I wrote this story in 1996 and wouldn’t dream of submitting it anymore, except when invited to include a disclaimer like this. Of course, there’s something in it I like, or I wouldn’t dare to submit it at all. I still like its characters, its dialogue, and its economy. And, sadly, I’m still somewhat enamored of its greatest flaw: its tricky and unfair look-what-I-can-do manipulation of the reader. That love of “cleverness” — along with a need to tie everything neatly together and an embarrassing striving for significance, both of which this story exhibits in spades — was the main thing holding me back in my earliest stories. I’d like to think I’ve overcome such silliness in favor of depth and honesty and strangeness, but it continues to call to me.

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On days when the bus ran more than two minutes late, George LaPierre would run the half-mile to Landermeer Avenue, hail a taxi, heave his sweating bulk into the back seat and pray that the cabby would sense his urgency. He never said a word on these occasions, other than to give the address, for fear that the word would be the wrong one and jinx the entire enterprise.

If all went well — if the cabby knew the route, if his breakfast had settled well enough not to interfere with his run — George would arrive at the offices of Peterson and Ammerbaugh before Annie Reese had made her coffee. And he would make his own by her side — sugar, no creamer, just like her.

“Another day, I guess, Annie.”

“Sure is, George. Ready to have some fun?”

“Always ready, Annie. Let me at ‘em.”

Or something like that. And Annie would smile, indulging him yet again. She would take her coffee to her desk, and he would follow not too far behind, because he always liked to hear the sound of her computer booting up, of Annie’s day beginning.

Then he would run to the stairwell and look out the window and down the five floors to the street, and see the bus arriving late, and feel proud.

He would proceed to his own desk, on the other side of the building, as he did on every other day, and type other people’s words for eight hours or so, just as Annie would do, sharing the early shift with her, seven to three, both of them early risers. Throughout the day he would pass her station or she would pass his, they would exchange a glance and a smile and a couple of words at the drinking fountain, and George would at last go home, wishing he had glanced a little longer or said a little more, but mostly happy to have, at that distance, a friend.

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George scanned the playground as he walked past the school, not allowing himself to linger too long. He didn’t know exactly what to look for, but he looked all the same. Boys and girls playing on a sunny day. None over five, none over… How tall are five-year-olds? He’d never measured.

Girls and boys.

A little boy in overalls was climbing up the slide from underneath. Another boy was crying as the… monitor? teacher?… pushed him higher and higher in a swing, apparently oblivious to his wails. A fat little girl with red hair was pointing at the crying boy and laughing.

The playground was not far from his home and George walked by here often, often at this chaotic just-after-school, just-after-work time. The children would sometimes point at him and laugh, call him names, but today they were absorbed in their own activities and didn’t seem to notice him.

He continued past the playground and around the corner, not wanting to appear to be staring, or to upset anyone. This was his neighborhood, really, after all. Half, Cumberton, Landermeer, Main. There was usually someone on the porch of the stucco place, and sometimes one of them offered a friendly wave, even though he never quite dared to wave back. He had lived on Wilson Avenue for fourteen years. He belonged here as much as anyone.

When he came around the block again, the boy in the swing had apparently reached some kind of crisis, and the woman was finally trying to comfort him. Were all these kids waiting for parents who were late? He wondered how often the parents never arrived at all. He assumed it must happen sometimes.

Two girls were huddled close together away from the crowd, near the gate that was always left trustingly open, whispering and pointing back at the other children, close to where George was about to walk by. George thought this must be a secret conference, intentionally held out of hearing distance of the others, probably about one of the boys.

As George was about to walk quickly by again, one of the conferencing girls screamed and yelled, “I hate you, Patricia!” She pushed the other girl down onto the dirty ground and ran back toward the other children, most of whom were now gathered around the hysterical little boy at the swings. No one seemed to notice the new trauma near the fence: The woman in charge had not even looked up.

The face of the girl who had fallen was round and pretty, surrounded by a lot of rather limp blond hair, just like Annie’s. The resemblance made George catch his breath and stare for a moment. Then he rushed through the gate and helped her up. She was crying.

“It’s all right, Patricia. Come with me. You’ll be all right.”

