Axis

Nobody seemed to notice the sun glare shooting off the chrome trim of the station wagon’s windshield. Not Mom, not my brother. Certainly not Jerry. The glare washed us away while we stared in disbelief as Mark, our next door neighbor and my oldest brother’s best friend, stumbled out of his house in a full blown asthma attack. His mother held him up with all her strength and led him to the passenger side door of their blue, eighty-something Chevy Caprice. Suppressing her panic, she pried open the door and guided him in head first, then turned him upside down. As a twelve year old boy, it was hard to understand why his head needed to be on the floorboards. This inversion, coupled with Mark’s helpless gasps for air as their car drove away toward St. Barnabas hospital, left a hole in me.