michigan Av- enue were murder, like wind tunnels. He waited until the gust had passed and resumed his walk, still springy by any standards.
It had been a surprise, their offer to bring over pizza for dinner two Sundays ago. Usually one of them visited, once a week. He imagined they had worked it out, taking turns. He should have guessed something was up. Both on the same night when it wasn’t his birthday or a holiday.
His two children had returned to Chicago after college. Well, actually Jeff had never left. He had lived at home during college, gotten a job at the Trib, been laid off, tried his hand at novels—no good apparently with the imagination—and gone to freelancing and writing a blog. Ace couldn’t think of the word without remembering the movie, The Blob, a mess of a monster. Ace had taken Jeff to see it when he was what—eight? Ten? Jeff had covered his eyes and curled into the back of his theater seat, a terrified coil. Ace could still picture the bend of his little boy spine in the red-and- blue striped T-shirt. Lucky Jeff had never married. Who could support a family on the peanuts he must be earning on that silly blog? His daughter, Penny, was a hospital administrator, had two great kids, but his grandkids were teenagers now. He hardly saw them.
A few days after their Sunday visit, Ace had looked up Jeff’s blog— Jeff probably figured Ace was either too senile to remember he wrote a blog or figured him not capable of locating it. The title of his most recent entry was more or less what Ace would have expected: When is it Time to Take Away Your Parents’ Car Keys?
Despite the fact he was expecting some such foolery, he was seized with rage at the words. The end of his dignity, fodder for Jeff’s blob. What was the point of Jeff’s blog anyways? An advice column? Ace remembered when Jeff was little how carefully Marianne had followed all the advice in Dr. Spock’s baby and child guide, like it was some sort of Bible or Bill of Rights.
Maybe that’s how Jeff would make his mark? Become the Baby boomers version of Spock, giving advice to middle-aged and older children about how to care for their aging parents: When is it Time to Reverse Potty Training, Put Your Folks Back in Diapers? How do You Know When Your Parents Need to be Sent to a Home? What to do When Your Parents Can no Longer Handle their Finances.
Ace thought of how his old friend Hank would laugh at these thoughts. Hank was one of the few people who understood Ace’s humor perfectly. Ace laughed aloud and started to cough, that deep, dry hacking cough he had off and on for the last few years. He stopped walking, stood still, and waited for the cough to pass. Walking, coughing, and wind didn’t mix. He coughed so hard that a bit of pee squeezed from the tip of his penis. Shit. He didn’t think it was more than a drop, not enough to go beyond his boxers and appear on his outer pants. Boxers. He remembered how Jeff had worn briefs, laughed at his father’s “old-man” boxers. Now both Penny’s boys wore boxers. They called Jeff’s briefs “tighty whities.” Ace smiled.
What goes around comes around. He was sorry he wouldn’t be around to see those boys take away Penny’s keys. But who would take Jeff’s?
Ace was sobered by the memory that Hank was dead, had died six months ago. He hadn’t forgotten really, but given he had known Hank for over sixty years, it was not easy to dismiss the idea of telling him things. Over the last few years so many friends had died that he sometimes had a hard time remembering who was still kicking and who wasn’t, but he was surprised to find he had temporarily forgotten in which world Hank resided. The thought sobered Ace. He stopped coughing and continued walking.
Garnett Kilberg Cohen has published three collections of short stories, most recently Swarm to Glory. Her nonfiction has twice been awarded Notable Essay Citations from Best American Essays (2011 and 2015) and has appeared in such journals as Witness, The Rumpus, Black Warrior Review, The Antioch Review, and The Gettysburg Review. She has received many other awards, including a Special Mention from the Pushcart Prize, The Lawrence Foundation Prize from Michigan Quarterly Review, the Crazyhorse National Fiction Prize, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, and was honored as a celebrated author at the Chicago Public Library Carl Sand- burg dinner in the fall of 2016. She has spoken at conferences in Ireland, Australia, Iceland and the United States and given creative writing work- shops for many organizations. She has served as an editor on six different journals, and is currently is a co-editor at Punctuate, A Nonfiction Journal. A Full Professor at Columbia College Chicago, she currently spends her time teaching, writing, and traveling.