He hurried the child out to the sidewalk and toward the corner. Sweat immediately began to accumulate above his eyebrows. He moved swiftly, holding the child by one arm in front of him, pushing her gently toward the corner, watching the oblivious children and the adult attending to their own worries. He saw with relief that he would not have to alarm anyone.

When they had turned the corner, George slowed down and allowed himself to look at Patricia’s face. Her crying had somehow stopped abruptly. The tears had been replaced with a look of expectancy, as if she were waiting for him to explain himself. But there was no accusation in her look, none of the fear he always feared.

“I’m going to take you home, is all,” he said. He knew he must look hideous to her, towering over her even as he knelt beside her to explain. “Is that okay? I’m a nice man, even though you don’t know me yet.”

This took a great effort. He expected it to be the hardest part of the whole thing. It would get easier.

The child continued to look at him questioningly.

“Oh!” he said. “I forgot to tell you that your mother asked me to pick you up. I know your mother, and she asked me to pick you up today after school, because she couldn’t make it. She’s sick.”

At this Patricia looked a little worried.

“Not real sick, just too sick to come.”

Patricia said, “What’s the matter with her?”

George said, “She has the flu.” They had reached the corner of Cumberton and Half. The words continued to rush into his head, all the expected explanations, the self-justifications, the ways to force her to do what he asked, and he knew he should use them, speak to this child and comfort her and explain and explain. But she was not afraid. George wondered if Patricia might even like him a little. He turned left as though expecting her to follow him, and she did.

They walked in silence for a few minutes. George marveled at the power of adulthood. He recognized his role as her one and only protector for the moment. It frightened and thrilled him to be walking down the street with this child who didn’t know who he was.

“You know my mom?”

“Yes. She’s told me all about you.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me how pretty you were. And how smart.”

They were silent again for a while and then Patricia asked him his name.

“I’m George,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“You already said it yourself, silly.” She laughed and then said, “It’s Laurie.”

“Laurie?”

“No, it’s Rosetta, really.” They were at the corner of Cumberton and Jennifer. She reached up and took his hand to cross the street.

“I mean Barbie,” she said, and this time she pulled on his arm and screamed with laughter. “Yes, I’m Barbie. Call me Barbie.”

She was teasing him. He felt his neck flush with pleasure and embarrassment as he said, “No, I think you’re Mary Eloise O’Shaughnessy.”

She screamed again and said, “No, you are.”

“You’re Beatrice Angelina Delmonico.”

“No, you are!”

She was all the girls in the world. All the little girls who had ever laughed at him heavily running to catch the bus or hail a cab, all the girls who had pulled up close to their mothers’ legs when he tried to say hello in passing, when his ugly body had gotten too close to theirs. She was all those little girls and boys who were supposed to hate him. But she was holding his hand. She was laughing.

“Do you have any kids?” she asked.

“No, I’m not married,” he said.

He looked at her and wondered which of her features she got from her father. He tried to imagine the little sharp nose on the face of a grown man, but couldn’t. He had sometimes thought it would be nice to have children of his own, but he always stopped short of imagining his fleshy features pasted onto a child. Once, for a tiny moment, he had allowed himself to imagine that the blue eyes that seemed so small and dull in his own puffy face might in fact be large and bright when transferred to a son or daughter, but he could never let a lie like that pass.

Patricia said, “Laurie is the girl who pushed me down. I hate her.”

“Why do you hate her?” George asked, really wondering what makes children hate.

“Because she pushed me down.”

“Oh.” George was surprised to realize that he found this quite a good reason.

They walked on in silence for a few moments. He was not sure, of course, but he felt that the short camaraderie they had had was already fading, that she was realizing that he was not a man to confide in, not a man who would understand a child’s life. He had brought some candy, a few peppermint patties getting soft in his pocket, but he couldn’t bring himself to offer them to her.

And as he thought of the candy, of bribing her for her friendship, he suddenly became aware of the warmth of her tiny hand in his. The more likely thought, that his own hand was grotesquely large and misshapen in comparison, flashed through his mind, but was replaced by a flooding consciousness of the softness of her skin, the vibrancy of blood passing through a little hand that made mud pies and printed block letters.

And then there was the smell of a child. He had not allowed it in until now, but suddenly it was powerfully sweet, the warm smell of clean bedclothes, mingling with the grassy smell of the spring afternoon. Something to enjoy while it lasted. Something to take comfort in.

