You Could Have Been A Hero

You Could Have Been A Hero

Janey heard it long before she saw anything.  She managed to pull her face away from the steaming latte long enough to scan the cafe’.  They followed to a ticking canvas bag left next to a pair of designer shoes of a well-dressed woman.  She sat with commendable posture as she sipped, Janey gawked, and the bag ticked.  

Two suited men competed at the counter for the longest possible named beverage.  A child with dark curls danced around her mother and friends, as they obliged her with token smiles.  A few others claimed single-tabled real estate while working on laptops. Others, armed with expensive beverages, took no notice.  Even the barista that jumped out from behind the counter to clean a few tables during the rush, ignored the bag along with some ugly smears left behind on the tables.

No one saw “designer shoes” get up, look straight ahead and leave without her ticking bag.  Janey heard the click-clack of her heels and the tic-tock of her bag. It echoed in her head as she thought of what this meant.  A drop of sweat found a clear ride on a wrinkle leading into her eye, as a clammy hand tried to clear her line of vision.  

Suddenly, Janey shot out of her seat, screamed, screamed again, and yelled for everyone to get out.  They stared, and she ran.  On the run out the door, her arms found the girl with curls and grabbed at her.

“Tell me again miss, why you started screaming, abducted a child, only to hang out in the parking lot?  Not much of a plan, if you ask me.” 

Janey thought he sounded like a typical cop, in a typical episode on any given series or movie.  He even had the coffee, belly, over-tired, seen-it-all, bored look.  She thought she’d be able to write his next lines, if only she cared enough.  

“I told you, officer, I heard the ticking of a bomb that the lady in those shoes left behind.  And why would somebody leave a bag anyway, if not to blow us all up?” 

“Uh, I don’t know, maybe she just forgot it, anyway, did you yell bomb to warn the others?”

“Yes, no, well, maybe.  I don’t actually remember.  I guess I didn’t, but I screamed for them to leave.  Just check the bag already for God’s sakes.”

“Bomb squad’s doing it right now.  Sit tight”

Twenty minutes later and the ingestion of something brown and liquid they were calling coffee, again typical cop scene, he returned.  

“Nothing more dangerous than a toothbrush was in there. Not even an alarm clock that you could blame it on.”

2

He looked genuinely sad which somehow made it even worse for Janey.  The pity in his eyes made her want to fold in on herself, never to emerge. 

“You’re one lucky person though.”  

Janey almost laughed at that, perhaps she did a little, but can’t quite be sure when she thinks back.

“The girl’s mom is not going to press charges.  She was shaken up of course but knows you didn’t take her far and wants to try and forget the whole thing. As for you, I think the opposite is in order. Take this card and call her.  She’s the best.”

“A shrink?” 

“Yes. Someone who can help you sort through this mess.  Listen, no one else heard a thing or saw anything unusual, well, nothing more than you screaming and losing your mind over someone well dressed who forgot her bag.”

That last statement sent a jolt through Janey as she thought of an, “ah, ha” moment.

“Okay, well, why would this classy-looking lady have an army-type, worn canvas bag?”

“Do you hear yourself?  Do you really want me to consider her a suspect because of her taste in fashion? Do yourself a favor, and call the number honey.”

As he reached for the door, he looked over a shoulder and said,

“You know, it’s almost too bad it ended this way.  You could have been a hero.”

The click-clack of those heels, the tick-tock of the bag, and the last words from the cop, all competed for space inside Janey.’s mind.  They bounced and pinged like something trapped in an old Nintendo game. She tossed the card into some filthy-looking garbage on the way out, only because it’s what the movie version of herself would have done.

That day was over two years and many sleepless nights ago.  In between the inability to get proper rest and wanting to stay in bed for the remainder of her life, she had lucid dreams.  They were always about that day at the cafe’.  She’s screaming and “Miss heels” is laughing, then the bomb blows up.  In her waking hours, Janey has perfected the fine art of denial.  She’s denied herself a structured life, denied herself a steady income, or a steady guy for that matter.   She floats on by in life, not committing to much.  Seems safer to Janey.

