The Forgotten
“Let’s go see The Rock,” she said, shaking his shoulder gently.
“What?” Glen’s voice was clotted with sleep, and his brown hair stuck up at odd angles.
“The big rock that they’re taking to the museum,” she said her voice high.
“What fucking museum?”
“You know the museum I went to on my birthday.”
“I didn’t go with you; if you remember.”
She did remember. She’d stood on the sidewalk in front of the museum for two hours, a blur to the drivers street-racing between traffic lights on the boulevard, but he never came. Finally, she went in by herself and made her way through the labyrinthine space with a lump in her throat that grew until she thought it would cut off her airway completely. Right in front of Rembrandt’s The Raising of Lazarus, she burst into tears to the surprise of a Japanese tour group making their way through the gallery. One member had snapped her picture on the off chance that he was witnessing performance art. When she got home, Glen was watching a re-run of SouthPark.
“How many times do you get to see a 340-ton rock rolling through the city?” she asked him now.
“I can tell you how many times I want to see one,” he said, turning his narrow back to her.
She went to the living room and found a newscast showing the progress of The Rock. The reporter breathlessly interviewed those who had come from far and near to see it and those who were seeing it by default. An old, black man with unnaturally smooth skin and two teeth in his mouth said he couldn’t understand why so many people were cheering something that had been dug out of the ground. The reporter swung her mike to someone else. Meanwhile, city workers earned overtime taking down power lines and traffic signals. Helicopters buzzed overhead, while bright television lights illuminated the shrink-wrapped rock and crowds surged around the football field-sized trailer that towed the giant.
“I’m going,” she said to no one.
She kept on her pajama bottoms, but pulled on an old sweatshirt and slipped on a pair of tennis shoes. She glanced in the mirror at her thin, blond hair and dull, green eyes before grabbing her car keys.
She drove like a maniac to make it down to the intersection before the giant turned north on its way to Wilshire and the museum. She parked behind a line of other cars with their hazard lights flashing and joined the parade of revelers off to see The Rock. She heard snippets of conversations in the chorus of voices.
“We’ll remember where we were,” and “It’s historic, really,” and “I can’t believe you got me out here looking at this stupid rock.”
She looked at the sea of phones held aloft ready to capture the image of The Rock like a firefly in a jar and realized that in 20 or 30 years someone would remember its journey. And, she thought, they’ll remember me, too.
©TW
