Kermit Flew
by Aaron Weltz
At first, all Kermit Brink knew was that he was flying—seemingly in slow motion. The sunbeams and shadows that dappled through the limbs of the oak, rather than flashing past in rapid staccato, crept by like days and nights. Suspended in the air alongside him and moving apace were sparkling bits of crystal, gleaming on and off in those same sunbeams. It was then he recalled the crash and realized that the crystal bits were in fact shards of windshield. The trunk of the oak, for its part, was growing closer, widening as he approached. It was clear that he would not miss it; being airborne he could not adjust course. And although he could not say why, he knew just as surely that he would not survive the impact.
So in this drawn-out manner, he flew.
He now recalled that his father was already dead. That seemed to Kermit to be a waste. So often he had dreamt of that very event, wishing for some moment of clarity when his father’s eyes would widen, a deep consuming guilt washing over his face as he came to grips with it all. Lashes with a belt (buckle out) expertly placed for concealment by hand-me-down overalls. That permanently odd angle of Kermit’s left forearm, the bone so poorly set by his mother in the barn by the light of an oil lamp. Cigar coals snuffed on the back of his shoulder, the marks of which still showed today. He’d fantasized all these things crashing home for his father, reduced to a teary-eyed, sobbing beggar of the deathbed forgiveness Kermit would delight in withholding.
But it was not to be. The steering column had skewered ol’ Pops straight through, and the only glimpse Kermit could catch as he launched from the car was his father’s bug-eyed disbelief, already frozen there for eternity.
Still, Kermit flew. And the oak neared.
And what of his own guilt? There was plenty of that to count, wasn’t there--apples falling near the tree and all. There had been years—sixteen of them now—of that broken lock inside of him never working quite right, the tumblers jarred and mis-fitting, never giving him any release from the tightly-wound mechanisms cranking up too high, to bursting strength. If only he’d unleashed that taut spring’s evil tension on ol’ Pops, things may have been different, some justice found. But the laws of fathers and sons are written in such a way that he never could. And flying now, he had to come to grips with it.
He thought briefly about his dog Beau, which he adored and who worshipped him, and who he’d often kicked—just because. But mostly he thought about the Peterson kid, who simply had the misfortune to be the smallest and youngest guy on the school bus. What evil broken mechanisms had Kermit created within him? And did he have a dog that he loved? By tomorrow the Peterson kid will hear about the crash, maybe even about Kermit’s brains slung high and low on a pin oak along Route 32. Would he be happy to hear it? Almost certainly.
Still, Kermit flew, seemingly in slow motion, amid sunbeams and shadows painfully unhurried in their flashing. How hard would it have been to be nicer to that Peterson kid? he asked himself. Easy enough, was the answer. Easy enough. But the laws of fathers and sons had not allowed it. And the oak neared.
Aaron Weltz lives with his family in Charlotte, NC, and crafts stories centered around his Appalachian roots. He can be reached at weltzam@gmail.com.