Tuesday, October 02, 2007

One Day The Crossing Guard Just Hung Up Her Orange Vest Day!

“I’m a fraud!” she screams at her ‘long-time roommate.’

“Thirty years without a fatality,” her long-time roommate says back.

“What do I know about getting kids across streets?” she says, packing her bag. “I’m going through the motions out there. There’s a stoplight that’s handling everything. All I do is obey the light like a goddamn lab rat. The light’s red, I hold up my palm. The light’s green, I start waving my arms like a goddamn idiot.”

“You make them feel safe,” her roommate says.

“I fool them into feeling safe. There’s no bigger danger than that. I’m out.”

Her roommate walks behind her and wraps her arms around the crossing guard.

“What will you do?” the roommate asks.

“I’m gonna get myself across the street for once,” the crossing guard says. She then checks the chamber of a handgun and stuffs it in her duffel bag. The roommate lets go.

“A score?” the roommate says. “You can’t even stand up for the cycle of a traffic light without resting in a beach chair again.”

“That’s all the time I need,” the crossing guard says. “The Brink’s truck is required to obey the speed limit and stop on the yellows. I hit it at a light and I have a full 45 second window.”

“You sure about this?” the roommate asks.

“I spent 30 years doing nothing but watching lights change. This is locked down.”

“We would have the money to put Mom in a home,” the roommate says. They both look at the rooommate’s mom, who is asleep in a big chair in the living room, not knowing that her daughter and her daughter's girlfriend are about to go back into a life of violent crime.

“We’d have the money to do whatever we want. But we gotta get to that intersection right now, today.”

The roommate gathers her knives into her socks and she and the former crossing guard go out to do what they do best: steal and kill.

Happy One Day The Crossing Guard Just Hung Up Her Orange Vest Day!