Bill wouldn’t know turning left would change everything. Turning right would have taken him to Target out by the highway but he was on the phone yelling at the client that was firing him.
“You didn’t pay me, so I stopped work, and now you are going to sue me?” Bill screamed into his speaker phone, downshifting as he comes to the stop light.
“Your work didn’t produce so I stopped paying you, you fucking moron,” the client voice says.
“I knew you were a cheat,” says Bill as the light turns green and he drops his truck into gear and turned left. The street looked quiet, and he figured he would finish his call and loop back to Target. As Bill moves slowly down the road, he watches a woman of nineteen or twenty pushing a baby carriage. A toddler hangs on to the stroller and tries to keep up the mom, who is pushing fast and looking over her shoulder at something.
“Are you listening to me?” the client says.
“No” says Bill as he turns and watches an older man with tattoos coming out of a garage and yelling, “Come back, get back here.
The man notices Bill’s truck moving slow on the street and then the man makes eye contact with Bill. Bill feels a sharp stab of fear as ice pick jabbing him in the chest.
“What are you looking?” the man yells staring at Bill.
Bill guns the engine and catches up to the woman.
“Get in,” Bill yells as he pushes open the passenger door. The woman stares at him and the toddler starts to cry. The woman shakes her head and grabs the crying toddler puts her on her hip and pushes the stroller at a run. “He is going to hurt you, get in!” Bill yells as the truck keeps pace with her. Bill turns and looks for the man and doesn’t see him. He turns back to the woman just as a large fist crushes the side of Bill’s face. His head slams forward and hits the steering wheel. Bill’s foot comes off the clutch and the truck jerks forward and shuts off, the jolt knocks the man to the ground. Bill starts the truck and guns it. The man’s tattooed arm is under the truck and Bill runs over it. The man screams as his back wheels roll on the arm again. The woman screams and comes running back toward the man. Bill keeps driving and watches the woman kneel next to the man lifting his head tenderly and putting it in her lap.
A year later Bill left the area. He got tired of looking over his shoulder and missed going to Target.