Time also ticked by for Janey, as she tried to adapt to the quiet chaos that was her life.  The bar she worked at during her nights, was her social life.  The part-time position at the book store, her passion.  She gravitated to the legalese and psychology books, dancing around the mental illness ones like they were a contagion. She knew she deserved happiness, a solid career, and the ability to forgive herself, she only wanted to do it in her own time.  And now was not the time to study law, nor the time to tell her parents about her dreams and mental instability.  She was understanding of it in others, just not herself.  Nothing to be ashamed of, she’d remind herself, but the “denial seam” split through the mediocrity gene she inherited. 

3

When Janey does manage to reflect,  she allows herself a sarcastic little soliloquy.  

“Janey, you’re traveling through time, taking no chances, having no fun, you want no surprises, trusting no one, especially yourself.  There’s a sign-post up ahead, it reads, you have entered Your Life.”  

This makes her smile, well, half a smile.  She’s saving the other half for something better. Janey wonders how life would have been if she handled things differently that day in the cafe.  

Three weeks earlier Janey spotted “designer shoes” in the stall next to her when she was out at her favorite Italian restaurant.  Janey clamored out, muttered a few curses, and took deep breaths by the sink, washing her face along with hands.  Panting, she waited, for what, she could not be sure, just to see her again. Then, an ordinary-looking woman, with an ordinary face, emerged.  She had a look you could forget as soon as you turned away. Her look was too “beige” for the shoes, but Janey simply smiled and walked out on unsteady feet.  Now, she wondered about therapy, her mind, her life, and why her mother named her such an ordinary name.  She wasn’t even close to baby boomer age, after all.  

Janey closes the bookstore most days at 5:30.  She walks through the streets with purpose.  Today she’s stopping at the natural food market to buy artichoke hearts, corn, aioli, panko bread crumbs, and kale for her vegan crabcakes and kale salad.  The place was packed with pretentious shoppers like her, she allowed.

As she navigates through the masses, she thinks she is having a seizure of some type. Her joints lock and she lets out a twitch or three of her neck.  Her body has taken control as she hears the click-clack.  She finds her mouth and mutters something incoherent as a man nearby gives wide berth, and others part around her like water rushes around a log in a stream.

Somehow, she gains control of her body, as her eyes follow the woman, the same woman who has now stepped back out from her dreams to walk inside Martin’s Whole Foods.  By the dark chocolate bars near the registers, she drops a canvas bag, She glances at something Janey can’t see, then walks out. 

 Janey is not shy, not indecisive, not worried, and not afraid today, two years later.  At this, she is surprised.  She feels like she’s been training for this moment her entire life.  She cares and does not care. Words come out fast, loud, and confident.  Janey screams ”BOMB” with the power and determination of someone who might have planted it herself and is proud of this evil deed.  Everyone, or almost everyone, she later finds out, runs out the doors. As Janey flees, she pushes the woman down outside, hard, like two years' worth of “hard”.  She hears something crack and surely break and thinks it must be her nose or cheek since she is lying face-first on the pavement. She gets stepped on by a few of the panicked patrons as well.

4

Janey stands over her like a lioness admiring her kill, momentarily forgetting her purpose, then the blast knocks her down.  It does not seem right, real, or actually happening.  Shards seem to go by in slow motion, screams are dragged out and blood spills in a languid obscene manner.  

“A different officer, a cute one this time, was talking to her but she couldn’t hear from the ringing in her ears and head.  This was going to hurt.

Something, something, “...ank you miss.  Miracle, more were not hurt or killed.”

Janey found out the woman’s grandmother was her inspiration.  She grew up oppressed by the French in Algiers and was incarcerated for planting a bomb that maimed and killed so many in a crowded cafe’ all those years ago.  It is still unclear the injustice the woman at Martin’s conjured up, whether for over-priced avocados or bad service, but they're looking into it.