He thought of things he might say to make her continue to trust him, to keep her by his side. There were so many things he could have done to make it easier. But it meant so much more this way. He enfolded her hand more deeply into his own skin.

“Ow,” she said, whining and laughing a little. “Not so hard.”

But a car was coming and he worried that she might run out in front of it. He understood his responsibility, knew that she could be killed if he didn’t take good care of her. So he held her hand still more firmly. He wondered if the driver of the car would think something was wrong.

This time as he squeezed her hand she let out a yelp of real pain. He immediately realized his mistake and let go, but it was too late. He had frightened her. She had sensed something in him.

They were approaching Sullivan Street, only a block away now. She pulled away and stopped walking. She stood still a few feet away from him, within his grasp if he should decide to reach out to her. She looked as though she might cry but couldn’t decide if that was the best course of action. George felt her power over him and knew she was unaware of it herself. He waited for her decision.

At last she said, “You don’t really know my mommy.” And then a look of terror filled her face, a blankness, draining it of its prettiness. And she started to run. Out into the street that was now empty of cars, running as fast as she could to the other side.

After a moment of shock, in which he almost succumbed to his failure but managed to find the energy to fight it, George, too, started to run, immediately aware that he was at his ugliest and most absurd when trying to move quickly, but equally aware that he had no choice. He followed the little girl as she silently ran toward number seventeen and caught up with her just as she started banging on the door.

He grabbed her hands to make her stop and knelt beside her on the small porch. He was about to tell her he was sorry for thinking such thoughts about her, for desiring her in that way, for holding her too tightly. He wanted her forgiveness and her friendship, to feel her softly asleep in his lap, to take her away and raise her into a fine young woman, to learn from her about love and goodness, to share a cup of coffee now and then.

But before he could say it, before he summoned the courage for even one word, the door opened and Annie stood there smiling in her bathrobe and slippers. Her hair looked unwashed and her face was pale, but her attractiveness somehow shone through anyway, maybe even stronger than before. She was in her home.

Patricia threw herself against her mother and hugged her leg, looking up at George accusingly. But Annie continued to smile and said, “Oh, don’t you put on an act with me, young lady.”

George was short of breath from his run. He smiled as he tried to gain control of it.

Annie looked at him and said, “She likes to put on an act.” She sounded stuffed up. “Didn’t Mrs. Pierce tell you it was okay to go with George? George is my friend from work.”

Patricia put on a defiant pout, probably to hide her embarrassment, George thought.

“Tell George thank you for walking you home.” Patricia hesitated for a moment, then raced away into the next room and out of sight.

There was an awkward moment of silence. George’s breathing refused to return to normal.

“Sorry about that, George,” Annie said. “Thank you for picking her up. I know she can be a handful.”

George could think of nothing to say.

“Would you like to come in? I’ve got a lot of tea made.”

“No.” Why was she trying to keep him there? He wanted to tell her that he would never harm a child, had never even been close to a child for so long before, but he knew it would do no good. She could see who he was.

“I was so glad when you said you’d do this favor for me,” Annie said. She was holding the door open with one hand and holding her bathrobe against her chest with the other. “We never spend more than two minutes together. I felt a little forward asking you, really.”

“I’m sorry,” George said.

Annie laughed and said, no, it wasn’t his fault, it was hers. She had only been divorced a year, wasn’t sure what was what. How to ask for a favor, how to talk to a man in the morning.

George turned and began to walk away.

Annie said, “Is something wrong, George? Did Patricia do something?”

George stopped and said, “No. Nothing. I’m sorry. I’ll go.”

“You’re sure you won’t come in for a minute?”

“No. Thank you.”

“Well,” she said. “Okay. I should be better by tomorrow, I hope. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“No,” he said quickly. “I won’t be there. I won’t be back.” He didn’t know why he said that, didn’t mean to really, but now he had.

“Oh,” Annie said, surprised. “You mean at all?”

“Yes, at all.” He had the feeling of breaking through into a place he had never gone, never wanted to go, but that had always been there waiting for him, begging him to enter. Now he was there.

Annie seemed to have nothing else to say.

He turned again and walked away from her. He walked away from Patricia and Annie and their eyes that were always on him, seeing who he was. He walked quickly, not running, not sure where he was walking to, thinking how full the world was of things he didn’t want.

How full of things he wanted, but would never want to have.